Monument (novel)

12

In the background stood the geodesic frameworks for the clusters of small domes that were to constitute the medical center. A machine was at work leveling the top of the bluff on which the building was being erected. Talitha Warr strode about confidently, giving instructions; the foreman followed her, and Dalla followed the foreman, and both listened attentively.

“A sturdy wall,” Talitha said. “We don’t want anyone falling over the edge. Resident patients can come here and enjoy the breeze and the sea view.”

The foreman scowled and scratched his bead. “Resident patients? The plans don’t call for no hospital accommodations.”

“The hospital will be at the rear of the medical center,” Talitha said. “As much as possible we’ll keep the patients in native-style buildings. They’ll be more comfortable in familiar surroundings. The center will house the various treatment and surgical and laboratory clinics.”

“I see.”

“Back there we’ll put the children’s playground,” Talitha said, pointing. “Over here I want a formal park laid out, with a fountain and the most attractive Langrian flowers and shrubs we can find. Now—about the road down to the beach. I want the grade as easy as possible. Sick patients will have to climb it, or their friends will have to carry them up. I’d like to have a lift for them, but I’m afraid it’d be too expensive.”

“Doesn’t have to be,” the foreman said. “We can cobble up something for you.”

Talitha shook her head firmly. “Uncle offered me a platform pulled up by ropes and pulleys and things, and I turned it down. I’m not having my patients falling out of a lift. Let’s just concentrate on making that road with the easiest grade possible.”

Aric Hort and the Elder stood at the edge of the forest looking down at the medical center construction site and the lovely sweep of sea and shore beyond it. Hort lowered his binoculars. “Miss Warr is firmly in charge,” he said. “They seem to be making good progress. It’ll be an attractive building. I’m relieved about that—I was afraid they’d put up more of those hideous prefabs.”

The Elder said nothing. Hort looked at him for a moment and then he raised his binoculars again. “So Dalla is going to study nursing,” he remarked.

“Miss Warr will teach her,” the Elder said. “It’s all right, isn’t it?”

“Of course. Hard to argue against health care and medical centers and the like, even when Wembling is importing a thousand times the supplies and materials the medical center will require. Has the council bothered to look at the landing field lately? The cargo holders are piled eight high and eight deep all along one side of the field.”

“Narrif says he is tired of senseless complaints about the ambassador.”

“That’s unfortunate. They ought to have some notion of what a small building like the medical center requires. At a guess, ten cargo holders, and someone ought to ask the ambassador what he intends to do with the other six hundred. Let’s hope that Fornri and the attorneys will be ready to act the moment the council’s eyes are opened.”

“Narrif feels that the attorneys aren’t necessary. He talks of preventing Fornri from using Langri’s money to pay them.”

“Narrif is getting suspiciously friendly with the ambassador,” Hort said. “I’ve noticed that he calls at the embassy every day.”

“I, too, have noticed that.”

The two men seated themselves on the broad trunk of a fallen tree, and Hort continued to study the medical center site with his binoculars.

“I’ve noticed that Narrif is courting Dalla,” Hort said. “Has she had a change of desire?”

The Elder smiled. “I think her desire will always be Fornri’s.”

“Too bad she didn’t realize that before he left. Her turning against him hurt most of all.”

“She did realize it,” the Elder said. “She came to the ship. Perhaps she would have spoken to him if he’d been alone, but because we were with him she held back until it was too late. I saw her weeping in the forest above the landing field after the ship left.” He paused. “She asked about him yesterday.”

“By strange coincidence, so did Wembling. He hasn’t quite figured out what’s happening, but he’s highly suspicious. We were wise to tell Fornri not to send any messages. Wembling passes my mail along to me, but he opens it first.”

“Are you comfortable living alone in the forest?” the Elder asked anxiously. “Any village would be honored to be your host.”

“Thank you, but I’m very comfortable. It gives me a sense of achievement, living in a dwelling I built myself—even if I never did get the walls woven right.”

“You could have built your own dwelling in one of the villages.”

“True, but I think I’m more useful where I am. I’m close enough to Wembling’s iniquities to keep track of them, but not so close that he’ll think me a nuisance. You can tell Dalla that we’re confident Fornri’s all right. My friend will look after him. What worries me is that Wembling may have his resort built and in operation before Fornri can get an appointment with the attorneys.”

Hirus Ayns returned on one of Wembling and Company’s freighters, and Wembling was waiting for him when he came down the ramp. He grabbed his hand anxiously and asked, “Well?”

“No problems,” Ayns said. “I have your charter.”

“I was getting worried.”

“I told you it would take time, and you told me not to communicate.”

“I know—any kind of a leak would have crimped the whole show. But I’ve got a fortune stacked up here, and if the natives had decided to confiscate the stuff I wouldn’t have had a legal leg to stand on. You really got it?”

Ayns grinned and handed the document to him. Wembling read it eagerly. Then he turned and shouted, “It’s all right. Break out the machines and let’s get going.” He turned back to Ayns. “What about the rest of my work force?”

“The ship should get in day after tomorrow.”

“Good. Now we can stop this dratted acting and get to work.”

Workers were removing tarps from the long rows of enormous cargo holders. At one end they pulled off dummy facings and removed blocks from the concealed construction machines. The first motor whirred, and an earth planer crept ponderously across the landing field. Others followed. The surveying crew was bustling about locating its hidden stakes and replacing them with visible ones. Wembling, watching with deep satisfaction, saw the first machine take its first deep bite of Langrian soil.

Dalla had been going from village to village talking about the medical center and recruiting young people to study nursing there. It was Miss Warr’s idea that every village should have its own trained nurses.

Narrif offered to take her. He found a crew of boys willing to serve as paddlers, and they went down the coast by boat, stopping at every village. Then at dusk, when they reached the last village she planned to visit that day, he sent the boat back without telling her; and when she had finished he suggested that they walk.

She knew his wish—that they should go to a Bower Hill for the night—and she declined firmly. He had asked her often since Fornri left, but even had her desire changed, she could not have consented because she had not offered Fornri the broken branch. She had no intention of doing so—if the broken branch came between them, it would have to be his offering—but Narrif thought she had not offered it because Fornri left suddenly, and he tried to convince her that the offering was no longer necessary.

He followed her through the forest, arguing angrily and telling her that Fornri had fled like a coward because the council had refused his leadership. He was still making surly remarks as they passed along a forest path near the embassy, and a sudden awareness of strange sounds silenced him and halted both of them.

They turned aside, and—very cautiously, because the sounds were frighteningly strange—they made their way to the edge of the forest, parted the foliage, and looked out.

Between them and the sea the land had been carved with hideous slashes. There were strangely shaped monsters tearing at it, and others were smashing and devouring the trees. Near the beach stood a row of strange dwellings like those of the embassy, and while they watched a flat object suddenly flung up walls and roof and became another dwelling.

Staring down at the appalling devastation, frightened, angry, Dalla exclaimed, “Fornri was right! The ambassador is the enemy!”