“I see.”
“Would it be possible to have your medical staff investigate this for me?” Hort asked.
“The ability of the natives to eat normal food? Certainly. Now what’s this about a Plan? And what are ‘conjunctions’?”
Hort chuckled. “Fornri means ‘injunctions,’ and there’ve been a lot of them. The court held up Wembling’s work for months.”
“I heard about that. It cost the natives a fortune and they lost every case.”
“It bought them some time, though, and that’s what they say they need. Time for the Plan.”
“And what’s the Plan?”
“I don’t know. Whatever it is, they believe in it absolutely. The Plan said Fornri should see you the moment you landed, so he insisted on seeing you last night. I tried to convince him he’d get himself killed, and he said he’d follow the Plan and be perfectly safe and every hour was important. Now you know as much about it as I do.”
“He easily could have got himself killed,” Vorish said. “On the other hand, he didn’t, so maybe he was perfectly safe. All things considered, this seems like an extremely complicated problem.” He got to his feet. “I have an appointment with Wembling, and it wouldn’t do to keep a busy and important man waiting.”
They walked toward the boat, and the grinning boys launched it again and stood waiting for them.
“I don’t think the natives can beat Wembling in court,” Vorish said. “He’ll have too much money, and too much influence, and the trickiest lawyers money can buy.”
“Where do you stand in this?”
“Squarely in the middle,” Vorish said. “I’m absolutely impartial, and Wembling isn’t going to like that. I’ll protect him from the natives, but I’m also going to protect the natives from Wembling, in every way I can. And while I’m doing that, I’m going to report this situation at once, in more detail than Fleet Headquarters will like, and request action to get the treaty restored. The problem on this world isn’t what the natives can or can’t eat. The problem is a treaty that was negotiated in good faith on both sides and now has been brazenly violated. The honor of the Space Navy is involved.”
“You don’t realize how potent Wembling’s influence is. Your headquarters will file that report and forget it.”
“Then I’ll take action to get it unfiled,” Vorish said with a grin.
The natives weren’t talking about their Plan, but Wembling talked rather too much about his. He took Vorish and Smith to his planning office, where an impressive scale model of the resort was on display. There he bit a capsule, breathed pungent colored smoke into their faces, and orated statistics.
“A thousand accommodations,” he said proudly, “and most of them suites.”
Smith stooped for a closer look. “Are those things on the beach terrace swimming pools?”
“Right. There’ll also be an indoor pool. Some people can’t stand even mildly salty water, you know, and some will be afraid of the ocean creatures, even though there’s no danger. Well—what d’ya think of it?”
“It’s very—impressive,” Vorish murmured.
“There’ll be two main dining rooms and half a dozen small ones that’ll specialize in food from famous places. I’ll have a whole fleet of over- and underwater boats for recreation and sight-seeing. You may not believe it, but there are millions of people in the galaxy who’ve never seen an ocean. Why, there are worlds where people don’t even have enough water to bathe in. Some worlds even have to import their air. If their populations can come to Langri now and then and live a little, they’ll need a lot fewer doctors and psychiatrists. This project of mine is nothing less than a service to humanity.”
Vorish and Smith exchanged glances. “From the looks of this, the only humanity you’ll benefit will be the poor, broken-down millionaires,” Vorish observed.
Wembling waved a hand disarmingly. “This is only the beginning. Have to put the thing on a sound financial basis right from the start, you know. Later there’ll be plenty of room for the little fellows—not in water-front hotels, of course, but there’ll be community beaches and hotels with rights of access and that sort of thing. My staff has it worked out. Once this resort opens for business—”
The construction sounds outside the window had halted. Wembling dashed for the door, with Vorish and Smith close on his heels. Once outside, they stopped and watched him sprint to the nearest work point, where three of his hammerheads were struggling with a native.
The young man had attached himself to a girder that was about to be swung aloft. The workers were trying to remove him, but he clung stubbornly. Wembling dashed up waving his arms angrily and shouting orders. None seemed to be needed. The workers had to remove the native without harming him, and they were doing their best. Eventually they managed to pry him loose and carry him away.
“What can they possibly gain from that?” Smith asked.
“Time,” Vorish said. “Time for their Plan.”
“Has it occurred to you that this Plan might consist of a genuine uprising with real explosives?”
“No, and from what I’ve seen of the natives, that’s the last thing I’d expect. What do you think of Wembling?”
“He’s a self-activated power unit.”
“Much as I loathe the man, I have to admire the way he gets things done,” Vorish said. “I’d hate to be a native and have to fight for my life against him. They’re intelligent enough to know they can’t evict him with force. I’m afraid, though, that they’re trying to match wits with him. They don’t stand a chance that way, either.”
Wembling got the work started again, and then he trotted back to join them. “If you’d put in the kind of defensive line I want, I wouldn’t have that trouble,” he complained.
“We both know I’m not going to do it,” Vorish told him. “An electronic barrier would cost a fortune, and the dead natives it produced would be my responsibility. I wouldn’t even suggest it, At the very worst, the natives are only a minor nuisance to you.”
“They make the men nervous. Everyone has to keep alert every minute so he won’t accidentally kill one of the puggards.”
“That should make them highly efficient workers,” Vorish observed dryly.
“Maybe, but the natives mucking about the project slow me down. I want ’em kept out.”
“Frankly, I think you’re exaggerating the problem. One or two interruptions a day doesn’t slow you down much—certainly not enough to justify keeping a naval battle cruiser here. However, I have my orders. I’ll use everything I have short of violence to keep them out.”
Wembling grinned good-naturedly. “I guess I can’t ask more than that.”
He looped his arm through Vorish’s and led him back to the planning office.
17
The Hiln’s medical officer refused to pose as an expert nutritionist, but he saw nothing absurd in Aric Hort’s notion that the natives might be unable to assimilate other foods after living on koluf for generations. “It’s easily tested,” he said. “Let’s put some natives on navy rations and see what happens.”
Hort arranged the experiment, and nothing at all happened. Vorish gratefully marked it off as one less thing to worry about.
As the days spun out into weeks, he dutifully tightened his protective screen around the construction site, his men became better versed in the natives’ infiltration tactics, and work stoppages decreased almost to zero. Wembling was pleased, and the construction project began to take on a skeletal resemblance to the lavish model in Wembling’s planning office.