Ron was transferred from the construction of Callistan apartment houses, to a job in a newly completed factory. There, under a cruel, petty old tyrant in dirty fur, Ron toiled in a little cell, polishing metal plates. Acharians loved burnished surfaces. Young Leiccsen could talk with no one now, except his boss, Arruj. For he was forced to sleep at the foot of his polishing machine. And he ate the food brought to him while the abrasive discs whirled. He had only this little metal cubicle to live in now, with its heavy door locked, its single window barred. "Be faster, Eart'man!" Arruj would growl. "Or shall I beat you more. Maybe I kill you, this moment, eh." And then Arruj would laugh uproariously, and seem to wait for an outburst or an attempted assault that would give him an excuse. Ron could hear the breath wheezing and whistling in the Acharian's great chest. It took all the courage, and all the will that Ron Leiccsen could muster, to check that maddening impulse of murder. But always, so far, he had controlled himself, because he still clung savagely to hope. But it was still there, maybe only because he willed its presence. Arruj wasn't in the room most of the time, for there were other slaves to supervise in other cubicles in this great factory building. When Arruj was gone, there was always a chance to climb up on a bench for a moment, and look out of the barred window. The building of the Callistan city was continuing, strange, square, shiny structures rearing bizarrely among the half-ruined houses of Leiccsendale. The construction work took first place, of course, ahead of the replanting of the desolated land. But strange, flat-leaved, flowerless growths from Callisto, were already sprouting before those gleaming new factories and dwellings. The distant hills, which seemed forever unreachable now to Ron in his prison, showed a faint, unfathomable green now, even at their pinnacles. Young Leiccsen often wondered about this, for the higher slopes of the hills had been barren before of vegetation. The twenty-three years since Leiccsenland had been thawed, and Earthians had come to Titan, had been insufficient time for much of the imported plant-life to spread to the rocky crests. During his stolen moments of observation, Ron watched other human slaves, toiling in some of the fields, clearing away fire-charred corn and other Earthly crops, to plant Acharian spores. But most of the cultivated land was still neglected by the conquerors. It showed that same rough green as the far-off hillsides. Weeds, it looked like. And yet no weeds had ever been brought to Leiccsenland, as far as Ron knew. The colonists had always been careful to see that the imported seed was pure.