"Go to hell!" Hsi said with sudden violence. "I--Oh never mind. Sorry.
But I told you already, ask somebody else your questions, not me." He
gloomily began to pack the items on Chandler's list into a cardboard
carton. Then he glanced at Chandler and said, apologetically, "These
are tough times, buddy. I guess there's no harm in answering _some_
questions. You want to know why most of my stock's locked behind an
armor-plate door? Well, you ought to be able to figure that out for
yourself, anyway. The Exec doesn't like to have people playing with
radios. Bert stays in the stockroom; I stay out here; twice a day the
bosses open the door and we fill whatever orders they've approved. A
little rough on Bert, of course. It's a ten-hour day in the stockroom
for him, and nothing to do. But it could be worse. Oh, that's for sure,
friend: It could be worse."
"Why the bathing suit? Hot in there?"
"Hot for Bert if they think he's smuggling stuff out," said Hsi. "You
been here long enough to see the Monument yet?"
Chandler shook his head, then grimaced. "You mean up about three blocks
that way? Where the people--?"
"That's right," said Hsi admiringly, "three blocks mauka from here,
where the people--Where the people are serving as a very good object
lesson to you and me. About a dozen there, right? Small for this time
of year, Chandler. Usually there are more. Notice anything special
about them?"
"They were butchered! Some of them looked like their legs had been
burned right off. Their eyes gouged out, their faces--" Chandler
brought up sharply. It had been bad enough looking at those wretched,
writhing semi-cadavers; he did not want to talk about them.
The parts man nodded seriously. "Sometimes there are more, and
sometimes they're worse hurt than that. Have you got any idea how they
get that way? They do it to themselves, that's how. My own brother was
out there for a week, last Statehood Day. He jumped feet first into a
concrete mixer, and it took him seven days to die after I put him on my
shoulder and carried him out there. I didn't like it, of course, but
I didn't exactly have any choice; I wasn't running my own body at the
time. Neither was he when he jumped. He was made to do it, because he
used to have Bert's job and he thought he'd take a little short-wave
set home. Like I said, you don't want to cheat on the Exec because it
doesn't pay."
"But what the devil am I supposed to--"
Hsi held up his hand. "Don't ask me how to keep out of that Monument
bunch, Chandler. _I_ don't know. Do what you're told and don't do
anything you aren't told to do; that is the whole of the law. Now do me
a favor and get out of here so I can pack up these other orders." He
turned his back on Chandler.