“Tal!” Hort exclaimed. “It isn’t possible! One man couldn’t have done all that. He taught the natives government and law and economics and history and science and language and political science and colonial procedure and an entire university curriculum. He even taught military subjects. How could one man—obviously an uneducated man—how could he do it?”
“He did more than that,” Talitha said. “He taught them their Plan.”
The initial landing, probably by survey ship (government or private). Steps to observe in capturing the crew. Subsequent landings by ships searching for the first ship. How to approach the Space Navy ship. Negotiations, lists of violations and penalties. Achievement of independent status. Steps to follow when independent status is violated. Steps to follow in preparing for Federation membership.
Every detail was there. Everything the natives had done since Wembling’s ship touched down was laid out in the form of meticulous instructions for them to follow: the exploding gourds that terrified the Space Navy, the sly tricks and dodges used to interrupt Wembling’s work, the directions for their attorney…
Everything. They found themselves gazing awesomely at the natives’ cryptic Plan in all of its breathtaking completeness, right up to its final master stroke, laboriously written out by an uneducated man who had vision and wisdom and patience. By a great man. It was a brilliant prognostication, with nothing lacking except her uncle’s name, and Talitha had the impression that Cerne Obrien had known more than a few H. Harlow Wemblings in his day.
“Not just one man!” Hort exclaimed again. “He couldn’t!”
But he had.
Talitha cast an anxious glance at the lengthening shadows in the clearing. “It’s getting late. How long a courtship will they believe from a couple of beginners?”
“I never thought to ask the rules. Well—” Hort closed the book reverently and got to his feet. “Cerne Obrien, we salute you. Someday we want to come back here and read this carefully. Eventually Langri will have its own historians, and they’ll venerate it.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Talitha said. “They’ll send the name of Cerne Obrien across the galaxy in dryly written tomes read only by other historians. The man deserves a better fate.”
Hort returned the logbook to the chart table, and the two of them scrambled down the ramp. At the bottom they turned, looked at each other, and then solemnly genuflected. “I wrote down his name and the ship’s registration number,” Hort said. “Someone, somewhere, may want to know what happened to him.”
They left the clearing behind them and hurried along the wide path—the memorial path—that led to the shrine of Cerne Obrien.
“Perhaps verbal tradition will keep his memory a living thing far into the future,” Hort said thoughtfully. “Perhaps even now, when no aliens are present, the children gather around a fire and listen to old tales of what the mighty Obrien did and said. But I agree. He deserves a far better fate. Maybe someday we can speak to Fornri about it.”
At the concealed entrance to the path, Talitha halted Hort and faced him. “Aric—now that we know what the Plan is, maybe we could help.”
Hort shook his head. “Absolutely not. Obrien ordered the natives not to tell anyone, not even their attorney, and he was right. In some ways it cost them, like not knowing the literacy requirements, but it also could be the reason the Plan has succeeded. If your uncle so much as suspected a crafty master plan behind the natives’ irrational actions, he’d figure out what it is.”
“Then the best way we can help is to know nothing at all and do nothing.”
“Right,” Hort said. “Let’s not tamper with a work of genius and give the natives a handicap of unnecessary assistance.”
“All right,” she said. “I know nothing. I’ll see Uncle tomorrow and beg for a nutritionist. More dratted acting.”
“I want you to know,” Hort said. “I wasn’t acting.” They embraced hastily, and then they hurried toward the Bower Hill.
Her uncle had forgotten the appointment. She cornered him in a plush conference room in the finished wing of the resort, and they had a brief conversation before his meeting started. Hirus Ayns was there, along with the entire staff of bright young people Wembling had recruited to build his resorts and run them. They sat around the circular table and talked and joked in low tones, with occasional outbursts of boisterous laughter, while Talitha tried to talk with her uncle.
“Tal,” he said firmly, “I wouldn’t even consider it.”
“You can’t be so calloused as to exterminate the entire population!”
“Tal, business is business. I gave the natives every chance, and they wouldn’t cooperate. They can have their ten per cent of the profits, I’ll stand by that, but only after my investment is amortized.”
Talitha faced him defiantly, hoping that she looked sufficiently pale and earnest. She said, “Surely—”
“Tal, I have a meeting here. If you want to stay, I’ll talk with you afterward.”
He got to his feet. “All right. All of you have read the verdict. The court allowed every claim we made. Some were so flimsy that I blushed to submit them, but the natives’ attorney was too stupid to object. So that’s settled.”
He pushed the subject aside with a gesture. “Now that we’re safe from further harassment, we can give some attention to long-range planning. We’re already recruiting and training the personnel we’ll need for this resort, and we’ll be ready to open the moment construction is completed. Today’s meeting was called to discuss our second resort—what sort of a resort we want and where we should put it. Hirus?”
Wembling sat down, and Hirus Ayns got to his feet. “If I may interpose a remark, I think the natives will give in eventually and work for us.”
Wembling shrugged, bit a smoke capsule, blew a smoke ring. “Perhaps. Except for the fact that we’d be able to pay them a twentieth of what imported labor will cost, I couldn’t care less. Put it this way: we made them a fair offer and got snubbed. If they change their minds they’ll have to come to us. Go ahead, Hirus.”
“I call your attention to Site Nine,” Ayns said. “By a most fortuitous coincidence, when we laid out this golf course we included a mountain smack in the middle of it.”
Laughter erupted around the table. Ayns waited, grinning, until it subsided. “A mountain resort would nicely complement this seaside resort, with the added advantage that a brisk walk or a brief ride down the mountain or inside the mountain will take our guests to the seashore. It’s a lovely site. Now then.”
He took some drawings from the portfolio that lay on the table in front of him. “We have sketches from three architects for a resort building on this site. Number one: a circular building constructed completely around the mountain.” He held up the sketch and then passed it to the young man on his right. “The architect has placed a pavilion on the mountaintop for dining and refreshments or just for the view. There’d be VM shafts inside the mountain for those who wanted the view without the climb. And, of course, shafts leading down to the beaches.”
He turned with a frown and directed a question at the doorway. “Yes? What is it?”
Wembling’s young secretary had dropped the door open, and he was waiting apologetically. He said to Wembling, “Sir—excuse me, sir—Fornri is here.”
“I haven’t time to talk with him now,” Wembling said. “Tell him to come back later.”