“Oh—no?”
“No. What were you, a miner?”
“I was—” Crockett paused suddenly. A curious light came into his eyes.
“I was a labor organizer,” he finished.
“What’s that?”
“Ever heard of a union?” Crockett asked, his gaze intent.
“Is it an ore?” Brockle Buhn shook her head. “No, I’ve never heard of it. What’s a union?”
Crockett explained. No genuine labor organizer would have accepted that explanation. It was, to say the least, biased.
Brockle Buhn seemed puzzled. “I don’t see what you mean, exactly, but I suppose it’s all right.”
“Try another tack,” Crockett said. “Don’t you ever get tired of working twenty hours a day?”
“Sure. Who wouldn’t?”
“Then why do it?”
“We always have,” Brocide Buhn said indulgently. “We can’t stop.”
“Suppose you did?”
“I’d be punished—beaten with stalactites, or something.”
“Suppose you all did,” Crockett insisted. “Every damn gnome. Suppose you had a sit-down strike.”
“You’re crazy,” Brockle Buhn said. “Such a thing’s never happened. It—it’s human.”
“Kisses never happened underground, either,” said Crockett. “No, I don’t want one! And I don’t want to fight, either. Good heavens, let me get the set-up here. Most of the gnomes work to support the privileged classes.”
“No. We just work.”
“But why?”
‘We always have. And the Emperor wants us to.”
“Has the Emperor ever worked?” Crockett demanded, with an air of triumph. “No! He just takes mud baths! Why shouldn’t every gnome have the same privilege? Why—”
He talked on, at great length, as he worked. Brockle Buhn listened with increasing interest. And eventually she swallowed the bait—hook, line and sinker.
An hour later she was nodding agreeably. “I’ll pass the word along. Tonight. In the Roaring Cave. Right after work.”
‘Wait a minute,” Crockett objected. “How many gnomes can we get?”
‘Well—not very many. Thirty?”
“We’ll have to organize first. We’ll need a definite plan.”
Brockle Buhn went off at a tangent. “Let’s fight.”
“No! Will you listen? We need a—a council. Who’s the worst trouble-maker here?”
“Mugza, I think,” she said. “The red-haired gnome you knocked out when he hit me.”
Crockett frowned slightly. Would Mugza hold a grudge? Probably not, he decided. Or, rather, he’d be no more ill tempered than other gnomes. Mugza might attempt to throttle Crockett on sight, but he’d no doubt do the same to any other gnome. Besides, as Brockle Buhn went on to explain, Mugza was the gnomic equivalent of a duke. His support would be valuable.
“And Gru Magru,” she suggested. “He loves new things, especially if they make trouble.”
“Yeah.” These were not the two Crockett would have chosen, but at least he could think of no other candidates. “If we could get somebody who’s close to the Emperor. . . What about Drook—the guy who gives Podrang his mud baths?”
‘Why not? I’ll fix it.” Brocle Buhn lost interest and surreptitiously began to eat anthracite. Since the overseer was watching, this resulted in a violent quarrel, from which Crockett emerged with a black eye. Whispering profanity under his breath, he went back to digging.
But he had time for a few more words with Brockle Buhn. She’d arrange it. That night there would be a secret meeting of the conspirators.
Crockett had been looking forward to exhausted slumber, but this chance was too good to miss. He had no wish to continue his unpleasant job digging anthracite. His body ached fearfully. Besides, if he could induce the gnomes to strike, he might be able to put the squeeze on Podrang II. Cru Magru had said the Emperor was a magician. Couldn’t he, then, transform Crockett back into a man?
“He’s never done that,” Broclde Buhn said, and Crockett realized he had spoken his thought aloud.
“Couldn’t he, though—if he wanted?”
Brockle Buhn merely shuddered, but Crockett had a little gleam of hope. To be human again!
Dig . . . dig . . . dig . . . dig . . . with monotonous, deadening regularity. Crockett sank into a stupor. Unless he got the gnom~es to strike, he was faced with an eternity of arduous toil. He was scarcely conscious of knocking off, of feeling Brockle Buhn’s gnarled hand under his arm, of being led through passages to a tiny cubicle, which was his new home. The gnome left him there, and he crawled into a stony bunk and went to sleep.
Presently a casual kick aroused him. Blinking, Crockett sat up, instinctively dodging the blow Gru Magru was aiming at his head. He had four guests—Gm, Brockle Buhn, Drook and the red-haired Mugza.
“Sorry I woke up too soon,” Crockett said bitterly. “If I hadn’t, you could have got in another kick.”
“There’s lots of time,” Gru said. “Now, what’s thi~ all about? I wanted to sleep, but Brockle Buhn here said there was going to be a fight. A big one, huh?”
“Eat first,” Brockle Buhn said firmly. “I’ll fix mud soup for everybody.” She bustled away, and presently was busy in a corner, preparing refreshments. The other gnomes squatted on their haunches, and Crockett sat on the edge of his bunk, still dazed with sleep.
But he managed to explain his idea of the union. It was received with interest—chiefly, he felt, because it involved the possibility of a tremendous scrap.
“You mean every Domsef gnome jumps the Emperor?” Cm asked.
“No, no! Peaceful arbitration. We just refuse to work. All of us.”
“I can’t,” Drook said. “Podrang’s got to have his mud baths, the bloated old slug. He’d send me to the fumaroles till I was roasted.”
“Who’d take you there?” Crockett asked.