regarded as a privilege,
granted as a reward or denied as a punishment. And most of the geek
landowners are bitterly critical of the way we treat our labor at the
mines; they claim we make them dissatisfied with the treatment they
get at home."

"Of course, they're always glad to have the peasants taken off their
hands during a slack agricultural season," Blount added, "and we train
workers to handle contragravity power-equipment. I won't deny that
there's a lot of unnecessary brutality on the part of the native
foremen and overseers, which we're trying, gradually, to eliminate.
You'll have to remember, though, that we're dealing with a naturally
brutal race."

"Of course, mistreatment of native labor is always blamed on other
natives, never on the gentle and kindly Terrans," she replied. "That's
been SOP on every planet our Association's had any experience with."

"Now look; you just came here from Niflheim," von Schlichten objected.
"The Company employs quite a few geeks there; how much brutality did
you run into there?"

"Well, I must admit, the Ullerans who work there are very well
treated. Except that I don't think it's right to employ any people
with silicone body-tissues where they're going to breathe
fluorine-tainted air."

"Nobody ought to be employed on that planet!" Hideyoshi O'Leary
declared. "I did a two-year hitch there, when I was first commissioned
in the Company service."

"I put in two years there, too," Blount supported him. "And I might
add that that's a year longer than any Ulleran native is ever allowed
to spend on Niflheim. You know what the setup is, there, don't you?
The Terran Federation Space Navy discovered and explored both Uller
and Niflheim, which made both planets public domain. The Company was
originally formed to exploit Uller alone, but the Federation insisted
that both planets would have to be franchised to the same company.
They wanted Niflheim exploited, mainly because of the uranium-deposits
there. As it turned out, the Company's making as much money out of
Niflheim as we are out of Uller."

"What you miss is this," von Schlichten pointed out. "On Niflheim,
there are about a thousand Terrans, and not more than five hundred
geeks, all employed on construction-work and in the mines, on the
planet itself, working directly under Terran supervision. We use them
because they have four hands, and in the power-driven contragravity
armor that's necessary there, they can manipulate