Walton moistened his lips. "I think there's going to be trouble," he
said. "I think I may be out of a job, too."
"What's that?"
"Just thinking out loud," Walton said. "Finish your breakfast and meet
me at my office at 0900. We'll talk this thing out then."
* * * * *
Walton was in full command of himself by the time he reached the Cullen
Building.
He had read the morning telefax and heard the newsblares: they all
screamed the sum and essence of Walton's speech of the previous night,
and a few of the braver telefax outfits went as far as printing a
resumé of the entire speech, boiled down to Basic, of course, for
benefit of that substantial segment of the reading public that was
most comfortable while moving its lips. The one telefax outfit most
outspokenly opposed to Popeek, _Citizen_, took great delight in giving
the speech full play, and editorializing on a subsequent sheet against
the "veil of security" hazing Popeek operations.
Walton read the _Citizen_ editorial twice, savoring its painstaking
simplicities of expression. Then he clipped it out neatly and shot it
down the chute to public relations, marked _Attention: Lee Percy_.
"There's a Mr. McLeod waiting to see you," his secretary informed him.
"He says he has an appointment."
"Send him in," Walton said. "And have Mr. Percy come up here also."
While he waited for McLeod to arrive, Walton riffled through the
rest of the telefax sheets. Some of them praised Popeek for having
uncovered a new world; others damned them for having hidden news of the
faster-than-light drive so long. Walton stacked them neatly in a heap
at the edge of his desk.
In the bleak, dark hours of the morning, he had expected to be
compelled to resign. Now, he realized, he could immeasurably strengthen
his own position if he could control the flow of events and channel
them properly.
The square figure of McLeod appeared on the screen. Walton admitted him.
"Sir. I'm McLeod."
"Of course. Won't you sit down?"
McLeod was tense, stiffly formal, very British in his reserve and
general bearing. Walton gestured uneasily, trying to cut through the
crackle of nervousness.
"We seem to have a mess on our hands," he said. "But there's no mess so
messy we can't muddle through it, eh?"
"If we have to, sir. But I can't help feeling this could all have been
avoided."
"No. You're wrong, McLeod. If it _could_ have been avoided, it would
have been avoided. The fact that some idiot in my public relations
department gained access to my wire and found out you were returning is
incontrovertible; it happened, despite precautions."
"Mr. Percy to see you," the annunciator said.
The angular figure of Lee Percy appeared on the screen. Walton told him
to come in.
Percy looked frightened--terrified, Walton thought. He held a folded
slip of paper loosely in one hand.
"Good morning, sir."
"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."
"Are public relations men that hard to come by?"
"No. But he's a good one--and the prospect of having him desert to the
other side frightens me. He'll be forever grateful to me now. If I had
fired him, he would've had half a dozen anti-Popeek articles in the
_Citizen_ before the week was out. And they'd ruin us."