Monument (novel)

8

She swam in the gentle surf, she lounged on the beach, and sometimes she flirted mischievously with an unlikely-looking animal that eyed her warily from the forest or, at dusk, scurried along the water’s edge on scavenger patrol. Dusk came too soon on this world of Langri, and no one lay abed mornings because the dawn touched the bulging clouds with a drama of color to set in motion a renewed procession of ever changing facets of beauty.

The beach sand was the finest she had ever seen. She poured it, powderlike, from one hand to another, and to her amazement she saw that it, too, was composed of myriad grains of color. The sun, warming but never burning, so relaxed her that she had to will herself not to sleep.

She rarely saw Aric Hort. His days were filled with teaching and learning, and on the infrequent occasions when they met she could not refrain from mocking his preoccupation with Langrian trivialities. The things that elated him—that an elderly native accidentally revealed a memory of a time when there were no metal spear points, or his new theory that the poor quality of clay was as much responsible for the absence of pottery on Langri as were the easily available multitudes of gourds, or the list of a hundred and seventeen words that proved some kind of interworld contacts for the natives no more than seventy years before—Talitha failed to see anything universe-shattering about such discoveries.

But as time passed, and Langri’s beauty became cloying, even a Langrian triviality eased her boredom somewhat, and she occasionally accepted Hort’s invitation to look at something or other that he found remarkable.

Returning from swimming one day, she stopped at the embassy’s office and found her uncle talking guardedly with Hirus Ayns. She would have withdrawn without disturbing them, but her uncle waved and invited her in.

“Well, Tal,” he said, “you seem to be keeping busy.”

“I’m keeping busy the way a tourist keeps busy,” she said bitterly. “The beach until it gets boring, and then sightseeing until I can’t stand that any longer. Tomorrow Aric is taking me to see some gourds that are supposed to be fascinating. Dangerous trip, that—into the forest. Tomorrow night we’re to be entertained and fed by the natives, songs and dances, gourmet dishes that will make me sick because I’ve seen what they’re made of, everything certified authentic and uncorrupted. It reminds me of that vacation I took on Mallorr. I didn’t like it there, either.”

“The natives’ food will make you forget what you saw, and their dancing and singing are lovely.” Wembling strode to the window and looked out absently. Obviously he had a few problems of his own to cope with, so she said nothing more to him. “The natives are a fine people,” he announced finally, “but I wish they weren’t so confounded stubborn. I think maybe I ought to fire Hort—really fire him. He encourages them.”

He served himself a smoke capsule, exhaled a cloud of lavender smoke, and started for the door. “I’ll see if Sela has those messages transcribed,” he said to Ayns.

Talitha looked after him affectionately. “Poor Uncle. The biggest deal of his life, and the stupid natives won’t cooperate. By the way, what is this big deal?”

Ayns eyed her calculatingly. When she was younger, that look had disturbed her; but now she knew that he eyed everyone calculatingly. “Ambassador to Binoris,” he said.

She straightened up in astonishment. “Wow! That’s quite a deal! How does an ambassador get promoted from a nothing world like this to the most important independent world in the galaxy?”

Ayns leaned back, transferred his gaze to the ceiling, and spoke meditatively. “It’s tricky. For that matter, getting appointed ambassador to anything is tricky these days. We fell into this, so the question is what we can make of it.”

“I knew Uncle wasn’t just ‘playing ambassador.’ ”

Ayns nodded. “We’ve got the political pull, but that isn’t enough, not in the diplomatic service, certainly not for a choice appointment like Binoris. We’ve got to make a sensational record here, and we have less than two years to do it. The ambassador to Binoris retires next year.”

“Ah! So that’s why the drainage ditches and the rafts.”

Ayns nodded again. “We have to transform this world and make vital improvements in the people’s living standard, and we have to do it in ways that make good copy for the diplomatic press. We have very little time. And the natives give us no cooperation whatsoever.”

“But what a prize if you can bring it off!” Talitha enthused. “High-class society, the arts—”

“Nonsense!” Ayns scowled at her. “Binoris has huge mineral reserves, and no one is in a better position to influence mining concessions than the Federation ambassador. The appointment is worth a minimum hundred million a year.”

