His mind groped for something
that almost came into his consciousness--some inkling of what should
have been done, or how they had failed. It was probably only an idle
fancy, but--
"Hey!" One of the slaves below was waving at him. While Hanson looked
down, the slave called to another, got a shoulder to lean on, and walked
his way up the side of the block, pushed from below and helped by
Hanson's hands above. He was panting when he reached the top, but he
could still talk. "Look, it's your skin, but you're going to be in
trouble if you don't get busy. Look out for that overseer up there.
Don't just stand around when he's in sight." He picked up a loop of rope
and passed it to Hanson, making a great show of hard work.
Hanson stared up at the overseer who was staring back at him. "Why is he
any worse than the rest of this crowd?"
The slave shuddered as the dour, slow-moving overseer began walking
stiffly toward them. "Don't let the fact that he's an overseer fool you.
He's smarter than most of his kind, but just as ugly. He's a mandrake,
and you can't afford to mess with him."
Hanson looked at the ancient, wrinkled face of the mandrake and
shuddered. There was the complete incarnation of inhumanity in the
thing's expression. He passed ropes around the corners until the
mandrake turned and rigidly marched away, the blows of his whip falling
metronome-like on the slaves he passed.
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