Read "Slave Planet" by Laurence M. Janifer online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Dodd stayed on his post because he had to: as a matter of fact, he hardly thought of leaving, or of doing anything at all. Minutes passed, and he stood in the hallway, quite alone. The other guard had spoken to him when Cadnan had been picked up and tossed back into solitary, but Dodd hadn't answered, and the guard had gone back to his own post. Dodd stood, hardly thinking, and waiting -- though he could not have said what for.
_This is the end._ He had hit Cadnan: in those few seconds he had acted just as a good slaver was supposed to act. And that discovery shocked him: even more than his response during the attempted escape, it showed him what he had become.