The superintendent was becoming more mollified and less fearful by the second. Now he actually smiled, a rather pitiful travesty of a smile, and Hanlon's sympathy went out to him.
"Then we'll get along fine," Philander said. "Just remember that your job is only to keep the natives at work during your shift, and that in your off hours you do not go hunting 'round into things that're none of your business."
"Oh, naturally, sir. You just list what limits I'm to keep in, and I'll stay there. All I'm after here is that thousand credits a month, and as big a bonus as I can earn. You see," with engaging frankness, "I'm a guy that wants to make his pile as quick as possible, so I won't have to work all my life. I've got to work to get 'em, sure, but I don't aim to work forever."
"Hmmpfff" Philander rose from behind the desk. "Come on, I'll show you around."
Chapter 13
For an hour Superintendent Philander escorted George Hanlon about the diggings, showing him the various buildings and the workers' stockade. ("Prison" would be a better word, Hanlon thought, enraged that there were still men who would enslave others for their own personal gain.)
The young Earthman got a real shock of surprise at his first sight of the native. They were so entirely different from anything he had ever suspected might exist. They were tall and slender, and their greenish-brown skin was rough and irregular. They seemed possessed of considerable wiry strength, however.
Hanlon had the peculiar feeling that they were somehow familiar, as though related to something he already knew, even though they were so alien. But, strain as he might, he could not at first bring that elusive thought into recognition.
He examined more particularly each item of the natives' appearance. They had small triangular eyes, wide-spaced on their narrow faces, almost like a bird's yet not set quite as far back. They could see forward and somewhat to either side, he guessed, with a much wider range of vision than humans have. They also had triangular-shaped mouths which worked somewhat on the sphincter method. Even though their faces were sort of silly-looking, there was somehow a strange beauty to them.