Exploiter's End
Harvey slumped down at a computor, and I walked into my private office and shut the door. Harvey's personnel dossier was in my desk. I.Q. 178, fair. Stability quotient two point eight, very bad. Adaptability rating point seven, borderline. Those idiots in Psych! Couldn't they indoctrinate a new man properly?

I waited.

In a moment Harvey came in without knocking and said, "Mr. Eagan, I want to quit."

I took my time lighting a cigar, not raising my head.

His defiant, pleading look.

I blew smoke rings at the visicom and finally said, "Since you were sixteen, you've dreamed of this. Elimination tests, the weeding out, ten thousand other smart, hungry kids fighting you for this job." I tasted the words. "When your contract's up you can write your own ticket anywhere in the system."

He blurted: "I came here full of ideas about the wonderful work Amalgamated was doing to advance backward civilizations. Sure, the Terms have a union. They're paid at standard galactic rates for spacecraft assembly. But you make them live in that village. It costs to run that village. You give it to them with one hand and take it back with the other. All the time you're holding out the promise of racial advancement, individuality, some day the Terms will reach the stars. Nuts!"

"That's Guild propaganda," I said softly.

"The Guild is just a bogey you created to keep the Intersolar Spacecrafters Union in line. There's a Venusport liner due in next week. When it leaves I'll be on it!"

I played Dutch Uncle. I told him he wasn't used to Terminorb's one-and-a-half gravs, that this was just a hangover from the three to five oxygen ratio he wasn't used to. But he said no. Finally I shrugged, scribbled something on an AVO and handed it to him. "All right, Harvey," I said mildly. "Take this down to Carmody, in Psych. He'll give you a clearance."

Harvey's face went white. "Since when do you go to Psych for a clearance?"

I pressed a stud under the desk and two Analysts came in. I told them what to do and Harvey screamed; he fought and bit and clawed, he mouthed unutterable things about what we were doing to the Terms until I chopped him mercifully behind the ear.

"Poor devil," panted one of the Analysts. "Obviously insufficient 
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