Monument (novel)

19

Admiral Ernst Dallman stood at the window, as he had so often since Wembling gave him office space in this completed wing of the resort, and stared at the specks of color on the horizon. They were native hunting boats, and he kept a pair of binoculars at hand to use when he wanted to study them.

His intercom rasped, “The Spolon has landed, sir. Captain Protz is on his way down.”

Dallman thanked the intercom over his shoulder and reflected again that he would have to fire the young man who served as desk ensign. He had tested well, but with each passing day he sounded more raspy. Such an unpleasant voice, abruptly intruding upon a commanding officer’s most intimate thoughts, could reduce his efficiency by fifty per cent.

He raised his binoculars and watched the hunting boats until he heard voices in the corridor. The desk ensign asked, “Have a nice leave, sir?” Captain Protz responded, “The usual.” Then Protz entered through the open door and dropped it shut behind him. Dallman stepped to meet him; Protz saluted, and then they touched hands.

“What’s ‘the usual’?” Dallman asked.

“The usual? Oh, you mean—yes. The usual leave. Crowded, with dreary treks to visit relatives.”

Dallman seated himself at his desk and indicated a chair for Protz, and the captain dropped into it wearily. “Well, I did it,” he said. “I planted copies of the treaty and of Vorish’s reports and yours with every opposition politician and with all the major news and political commentary services. I’m not hopeful, though. When I talked with the natives’ attorneys, I found they’d already done something like that. Still—if it’s said often enough, someone might start believing it.”

“Our hitting them with it a second time might possibly convince someone,” Dallman agreed. “Unfortunately, when the explosion comes, if it does come, it’ll be much too late. Have the attorneys run out of ideas? Wembling wasn’t hit with an injunction all the time you were away.”

“They didn’t confide in me. Maybe the natives have run out of money. So that’s why Wembling got so much done. That and his flimsy building techniques. I stopped to watch on the way over. They roll the film on, spray it, and suddenly it’s as solid as metal-the foreman claimed. It still looked like film to me. At this rate, Wembling will be open for business in a few weeks. Still, if some politician has the guts—”

Dallman shook his head soberly. “It’s got to happen now, or he’ll be too late. Look here.”

He went to the window, and Protz joined him there. “See those hunting boats off the point?” Dallman asked.

“What about them?”

“They don’t catch anything. I’ve watched them for hours. Every day they’re there, patiently searching back and forth, but they never catch anything. The natives are starving.”

“Can’t we make Wembling feed them?” Protz asked.

“We still haven’t found a food they can or will eat. They’re a proud people, Protz, and they don’t want handouts. Especially they don’t want handouts from Wembling. The perplexing thing is that they’re so cheerful. They’re confident they have a Plan to blast Wembling and his resort right off the planet.”

“Have you found out what it is?”

Dallman shook his head. “I only hope that when it fails, as it must, they don’t lose their heads and attack us. It’ll be a sad day for the navy if we have to slaughter starving natives to protect the corrupt interests of a Wembling.”

The desk ensign’s voice rasped, “Mr. Wembling is on his way up, sir.”

Protz turned away. “Excuse me. I haven’t unpacked yet.”

“Go ahead,” Dallman said. “I wish I could go somewhere and unpack something.”

Protz dropped the door open and went out. Dallman heard Wembling’s voice outside. “Oh, hello, Captain. Have a nice leave?” And Protz’s answer, “Very nice, thank you.”

Then Wembling entered. “Morning, Ernie.”

“Good morning, Harlow.”

Wembling sauntered up to Dallman’s desk and dropped a folio with a thud. “Here’s more paperwork for you. Come down to the lounge for a drink?”

Dallman absently lifted the folio and set it down again. “Why not?”

The upper levels of the finished wing were used for office space. The lower level served as a lounge for Wembling’s supervisory personnel and the naval officers. Wembling used it as a training school for waitresses, cooks, and bartenders who later would work in the resort. Normally Dallman avoided the place —its dim interior was always crowded with off-duty personnel, and the strumming, whining music sometimes was so loud that he could feel the beat in his office two levels above.

But when Wembling entered, the volume of sound was turned down instantly, and the lights were turned up. The hostess dashed out to greet them and signaled a waitress, and when they reached their favorite table—hurriedly evacuated for their use—the waitress was waiting with their favorite drinks. Dallman seated himself; Wembling captured the waitress’ arm and remained standing.

“Ernie!” he exclaimed. “You didn’t notice! The uniforms camel How do you like this one?”

He turned the waitress around, posing her. To Dallman the uniform looked like a few spangles and frills without a costume, but he made no comment.

Wembling released the waitress and pounced on another who was passing by. “Just a moment, Farica. How do you like this one, Ernie? I can’t make up my mind.”

To Dallman it looked like the same costume with a different arrangement of frills. Wembling posed the second waitress, he extremely serious, she giggling. Finally he seated himself and looked after her as she walked away.

“You’re going to have several lounges and dining rooms,” Dallman said. “Why don’t you put a different costume in each one?”

“Hey—why didn’t I think of that?”

They sipped their drinks in silence, and Dallman, looking through a gap in the heavy draperies, watched the specks of color on the horizon: starving natives, searching the waters with heroic patience for food that long since had been driven elsewhere.

Wembling set his tumbler down and raised two fingers. The waitress was waiting for the signal, and she rushed over with fresh drinks.

“Trouble this morning on Site Four, Ernie,” Wembling said. “The usual—native sneaked in and stopped the work. Can’t you put more sentries there?”

Dallman shook his head. “I just don’t have enough men.”

“The puggards are changing their tactics—now they don’t lie down and wait to be carried away. They run about and make the work force catch them. This one held up work for half an hour. Can’t you give me more sentry posts there?”

