THE GREEN HILLS OF EARTH

At lights out Wingate found, on crawling into his bunk, that someone had hidden therein a foodbar. He munched it gratefully in the dark and wondered who his friend could be. The food stayed the complaints of his stomach but was not sufficient, in the absence of rhira, to permit him to go to sleep. He lay there, staring into the oppressive blackness of the bunkroom and listening to the assorted irritating noises that men can make while sleeping, and considered his position. It had been bad enough but barely tolerable before; now, he was logically certain, it would be as near hell as a vindictive overseer could make it. He was prepared to believe, from what he had seen and the tales he had heard, that it would be very near indeed!

He had been nursing his troubles for perhaps an hour when he felt a hand touch his side. «Hump! Hump!» came a whisper, «come outside. Something's up.» It was Jimmie.

He felt his way cautiously through the stacks of bunks and slipped out the door after Jimmie. Satchel was already outside and with him a fourth figure.

It was Annek van Huysen. He wondered how she had been able to get into the locked compound. Her eyes were puffy, as if she had been crying.

Jimmie started to speak at once, in cautious, low tones. «The kid tells us that I am scheduled to haul you two lugs back into Adonis tomorrow.»

«What for?»

«She doesn't know. But she's afraid it's to sell you South. That doesn't seem likely. The Old Man has never sold anyone South – but then nobody ever jumped his pusher before. I don't know.»

They wasted some minutes in fruitless discussion, then, after a bemused silence, Wingate asked Jimmie, «Do you know where they keep the keys to the crock?»

«No. Why do y – »

«I could get them for you,» offered Annek eagerly.

«You can't drive a crock.»

«I've watched you for some weeks.»

«Well, suppose you can,» Jimmie continued to protest, «suppose you run for it in the crock. You'd be lost in ten miles. If you weren't caught, you'd starve.»

Wingate shrugged. «I'm not going to be sold South.»

«Nor am I,» Hartley added.

«Wait a minute.»

«Well, I don't see any bet – »

«Wait a minute,» Jimmie reiterated snappishly. «Can't you see I'm trying to think?»

The other three kept silent for several long moments. At last Jimmie said, «Okay. Kid, you'd better run along and let us talk. The less you know about this the better for you.» Annek looked hurt, but complied docilely to the extent of withdrawing out of earshot. The three men conferred for some minutes. At last Wingate motioned for her to rejoin them.

«That's all, Annek,» he told her. «Thanks a lot for everything you've done. We've figured a way out.» He stopped, and then said awkwardly, «Well, good night.»

She looked up at him.

Wingate wondered what to do or say next. Finally he led her around the corner of the barracks and bade her good night again. He returned very quickly, looking shame-faced. They re-entered the barracks.

Patron van Huysen also was having trouble getting to sleep. He hated having to discipline his people. By damn, why couldn't they all be good boys and leave him in peace? Not but what there was precious little peace for a rancher these days. It cost more to make a crop than the crop fetched in Adonis – at least it did after the interest was paid.

He had turned his attention to his accounts after dinner that night to try to get the unpleasantness out of his mind, but he found it hard to concentrate on his figures. That man Wingate, now ... he had bought him as much to keep him away from that slavedriver Rigsbee as to get another hand. He had too much money invested in hands as it was in spite of his foreman always complaining about being short of labor. He would either have to sell some, or ask the bank to refinance the mortgage again.

Hands weren't worth their keep any more. You didn't get the kind of men on Venus that used to come when he was a boy. He bent over his books again. If the market went up even a little, the bank should be willing to discount his paper for a little more than last season. Maybe that would do it.

He had been interrupted by a visit from his daughter. Annek he was always glad to see, but this time what she had to say, what she finally blurted out, had only served to make him angry. She, preoccupied with her own thoughts, could not know that she hurt her father's heart, with a pain that was actually physical.

But that had settled the matter insofar as Wingate was concerned. He would get rid of the trouble-maker. Van Huysen ordered his daughter to bed with a roughness he had never before used on her.