"We don't know exactly, except they can feel it, and will do anything to get away from it."
"Look, punk!" Philander lost his friendliness, and snarled at Hanlon with twisted face. "We don't care whether they like it or not. They know their jobs and they don't have to get shocked if they keep working. So it's strictly up to them. Don't go getting any soft notions about these lousy Greenies. They're only dumb brutes fit for working--so work 'em!"
Yes, Hanlon would work the natives, but without cruelty. His thoughts were a seething of contempt for these brutal thugs. He was willing to bet, right there and then, without knowing anything about this situation, that these natives could be controlled without bullying or hurting them--and better.
Having had military training, Hanlon knew it was possible to enforce the most strict discipline without such means, and that any man ... or entity, probably ... could and would submit to discipline fairly and decently enforced, with far less trouble and animosity, and with far greater productivity than if he were driven to it.
"Anybody works better for a pat on the back than for a kick in the pants!" he thought indignantly.
Philander stood about for an hour, and when he saw that Hanlon understood exactly what was expected of him and his crew--when he saw Hanlon several times correct the sorters who had left too much rock in with the ores--he turned to leave.
"You'll hear the siren when the shift's over," he said. "Bring your gang back and lock 'em in the stockade then. Be sure you lock both gates carefully."
"Cookie gave me a lunch for half-time," Hanlon said. "What about the natives? Do they eat then, too?"
"Naw, they don't eat," was the surprising answer. "Once a day they stick their hands into the dirt for nearly an hour. Must get nourishment that way."
"That seems to prove they're vegetable matter. Their fingers must be some sort of feeding roots," Hanlon observed sagely. "They sure are the strangest beings I've ever heard of."
The superintendent shrugged and left without further words.
Hanlon looked about and found a rock near the sorters, and used this for a seat. He sat watching the natives work, and speculating about them, and also about what this was all about. The mine seemed to him a very rich one, and by using slave labor those men could well be reaping a huge fortune from it. No wonder they could afford to pay guards a thousand a month.