"Good morning, Lee." Walton observed that the friendly _Roy_ had changed to the formal salutation, _sir_. "Did you get the clipping I sent you?" "Yes, sir." Glumly. "Lee, this is Leslie McLeod, chief of operations of our successful faster-than-light project. Colonel McLeod, I want you to meet Lee Percy. He's the man who masterminded our little newsbreak last night." Percy flinched visibly. He stepped forward and laid his slip of paper on Walton's desk. "I m-made a m-mistake last night," he stammered. "I should never have released that break." "Damned right you shouldn't have," Walton agreed, carefully keeping any hint of severity from his voice. "You have us in considerable hot water, Lee. That planet isn't ours for colonization, despite the enthusiasm with which I allegedly announced it last night. And you ought to be clever enough to realize it's impossible to withdraw and deny good news once you've broken it." "The planet's not ours? But--?" "According to Colonel McLeod," Walton said, "the planet is the property of intelligent alien beings who live on a neighboring world, and who no more care to have their system overrun by a pack of Earthmen than we would to have extrasolar aliens settle on Mars." "Sir, that sheet of paper ..." Percy said in a choked voice. "It's--it's--" Walton unfolded it. It was Percy's resignation. He read the note carefully twice, smiled, and laid it down. Now was his time to be magnanimous. "Denied," he said. "We need you on our team, Lee. I'm authorizing a ten percent pay-cut for one week, effective yesterday, but there'll be no other penalty." "Thank you, sir." _He's crawling to me_, Walton thought in amazement. He said, "Only don't pull that stunt again, or I'll not only fire you but blacklist you so hard you won't be able to find work between here and Procyon. Understand?" "Yes, sir." "Okay. Go back to your office and get to work. And no more publicity on this faster-than-light thing until I authorize it. No--cancel that. Get out a quick release, a followup on last night. A smoke screen, I mean. Cook up so much cloudy verbiage about the conquest of space that no one bothers to remember anything of what I said. And play down the colonization angle!" "I get it, sir." Percy grinned feebly. "I doubt that," Walton snapped. "When you have the release prepared, shoot it up here for my okay. And heaven help you if you deviate from the text I see by as much as a single comma!" Percy practically backed out of the office. * * * * * "Why did you do that?" McLeod asked, puzzled. "You mean, why did I let him off so lightly?" McLeod nodded. "In the military," he said, "we'd have a man shot for doing a thing like that." "This isn't the military," Walton said. "And even though the man behaved like a congenital idiot yesterday, that's not enough evidence to push him into Happysleep. Besides, he knows his stuff. I can't afford to discharge him."