He waved some workmen over, and they picked up the native and carried him away. The operator mounted his machine, and before he could get it in motion another native darted up and sprawled in front of it.
“I’m beginning not to like this job,” the operator growled.
Wembling paid no attention. He had glimpsed a peculiar movement at the edge of the forest. He raised his binoculars, and then he broke into a run. By the time he arrived, one of his machines had raised itself into the air only to fall back with a crash as a tree collapsed on top of it.
The operator babbled excitedly. “Native was in that tree. He fed a vine into the winding drum. I didn’t pay no attention—what’s a little vine to a machine that big and heavy—and then, before I could get back to shut the thing off—”
Wembling turned on his heel and walked away. He was past anger. For the remainder of the day he watched without comment while the ground repeatedly collapsed under his machines and natives persistently halted the work; and at the end of the day he expressed no surprise whatsoever when Ayns came to report seven men missing.
“The natives are playing right into our hands,” he said grimly. “This time they’ve gone much too far, and they’re not going to get away with it.”
“The men are alarmed,” Ayns said. “If we don’t light the dormitory area tonight and put a strong guard there, well lose our work force.”
“If we do, we can’t protect the construction site,” Wembling protested. “The natives’ll riddle it with holes and commit all kinds of deviltry.”
Ayns repeated firmly, “We’ll lose our work force.”
Wembling raised his arms resignedly. “All right. Set the guard around the dormitories.”
Looking out of his bedroom window, Wembling cursed the lights. They perfectly illuminated the area around the buildings, but beyond the bright swath they cut through the still Langrian night, he could see nothing at all. If the natives possessed any kind of a weapon that was effective from a distance, they would be helpless.
Seven of his men had disappeared without a trace. Each of them had been working alone near the edge of the forest, and in a matter of seconds he had vanished.
“Probably overpowered by a mob and carried off,” Ayns said, but it made no difference whether it had been done by a mob or by sorcery. The entire work force was in a panic. Wembling had said the natives wouldn’t dare, and they had dared. Probably they thought they had nothing to lose, and as far as Wembling could figure out, they were right. He dared not attempt any kind of retaliation.
Work procedures would have to be revised. In the future his men would have to work in groups, with the site guarded both day and night. The additional expense could be written off, but it would slow the work.
Abruptly the night erupted. Shouts, screams, the hellish thud, thud, thud of native drums, the deep honks of their signal gourds, all blended into a horrifying cacophony. Wembling raced to his door and looked out. Something enormous crashed and thudded across the construction site, and he took one glance at the monstrous, looming, shadowy form that suddenly roared into the circle of light and fled toward the rear of the building. It struck with a hollow, popping sound that made his ears ring, accompanied by a splintering crash. It was followed by another, and still another, and the fourth struck Wembling’s office and skidded it sideways into the next building.
Silence rushed in for a moment, and then the shouts and curses of the work force rent the night. Wembling crawled out from under a table, shakily confirmed that he had no bones broken, and went to assess the damage.
Ayns, with several of the sentries, was outside studying the remains of the object that had struck the office. “The natives rolled some of those silly gourds down the slope,” he said. Then he exclaimed sharply, “What’s that?”
The sentries hauled a squirming figure from the slimy pulp. It was one of the missing men. Fumbling distastefully, they found another. Other sentries were performing similar rescues from the slimy remains of the other gourds.
“Are they all right?” Wembling demanded.
“We don’t know yet,” Ayns answered.
They had been bound and gagged and stuffed into the large gourds with protective small gourd helmets on their heads. Not only did they show no gratitude for their release, but they were, all of them, thunderingly angry—not at the natives, but at Wembling. While they flexed cramped limbs and stomped feeling into numbed feet, they poured torrents of abuse on Wembling and Company and all of its works.
“Now just a moment,” Wembling said. “Maybe you had a rough time, but you don’t seem any the worse for it, and I don’t have to stand for that. Report in the morning for disciplinary action.”
“I’ll report in the morning for transportation,” a worker snapped. “I quit.”
“Now wait—”
“So do I,” another said.
The onlookers shouted in chorus, “We all quit!” and sent up a cheer. Wembling turned and went back to his office. It had been pushed down a slope, and it stood at a crazy angle.
“I want this back on its foundation as soon as it’s light,” Wembling told Ayns, who had followed him. He grabbed a towel and began wiping the gourd pulp from his hands.
“I think they meant it about quitting,” Ayns said. “What do we do now—issue weapons?”
“You know we don’t dare. One injured native, and our friend the deputy marshal will turn in a report that’ll cost us our charter. On the other hand, it’s no concern of ours if someone else injures a native.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Space Navy. We’re citizens of the Federation. Our lives and property are threatened and our lawful endeavors have been interfered with. We’re entitled to protection.”
Ayns gave Wembling one of his rare smiles. “Now that you mention it, I’m sure that we are.”
Wembling thumped on the sloping top of his desk. “H. Harlow Wembling has enough influence to get what he’s entitled to.”
15
An obsolete freighter, bound from Quiron to Yorlang on a seldom-used space route, mysteriously vanished. A thousand light-years away a bureaucrat with an overactive imagination thought of piracy. Orders went out, and Commander James Vorish, captain of the battle cruiser Hiln, changed course and resigned himself to a monotonous six months of patrolling.
A week later his orders were canceled. He changed course again and mulled over the new assignment with Lieutenant Commander Robert Smith, his executive. “Someone’s been stirring up an indigenous population,” Vorish said. “We’re to take over and protect Federation citizens and property.”
“Peculiar assignment for a battle cruiser,” Smith observed. “Where the devil is Langri? I’ve never heard of it.”
Looking westward, Vorish thought it the most beautiful world he’d ever seen. The forest stretched back into the hills, its unbroken foliage an awesome expanse of dazzling variegation. Flowers lifted delicately beautiful, enormous petals to the lightly stirring sea breeze. Waves rippled in lethargically from an indescribably magnificent sea, and the fine beach sand caught the afternoon sun with a billion billion facets of flashing color.
Behind him was the hideous, scarred, noisy, reeking cauldron of the construction site. Motors whined, machines shuffled back and forth, workmen scurried hither and yon like a blighting invasion of mindless insects.
Smith touched Vorish’s arm and pointed. A clumsy ground conveyance sped away from the clutter of prefab buildings and bounced toward them—the first official acknowledgment of their arrival. Vorish strode down the Hiln’s ramp, inspected the sentries, and then turned to see what that official acknowledgment would consist of.