“Have a good look at them, Radd?” the guard captain asked.

“You think I’m crazy enough to let those bandits out of here with two thousand obus—­forty thousand Paratemporal Exchange Units—­of the Company’s money without knowing what we’re getting?” the other parried.  “They’re all right—­nice, clean, healthy-looking lot.  I did everything but take them apart and inspect the pieces while they were being unshackled at the stockade.  I’d like to know where this Coru-hin-Whatshisname got them, though.  They’re not local stuff.  Lot darker, and they’re jabbering among themselves in some lingo I never heard before.  A few are wearing some rags of clothing, and they have odd-looking sandals.  I noticed that most of them showed marks of recent whipping.  That may mean they’re troublesome, or it may just mean that these Caleras are a lot of sadistic brutes.”

“Poor devils!” The man called Dosu Golan was evidently hoping that he’d never catch himself talking about fellow humans like that.  The guard captain turned to him.

“Coming to have a look at them, Doth?” he asked.

“You go, Kirv; I’ll see them later.”

“Still not able to look the Company’s property in the face?” the captain asked gently.  “You’ll not get used to it any sooner than now.”

“I suppose you’re right.”  For a moment Dosu Golan watched Coru-hin-Irigod and his followers canter out of the yard and break into a gallop on the road beyond.  Then he tucked his whip under his arm.  “All right, then.  Let’s go see them.”

The labor foreman went into the house; the manager and the guard captain went down the steps and set out across the yard.  A big slat-sided wagon, drawn by four horses, driven by an old slave in a blue smock and a thing like a sunbonnet, rumbled past, loaded with newly-picked oranges.  Blue woodsmoke was beginning to rise from the stoves at the open kitchen and a couple of slaves were noisily chopping wood.  Then they came to the stockade of close-set pointed poles.  A guard sergeant in a red-trimmed blue jacket, armed with a revolver, met them with a salute which Kiro Soran returned:  he unfastened the gate and motioned four or five riflemen into positions from which they could fire in between the poles in case the slaves turned on their new owners.

There seemed little danger of that, though Kiro Soran kept his hand close to the butt of his revolver.  The slaves, an even hundred of them, squatted under awnings out of the sun, or stood in line to drink at the water-butt.  They furtively watched the two men who had entered among them, as though expecting blows or kicks; when none were forthcoming, they relaxed slightly.  As the labor foreman had said, they were clean and looked healthy.  They were all nearly naked; there were about as many women as men, but no children or old people.

“Radd’s right,” the captain told the new manager.  “They’re not local.  Much darker skins, and different face-structure; faces wedge-shaped instead of oval, and differently shaped noses, and brown eyes instead of black.  I’ve seen people like that, somewhere, but—­”