Monument (novel)

6

Young Mr. Yorlon was purring landing data into the courier ship’s intercom. Talitha Warr listened with a half-smile as she worked on an unruly lock of hair. The performance was exclusively for her benefit, since she was the only passenger aboard; but then, the purser had been purring for her ever since she took passage, and the only difference now was the desperate note of sadness in his voice.

“World of Langri in fifty seconds, Miss Warr. Surface temperature, twenty-six; humidity, fifty-one; gravity, ninety-four per cent normal; atmosphere, twenty-four per cent oxygen. World of Langri in thirty seconds—”

She said, “Drat it,” stepped around the pile of luggage in the center of her cramped passage quarters, and threw herself into the cushioned landing chair. The warning light was already on; at her elbow, her diffracto softly played music that matched Mr. Yorlon’s mood. She despised it, but she was too preoccupied with dressing to change the grating.

Mr. Yorlon’s voice purred on. “Landing in ten seconds; landing!”

The ship settled to ground with a gentle lurch that produced a squalk from the diffracto. The warning light faded. Talitha bounded back to her mirror and resumed the fussing with her hair. Finally she switched the mirror to full length and stepped back to inspect herself: immaculately gowned, tiara in place, coiffure elegantly sculpted except for the one dratted lock.

The gong sounded, and the intercom crackled again. This time it was the captain. “Clear for disembarking, Miss Warr.”

She moved closer to the mirror for a last try at that hair. “Thank you, Captain. I’ll be ready in a moment.”

Finally satisfied, she retracted the mirror, closed the diffracto and placed it with her other luggage, and picked up a wrap. The captain was waiting outside her door. His greeting was a wide-eyed stare, but she thought nothing of that. She was quite accustomed to being stared at.

“Ready to disembark?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you.”

She handed her wrap to him, and he helped her into it. Then she moved along the corridor toward the airlock. Up ahead, a door dropped open. Two eyes surmounted by a bald head peered out at her. The purring, lovesick Mr. Yorlon was memorizing her for his garden of regrets. She decided that the kindest thing she could do would be to ignore him. She said over her shoulder, “Is the limousine here? I told Mr. Yorlon to ask the embassy to send one.”

“Limousine?” the captain exclaimed. “There aren’t any ground vehicles on Langri. Anyway, the landing field is the embassy’s back yard.”

“No ground vehicles? How do they get about?”

“By boat, mostly.”

“You mean—it’s a water world?”

The captain did not answer. They had reached the airlock. He handed her through, and the two of them stood at the top of the ship’s ramp while she looked about her in consternation. “This—this is the world of Langri?”

A cluster of shoddy prefab buildings stood on a rise at the end of the landing field. They looked as though they’d been dumped wherever a machine tired of carrying them. They stood, or floated, in an undulating sea of flowers. The gigantic, vividly colored blooms, along with the fantastic colors of the surrounding forest, made the view breathtaking despite the blight imposed on the scene by the buildings.

She could not comprehend, let alone believe. She looked again at the shoddy prefabs the captain had called the embassy. “You mean—Uncle Harlow is ambassador—to that?”

The captain regarded her with amusement. “The citizens of Langri offered to build an embassy for him, but your uncle was afraid his status would suffer. Native buildings are made of woven grass.”

“But—” Again she looked about her bewilderedly. “But— where’s the capital city?”

“There aren’t any cities,” the captain said. “Just native villages with grass huts.”

Talitha burst into laughter. She still hadn’t grasped what had happened, but she knew that the joke was on her—and no wonder the captain had stared at her, attired in the latest soiree gown to land in a wilderness! “I came because I thought Uncle would need a hostess,” she gasped. “I brought a special wardrobe for the embassy receptions and soirees and dinners. I spent all my savings on it. And look!”

She moved down the ramp a short distance. “It is beautiful,” she said.

She walked to the bottom of the ramp and looked about her. The tossing, floating flowers seemed to beckon, and suddenly she broke into a run. Gown flapping, coiffure completely forgotten, she dashed buoyantly through the flowers, and as she ran she reached out and snatched a handful. Then, glancing down at them, she came to an abrupt halt. They had wilted in her hand and turned brown. She puzzled over this, and finally she plucked another flower and watched its glistening petals fade as though she were holding a flame to them. She dropped it and thoughtfully walked toward the buildings.

