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  EXPLOITER'S END

  _by James Causey_

  [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Orbit volume 1number 2, 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

  [Sidenote: _PEOPLE OR TERMITES, IT'S ALL THE SAME._

  _THERE'S A LIMIT TO HOW FAR YOU CAN DRIVE THEM!_]

  We time-studied the Term. It moved with a pliant, liquid grace, its fourarms flickering over the instrument panel, installing studs, tighteningscrews, its antennae glowing with the lambent yellow that denoted anagony of effort.

  "See?" Harvey's freckled face was smug. "He rates an easy hundred andten. Whoever took that first study--"

  "I took it," I said, squinting at the stop watch.

  You could hear him bite his lip. After only two weeks on the job, on astrange planet ninety light-years from home, you don't tell your bosshe's cockeyed.

  The Term hurried. Its faceted termite eyes were expressionless diamonds,but the antennae gleamed a desperate saffron. _If bugs could sweat_, Ithought wryly. Now the quartz panel installation. Those four arms movedin a blinding frenzy.

  But the stop watch was faster. The second hand caught up with the Term.It passed him. Rating: Seventy-four per cent.

  I tucked the clipboard under my arm, squeezed through the airlock, anddown the ramp. Harvey followed sullenly. The conveyor groaned on,bringing up the next unit, a sleek little cruiser. The Term seized afifty-pound air wrench, fled up the ramp to the airlock.

  "A dozen feet back to the operation," I pointed out. "After the next jobhe'll have to return forty feet. Then sixty. He's in the hole."

  Harvey looked at his shoes. John Barry, the trim superintendent, camepuffing down the line, his jowled face anxious about direct labor cost,the way every good super should be. "Anything wrong, Jake?"

  "He can't cut it," I said.

  Barry frowned up through the airlock at the Term. Those antennae nowshone the soft sad purple of despair.

  We walked past the body jigs. The air was a haze of blue smoke,punctuated with yellow splashes of flame from the electronic weldingguns. Terms scuttled like gigantic spiders over the great silver hulls,their antennae glowing in a pattern of swift bright harmony, right onstandard, good cost. Harvey's face was rapt as he watched them. I saidharshly:

  "Give me your third Production Axiom."

  Harvey's shoulders squared. He said stiffly: "Beauty is functional. Thequintessence of grace is the clean, soaring beauty of a spaceship'shull--"

  "Extrapolate, Harvey."

  His lips were tight. "What I see is ugly. Terms must be taughtindividuality. What I see is a fascinating, deadly beauty--deadlybecause it's useless. We must sublimate it, grind it down, hammer it outinto a useful pattern. Waste motion is a sin...."

  "Excellent."

  We turned into the administration lift, leaving the iron roar behind us,and on the way up Harvey didn't say a word. I listened for the tinkle ofshattering ideals, and said patiently, "You're here to build spaceships.To build them better and cheaper than Consolidated or Solar. Hell, we'veeven set up a village for the Terms! Electricity, plumbing, luxuriesthey wouldn't normally enjoy for the next million years--"

  "Will they fire him?" Harvey's voice was flat.

  My temper was shredding. "Four-day layoff. His third this month. Termskick in most of their salary for village maintenance. They can't afforda part-time producer."

  I could see that Term read out of the gang, leaving the company village,stoically, while his fellows played a wailing dirge of color on theirantennae. The farewell song. I could see him trudging over the windsweptpeak of Cobalt Mountain, staring down at his native village, and shakingwith the impact of the _Stammverstand_, the tribe-mind, the ache and thelonging. A wheel, shaken out of orbit. The lonely cog, searching for itslost slot. I could see that Term returning to his tribe. And how they'dtear him to pieces because he was a thing apart, now, an alien.

  We walked down the gray corridor, past Psych, past the conference hall,to the silver door marked _Methods and Standards_. Harvey's blue eyeswere remote, stubborn. I clapped him paternally on the shoulder. "Anyonecan call one wrong, lad. Forget it."