Wembling returned carrying a sheaf of papers, and Talitha said sympathetically, “Poor Uncle! So much at stake and the natives won’t cooperate. Haven’t they accepted any of your suggestions?”

He sputtered indignantly. “Of course they have! Haven’t you seen my ferries? Solved their river-crossing problems—like that. Come on. I’ll show you.”

He rushed her out of the building and across the flower-choked meadow toward the forest. At first she was too startled to protest, but when she found herself dashing along a forest path she began to eye the trees uneasily, looking for clusters of vines. “How far is it?” she panted.

Her uncle did not even break stride. “Another kilometer or two.”

“So what’s the hurry?” she demanded. “It’ll still be there if we walk, won’t it?”

He slowed his pace, and they moved along the meandering forest path at a fast walk. It ended at a riverbank, where Wembling turned, beaming with pride, to study her reaction.

Nearby was a native boat, and at each end was an inverted V over an overhead rope. Other ropes were tied to trees on either side of the stream. To cross, one simply pulled on the appropriate rope and coiled it into the boat. The other rope payed out as the boat made its crossing. The overhead rope kept it at the crossing site.

Wembling handed Talitha into the boat, pulled it across the narrow stream, pulled it back again. “Well, what do you think of it?” he demanded.

“It’s very—clever,” she murmured.

“We’ve got them at all the main crossings,” he said. “I’ve had real good publicity on it—action photos made the news transmissions on eight worlds, including Binoris, and—”

He broke off, staring at her. “Tal—you can help me! Pose for some pictures. A picture of this thing with you in it in that bathing costume would make the news transmissions on a hundred worlds. Drat it—I should have brought my camera. What d’ya say?”

She was too indignant to speak. Fortunately Aric Hort called to them from the bank before the silence became embarrassing.

“I wondered where you two were going in such a rush,” he said. “There’s a delegation of natives at the embassy waiting to see the ambassador.”

“That’ll be the official invitation to the festival,” Wembling said. “I’ll have to hurry back.”

Hort helped him out of the boat, and as he scrambled ashore he said, “Give her a ride, Aric, if she wants it. Let her try it out as much as she likes.” He trotted off along the forest path, and a moment later, before either of them had moved, he was back again. “Let her pull the rope herself, Aric.”

“I will,” Hort promised. “Both ways.”

Wembling grinned, nodded, and turned away with a wave of his hand.

“Gracious! Isn’t he proud of it!” Talitha exclaimed.

“Come out of there! Quickly!” Hort snapped.

Startled, she scrambled ashore, and he helped her from the boat and into a place of concealment behind some bushes. An instant later two natives emerged from the forest on the opposite bank. Without breaking stride they walked through the river, which was only waist-deep, and disappeared into the forest.

“Don’t they use it at all?” she asked bewilderedly, when the natives had passed out of hearing.

“Only when they think one of us is watching,” Hort said. He led her back to the boat, and so that she could wax properly enthusiastic about it without an uncomfortable amount of lying, she gave herself a round-trip crossing while Hort watched from the bank.

“You know—he really is trying to help the natives,” she said when she’d returned to him. “But I suppose it’s human nature to resist change.”

“There’s much more to it than that. At one time this must have been a horribly dangerous world for humans. The first settlers probably survived by an eyelash. There are still plenty of ways humans can die on this world, but it’s a relatively safe place because over a long period of time the natives found out by trial and error what the dangers are and how to avoid them. No outsider can come in and instantly know better ways of doing things than the natives have learned from generations of costly experience.”

He got into the boat and took a seat at the opposite end. “I’m worried about the natives. Your uncle is being wonderfully patient, but that won’t last forever. Eventually he’ll start maneuvering to make them do what he tells them, and he has the influence and the political and legal connections to find ways to force them. If he does, he stands an excellent chance of destroying them.”

She stared at him. “Destroying them? Nonsense! Uncle is no monster.”

“Have you noticed anything unusual about the feet of those on the embassy staff?”

“They’re all badly scarred,” she said. “I’ve wondered about that.”

“Your uncle had this notion of eliminating the muddy village streets. He tried to talk Fornri into paving them with gravel. Fornri nixed the idea emphatically. So your uncle demonstrated his wisdom by having the staff members bring in enough gravel to pave the paths between the embassy buildings—just to show the natives how it ought to be done. It turns out that there’s a fungus that thrives in gravel and has an unfortunate affinity for human feet. Now the entire staff has scarred feet, and the paths between embassy buildings are muddy again.”

