Brain Ships - Anne McCaffrey [177]
The whole desperate, squirming consumption of ration bricks had taken place in total silence. Now, less than three minutes later, it was over and the mesa was surrounded by a sucking, slimy tide of glop. As Blaize watched, the tide receded, sliding back down the sides of the mesa until the new mud melted into the same soggy configuration of puddles and bubbles that had greeted him on arrival.
"That was a small one," Harmon said with regret. "Oh, well, there'll likely be some better ones before you go. Bound to be, in fact."
In response to Blaize's questions he explained, without much interest, that the erratic climatic pattern of Angalia produced a constantly moving band of thundershowers in the mountains which surrounded this central basin. Whenever the storms stayed in the same place for a while, the rainfall built up into a flash flood which raced across the plain, picking up mud as it went, and sweeping away anything that might be foolish enough to remain in its path.
"Terraforming," Blaize mused. "Dams to catch the rainfall and release it slowly . . ."
"Expensive, and who'd bother? Nothing here to repay the investment. Besides," Harmon explained, "it's fun. Damn sure ain't much else to watch out here!"
Blaize gathered that one of Harmon's amusements was trying to predict the times of the mud-floods so that he could feed the natives just before one, forcing them to scramble first for ration bricks and then to save themselves from the tide of mud.
"Ain't it the damnedest thing?" he demanded as the rock-like natives climbed back to their mountain heights, some clutching a few ration bricks for later consumption, some still chewing the last mouthfuls of their haul. "You ever see anything like it?"
"Never," Blaize admitted. Are the—the Loosies starving? Is that why their skin hangs loose like that? Or is that their normal appearance? And how does this fat creep get away with putting them through such a degrading performance?
"I know what you're thinking, Port-Wine y Medoc," the fat man said, "but wait'll you've done six months out here, you'll forget all the PTA regs about respecting the natives' dignity and all that crapola. Damned Loosies don't have any dignity to respect, anyway. They're a bunch of animals. Never developed agriculture—or clothing—or even language."
"Or lies," commented Blaize.
"What?" For a moment Harmon looked startled, then he chuckled and wheezed with amusement. "Righto. No language, no lies—gotta say that for them, anyway! But they're not people, young Claret-Medoc. Waste of resources, this whole operation—some paperpusher's mistake. Only encourages the veg-heads to breed more little veggies. We oughta pull outa here and let 'em starve on their own, y'ask me."
"Maybe they could be trained to work the mine," Blaize suggested.
Harmon snorted. "Yeah, sure. I did hear about some prisoners in olden times who amused themselves trying to train their pet rats to run errands. You could do that sooner'n you could teach a Loosie anything, kid. I tell you, there's just three amusements on Angalia: feedin' time for the Loosies, drinkin' time for me, and playing computer games. And I've mapped every damn level of the Maze of the Minotaur so many times I can't stand to look at it no more."
Blaize felt in his pocket. The datahedron recording the wager wasn't the only item he'd copied from Nancia's computer. "Does your computer—"
"Yours now, Sake-Armontillado," Harmon interrupted with a cheerful belch. "PTA issue."
"Does it have enough memory and display graphics to run SPACED OUT? Because," Blaize said, "I just happen to have a copy of the latest version here. Pre-release—it's not even on sale at Central yet." He winked at Harmon.
"Is that so!" Harmon oozed to his feet. "C'mon inside, Burgundy-Champagne. Pass the time in a li'l friendly game until my transport gets here." He scratched his bare chest, squinting at Blaize with the rudiments of a thoughtful expression on his face. "Have to name some stakes, of course. No fun playing for nothing."
"My sentiments exactly,"