"You bet I know!"
"That's mutiny. For God's sake, don't make things worse!"
"Worse for us, or for you?" Kirk was shouting, holding his head up in the wind. "Listen, you men! Do you know what the Officers are doing up there in the Ship they won't let us touch?"
There was an uneasy stirring among the Hans, a slipping aside of luminous black eyes. The Officer shut his jaw tight. He stepped in close to Kirk.
"Shut up," he said urgently. "Don't make me punish you, not now. You're talking rot, but it's dangerous."
Kirk's eyes were hot and not quite sane. He couldn't have stopped if he'd wanted to.
"Rot, is it? Jakk Randl knew. He saw with his own eyes and he told me while he was dying. The Captain's yellow daughter, sneaking heat-stones into...."
The Officer hit him on the jaw, carefully and without heat. Kirk sagged down. The Officer stepped back, looking as though he had a pain in him that he didn't want to show.
He said quietly, but so that everyone could hear him, "Discipline, for not longer than it takes to clear the rock below."
Two of the men nodded and took Kirk away down a flight of stone steps. One of the four who were left looked over the wall and spat.