But Ker had his uses. He was chattering away now, voice dimmed by the helmet he wore and by the din. “You have to be sure to detect every scrap of radiation dust. Not one isotope must get through to the platform.”

“What would it cause?” shouted Jonnie. "There'd be a spark-flash on the home planet, like I told you. The teleportation platform there would get disrupted and we'd catch blazes. It 's just the dust. You have to make sure there's none in the dust. No uranium!”

“Has it ever happened?” shouted Jonnie.

“Blast no!” roared Ker. “And it never will.”

“Just dust.” said Jonnie.

“Just dust.”

“What about a solid piece of uranium?”

“You won't detect that.”

“Would anything detect it?”

“We never ship it!”

They got along pretty well. At first

Ker had thought the animal was a peculiar thing. But it seemed friendly and Ker didn't have any friends. And the animal asked questions constantly and Ker loved to talk. Better an animal audience than none at all. Besides, it was a favor to Terl and staved off possible disclosures.

Terl brought the man-thing down each morning, tied it up to the machine it would operate, and picked it up each night. Ker, much cautioned and threatened with the consequences if Jonnie got loose, had the right to untie the animal and put it on another machine.

The regular operator this morning was glad of a break. The post was extremely dangerous and had killed several Psychlos in past decades. One usually got danger pay for it, but that was now suspended with the economy wave.

The freighter load was handled. The last bucketful went by on the conveyor belt position and the whole area drifted down to momentary idleness. The regular operator came back, looking suspiciously at his equipment.

“Did it break anything?” said the regular operator with a talon jerk at Jonnie.

“It hasn't broke anything around here yet,” said Ker defensively.

“I heard it blew up a blade scraper.”

“Oh, that scraper was one that had already blown up,” said Ker. “You know the one a few months ago that got Waler."

“Oh, that one. The one that got a hairline crack in its canopy?”

“Yeah,” said Ker. “That one.”

“I thought this animal blew it up.”

“That's just that Zzt making excuses for lack of maintenance.”

Nevertheless the regular operator carefully checked over his uranium detection station.

“Why are you so nervous about it?” said Jonnie.

“Hey,” said the regular operator, “it talks Psychlo!"

“He could have a leak in his helmet,” explained Ker to Jonnie. “Or you could have left some dust on the controls.”

Jonnie looked at the regular operator. “You ever have a helmet blow up?”

“Blazes, no! I’m still alive, ain't l? And I ain't going to have any breathe-gas blow up around me. Get off my machine. Another freighter is coming in.”

Ker untied the animal and led it over to the shade of a power pylon. “That about completes you on the transshipment machinery. Tomorrow I’m going to start you on actual mining.”

Jonnie looked around. “What's that little house over there?”

Ker looked. It was a small domed structure with a bunch of cooling coils on the back of it. “Oh, the morgue. Company orders require all dead Psychlos to get returned to home planet.”

Jonnie was interested. “Sentiment? Families?”

“Oh, no. Blazes, no. Nothing silly like that. They got some dumb idea that if an alien race had dead Psychlos to fool around with they could work out the metabolism and get up to mischief. Also, it's a sort of nose count. They don't want names riding on a payroll after a guy is dead– somebody else could collect the pay. It used to be done.”

“What happens with them– the corpses?”

“Oh, we let them collect and then schedule their teleportation back, just like any other package. When they get them home they bury them. The company has its own cemetery on Psychlo."

“Must be quite a planet.”

Ker glowed with a smile. “You can say that! None of these damned helmets or canopies. Unlimited breathe-gas! The whole atmosphere is breathe-gas. Wonderful. Good gravity, not thin like this. Everything a gorgeous purple. And females aplenty! When I get out of here– maybe– if Terl fixes it so I can-I’m going to have ten wives and just sit all day chomping kerbango and rolling the females.”

“Don't they have to import all the breathe-gas here?”

“Yes, indeed. You can't make it on other planets. It takes certain elements that seldom exist off Psychlo."

“I should think the home planet would run out of atmosphere.”

“Oh, no!” said Ker. “The elements are in the rocks and even the core and it just makes more and more. See those drums over there?”

Jonnie looked at a pyramid of drums that had evidently just come in on reverse teleportation from Psychlo. Trucks with lifts were loading them. And just as he looked, a truck was shifting some barrels aboard the last freighter in.

“Those drums are going back overseas,” said Ker.

“How many minesites are there?” said Jonnie.

Ker scratched where his dome met his collar. “Sixteen, I think.”

“Where are they located?” said

Jonnie, being very casual.

Ker started to shrug and then had a happy thought. He reached into a rear pocket and brought out a sheaf of papers. He had used the back of a map to make some work assignment notes on. He unfolded it. Although it was covered with creases and dirt it was quite plain. It was the first time Jonnie had seen a map of the whole planet.

With a searching talon, Ker counted.

“Yep. Sixteen with two substations. That's the lot.”

“What's a substation?”

Ker pointed up at the pylon. Other pylons marched southwest into the distance until they were dwindling specks. “That power line comes in from a hydroelectric installation several hundred miles from here. It 's an ancient dam. The company changed all the machinery in it and it gives us all our power here for transshipment. It 's a substation.”

“Any workers there?”

“Oh, no. All automatic. There's another substation on the overseas south continent. It 's not manned either.”

Jonnie looked at the map. He was excited but showed none of it. He counted five continents. Every minesite was precisely marked.

He reached over and took a pen out of Ker's breast pocket. “How many machines do I still have to be checked out on?” asked Jonnie.

Ker thought about it. “There's drillers...hoists..."

Jonnie reached over and took the map and folded it so there was a fresh blank space on the back. He began to list the machines as Ker called them out.

When the list was finished, Jonnie gave Ker his pen but casually put the map in his pouch.

Jonnie stood up and stretched. He hunkered back down and said, “Tell me some more about Psychlo. Sure must be an interesting place.”

The assistant operations officer chattered on. Jonnie listened intently. The data was a valuable flood and the map in his pouch crackled comfortingly.

When just one man was taking on the whole empire of the Psychlos in the hope of freeing his people, every scrap of information had value beyond price.

The engulfing roar of company operations thundered around them in enormous power.