They were connected by muddy paths, and paths led away from them in several directions, one of them curving toward the beach. The ocean had not been visible from the landing field; from the hilltop it could be seen spanning the horizon, a shimmering, sparkling, incredibly lovely blue-green sea under a blue-green sky.

She looked into the buildings. One contained a communications center and offices. Three were divided into sleeping quarters. One had a dining room, library, and game room. One was a storage building. All were as immaculately clean and tidy as a properly programmed housekeeper could make them, and all of them were deserted. As she examined them, she had the panicky sensation of trying to convince herself that this world of Langri was in fact inhabited.

Finally she returned to the building with the offices, and a short time later the ship’s captain dropped the door open and came in swinging a mail pouch. He tossed it onto a desk and took another from its hook by the door.

“Your luggage is on the way,” he told Talitha. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Prove to me that someone lives on this stupid world.”

He stepped to the window and pointed. On the watery horizon she could just make out specks of color. “Native hunting boats,” the captain said. “Can you see the sails? The creatures they catch are the most hideous monsters imaginable, and one of them completely fills a boat.” He grinned at her. “Great place, Langri. You’ll have a wonderful time here.”

“Doing what?” she demanded scornfully.

“Swimming, playing games with the natives—go have a look at that beach.”

They turned as three perspiring crewmen entered with Talitha’s luggage. The captain picked up his mail pouch and started for the door, and the crewmen awkwardly moved aside for him.

“I’m tempted to leave with you,” Talitha said.

“Nonsense. Have a nice vacation, like everyone else on Langri. Then if you want to leave, I’ll be back in two or three months.”

He nodded, smiled, and went out swinging the pouch.

The crewmen were still holding her luggage. “Please excuse me,” she said. “Just set everything down here. I don’t know where my quarters will be. Thank you. It’s a warm day for carrying loads.”

One of them said bitterly, “I don’t know what the blasted hurry is. We’re never on schedule anyway, and I could do with a swim.”

They nodded at her and went out. She hesitated for a moment, and then she followed them and stood watching the ship. The supplies had been stacked haphazardly just beyond the ship’s landing perimeter. The captain had been willing to deliver luggage for a lady in distress, but obviously he would not transport supplies a centimeter farther than was absolutely necessary for an embassy staff that did nothing but swim and play games with the natives. She watched the ship until it lifted, and then, feeling very lonely, she returned to the embassy.

But she did not go inside. After a moment’s hesitation she chose the path to the beach, walked for a short distance along the water’s edge, and retraced her steps. Another path led from the buildings across a flower-spangled meadow to the magnificently colored forest. She hesitated once more, and then she shrugged and followed it. Crossing the meadow, she stooped over to look closely at the strangely fragile flowers. Her breath was even more corrosive than her touch—it blackened them instantly. She straightened up in consternation and walked on.

Not until she found the trees looming directly in front of her did she pause. The path obviously was not much used. The forest seemed very dark.

Off to her right, a flash of color caught her attention. She hurried to it and leaned over it in utter fascination. It was the most magnificent flower she had ever seen. Instinctively she stretched out her hand—and the flower ran off, scurrying over blossoms, leaping from leaf to leaf, and finally dropping to the ground and disappearing into the long vegetation.

As she stared after it, Talitha was vaguely aware of a slight movement above her head. Before she could move, before she had time even to feel alarmed, a cluster of wreathing vines fell upon her. In an instant they swarmed over her and began to tighten. She screamed and clawed at them, but almost before she could struggle they whipped away, twisting and threshing, and slowly began to hoist back into the brilliant canopy of leaves. She staggered backward. Her bare arms were laced with networks of tiny blood spots where the vines had seized her. Otherwise, she seemed unharmed. Panting, she stared up at the tree, which held numerous clusters of vines poised for dropping on the unwary.

