Ayns shook his head. “He’s frightened. He bought your line about the medical center. So did the others, but he led the way, and of course now they have to blame someone. There was a move to kick him off the council, but Fornri squelched it—he said if they punished everyone who made a mistake, the world would soon run out of councilors. But from now on I don’t think we’ll see much of Narrif.”
“Pity. He might have been useful.” Wembling ambled back to the window. “Right now there’s nothing we can do but wait.”
Two days later Wembling discharged most of his work force. He had received from his attorneys, the eminent firm of Khorwiss, Qwaanti, Mllo, Bylym, and Alaffro, an astute analysis of his legal position with a projection of the probable future legal actions to be expected from the natives’ attorneys. If all legal alternatives were explored, and if the natives’ money held out, they estimated that Wembling would be doing no work at all for the next six months. Wembling ordered transportation for his work force, keeping only a maintenance crew and the surveyors. The court had ruled that surveying stakes in no way permanently damaged a world. Wembling was permitted to set as many as he wished, and the natives were enjoined from interfering with them. This pleased Wembling. He could proceed with his first-stage planning, and less time would be lost than he had anticipated.
The other information he received pleased him less. Aric Hort was designated a reporting deputy marshal. Hort himself brought the information in the form of a notice from the marshals, who would be leaving shortly.
Wembling exploded. “Now I suppose I have to worry about a dirty double-crosser sending in false reports!”
“Certainly not,” Hort said with a grin. “True reports.”
The workmen left; the waiting dragged on. Finally the question of whether a vacation resort constituted a development of natural resources was resolved in Wembling’s favor. To the amazement of Wembling’s attorneys, Submaster Jarnes brought no further actions. Wembling gleefully hired a new work force, transported it to Langri, and again began tearing up meadows and forests; whereupon Jarnes struck again. Abruptly he appealed the natural resource ruling to Higher Court, and he astutely avoided having to deposit bond by pointing out that Wembling had brought in his work force before the period of appeal had expired. Higher Court merely extended the injunction previously in force, and Wembling again found himself glaring out of his office window at an entire work force cavorting in Langri’s enticing surf.
“So what do I do now?” Wembling demanded. “If I keep them here, he’ll hit me with injunction after injunction. If I send them home, he’ll wait with the next one until I bring in a new force.”
“Then keep ’em here,” Ayns said. “If time is more important than money, make him play his whole hand. Then you can get to work.”
“Well—maybe. Except that I don’t need to keep all of them here. Just enough so they’ll think they have to keep me from using them.”
Submaster Jarnes followed the suit that challenged Wembling’s right to build a resort with another that questioned his right to run the resort after it was built. Wembling lost a week’s work before Higher Court voided the injunction, dryly affirming that if Wembling wanted to exercise his legal right to construct a resort that he might not be able to use, he had the right to do so. While the courts were meditating that question, Jarnes followed with another action asking the courts to prevent Wembling and Company from destroying Langri’s natural resources through the building of a resort, and to compensate the natives for those already destroyed. Construction was halted for five weeks, and a furious Wembling had to count each tree that had been removed, and tabulate cubic meters of soil redistributed, and tons of rock dumped into the ocean, and shrubs, herbs, and meadow grass crushed, dug up, or buried, and wild life driven away, knowing as he did so that the moment he won this idiotic suit Submaster Jarnes would have another ready.
Which he did.
The weeks became months, and Wembling could only contemplate his mounting costs and wait. Finally the day came when Master Khorwiss notified him that Jarnes had no more cards to play. Further, the courts were becoming highly impatient of these well-reasoned but legally unsound requests for injunctions. Wembling enlarged the work force so he could employ double shifts the moment the last injunction was lifted.
Aric Hort brought the message, as he had so many times previously. Wembling already had been informed by way of his own communications center, and once again he grudgingly verified that Hort was just as prompt in delivering news of an injunction dissolved as he was of an injunction imposed.
“Well, that ends this farce,” Wembling said, as Hort handed him the official release. “That was the last one.”
“If you say so,” Hort remarked agreeably.
Wembling eyed him suspiciously. “What infamies are the natives concocting now?”
“I’ve told you at least a dozen times that the natives don’t confide in anyone. If they ever do decide to trust me, you’ll be the last to know it.”
Hort strolled away, and Wembling, bristling with anger, stepped to the nearest com unit and sent his work force into action.
A few minutes later he was watching with satisfaction while his gigantic machines carved Langri’s soil and masticated its forest. Suddenly one of them leaned sideways at an unlikely, rakish angle and came to an abrupt stop. Wembling charged toward it and found the operator gazing bewilderedly at the left front wheel, which was firmly lodged in a deep hole.
“Of all the stupid things to do!” Wembling bellowed.
The operator protested that he hadn’t seen the hole.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t see it. You can’t drive a machine into a hole that big without seeing it. Don’t just stand there—let’s get it out, and fast, and next time look where you’re going.”
As Wembling turned to walk away, the ground dissolved beneath him. He landed with a thud and found himself standing waist-deep in a neatly incised hole. For a moment he ignored the helping hand extended by the operator and thought deeply. The hole obviously was freshly dug, and yet no dirt could be seen nearby. He could testify that it had been artfully hidden. It was, he reflected, of a size and depth nicely calculated to entrap the wheels of his machines.
“The natives did this!” he roared.
He shook off the operator’s hand and climbed out by himself. Ayns came hurrying up, and Wembling exhibited the hole. “They must have sneaked in and done it during the night. I want the entire site ringed with lighted sentry posts.”
“We don’t have enough men,” Ayns objected.
“We’ll get enough men. I want those sentry posts operating tonight.”
He turned to watch another machine lumbering past. Abruptly he leaped toward it, screaming, “Stop!”
The machine skidded to a halt a few centimeters from a native who had sprung out of nowhere to fling himself across its path. As Wembling charged up, the operator got out and bent over the native.
“There’s nothing wrong with him,” the operator said. “He just laid down there to interfere with the work. Let me run over him and put a stop to this nonsense.”
“You fool!” Wembling bellowed. “That’s the one thing that could cost me my charter. I don’t dare harm a native, and they know it. They don’t dare harm one of you, and they know that, too. Take him over to the forest and throw him in. Next time, be on the lookout for something like this.”