  Harvey slumped down at a computor, and I walked into my private officeand shut the door. Harvey's personnel dossier was in my desk. I.Q. 178,fair. Stability quotient two point eight, very bad. Adaptability ratingpoint seven, borderline. Those idiots in Psych! Couldn't theyindoctrinate a new man properly?

  I waited.

  In a moment Harvey came in without knocking and said, "Mr. Eagan, I wantto quit."

  I took my time lighting a cigar, not raising my head.

  His defiant, pleading look.

  I blew smoke rings at the visicom and finally said, "Since you weresixteen, you've dreamed of this. Elimination tests, the weeding out, tenthousand other smart, hungry kids fighting you for this job." I tastedthe words. "When your contract's up you can write your own ticketanywhere in the system."

  He blurted: "I came here full of ideas about the wonderful workAmalgamated was doing to advance backward civilizations. Sure, the Termshave a union. They're paid at standard galactic rates for spacecraftassembly. But you make them live in that village. It costs to run thatvillage. You give it to them with one hand and take it back with theother. All the time you're holding out the promise of racialadvancement, individuality, some day the Terms will reach the stars.Nuts!"

  "That's Guild propaganda," I said softly.

  "The Guild is just a bogey you created to keep the IntersolarSpacecrafters Union in line. There's a Venusport liner due in next week.When it leaves I'll be on it!"

  I played Dutch Uncle. I told him he wasn't used to Terminorb'sone-and-a-half gravs, that this was just a hangover from the three tofive oxygen ratio he wasn't used to. But he said no. Finally I shrugged,scribbled something on an AVO and handed it to him. "All right, Harvey,"I said mildly. "Take this down to Carmody, in Psych. He'll give you aclearance."

  Harvey's face went white. "Since when do you go to Psych for aclearance?"

  I pressed a stud under the desk and two Analysts came in. I told themwhat to do and Harvey screamed; he fought and bit and clawed, he mouthedunutterable things about what we were doing to the Terms until I choppedhim mercifully behind the ear.

  "Poor devil," panted one of the Analysts. "Obviously insufficientindoctrination, sir. Would you mind if I spent an hour in Psych forreorientation? He--he upset me."

  My eyes stung with pride. Sam had loyalty plus. "Sure thing, Sam. You'dbetter go too, Barney. He said some pretty ugly things."

  They dragged Harvey out and I went over to the visicom, punched abutton. I was trembling with an icy rage as Carmody's lean hawk faceswam into view. "Hello, Jake," he said languidly. "How's Cost?"

  I told him curtly about Harvey. "Another weak sister," I rasped. "Can'tyou screen them any more? Didn't you note his stability index? I'm goingto report this to Starza, Don."

  "Relax," Carmody smiled. "Those things happen, Jake. We'll do a fewgentle things with scalpel and narcosynthesis, and he'll be back in aweek, real eager, the perfect cost analyst."

  I'd never liked Carmody. He was so smug; he didn't realize the_sacredness_ of his position. I said coldly, "Put Miss Davis on."

  Carmody's grin was knowing. The screen flickered, and Fern's face cameinto focus. Her moist red lips parted, and I shivered, looking at her,even on a visicom screen. The shining glory of her hair, those coolgreen eyes. Three months hadn't made a difference.

  "How was little old Earth?" I said awkwardly.

  "Wonderful!" She was radiant. "I'll see you fo
r lunch."

  "Today's grievance day. Dinner?"

  "I promised Don," she said demurely.

  I swallowed hard. "How about the Term festival tomorrow night?"

  "Well, Don sort of asked--"

  I tried to laugh it off and Fern said she'd see me later and the screenwent blank and I sat there shaking.

  The screen flickered again. Starza's great moon face smiled at me andsaid sweetly, "We're ready to start grieving."

  I picked up the time studies that were death sentences for two Terms,and went down the hall to