"Hell yes, I mean it. In this business you've got to be tough. But I'll be damned if a man can go on kicking people around all the time. Someplace, he's got to stop. Well, this trip'll make my pile and I can stop. Got a job waiting, shuttling passengers to the Temple Ruins west of Red Sands on Mars."
"This isn't any party," Dillman admitted. "Slavery's a funny thing. I thought it went out a long time back, but everybody on Earth is making such mental advances ..." he pointed at his skull and grinned wryly "... that they just haven't got any time to do any real work. And of course, these poor wastrels we've got on board aren't really human beings. How do they make them, Cap?"
Caffrey shrugged. "God knows. The Globulars on Centauri four turn them out by the hundreds. Almost as good as human beings.
"They have kids, they get sick, they get mad, and they don't mind working. They don't know what else to do." He sighed, watching the circle of Mars beginning to grow big and bloated and red beyond the window. "Although it's one hell of a job to put muscle on them."
Dillman poured out some more liquor and raised his glass. His eyes were bits of hard rock. "Here's to the last trip, Cap. And I only hope the big boys of Workers, Incorporated, give me this ship."
Caffrey nodded and drank.
A green sign flashed over a bank of machinery. END OF EXERCISE PERIOD, it blinked, END OF EXERCISE PERIOD, END OF....
Rising, Caffrey walked to the machinery, pulled a large leather-handled switch. He visualized with pleasure the great doors opening, and the androids, the artificial humans, stumbling back into the dim stinking holds to wait quietly on the last stage of the trip before the chains closed on them. Caffrey laughed out loud.
"Dirty joke?" Dillman asked, faintly anxious.
"No. Just thinking about what I'll get paid. Two thousand solars. Why man, that's enough to live on for years! Plenty of wine, and an easy job, and women, bless 'em."