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working in pairs, hacked away at three walls with vibropick and shovel. There was a barrow serving each pair of teams; as soon as the barrow was full, the Bruuchian who had been fidgeting beside it would zoom off to the fourth wall, where Crowell and Struckheimer stood, and dump the ore onto a conveyer that took it to the surface. Then he’d return and pick up a shovel; the former shoveler would get a vibropick; the pickmeister would fidget beside the barrow.
    In the midst of all this activity, a small Bruuchian scurried back and forth scattering what appeared to be a mixture of sand and sawdust on the damp cave floor, narrowly escaping collision every few seconds. There was a zany order to it, like children knocking themselves out in a complicated relay race.
    “You know,” Crowell said, “Willy Norman thinks the decline in life expectancy is due to simple overwork. Looking at this, I’m inclined to agree with him.”
    “Well, they do work harder at this than at anything else I’ve seen them do. Especially since we turned out the lights. But I’m allowed to adjust their work hours to compensate for the increased activity—how long a workday did they have when you were studying them?”
    “Eleven, twelve hours, I guess.”
    “It’s down to six and a half.”
    “Really? You have that much power over the Company?”
    “In theory, yes; they should jump when I say ‘rabbit.’ Since their contract here is at the sufferance of the Confederación Public Health Commission, and I’m the only PHC representative. But I don’t overdo it. I have to depend on them for manpower, supplies, utilities, mail. It’s a pretty cordial relationship—but they know that there are five or six other concerns ready to snap up the contract if they make a mistake. So they’re pretty good in their treatment of the natives.
    “Besides, they haven’t lost anything in terms of overall productivity. They can only run one mine at a time; they have two shifts now, with no overlap, and the mine is actually open longer. Total yield is more than it’s ever been.”
    “Interesting.” Welcome to the suspect list, Waldo. “So they’re actually working
less
than they did when their life expectancy was higher?”
    Waldo laughed. “I know what you’re thinking. No, it can’t be a case of atrophic degeneration; that would show up in the lab tests—besides, they work less in the mines now, but more in the village. You wouldn’t recognize the place. Skyscrapers and—”
    “Skyscrapers!”
    “Well, that’s what we call them—mud and straw buildings two, sometimes three stories high. It’s another mystery… they have all the room in the world to expand their village radially. But somewhere they got the idea to go up instead of out. And it’s quite a job; wattle and daub isn’t supposed to take that kind of stress. Now, when they build a house, they have to reinforce the whole thing with ironwood; it’s almost a wooden building covered with a layer of mud….
    “Say—maybe
you
can find out why they’re doing it. Nobody here’s been able to get a straight answer out of them. But you can speak the dialect better than any of us. Besides, you’re kind of a folk hero to them—even though I don’t think any of them were alive last time you were here. They know you were responsible for a lot of the changes in their lives, and they’re grateful.”
    It was damp and cold and Crowell shivered. “For bringing them closer to stillness,” he said bluntly.
    Waldo said nothing. There was a rumble and the elevator came to rest behind them. “Hi, boss; hi, Dr. Crowell. Well, I brought the beasties’ meat. Want I should turn ’em off?”
    Waldo looked at his watch. “Sure, go ahead.” The assistant threw a switch mounted on the elevator housing and the vibropicks stopped singing. For a while there was a chorus of ragged chunk-sounds as the workers tried to keep going despite loss of power. Then, by ones and twos, they formed up a line at