He lingered at the back of the line, looking around. There was no one behind him. He reached out for the man just in front of him and whacked him across the throat with the edge of his hand.
The man coughed and retched, and Lawrence clamped a hand over his mouth to silence him. Another quick blow and the Vegan dropped. Quietly, Lawrence dragged him away and deposited him in a closet nearby.
Then he returned to the line. Now there would be one broom for each man, no more.
When everyone was supplied, they marched solemnly back out the door of the supply-room. Obediently, Lawrence followed along. No one seemed to notice that a man was missing or that there was a stranger in the group.
They marched to the middle of the plaza, and there the first man in the group bent and pried off a manhole. Then the Vegans began disappearing even further into the earth. Tunnels within tunnels!
His turn came and he followed on down into the tunnel. For the first time, one of the Vegans spoke, barking a short instruction in a harsh, guttural language.
Lawrence heard the sound of air blowing through pipes, then the sound of machinery grinding, then the slow whistle of the air-flow ceasing. He realized where he was and what the crew was about to do, and his heart surged. He had a plan, now.
He was in one of the air-shafts that fed the great subterranean Vegan base. The air had just been shut off in this particular tube, and the crew of Vegans he had joined was about to set to work scrubbing the tube, ridding it of any impurities that might have accumulated.
Now he knew what to do. As he scrubbed merrily through the shining length of the tube, he began to form his strategy.