_The android slaves, insipid pieces of metal,
plastic and skin, were constructed to work and work
and help men like Caffrey relax. But someone,
somewhere, made this batch too perfect. Caffrey,
big tough Caffrey laughed out loud at the tremendous
irony of the joke as he pondered sending his
ravaged ship into the burning maw of the sun._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories January 1952.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Caffrey slammed the great steel doors and walked forward through the
gym. His bare feet slapped on the mats and the cane of iron-hard
Venus jungle wood swung lightly in one hand. He wore only dirty white
trousers. Sweat stood shiny on him under the glow of the ceiling
lights. He cursed the ship silently for being old and run down and
without any cooling units.
His beefy face moved from side to side, watching. The black eyes took
in every bit of movement. He saw all that went on. It was his ticket
out of the stinking world of frozen-starred space, of Class nine
freighters and unholy cargos.
The slender blue-gray androids were exercising. They vaulted on the
parallel bars, dangled from the rings, worked with the pulleys. Even
the women and the children exercised. They did not sweat, because their
bodies were not made for perspiration, but Caffrey could see their
muscles twisting and shivering under the slate hides, developing.
A strange kind of noise filled the vast gym. Muted gruntings, whispers
of breath, solid slaps of hands and bodies on bars and mats. The
androids did not look at Caffrey. They were accustomed to slavery. They
knew they had been dead when they were born.
Caffrey stopped walking. Near the left wall, two android males were
conversing. They leaned indolently, tiredly, against the brown wooden
bars. Caffrey's face lost its flabbiness, becoming stripped of
everything but purpose.
He walked toward them, conscious of his own strength. The exercising of
the others went on around him. Slap and soft wind of breath and creak
of apparatus. The heat was a nearly-tangible cloud.
"Why aren't you two working out like the rest?" Caffrey asked slowly.
One of the androids said in a weary voice, "I'm tired. I can't when I'm
tired."
Caffrey's fingers tightened on the stick. They had to be in perfect
shape! _Had to be!_ This was his last shipload, and by God....
He swung the stick up over his shoulder and brought it down in a
blurring arc. There was a flat smacking sound. The android choked.
Caffrey struck the other one, and the anger came up from his stomach
like fire boiling over. He screamed at them and beat them. Again the
stick fell, again, again, again....
Finally he stood back, feeling the sweat running down him. He tilted
his head and gulped air. "Now," he said very quietly, "now, you inhuman
sonsofslate, start working...."
The two of them watched from the gray mats where they were crouched.
Brief resentment was in their eyes.
Caffrey bunched his muscles and kicked. The android's head snapped
backward against the bars. He grunted. Then both of them got up and
walked over to the pulleys. They began to exercise, rapidly.
Caffrey laughed and walked on through the gym, not watching them any
more. He went through the next bulkhead and spun the lock wheel, then
padded down the corridor under the ceiling lights that shone like foggy
blue eyes.
Dillman, his astrogator, a young kid with yellow hair and an aggressive
jaw, was in the chart room. He was working with the course computer.
Dillman had been a student at the University of Venus, Cloud City, when
he killed an officer of the Control Police in a fight over a girl.
Dillman was good in the slave game. Dillman was getting hard.
Caffrey closed the door. It clanged loudly. Dillman looked around.
"Hello, Captain," he said. "We're right on course. Mars in six hours,
fourteen minutes."
Caffrey nodded, slumping down into a thickly padded shock chair. Beyond
the wide observation window, space made endless black, and stars
hung there like pieces of a broken diamond. The swollen ball of the
sun burned above the ship, and Mars lay scarlet, just ahead. Distant
rumbling from the old corroded jet tubes filled the room.
"How's everything?" Caffrey asked. "Engines?"
"All right," Dillman said, leaning against the astrogation table. "Few
pieces of stuff failed to fission awhile back, but everything's okay
now."