emotionless eyes. They stood there, shoulders drooping slightly in a weirdly identical posture.

"What's this all about?" Harvey said, subduing his voice with difficulty. He waited. Nothing came out of them. "Do you work for Baker? Don't you have farms like the rest of us?"

The stocky one's mouth twisted slightly. Then he spoke. "We have farms," he said in a low, sullen voice. "We are also guides. We couldn't work our farms all the way. We had to do extra work to meet our payments."

Harvey stared at them. "Payments for what? Didn't you pay for the farms before you came here?"

"Payments for the oxygen," said the stocky man.

"What do you mean?"

A weak, sardonic smile edged across their faces. "They weren't told," the tall man said.

Harvey boiled over. He grabbed one man by the throat. "Told what, goddamn you? Talk!"