Free EarthRise by William C. Dietz Page B

chose a more roundabout method. A strategy that involved actually doing some work—an aberration that should have resulted in some healthy skepticism.
    But, like the vast majority of his peers, Kol-Hee knew next to nothing about the slaves who worked for him, finding it far more convenient to assign them a single overall personality. One which characterized them as sub-Sauron, and in this case sub-Fon, which meant lazy, incompetent, and stupid. All of which was absurd, since the very fleet from which the Saurons took their power had been constructed by ancestors of those very same slaves. But Kol-Hee was blind to that, hadn’t bothered to study Toth’s rather extensive rap sheet, and was therefore vulnerable.
    So, determined to solve the mystery of the glop, and discover why an entire ship had been converted to the production thereof, Toth went about his work. His title, like that of more than two dozen others, was “wiper.” And, unlike the honorifics that some Ra ‘Na had granted themselves, the name actually described what Toth did.
    His job was to work his way through the maze of pipes that carried the glop from one containment to the next, find the places where joints leaked, and wipe them clean. A rather time-consuming chore that could have been eliminated via design changes and preventive maintenance. Something that any number of wipers had suggested.
    But the Saurons, who normally listened to such input, especially where technical matters were concerned, had turned a deaf ear. Some saw this as one more example of their overweening arrogance, but Toth had a different theory. He believed only a finite amount of the glop was required and, once available, production would cease. A possibility that would account for the Saurons’ otherwise inexplicable lack of interest in refining the process.
    Most of Toth’s fellow wipers had developed routines—patterns that carried them along and helped make the job easier. Toth had resisted that temptation as it would serve to limit his movements and thereby hinder his self-assigned mission. An apparent quirk that annoyed his turf-conscious contemporaries. “Go along and get along,” that was their motto, and one which had served the slaves well. That’s why the human named Gretchen growled at the Ra ‘Na as he worked his way through her territory on a roundabout course calculated to terminate within Kol-Hee’s office.
    The Fon, who was a creature of habit, had exited his cage-like command post at roughly the same time during the last three shifts, and, assuming that the Sauron did so again, Toth planned to take full advantage of Kol-Hee’s absence.
    Meanwhile, as the wipers wiped and worried about their various prerogatives, Kol-Hee monitored a rack of jury-rigged readouts, compared the readings to the list he had been given, and noticed that all of them were higher than they should be. Much higher. As they had been for the last three shifts.
    It seemed as if the Zin who was in charge of the factory, an overzealous type named Gon-Dra, was determined not only to meet the daily quota, but exceed it. Regardless of the potential consequences. Would the idiot finally listen to reason? No, probably not, but Kol-Hee felt it was his duty to try.
    That being the case, the Fon backed out of the sling chair, shuffled out onto the catwalk, and headed for the bank of lift tubes.
    No sooner had lift tube’s door whispered closed than Toth dropped his glop-soaked rag, climbed up onto the catwalk, and hurried toward the office. Gretchen hollered, “Hey, fur ball, what are you doing? Trying to get us killed?”
    But the Ra ‘Na ignored the question, knowing as he did that while his peers were rule-following wimps, they weren’t likely to tell on him, and that’s all that mattered.
    Toth entered the cage, ignored the mysterious readouts, and went for the computer terminal. A pincer-friendly joystick and clicker had been installed for use by Saurons—but when the wiper touched a