He laughed shortly.
"Gopher, that's you. You go fer this, and you go fer that. Slop and a pad you get." He swung out of his bunk.
"Oh, sure, maybe they put you on a fabricator. Even let you set it up for 'em. But that don't get you no extra pins."
Holme shook his head.
"Councilor gave me the word," he said stubbornly. "They need good machinists."
"Yeah." Marlo nodded. "Sure, they want graduates down at Talburg. But they ain't paying 'em for no contract machinist when they can keep 'em as helpers." He turned.
"Ain't that right, Pete?"
Karzer looked up from a bag he was packing.
"Yeah, yeah, that's right, Carl. I know a few guys once, tried playing the legit. Got kicked around, see? Low pay. Staffman hammering on 'em all the time. Big joke when they try to get more for themselves.
"Yeah, big joke. They get blamed, they bust something, see, so they owe the company big money." He looked critically at a pair of socks.