length, the blue-gray mud began billowing out of the dredge
onto the platforms built to receive it, and the transport ship was
notified to stand by for loading. But by the time the ferry had landed,
the platform with the load had somehow drifted free of the island and
required a week-long expedition into the hinterland to track it down. On
the trip back they met a rainstorm that dissolved the blue-gray stuff
into soup which ran out between the slats of the platform, and back into
the mud again.

They did get the platform back, at any rate.

Meanwhile, the dredge began sucking up green stuff that smelled of
sewage instead of the blue-gray clay they sought--so the natives dove
mud-ward to explore the direction of the vein. One of them got caught in
the suction tube, causing a three-day delay while engineers dismantled
the dredge to get him out. In re-assembling, two of the dredge tubes got
interlocked somehow, and the dredge burned out three generators trying
to suck itself through itself, so to speak. That took another week to
fix.

Kielland buried himself in the Administration shack, digging through the
records, when the reign of confusion outside became too much to bear. He
sent for Tarnier, the Installation physician, biologist, and erstwhile
Venusian psychologist. Dr. Tarnier looked like the breathing soul of
failure; Kielland had to steel himself to the wave of pity that swept
through him at the sight of the man. "You're the one who tested these
imbeciles originally?" he demanded.

Dr. Tarnier nodded. His face was seamed, his eyes lustreless. "I tested
'em. God help me, I tested 'em."

"How?"

"Standard procedures. Reaction times. Mazes. Conditioning. Language.
Abstractions. Numbers. Associations. The works."

"Standard for Earthmen, I presume you mean."

"So what else? Piper didn't want to know if they were Einsteins or not.
All they wanted was a passable level of intelligence. Give them natives
with brains and they might have to pay them something. They thought
they were getting a bargain."

"Some bargain."

"Yeah."

"Only your tests say they're intelligent. As intelligent, say, as a
low-normal human being without benefit of any schooling or education.
Right?"

"That's right," the doctor said wearily, as though he had been through
this mill again and again. "Schooling and education don't enter into it
at all, of course. All we measured was potential. But the results said
they had it."

"Then ho