“Ah,” said Jonnie. It came together for him. One more piece of evidence that added up to the smoke on the belt buckle design. The Chinkos had been another race; they had worked long and hard for the Psychlos; their reward had been extermination. It bore out his estimate of the Psychlo character.

Jonnie looked around at the shambles; the Chinkos must have been killed a long time ago.

“See this gauge?” said Terl, pointing to the air bottle he had now filled.

“It registers one-zero-zero when the bottle is full. As it is used up, this needle goes down. When it gets as low as five you're in trouble and will run out of air. There's an hour of air in the bottle. Watch the gauge.”

“Seems like there should be two bottles and one should carry the pump,” said Jonnie.

Terl looked at the air bottle and saw it had clamps on it for a mate and there was a pocket for the pump. He had not bothered to look at the labels and directions on the bottle.

“Shut up, animal,” Terl said. But he filled a second bottle, joined it to the first, and put the pump in the slot between them. Roughly he put the mask and rig on Jonnie.

“Now hear me, animal,” said Terl. “We are going inside the compound and I am going to talk to a very important executive, His Planetship himself. You are to speak not one word and you are going to do exactly what you are told to do. Understand, animal?”

Jonnie looked at him through the Chinko faceplate.

"If you don't obey,” said Terl, “all I have to do is pull your face mask loose and you'll go into convulsions." Terl didn't like the look he always got from those ice-blue eyes. He yanked the lead rope.

“Let's go, animal.”

Numph was nervous. He looked at Terl uncertainly as the security chief entered.

“Mutiny?” said Numph. “Not so far,” said Terl.

“What do you have there?” said Numph.

Terl yanked on the lead rope to pull Jonnie from behind him. “I wanted to show you the man-thing," said Terl.

Numph sat forward at his desk and stared. A nearly naked, unfurred animal. Two arms, two legs. Yes, there was fur. On its head and lower face. Strange ice-blue eyes. “Don't let it pee on the floor,” said Numph.

“Look at its hands,” said Terl. “Manually adept...”

“You sure there's no mutiny?” said Numph. “The news was released this morning. I haven't heard any response from two continents yet, the minesites there.”

“They probably aren't very pleased, but no mutiny yet. If you look at these hands-”

"I’ll watch the ore output carefully,” said Numph. “They might try to cut that down.”

“Won't mean anything. We're pretty short of personnel,” said Terl.

“There are no maintenance mechanics left in transport. They've all been transferred to operations to up production.”

"I’m told there's widespread unemployment on the home planet. Maybe I should pull in more personnel.”

Terl sighed. Bumbling fool. “With reduced pay and no bonuses and this planet being as awful as it is, I shouldn't think you'd get many takers. Now this animal here-'

“Yes, that's so. I should have brought in more personnel before we cut the pay. You sure there's no mutiny?”

Terl plunged. “Well, the best way to halt a mutiny is to promise upped production. And within a year, I think we can replace fifty percent of our outside machine and vehicle operators with these.” Damn, he wasn't getting through.

“It hasn't peed on the floor, has it?” said Numph, leaning forward to look. “Really, that thing smells bad.”

“It’s these untanned hides it wears. It doesn't have any proper clothes.”

“Clothes? Would it wear clothes?”

“Yes, I believe it would, Your Planetship. All it has right now is hides. As a matter of fact, I have a couple of requisitions here-' He advanced to the desk and laid them there for signature. Leverage, leverage. He didn't have any leverage on this fool.

“I just had this place cleaned,” said Numph. “Now it will have to be ventilated thoroughly. What are these things?” he added, looking at the requisitions.

“You wanted a demonstration that this man-thing could operate machines. One of those is for general supplies and the other is for a vehicle.”

“They're marked 'urgent.

“Well, we have to raise hope fast if we want to avoid a mutiny.”

“That's so.” Numph was reading the whole requisition form even though he had seen thousands of them.

Jonnie stood patiently. Every detail of this interior was being taken in. The breathe-gas ports, the material of the dome, the strips that held it together.

These Psychlos didn't wear masks inside, and for the first time he was seeing their faces. They were almost human faces except they had bones for eyebrows and eyelids and lips. They had amber orb eyes like those of wolves. He was beginning to be able to read their emotions as they related to their expressions.

When they had come down the compound halls they had passed several Psychlos, and these had looked at him with curiosity, but they had looked at Terl with outright hostility. Apparently he had some special job or rank that wasn't popular. But then all the relationships among these people were hostile, one to another.

Numph eventually looked up. “You really think one of those things could run a machine?”

“You said you wanted a demonstration,” said Terl. “I have to have a vehicle to train it.”

“Oh,” said Numph. “Then it isn't trained yet. So how do you know?”

Damn, thought Terl. This fool was worse than he had thought. But wait.

There was something bothering Numph. There was something Numph was not talking about. The intuition of a security chief always sensed it. Leverage, leverage. If he could know this, maybe he'd have leverage. He'd have to keep his eyes and ears open. “It learned to operate an instruction machine very quickly, Your Planetship."

“Instruction?”

“Yes, it can read and write its own language now, and can speak, read, and write Psychlo."

“No!”

Terl turned to Jonnie. “Greet His Planetship."

Jonnie fastened his eyes on Terl. He said nothing.

“Speak!” said Terl loudly, and in an undertone added, “You want that face mask ripped off?”

Jonnie said, “I think Terl wants you to sign the requisitions so that I can be trained to operate a machine. If you ordered it, you should sign it.”

It was as though he had said nothing at all. Numph was looking out the window, thinking about something. Then his nostrils flared. “That thing certainly stinks.”

“It will be gone,” said Terl, “just as soon as I get the requisitions signed.”

“Yes, yes,” said Numph. He dashed initials on the forms.

Terl took them quickly and started to leave.

Numph leaned forward and looked. “It didn't pee on the floor, did it?”