"Just wait for the right time. Rise up and capture their spaceships. That's what we'll do. We'll go back to Earth and then let them try to get us off it again."
"But Earth is dead," Laurent, Jr., objected. "We can't live there. Poisonous radiation."
"By gar!" Laurent drained another brew. "You believe everything they tell you, hah? We goin' show them sometime. Like Sam says, not now, but sometime. Maybe me and Sam don't do it, but don't you kids forget—you not goin' be slaves always. You watch for the right time, like Sam says."
His son looked dubious. "But what you told me about Earth doesn't sound so good. Like the way you were so cold and hungry in that shack in Canada. And Mama walking up five flights in New York after working all day in the garment factory. And all those wars! Why did you people spend half your time shooting each other, Dad?"
Laurent belched indignantly. "By gar, boy! We was free! We don't have no galactic stand over us, do this, do that. We was free!"
"We don't work so hard," said his son. "And look at old Jarth Rolan and the others out there—they've given us the day off, but the galactics are all busy in the fields. Everybody has to work, Dad."
Laurent looked through a slight haze at the masters laboring in the potato fields. Farm work and teaching and other special assignments had created a shortage of personal slaves. Jarth Rolan gave preference in leasing slaves to those who came and helped him at the center.
Since having a personal slave was a mark of prestige among the galactics, many of those laboring on the farm were from the highest levels of society.
"They don't know nothing about raise potatoes," Laurent grumbled. "We put in complaint, by damn. We want each one have his own land. I work like jackass, I want to get paid for it."