Chapter 18

A few nights later one of the junior engineers came running into the office where Hanlon and Philander were playing chess.

“Trouble down in Stope Four,” he gasped.

Philander jumped up, upsetting the board. He grabbed his glo-light and started out.

“Want me along, sir?” Hanlon asked.

“Might as well,” and Hanlon ran with them.

Down in the mine they found, after examination, that it was not as bad as it at first seemed. Some timbers had rotted away--or had not been good wood in the first place--and a rock fall had occurred. But once they started working at it, they found it not too big. Hanlon was sent running for the rest of the men, and in a few hours everything was all tight again.

Back in the office Hanlon picked up the fallen chess pieces while Philander and the engineers talked for some time. When they left Hanlon asked, “Want to finish the game--or rather, since the board was upset, want to play another?”

“Better make it a rain-check. I’ve got some paper work I should do. Make it tomorrow.”

“That’s okay with me. I’ll go hit the hay.”

“Thanks for your help tonight, George. You pitched in so gladly, while the others were surly and grumbling. It was very noticeable, and I appreciate it. You’re a good kid. Wish I had one just like you.”

Hanlon flushed a bit, and couldn’t meet his friend eye to eye. “I was glad to do it,” he said lamely. “‘Night,” and he ran out. Blast it, he thought, I hate using Pete that way, ‘cause he’s really a swell egg underneath. But the job’s more important.

A few nights later they had finished the second game, and the elder had won both. He was consequently in very good humor, for the two were so evenly matched it was seldom either ever won two games in the same evening.

Philander leaned back in his chair and smiled at the younger man. “Well, George, the freighter’ll be here in three days, and I’m sending you back for your vacation.”

“Gee, thanks, Chief. That’s swell of you. I’m going to miss you, but I’ll admit I’ll be glad to get away from this awful climate for a while. This place sure gets my goat--I can’t seem to get used to it all.”

“Then you won’t want to come back?” There was disappointment in the question.

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean that. I sure will be back if I can make it. Maybe this job isn’t exactly what I’d dreamed about,” he had to hedge that statement a bit, and tried to make a sincere-sounding explanation, “but that thousand credits a month is!”

“That reminds me--I want to be sure to recommend you for a good bonus. You deserve it more’n any guard we’ve ever had here. Then, too, your ideas of rotating your crew, and especially that fertilizer deal, have raised the effective work-life and speed of the natives almost thirty percent. I figured it out, and they’ll be getting off cheap if they give you what I’m recommending--two months pay as a bonus.”

“Yowie!” Hanlon yelled, making his face show excitement, and that curious avarice he had so carefully built up in these suspicious men’s minds. “That’ll make me six thou in four months. I’ll be rich yet!”

“You and your urge for money,” Philander laughed, yet there was a curious undertone of almost-contempt in his voice. “Why’re you so hipped on that subject?”

Hanlon grinned and misquoted, “Life is real, life is earnest, and the gravy is my goal.” Then he sobered and said, “‘Cause with money you can do anything. When I’ve made a big pile, then I can go where I want to go, be what I want to be, and make people know I’m somebody.”

Philander shrugged. “Maybe you’re right, but I’d say there were better ways, George.”

Hanlon looked doubtful. “I have the utmost respect for your ideas and greater experience, sir, but what’s better than a big wad of credits.”

Philander looked more seriously thoughtful than Hanlon had ever seen him before. He was silent a moment, then answered slowly, “This may sound ‘old-mannish,’ but I believe steady advancement in whatever work you choose; growing knowledge of many things; creative imagination put to constructive use; the growing respect and consequent advance in responsibility from your employers if you’re working for someone, or from your neighbors if you’re in business for yourself--those things are, in my opinion, of much greater value than the mere accumulation of money. And the best part of it is, that if you grow in those ways, that extra money will come to you, but merely as a corollary addition to the greater achievements.”

“I see your point,” Hanlon was greatly impressed by Philander’s earnestness. “Maybe you’re right. I’m still just a kid, I guess, with a kid’s immature outlook. That’s why I appreciate your friendship and advice so much, sir. You’ve been almost like a second father to me.” This was honest--he liked Philander now more than ever.

The look on the elder’s face, too, defied description, but that he was secretly pleased was evident.

“Well, run along then, and I’ll get at that letter. Meanwhile get your things packed, so you’ll be ready to leave when the ship comes. And George, my boy, I do hope you come back. It’ll be mighty lonely here without you.”

“I’ll certainly do my best to get back, sir. Goodnight, and thanks again ... for everything.”

Hanlon hated that seeming lie, and as he walked slowly back to his room he determined to get the man away from those plotters, and into a better and more legitimate position.

He would certainly so recommend to the Secret Service High Command after this mess was cleaned up.

The next days Hanlon spent almost his entire shift-time underground talking earnestly to Geck.

“I want to impress on the minds of you and all the natives here that I’ll be working my hardest for them every minute I’m gone,” he said impressively. “Don’t let them do anything foolish unless or until it becomes completely sure that I’ve failed. If I can do anything at all, it should be within a quarter year after I leave, and probably much sooner. If I succeed, you’ll all be free, and these men either chased off your planet or killed.”

“All we understand, An-yon. We know you are true friend, know you want to help us. We will keep working, make no attempts to escape. We know if do we just be killed, or hunted and caught again. Condition of we before you come so bad we had come to feel only end for us be death of race. Now you bring hope. Now we know most humans good people, so we wait in hope you soon succeed.”

“That’s the spirit. I know it’s tough on all of you, but I also know what the Inter-Stellar Corps is, and what they can and will do when they learn of your plight.”

He linked his mind with Geck’s as the latter telepathed the natives in other parts of the planet, and was thus enabled to get final descriptions of what they could tell of what was being done at each mine and factory and shipyard. He knew exactly how many ships had been built or were under construction, and approximately how far along the hulls of the big ones were completed. He was also able to get a very good general knowledge of the size and structural description of each type of vessel.

But of their armaments or propulsive methods he had not been able to get any information--such things were too far beyond the natives’ simple abilities to describe or picture for him.

Hanlon’s ability to telepath, through Geck, was growing much stronger, although he was still not able to telepath direct to any of the distant Guddus. He could, however, do so to some extent to one close by.

But he still could not read anything in a human mind except the surface thoughts. And how he could use that ability! With that, his task would be much simpler.

But he had learned to be content with what he had, realizing it was undoubtedly unique in human history. It had brought him this far along, and he had collected a lot of information which he could not have gained in any other manner--information that he could report to the Corps as soon as he got back to Simonides and had the chance to go to the bank or contact them in some other way.