“The entire staff except you,” she remarked, inspecting his feet.

“Well—I suspected something like that, so when your uncle graveled the paths, I didn’t walk on them. The natives know this world and we don’t, and when they say something shouldn’t be done, I’m not going to do it. Look at this.”

He pointed to the strangely convoluted lashings by which the ferry apparatus was attached to the boat.

“What about it?” she asked.

“I thought that knot was so interesting I was going to send an example to the Anthropological Institute. While I was writing my report, one of the crewmen from the courier ship happened by, and he laughed himself silly over it. This is a very common knot. It was developed to secure wires in spaceship construction to avoid problems caused by vibrations in faster-than-light travel. Anyone who’s had much to do with ships will know this knot. Obviously our expedition wasn’t the first to discover these natives.”

He paused and looked expectantly at her. She resented being treated like a backward child in one of his classes, and she said icily, “If you expect me to believe that this knot is somehow connected with the fungus—”

“Think. The natives have such a perilous struggle for survival that they have to use every available weapon. They’re bright. If they happen onto a more efficient way of doing things, they’ll adopt it. No one knows how many visitors they’ve had, down through the centuries, and out of all the knowledge that those visitors brought here, the only item I can positively identify that the natives found useful was that knot.”

Before she could comment, he changed the subject abruptly. “As long as you’ve walked this far, why don’t we see the gourds now?”

“Why not?” she murmured. “By an incredible coincidence, I have no other engagement.”

They used the ferry to cross the river, and when they reached the other side he told her, “The one rule is to go single file and keep to the center of the path. There’s no danger there, or there wouldn’t be a path.”

They moved off into the forest. Several times vegetation along the path drew back from them as they passed, alarming her, but Hort paid no attention to it. She followed him silently. They passed trees with enormous, multicolored flowers, and they splashed through a small stream just downstream from a towering waterfall in which a strange flying creature, magnificently colored but unspeakably hideous in appearance, was enjoying a shower bath. The creature suddenly became aware of them and soared away squalking, dripping water on them as it passed over-head.

Abruptly they came to another river and another of Wembling’s ferries, and this one was in use. A crowd of extremely happy children was playing in it, hauling back and forth across the river. Now and then a child tumbled overboard and found that hilarious, too. With whoops of joy they ran the ferry to shore, made room for Hort and Talitha, and gave them swift passage. Hort helped Talitha to disembark, and then the two of them stood with arms uplifted, and the children, giggling delightedly, responded as they pulled the boat back across the river.

“I forgot about that,” Hort said. “The children think the ferries are absolutely scrumptious playthings. If they want to cross a river, though, they’ll swim.”

A short distance beyond the river, Hort stopped abruptly and pointed. “There’s one of them.”

Talitha gazed blankly at the enormous, looming thing that vanished from sight among the branches of the surrounding trees. She said, “It grew that big?”

“Some of them do,” Hort said. “Probably the natives pick most of them when they’re smaller, because they have so many uses for them. A gourd this size must be many years old. What I can’t figure out is how the things reproduce. There are dozens of them here. Look.”

He moved along the path, parting leaves and showing her gourds of various sizes. “All of them come from one plant,” he said. “Wherever you see gourds, whatever the species, there’s always one plant. I can’t figure out how a thing like this can scatter seeds or spores so widely—and in a forest, too.”

“Are they edible?” she asked.

“No, but they’re used for everything else. Roofs of houses, containers, hammocks, furniture, and they make really splendid drums and musical instruments. Children play all sorts of games with gourd toys. They’re platforms for native dances, and the end of a small one can be painted to make a splendid mask. The vines yield a thread that makes excellent rope and cloth. Remarkable, aren’t they?”

He leaned over and thumped on one, and it gave off deep, booming thuds.

“Is that all there is to see?” she asked.

“That’s all,” he said cheerfully.

“They certainly are remarkable. I’m glad I didn’t wait until tomorrow to see them. Two such tremendous thrills like gourds and a native festival on the same day would be more than my nervous system could stand.”

She turned and walked away. Where the path curved, she was able to glance back at him without turning her head, and she saw him still standing in the path looking after her.