Hanlon found that these people, while they had no scientific or mechanical knowledge or training of their own, did have highly developed ethical principles which governed all their individual and collective actions. They were a simple, natural people, with a native dignity Hanlon almost envied.
He found, too, that his first shrewd guess was correct—their bodies were of vegetable matter, rather than proto-plasmic. They reproduced by budding, and he saw a number of the "females" to whom were attached buds of varying sizes. One day he watched interestedly while one of the ripened buds, a fully-developed individual but only about ten inches high, detached itself from its parent and dropped to the ground. It lay there for some minutes while the "mother" watched it carefully. Then it rose by itself and trotted away with her as she resumed her work—a miniature but fully alive native "child." It would take about two years for it to attain its maturity, Geck informed him. Hanlon asked, and Geck said it could take care of itself alone in the forest, so Hanlon managed to sneak it out into the woods, where it would be free.
Geck told him that about four years previous a great "egg" had landed here on Guddu, which was their name for the planet. Men had come from inside it, and scattered all about, seeking the metal ores they were now mining.
The natives, friendly and childishly curious, had gathered in force to watch these strange new creatures, and because of their trusting natures had been easily trapped, imprisoned and forced to work long, hard hours in the rapidly-deepening holes.
"Us die swiftly away from sunlight," Geck said sadly. "Us have very long life-span, but underground work make us wither-die fast. Idea often discussed among we to discontinue race, because soon all we be gone anyway."
That quiet, hopeless statement made Hanlon madder than a wet cat.
"What do the shock-rods do to you?" he asked after a while.
"Affect we's nervous system some way. Us get most terrible cramps. Is horrible agony. Us so thankful you never use."
"I knew you would work without them as long as you were treated fairly."
To himself Hanlon swore a determined oath to finish this business entirely, some way or another. He realized his limitations—one young, inexperienced man against twenty ruthless, wealth-and-power greedy ruffians ... and that only here, at this one mine. No telling how many others there were on Algon, besides all those back on Simonides, and who knew what other planets, who were in on this plot.