Battlecry: Sten: Omnibus One (Sten Omnibus) Read Online Free PDF

silent. Possibly the Counselor thought he was grateful. ‘Of course, that means you will have to serve out the few years left on your father’s contract – nineteen, I believe it was. But the Company has waived the time remaining on your mother’s obligation.’
    ‘That’s very generous of the Company,’ Sten managed.
    ‘Certainly. Certainly. But as Baron Thoresen has so often pointed out to me in our frequent chats – in
his
garden, I might add – the welfare of our workers must come before all other things. “A happy worker is a productive worker,” he often says.’
    ‘I’m sure he does.’
    The Counselor smiled again. He patted Sten’s hand and rose. Then he hesitated, inserted his card in the slot again and punched buttons. Another drink appeared from the slot. ‘Have another, Citizen Sten. On me. And let me be the first to offer my congratulations.’
    He patted Sten again, then turned and walked down the street. Sten stared after him. He picked up the drinks, and slowly poured them on the deck.

Chapter Five
    The on-shift warning shrilled and Sten sourly sat up. He’d already been awake for nearly two hours. Waiting.
    Even after four cycles the three-room apartment was empty. But Sten had learned that the dead must mourn for themselves. That part had been walled off, though sometimes he’d slip, and some of the grief would show itself.
    But mostly he was successful at turning himself into the quiet, obedient Mig the Company wanted. Or at least at faking it.
    The wallslot clicked, and a tray slid out with the usual quick-shot energy drink, various hangover remedies, and antidepressants.
    Sten took a handful at random and dumped them down the waste tube. He didn’t want or need any, but he knew better than to ignore the tray.
    After a few hours, it would retract and self-inventory. Then some computer would report up the line on Sten’s lack of consumption. Which would rate a reprimand from the Counselor.
    Sten sighed. There was a quota on everything.
    Far up at the head of the line a worker touched his card to the med-clock. The machine blinked and the man shoved his arm into its maw. It bleeped his vital signs, noted he was free of alcohol or drugs that might be left over from last off-shift’s routine brawl, and clocked him in.
    The man disappeared into the factory and the line moved two steps forward.
    Sten moved forward with the rest, gossip buzzing around him.
    ‘Considerin’ Fran was the loosest man with a quota on the bench, I think it was clottin’ fine of the Company – so he lost an arm; onlything he ever did with it is pinch joygirls. They gave him a month’s credit, didn’t they? …’
    ‘You know me, not a man on Vulcan can match me drink for drink – and next shift I’m rarin’ for the line – I’m a quota fool! Bring ’em on, I says, and look out down the line …’
    It was Sten’s turn. He slotted his card, stared at the machine dully as it inspected and approved him, and then walked reluctantly into the factory.
    The assembly building was enormous, honeycombed from floor to ceiling with belts, tracks, giant gears, and machines. The Migs had to inch along narrow catwalks to keep from falling or being jerked into the innards of some machine and pounded, pressed, and rolled into some nameless device that would eventually be rejected at the end of the line because it contained odd impurities.
    After nearly two months in the factory, Sten had learned to hate his partner almost as much as the job. The robot was a squat gray ovoid with a huge array of sensors bunched into a large insect eye that moved on a combination of wheels and leg stalks that it let down for stairs. Only the eye cluster and the waggling tentacles seemed alive.
    Most of all, he hated its high-pitched and nagging voice. Like an old microlibrarian that Sten remembered from his Basic Creche.
    ‘Hurry,’ it fussed, ‘we’re running behind quota. A good worker never runs behind quota. Last cycle, in the