"I'm sorry, but I have other work to do," and then, as he saw how the other lost heart. Hanlon hastened to add, "I have to go help other enslaved peoples on other worlds."
"Then us not try to keep you. But us hope you come to see we many time."
"I'll do that, Geck my friend, every chance I get."
Chapter 25
"We've got a problem here," Admiral Newton said as they followed the marines who were taking the mine operatives to the cruiser to be taken back to Simonides for their trials.
"I know it," Hanlon said thoughtfully. "The Guddus are too high in the scale for the planet to be colonized, and too low at present to be admitted to the Federation as true members. Yet they have immense wealth and resources the Federation can use, and something will have to be done to protect them from thieves and others who might again try to enslave them."
"That will never be allowed again. We'll have to make some sort of a treaty with them, probably establish a small base here, and perhaps make some arrangements to mine their ores—if we have anything we can give them in repayment. I imagine you'd better hold yourself in readiness to head the commission that comes to handle that treaty."
"Gee, thanks for that, Dad. They're such swell people when you get to know them. Ordinarily they live like 'children of nature,' in the forests, without need of homes or tools or anything. They feed from the elements in the soil, so there's no food problem. We did give them nitrates here, but that was because they had exhausted the elements in the dirt floors of their prison huts. In the woods that won't be needed. Oh, well, when we get technies here, with transformers, we can find out what to do with them."
"I'm going back to the fleet now," the elder SS man said. "I suppose you want to go back to Simonides to handle the details of the trials of these men. Incidentally, what about this ... Philander, did you say his name was? Why don't you think he'll need punishment?"