"Oh, no," said Kellard. "I'm through, quit, resigned."
"Your resignation has not been accepted," Halfrich told him. "You're still liable to Survey discipline. You'll obey orders just as you always did, or you'll go up before a court-martial."
"So that's it," said Kellard.
Halfrich nodded. "That is it. I don't like to do this. You're an old friend. But—"
"But the Survey comes first," Kellard said, between his teeth.
"The Survey," said Halfrich, "comes first. It has to. It's why we've got stations on Venus and Mars and Ganymede, not to say the Moon. It's why we'll someday be able to hit for deep space and the starworlds. And when one of my best officers suddenly goes off the deep end and won't say why, I'll damn well wring it out of him. Whatever you found on Mercury doesn't belong to you, it belongs to us, and we'll have it."
Kellard looked at him and started to say something and didn't, and then turned his back on Halfrich and looked out the window at the sea. In a low voice he said,
"Let it be, John. I'm telling you now, you'll be sorry if you don't."
There was no answer to that at all, and the silence was his answer. He turned back around.
"All right, you have a rope around my neck. I'll go back to base with you. I'll tell you not one thing more than here."