how quickly Geck was picking up his own language.

Hanlon found that these people, while they had no scientific or
mechanical knowledge or training of their own, did have highly developed
ethical principles which governed all their individual and collective
actions. They were a simple, natural people, with a native dignity
Hanlon almost envied.

He found, too, that his first shrewd guess was correct--their bodies
were of vegetable matter, rather than proto-plasmic. They reproduced by
budding, and he saw a number of the "females" to whom were attached buds
of varying sizes. One day he watched interestedly while one of the
ripened buds, a fully-developed individual but only about ten inches
high, detached itself from its parent and dropped to the ground. It lay
there for some minutes while the "mother" watched it carefully. Then it
rose by itself and trotted away with her as she resumed her work--a
miniature but fully alive native "child." It would take about two years
for it to attain its maturity, Geck informed him. Hanlon asked, and Geck
said it could take care of itself alone in the forest, so Hanlon managed
to sneak it out into the woods, where it would be free.

Geck told him that about four years previous a great "egg" had landed
here on Guddu, which was their name for the planet. Men had come from
inside it, and scattered all about, seeking the metal ores they were now
mining.

The natives, friendly and childishly curious, had gathered in force to
watch these strange new creatures, and because of their trusting natures
had been easily trapped, imprisoned and forced to work long, hard hours
in the rapidly-deepening holes.

"Us die swiftly away from sunlight," Geck said sadly. "Us have very long
life-span, but underground work make us wither-die fast. Idea often
discussed among we to discontinue race, because soon all we be gone
anyway."

That quiet, hopeless statement made Hanlon madder than a wet cat.

"What do the shock-rods do to you?" he asked after a while.

"Affect we's nervous system some way. Us get most terrible cramps. Is
horrible agony. Us so thankful you never use."

"I knew you would work without them as long as you were treated fairly."

To himself Hanlon swore a determined oath to finish this business
entirely, some way or another. He realized his limitations--one young,
inexperienced man against twenty ruthless, wealth-and-power greedy
ruffians ... and that only here, at this one mine. N