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conversation has been recorded," he informed them all.
He depressed another switch and the bar showed a moving line of words across its waxy surface. When
the record had finished, he raised and abruptly thrust one end of the unyielding plastic into the
argumentative miner's left eye.
Blood and pulp squirted in all directions as the man collapsed, screaming, to the floor. One of his
terrified companions bent over him, tried to staunch the flow of blood from the ruined socket. It ran in a
steady stream down the man's face and coverall front.
"You three are dismissed," Grammel told them perfunctorily, as if nothing unusual had happened.
"Sergeant?"
"Captain-Supervisor?"
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"Take these three into the rear holding cells. Their two companions can join them as soon as they're well
enough. Let them sit and think for awhile. Record their names and identification codes so that they may
more easily pay their fines. Unless," he finished conversationally, tapping the recorder rod in one palm,
"someone else would like to appeal my judgment?"
As the two miners half-carried, half-dragged their unconscious companion to the exit, under guard,
Grammel gestured at them with the rod. "He still has his eye, you know. It's recorded permanently on
this. Bring him back when he recovers and I'll let him see it again."
The sergeant saw the guards and miners out, then returned to stand watch beside the door.
"I dislike these administrative details," Grammel said amiably to Luke and the Princess. "But this is a
largely unknown, unexplored world and I have little time to waste. Sometimes my decisions must be fast
and harsh.
"Only the degree of their ability to devise more sophisticated debasements for themselves separates the
human animals that work here from the natives. This kind of inventiveness has been a persistent and
lamentable quality of mankind's for millennia. Realizing that as you must, I'm sure you two will be more
sensible than those lower types who just left us." He sat back on the edge of the desk, commenced
tapping his lower leg with the red-tipped rod. Luke watched it nervously.
"I told you, Captain-Supervisor," he reiterated, "we must have lost our identification in the fight. It must
have fallen in the mud. If you'll just let us go back there I'm sure we can find it. Unless," he added with
seeming concern, "someone came by after the fight and stole it."
"Oh, I don't think any of our hard-working citizens would do that," Grammel commented, turning away.
He looked sharply back over his shoulder. "In fact, I don't think it's lying there, either. I don't think you
two had any identification to lose.
"From what I've been told, you both are more than strangers to this town. You're strangers to the mine,
to the Imperial presence here, to this very world. How you arrived undetected and unauthorized and in
one piece I can't imagine." He gritted his teeth and added dangerously, "I _will_ find out, however. I
always find out what I want to know."
"That's funny," noted the Princess, "because you strike me as having a particularly limited capacity for
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learning."
Her remark didn't faze Grammel. If anything, the Princess' studied insults appeared to please him. "A
little while ago, young lady, you called me incompetent. Now you belittle me intellectually. I am no
intellectual, but I am also neither incompetent nor uneducated. I got that way by learning how to get
answers to my questions.
"But your first comment was correct, about my manners." He drew back his left foot and kicked her in
the left thigh with the point of his boot. Moaning in pain, the Princess grabbed her side below the hip and
sank forward to her knees. Her right hand stopped her fall while the other continued holding the bruised
place. Luke raged inside but resolutely stared straight ahead. This was not the place or time to die.
"However, I _am_ straightforward," Grammel continued, gazing down at her. Using his leg again, he
kicked her right arm out from under her. She fell forward, then rolled over and sat up, still holding her left
leg. The Captain-Supervisor kicked out sharply, catching the base of the spine but not hard enough to
paralyze her. She wailed as both hands went to the small of her back and she fell over on her side, where
she lay moaning.
Grammel drew back his leg again. Unable to stand by any longer, Luke stepped between them, said
rapidly, "If I told you the truth, Captain-Supervisor, you wouldn't believe me."
That offer was intriguing enough to cause Grammel to forget the Princess for the moment. "I'm always
willing to listen, young man."
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