Dallman shook his head again. “No. Can’t be done.”

“You’re doing a fine job, Ernie. I’m putting in a good word for you at Naval Headquarters. But go down to Site Four this afternoon, like a good fellow, and see why the natives keep breaking in there.”

“Why are you scattering those stupid golf courses all over Langri?” Dallman asked. “If you’d keep your operations in one place, I could look after you properly.”

“Politics and the law,” Wembling said, grinning at him slyly. “Stay away from them, Ernie. You have superior brains and talent, but it isn’t that kind of brains and talent.”

Dallman shrugged good-naturedly and said nothing, though he was reflecting that the galaxy would be a far better place if even fewer people had that kind of brains and talent. The hunting boats were tacking toward shore, and he could make out the black lines of the boats beneath the sails.

Wembling said suddenly, “By the way—whatever happened to Commander Vorish?”

“The last I heard, he’d been promoted to captain, and he was taking the Hiln on training maneuvers.”

“You mean—they didn’t fire him?”

It was Dallman’s turn to grin slyly. “They investigated him, and then they handed him a commendation for handling himself well in a difficult situation. My assumption is that the trumped-up charge would have resulted in more publicity than certain persons thought desirable, so Vorish was patted on the head and told to forget it. I could be wrong about that—I don’t know anything about politics and law. Did you want him fired?”

Wembling looked startled. “I? Certainly not. I had no grudge against him. There’s no profit in grudges. We both had jobs to do, but he went at his in the wrong way. If they kicked him out, I’d have offered him a job. He was a good man, and he understood these natives, and I can use someone like that. I’m going to have a huge enterprise here, and I’ll need all the good men I can get. If you ever leave the navy, Ernie, come back to Langri. I’ll have a place for you.”

“Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

Wembling finished his drink, slapped the table with both hands, and pushed himself to his feet. “Come down to Site Four with me this afternoon?”

“I have a full schedule, but I’ll send someone.”

Wembling nodded and waddled away. Dallman nursed his drink for a time and watched the tacking hunting boats. The music became louder the moment Wembling left, and the dancing that accompanied it became disconcertingly frenzied, and finally he fled back to his office.

Again he stood at the window watching the hunting boats. For half a day he had been trying to decide what to do about a joint report submitted to him by Aric Hort and Talitha Warr. It detailed the mortality rate at each native village during the past month, with an attested statement from Wembling’s own doctor concerning the natives’ physical condition. It also contained a bleak forecast concerning future mortality. The report was a model of its kind—detached, concise, and bristling with verifiable facts, and if, as he had done with their previous reports, he forwarded it to headquarters with a covering letter pointing out that Wembling’s resort project was exterminating the natives, headquarters would file it without comment.

Headquarters undoubtedly wished that he would cease and desist, but it dared not complain. His orders made him responsible for the welfare of the natives and the protection of Wembling’s rights under his charter, and there was no provision for the possibility that these two responsibilities would be irreconcilable.

Somewhere in the upper strata of political power, there were persons who had conspired with Wembling to violate a treaty solemnly entered into by their government, and if they knew about Dallman’s dilemma they would be badly frightened. They would exert all of their influence to consign such reports to the file and keep them there, and they would willingly allow an entire people to die because they could not save them without revealing their complicity in a vile conspiracy. In the end the fermenting scandal would explode anyway, and everyone concerned would be destroyed except Wembling.

That would come much too late to help the natives.

Dallman’s problem was to send the report where it would be studied and acted upon, and if such a place existed, no one he had consulted knew where it was.

Finally he gave it up and attacked the pile of work on his desk.

It was mid-afternoon when he became aware of the vibrating roar and whistle of a spaceship in landing approach. At first he scowled irritably, and then he sprang for the window. The shrieking roar shook the building as the ship passed close overhead. Dallman caught only a glimpse of it, and he turned and raced for the door.

The white-faced duty ensign was looking out from under his desk. He scrambled to his feet in embarrassment and asked, “What was it, sir?”

Dallman ran past him without speaking. Outside the building, several construction workers were climbing out from under a machine. A driver was still hiding under Wembling’s conveyance. Dallman hauled him out and had himself driven at top speed to the landing field.

Captain Protz was standing at the top of his ship’s ramp, angrily staring into the distance. Dallman called to him, “Where did it land?”

“Off in the forest somewhere,” Protz said. His face was flushed with anger. “What idiot was it?”

“I don’t know. Suppose we try finding out.”

“When we do, I want the captain’s license. He came in without clearance, he violated every landing procedure on the list, and then he missed the field by at least twenty kilometers.”

Their investigation lasted all of five minutes and produced two negatives: the ship was not a naval craft, and Wembling’s supply chief disclaimed any knowledge of it—he had no ships due. In the meantime, a reconocopter was taking the tops out of trees back in the area where the ship was presumed to have come down. The pilot saw no trace of it.

“This can only mean one thing,” Dallman said. “The natives have visitors.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I think that landing approach was neither inept nor accidental. It was done deliberately, to avoid any chance of an interception. The natives probably have the ship thoroughly hidden by now, which means that neither a reconocopter nor a ground search would have a chance in a million of finding it.”

“A ground search is out anyway,” Protz said. “I wouldn’t order men into that forest. Anyway, I don’t suppose there’s a portable detector on Langri.”

“I certainly don’t know of any.”

“What possible business would an outsider have with the natives?”

“How about smuggling arms?” Dallman suggested.

Protz groaned. “In that case, we’ll have to make a ground search. But even if we found the ship, the arms would be unloaded and hidden.”

“If they attack us, we’ll have to smash them,” Dallman said despondently. “I’d hoped I could get through this assignment without a shot fired at the natives. I’d much rather shoot Wembling.”