Monument (novel)

24

The paradise world of Langri still looked hideously scarred, but it was healing. The resort buildings were gone. A solitary freighter stood on the landing field, and a machine was carrying the last of the salvage to it, a mammoth scoopload at a time. Freighters loading salvage had become such a familiar sight that Talitha Warr passed it without a glance.

The resort’s vast terrace, designed for thousands of tourists to cavort in oceanside pools, was now bare of its expensive imported tiling, and the Langrian flowers were rapidly restoring it to its pristine integrity. Standing on the beach below the terrace, viewing the sparkling Langrian ocean under the late afternoon sun, was a solitary figure: H. Harlow Wembling. Talitha approached him timidly.

He turned his head when he heard the crunch of her steps on the sand. Then he looked away. His voice was flatly expressionless. “You’re going to stay, then?”

“The government of Langri has invited us to stay. Aric and I are being married tomorrow, in a double ceremony with Fornri and Dalla. Would you like to come?”

“No—no, thank you,” Wembling said quickly. “I already told Fornri that I’d finish loading the salvage this evening and leave at once.” He paused a moment, and then he muttered half to himself, “What a waste! What a place for a resort!”

A group of natives carrying logs approached them along the beach. They placed the logs carefully, laying out fires for a festival. Then they grinned at Talitha and left. Now that the koluf were returning to the feeding grounds, they had shaken off the horrible grip of malnutrition, but food alone could not account for their transformed appearance. They were happy.

Wembling had watched them gloomily. “Getting ready for the wedding celebration?” he asked.

“No. That’ll take place at the Elder’s village. This is tor a special feast tonight. The natives are celebrating getting their world back.”

More natives came with logs. Wembling ignored them and stood looking out to sea again. “Well, Tal—you’re old enough to know what you want to do, and I wish you well.”

“I’m sorry we ended up on opposite sides, Uncle Harlow, but I had no choice.”

“That’s all right, Tal. This won’t ruin me. But what a waste this is—what a place for a resort!”

The purring whine of the machine cut off abruptly. Hirus Ayns came hurrying down the slope from the landing field. “We’ve loaded everything worth loading,” he said. “I think the natives are anxious for us to leave.”

“I told Fornri we’d go this evening. We don’t have to run away.”

“If you want a frank opinion,” Ayns said, “I think we do.”

Wembling and Talitha turned and looked toward the landing field. A good portion of the population of Langri was gathering for the festival, and evidently the natives considered the departure of Wembling’s last ship the ideal beginning for their celebration. Instead of assembling where the festival was to take place, they were crowding the landing field to watch the ship leave. They had completely surrounded it except for a single lane that had opened to make way for the salvage machine, now being loaded.

“There’s a festival tonight,” Talitha told Ayns. “They’ve come to take part in it.”

“Let’s not make them delay it on account of us,” Ayns said. “They might decide to have us provide the entertainment.”

“Nonsense!” Talitha snapped; but Ayns obviously was frightened. He started back toward the ship.

“He has a point,” Wembling said. “I’ve nothing to gain from hanging around here.” He turned. “Good-by, Tal.”

Impulsively she kissed him. Then, as he walked quickly toward the ship, she went looking for Aric Hort. The two of them stood apart from the natives, arm in arm, to watch Wembling’s departure.

Ayns already had reached the crowd of smiling natives. He glanced uneasily from side to side as he started up the lane toward the ship. Wembling also was becoming uneasy. He had increased his pace and was overtaking Ayns. Somehow the two of them read malice into the smiling faces that surrounded them, and they broke into a panicky run. Panting, they reached the ramp and scrambled up. Ayns disappeared into the ship. Wembling, breathing heavily, turned at the top of the ramp and looked down on the natives.

Fornri and Dalla stood at the foot of the ramp. They, too, were smiling happily, and Fornri gave Wembling the native salute.

“Well, Fornri,” Wembling panted. “No hard feelings, I hope. I tried to do my best for your people, you know. The resort would have been a splendid asset for you. Your ten per cent—”

The smiles had broadened. Wembling paused for breath, and then he said stiffly, “I’m grateful for the opportunity to salvage the building materials, and I thank you.”

“And we thank you for the medical center,” Fornri called back to him.

“You’re welcome. Sorry you couldn’t see it my way. It’s such a waste. Why not let us find a stretch of coast where a resort won’t interfere with your hunting?”

Fornri did not answer.

“I’ll give you twenty per cent of the profits,” Wembling said.

He paused and craftily surveyed the faces below him. Ayns had reappeared in the ship’s open hatch, and he was looking out curiously.

“Thirty per cent,” Wembling said. He paused again and looked about him. “Fifty per cent.”

Ayns’s mouth dropped open in consternation. Leaning toward Fornri, Wembling called down to him, and the note of pleading desperation in his voice was entirely out of character. “I’ll make you rich!”

“We already are rich,” Fornri replied.

Wembling turned away. A moment later the hatch closed, the ramp raised, and the natives slowly drew back from the ship. It lifted, and the wild dance of celebration began.

The fires had been lighted, the music had begun, and as Hort and Talitha walked toward the beach, Fornri and Dalla overtook them. Talitha and Dalla embraced happily, and Fornri drew Hort aside and talked seriously with him for a moment.

Hort turned to Talitha. “Guess what—Fornri has a job for us. He wants us to have a look at a certain wrecked spaceship. I had to tell him we found it ourselves.”

“Yes. We found it,” Talitha said. “We decided it would be best if we pretended we didn’t know about it.”

The dance lines were leaving the beach to snake through the former construction site. Torches waved everywhere, and the natives were pulling apart the scraps of unsalvageable material left by Wembling.

“What are they doing?” Hort asked.

“We are planning our new capital city,” Fornri said. “Mr. Wembling kindly cleared the ground, and now we’ll build it the way we want it. They are marking the places for streets and buildings. And parks—we will have many parks.”

“Yes. Well—we found the wrecked ship, and we looked through it. It was extremely interesting.”

“Have you read the logbook?” Talitha asked eagerly.

“They couldn’t,” Hort said. “Not in that script. They wouldn’t even be able to figure out what it was.”

They were walking slowly toward the celebration. “I wonder if you and your people are aware of what a great man Cerne Obrien was,” Hort said. “’Genius’ is something of an understatement for him, considering what he did. I suppose in time you’ll have buildings and villages and streets and parks named Obrien, but he deserves a really important monument. You should give some thought to that.”

Fornri and Dalla were regarding them perplexedly.

“They probably didn’t know a world could be named after a man,” Talitha said. “What a shame.”

Hort nodded his agreement. Then he exclaimed, “Look!”

They were close enough, now, to see what the dancers were doing. They had lettered signs on the scraps of building material, and they were marking off their new capital city—a city planned by dancing. The signs floated past on the way to their destinations: LANGRI UNIVERSITY; LANGRI BOULEVARD; CONGRESS OF THE WORLD OF LANGRI; LANGRI BOTANICAL GARDENS; GOVERNMENT OF LANGRI, ADMINISTRATIVE BRANCH; LANGRI WORLD LIBRARY.

Hort turned again to Fornri and Dalla. “It is a shame. Too late to change it now, but you should have named your world ‘Obrien.’ ”

Again Fornri and Dalla exchanged bewildered glances.

“Obrien?” Fornri asked blankly. “Who is Obrien?”