The next day at work he absentmindedly switched on some pieces of apparatus in the wrong order and burned out a minor piece of electronics.
"Damn it, Britten," Professor Glover shouted at him. "Where are your brains? Replacements are expensive up here. Time is expensive!"
Britten began shaking with rage. Words rushed to his tongue which he choked down unsaid because Glover had the power of life or death over his degree and these two years must not be torn out of his life for nothing.
"I'm sorry," he said, in an unsteady voice. "I guess I'm not all here today. It won't take long to repair the damage."
"Never mind," Glover said. "You're coming off the project, anyway."
Britten stood still. The anger roared back into his head.
"I'm coming off the project? What happens to the year I've just spent?"
Glover suddenly seemed more embarrassed than angry.
"I'm sorry, Britten," he said, "but it's for your own good. This project has just become classified and you'd never get a publishable thesis out of it."