"They have kids, they get sick, they get mad, and they don't mind working. They don't know what else to do." He sighed, watching the circle of Mars beginning to grow big and bloated and red beyond the window. "Although it's one hell of a job to put muscle on them." Dillman poured out some more liquor and raised his glass. His eyes were bits of hard rock. "Here's to the last trip, Cap. And I only hope the big boys of Workers, Incorporated, give me this ship." Caffrey nodded and drank. A green sign flashed over a bank of machinery. END OF EXERCISE PERIOD, it blinked, END OF EXERCISE PERIOD, END OF.... Rising, Caffrey walked to the machinery, pulled a large leather-handled switch. He visualized with pleasure the great doors opening, and the androids, the artificial humans, stumbling back into the dim stinking holds to wait quietly on the last stage of the trip before the chains closed on them. Caffrey laughed out loud. "Dirty joke?" Dillman asked, faintly anxious. "No. Just thinking about what I'll get paid. Two thousand solars. Why man, that's enough to live on for years! Plenty of wine, and an easy job, and women, bless 'em." Dillman started to reply when the com system rattled. The big man moved to the machine and pressed the button. "Caffrey, bridge," he growled. "What the hell is...." A quiet voice cut him off, deadly, precise like a small knife slicing into him. "Captain, this is Doc. I'm down in the android hold. You'd better come right away." "Doc," Caffrey began, but the machine clicked off. He slammed it with his fists. "Doc, damn it, Doc...." There was only the faraway rumble of the ship's great iron heart. He swung around, heading for the door. "Come on," he said quickly. "Nothing's going to happen. Not on this run. Nothing...." They ran through the halls under the blue lights, clambered down the ladders, ran through more halls. And then they stood in front of the big black door. Caffrey turned the wheel, slowly at first, and then faster, until it spun and blurred into invisibility. He stepped back and the doors opened. * * * * * The hold was dark and musty. In the tiers of bunks, the androids huddled like not-quite-black shadows. They said nothing. They watched. There was only a smell of antiseptic in the air, healthful, clean and rotten all at the same time. Caffrey and Dillman moved through the endless rows of bunks. Farther down, Caffrey could see Doc crouching over a low bunk, his cigarette lighter aflame. He knelt there, a small bulbous gnome of a man, with weary defeated eyes and thin hair lying over his skull. An android boy of about seven years lay on the bunk. Doc looked up as they stepped up to him. His face was filled with the weariness of his eyes, with too many years and too much that was wrong. "Well," said Caffrey, watching him. Doc's lighter jumped and flared bright when he spoke. "The boy is sick," Doc said. "Very sick."