“Nobody was in there?”
“Nope, but I’ll make sure.” He ran out.
That’s what life on Placet is like. I’ve had enough of it: I’d had too much of it. I made up my mind while Reagan was gone.
When he came back, he was a bright blue articulated skeleton.
He said, “O.K., chief. Nobody was inside.”
“Any of the machines badly smashed?”
He laughed. “Can you look at a rubber beach horse with purple polka dots and tell whether it’s an intact lathe or a busted one? Say, chief, you know what you look like?”
I said, “If you tell me, you’re fired.”
I don’t know whether I was kidding or not; I was plenty on edge. I opened the drawer of my desk and put the “God Bless Our Home” sampler in it and slammed the drawer shut. I was fed up. Placet is a crazy place and if you stay there long enough you go crazy yourself. One out of ten of Earth Center’s Placet employees has to go back to Earth for psychopathic treatment after a year or two on Placet. And I’d been there three years, almost. My contract was up. I made my mind up, too.
“Reagan,” I said.