Then Wembling entered. “Morning, Ernie.”
“Good morning, Harlow.”
Wembling sauntered up to Dallman’s desk and dropped a folio with a thud. “Here’s more paperwork for you. Come down to the lounge for a drink?”
Dallman absently lifted the folio and set it down again. “Why not?”
The upper levels of the finished wing were used for office space. The lower level served as a lounge for Wembling’s supervisory personnel and the naval officers. Wembling used it as a training school for waitresses, cooks, and bartenders who later would work in the resort. Normally Dallman avoided the place —its dim interior was always crowded with off-duty personnel, and the strumming, whining music sometimes was so loud that he could feel the beat in his office two levels above.
But when Wembling entered, the volume of sound was turned down instantly, and the lights were turned up. The hostess dashed out to greet them and signaled a waitress, and when they reached their favorite table—hurriedly evacuated for their use—the waitress was waiting with their favorite drinks. Dallman seated himself; Wembling captured the waitress’ arm and remained standing.
“Ernie!” he exclaimed. “You didn’t notice! The uniforms camel How do you like this one?”
He turned the waitress around, posing her. To Dallman the uniform looked like a few spangles and frills without a costume, but he made no comment.
Wembling released the waitress and pounced on another who was passing by. “Just a moment, Farica. How do you like this one, Ernie? I can’t make up my mind.”
To Dallman it looked like the same costume with a different arrangement of frills. Wembling posed the second waitress, he extremely serious, she giggling. Finally he seated himself and looked after her as she walked away.
“You’re going to have several lounges and dining rooms,” Dallman said. “Why don’t you put a different costume in each one?”
“Hey—why didn’t I think of that?”
They sipped their drinks in silence, and Dallman, looking through a gap in the heavy draperies, watched the specks of color on the horizon: starving natives, searching the waters with heroic patience for food that long since had been driven elsewhere.
Wembling set his tumbler down and raised two fingers. The waitress was waiting for the signal, and she rushed over with fresh drinks.
“Trouble this morning on Site Four, Ernie,” Wembling said. “The usual—native sneaked in and stopped the work. Can’t you put more sentries there?”
Dallman shook his head. “I just don’t have enough men.”
“The puggards are changing their tactics—now they don’t lie down and wait to be carried away. They run about and make the work force catch them. This one held up work for half an hour. Can’t you give me more sentry posts there?”
Dallman shook his head again. “No. Can’t be done.”
“You’re doing a fine job, Ernie. I’m putting in a good word for you at Naval Headquarters. But go down to Site Four this afternoon, like a good fellow, and see why the natives keep breaking in there.”
“Why are you scattering those stupid golf courses all over Langri?” Dallman asked. “If you’d keep your operations in one place, I could look after you properly.”
“Politics and the law,” Wembling said, grinning at him slyly. “Stay away from them, Ernie. You have superior brains and talent, but it isn’t that kind of brains and talent.”
Dallman shrugged good-naturedly and said nothing, though he was reflecting that the galaxy would be a far better place if even fewer people had that kind of brains and talent. The hunting boats were tacking toward shore, and he could make out the black lines of the boats beneath the sails.
Wembling said suddenly, “By the way—whatever happened to Commander Vorish?”
“The last I heard, he’d been promoted to captain, and he was taking the Hiln on training maneuvers.”
“You mean—they didn’t fire him?”
It was Dallman’s turn to grin slyly. “They investigated him, and then they handed him a commendation for handling himself well in a difficult situation. My assumption is that the trumped-up charge would have resulted in more publicity than certain persons thought desirable, so Vorish was patted on the head and told to forget it. I could be wrong about that—I don’t know anything about politics and law. Did you want him fired?”
Wembling looked startled. “I? Certainly not. I had no grudge against him. There’s no profit in grudges. We both had jobs to do, but he went at his in the wrong way. If they kicked him out, I’d have offered him a job. He was a good man, and he understood these natives, and I can use someone like that. I’m going to have a huge enterprise here, and I’ll need all the good men I can get. If you ever leave the navy, Ernie, come back to Langri. I’ll have a place for you.”
“Thanks. I’ll remember that.”
Wembling finished his drink, slapped the table with both hands, and pushed himself to his feet. “Come down to Site Four with me this afternoon?”
“I have a full schedule, but I’ll send someone.”
Wembling nodded and waddled away. Dallman nursed his drink for a time and watched the tacking hunting boats. The music became louder the moment Wembling left, and the dancing that accompanied it became disconcertingly frenzied, and finally he fled back to his office.
Again he stood at the window watching the hunting boats. For half a day he had been trying to decide what to do about a joint report submitted to him by Aric Hort and Talitha Warr. It detailed the mortality rate at each native village during the past month, with an attested statement from Wembling’s own doctor concerning the natives’ physical condition. It also contained a bleak forecast concerning future mortality. The report was a model of its kind—detached, concise, and bristling with verifiable facts, and if, as he had done with their previous reports, he forwarded it to headquarters with a covering letter pointing out that Wembling’s resort project was exterminating the natives, headquarters would file it without comment.
Headquarters undoubtedly wished that he would cease and desist, but it dared not complain. His orders made him responsible for the welfare of the natives and the protection of Wembling’s rights under his charter, and there was no provision for the possibility that these two responsibilities would be irreconcilable.
Somewhere in the upper strata of political power, there were persons who had conspired with Wembling to violate a treaty solemnly entered into by their government, and if they knew about Dallman’s dilemma they would be badly frightened. They would exert all of their influence to consign such reports to the file and keep them there, and they would willingly allow an entire people to die because they could not save them without revealing their complicity in a vile conspiracy. In the end the fermenting scandal would explode anyway, and everyone concerned would be destroyed except Wembling.
That would come much too late to help the natives.
Dallman’s problem was to send the report where it would be studied and acted upon, and if such a place existed, no one he had consulted knew where it was.
Finally he gave it up and attacked the pile of work on his desk.
It was mid-afternoon when he became aware of the vibrating roar and whistle of a spaceship in landing approach. At first he scowled irritably, and then he sprang for the window. The shrieking roar shook the building as the ship passed close overhead. Dallman caught only a glimpse of it, and he turned and raced for the door.
The white-faced duty ensign was looking out from under his desk. He scrambled to his feet in embarrassment and asked, “What was it, sir?”
Dallman ran past him without speaking. Outside the building, several construction workers were climbing out from under a machine. A driver was still hiding under Wembling’s conveyance. Dallman hauled him out and had himself driven at top speed to the landing field.