Then she noticed that the forest floor under the tree was thickly strewn with the skeletal structures of small animals. She screamed again, louder. Pounding footsteps approached her, and a man burst from the forest. He was heavily bearded, his skin beautifully bronzed by the sun, and he wore only a loincloth. She immediately took him for a native. While she stared at him, he was looking about for the cause of her scream. Then he noticed her costume and stared at her with a rare frankness.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“The vines,” she said, pointing. “They grabbed me.”

“And then they ungrabbed you. Look.”

The vines were still wreathing just overhead, and he strode forward and deliberately extended a hand toward them. They retreated, threshing violently.

“Humans are poisonous to it, and to all the other insidious life forms on the planet,” he said. “For which we all offer thanks daily. Actually, it knows better than to attack humans, but your gown and light complexion probably fooled it. Come back in a couple of weeks, when you’ve got yourself a good coat of tan, and it won’t pay any attention to you.” He paused, looking at her with puzzled admiration. “Going to a party, or something?”

Talitha burst into laughter. “It must seem like an odd costume for exploring!”

He spoke very seriously. “Don’t do that. Not in any costume. It’s a lovely world, but it can be deadly. Excuse me. Things are rather informal on Langri. I’m Aric Hort. I’m an anthropologist. I’m supposed to be studying the natives, but I don’t make much progress because they’d rather I didn’t.”

“I’m Talitha Warr,” she said. “My uncle is ambassador to this place, or so he said, and I decided to pay him a surprise visit. Thus far I’m the one surprised.”

“Better wait for your uncle at the embassy. I’ll walk back with you.”

She said stiffly, “I’m sure I can find the way myself.”

“I’m sure you can, and I can’t think of any danger you might encounter along the way, but I’ll go with you anyway.”

He took her arm firmly and turned her toward the embassy, and they walked side by side through the flower-clustered meadow.

“What’s so deadly about Langri?” she asked him.

“The world isn’t compatible with humans. The first colonists must have had a horrible struggle for survival, because there’s so little here that humans can eat. In compensation, there’s nothing here that wants to eat us, but there are a number of things that can cause unpleasant sickness or death.”

She reached out and plucked a flower and watched it turn brown. “Then the flowers are allergic to humans?”

“Some are. Some the natives can wear as ornaments. Some are poisonous to everything that comes near them. Better not touch anything at all without asking first.”

“What’s Uncle Harlow doing in a place like this?”

“Playing ambassador,” he answered indifferently.

“That doesn’t sound at all like him. He’s a dear, and he can move mountains, but usually he won’t stir a muscle until he counts the profit.”

“Being able to put the word ‘ambassador’ in front of one’s name is a kind of profit,” Hort said.

“I suppose, but it still doesn’t sound like Uncle Harlow.”

They were approaching the embassy buildings. Hort touched her arm and pointed, and she saw her uncle approaching from another direction. He seemed to be leading an army, but she quickly picked out familiar faces: Hirus Ayns, her uncle’s executive assistant, and two of her uncle’s secretaries. Ayns had noticed her. He spoke to Wembling, who turned. His mouth dropped open. Then he bellowed, “Talitha!”

She dashed into his arms. A moment of ponderous embrace, and then she backed off and looked at him. “Uncle Harlow!” she exclaimed. “You look wonderful! You’ve lost weight, and what a marvelous tan you have!”

“You’re looking pretty good yourself, Tal. But you’re supposed to be in medical school. Vacation time?”

She ignored the question. “I thought I’d find you lording it over a big embassy staff in some glamorous world capital. What are you doing here?”

He glanced over his shoulder at the natives, and then he drew her aside and spoke quietly. “Frankly, I’m working on the biggest deal of my life. I fell into this appointment, and if I use it properly—” He broke off. “Why aren’t you in medical school?” he asked sternly.

“Because I quit. I wanted to help suffering humanity. Know what they were making of me? A computer technician.”

“Medical computation is a damned good job,” he said. “Good pay, and you can always— Look here. Wemblings don’t quit. I’m sending you back on the next ship.”

He stomped away. The natives and his staff respectfully fell in behind him. No one looked back, but she shouted after him furiously, “You won’t have to! I’m leaving on the next ship!”

She glared at Aric Hort, who was looking on innocently. “I like that. The nerve!”

She flounced toward the nearest building, dropped a door open, entered, and dropped it closed again, leaving him staring blankly after her.