'Konrad' didn't care much about what people thought of him-still young and foolish and swinging his power like a club, but he did care about getting what he wanted-face time with the guards, or at least a schedule to do so. "And I want to inspect your servitors as well. Good workers and obedient ones might even get rewards. I have some budget for that-extra food, things of that nature." That got some attention. Starving workers who didn't work hard enough was part and parcel of how the Empire worked but extra rations for good workers, much less generally sufficient ones, were rare at the bottom of the food chain. And these men needed good, well fed workers to do the hard physical labor. Without calories to burn, nobody could wield a pick or shovel. Dangling the promise of extra food was useful for the supervisors as well because if it went only to obedient workers, there was greater reason to obey.

As for Donnie-the shaft was tight, but not impossible to crawl through. It looked like it had the tool marks from when it had been made. If Donnie looked closely, he could see it must have been hand-carved. Some poor bastard, with a pick, or a hammer and a drill, had crawled along here, smashing rock to bits, and then crawling over it. There were better ways to do this-but this was what had been done. At least it meant the shaft-at least the first bit, wasn't the kind of thing that made a lot of noise as you crawled inside it.