Monument

Dillinger swore softly.

'What's the matter?' Protz said.

'Look.' Dillinger pointed out to sea.

'I don't see anything.'

'Where's the fishing boat?'

'It isn't there.'

'Every day as long as we've been on this planet there's been a fishing boat working off the point. Get the recon planes out. Something is decidedly fishy.'

Thirty minutes later they had their report. Every fishing boat on Langri was beached. The natives were taking the day off.

'They seem to be congregating in the largest villages,' the intelligence officer said. 'A7—that's Fornri's village, you know — has the biggest crowd. And then B9, D4, F12—all along the coast. There are fires all over the place.'

Dillinger studied a photo map, and the officer circled the villages as he called them off. 'At this point,' Dillinger said, 'there's just one thing we can do. We'll go over and have a little talk with Fornri.'

'How many men do you want?' Protz asked.

'Just you and I. And a pilot.'

They slanted down to a perfect landing in the soft sand of the beach. The pilot stayed with the plane, and Dillinger and Protz climbed the slope to the village, making their way through throngs of natives. Dillinger's embarrassment increased with each forward step. There was no sign of a sinister conspiracy. A holiday atmosphere prevailed, the gaily dressed natives laughing and singing around the fires — singing in Galactic, an accomplishment that never ceased to intrigue Dillinger. The natives respectfully made way for them. Otherwise, except for timid glances from the children, they were ignored.

They reached the first huts and paused, looking down the village street. Mouth-watering odors of a feast in preparation reminded Dillinger that he had missed breakfast. At the far end of the street, near the largest hut, native men and women stood quietly in line. Dillinger waited helplessly for some official acknowledgment of his presence.

Suddenly Fornri appeared before him, and accepted his hand. 'We are honored,' Fornri said, but his face, usually so blandly expressionless, revealed an emotion which Dillinger found difficult to interpret. Was he angry, or merely uneasy? 'May I inquire as to the purpose of your visit?' he asked.

Dillinger looked at Protz, who shrugged and looked the other way. 'I came to. . to observe,' Dillinger said lamely.

'In the past, you have not interfered in the lives of my people. Is that to be changed?'

'No. I am not here to interfere.'

'Then your presence is not required here. This does not concern you.'

'Everything that happens on Langri concerns me,' Dillinger said. 'I came to learn what is happening here. I intend to know.'

Fornri withdrew abruptly. Dillinger watched him walk away, watched a group of young natives gather around him. Their manner was quiet, but urgent.

'Funny thing,' Protz mused. 'With any primitive society I've ever seen, the old men run things. Here on Langri, it's the young men. I'll bet there isn't a man in that crowd who's much over thirty.'

Fornri returned. He was uneasy — there could be no doubt of that. He gazed earnestly at Dillinger's face before he spoke. 'We know that you have been a friend to my people, and helped us when you could. It is the Mr. Wembling who is our enemy. If he knew, he would attempt to interfere.'

'Mr. Wembling will not interfere,' Dillinger said.

'Very well. We are holding an election.'

Dillinger felt Protz's hand tighten on his arm. He repeated dumbly, 'An election?'

Fornri spoke proudly. 'We are electing delegates to a constitutional convention.'

An idyllic setting. The forest clearing overlooking the sea. Women preparing a feast. Citizens waiting quietly for their turns in the grass voting hut. Democracy in action.

'When the constitution is approved,' Fornri went on, 'we shall elect a government. Then we shall apply for membership in the Galactic Federation of Independent Worlds.'

'Is it legal?' Protz demanded.

'It is legal,' Fornri said. 'Our attorney has advised us. The main requirement is fifty per cent literacy. We have over ninety per cent literacy. We could have done it much sooner, you see, but we did not know that we needed only fifty per cent.'

'You are to be congratulated,' Dillinger said. 'If your application for Federation membership is accepted, I suppose your government will force Wembling to leave Langri.'

'We intend that Langri shall belong to us. It is the Plan.'

Dillinger held out his hand. 'I wish you every good fortune with your election, and with your application for Federation membership.'

With a last glance at the line by the voting hut, they turned and walked slowly back to the plane. Protz whistled, and rubbed his hands together. 'And that,' he said, 'will finish Wembling.'

'At least we've solved the mystery of that unknown ship,' Dillinger said. 'It was their attorney, coming to advise them and help them draw up a constitution. As for this finishing Wembling, you're wrong. The Wemblings in this galaxy don't finish that easily. He's ready for this. You might almost say he's been expecting it.'

'What can he do?'

'No court of justice would make him give up what he already has. The natives can keep him from grabbing more land, but what he's developed will be his. He acquired it in good faith, under a charter granted by the Federation. Maybe he'll get to connect up his sites and own a hundred mile stretch of coast. If he doesn't, he has enough space at each site to build a thundering big resort. These enormous golf courses he's been laying out — that land is developed. He'll get to keep it, and there'll be room there for another hundred hotels on each site if he wants to build them. He'll flood the sea with pleasure fishermen, and starve the natives.'

Dillinger looked back at the village, and shook his head sadly. 'Do you realize what a tremendous accomplishment that is? Ninety per cent literacy. How they must have worked! And they were beaten before they started. The poor devils.'

V

The normal behavior of a forest trail, Dillinger thought, would be to wander — around trees, away from thickets, generally following the path of least resistance. This trail did not wander. It might have been laid out by a surveyor, so straight did it run. It was an old trail, and a well-worn trail. Trees must have been cut down, but there were no traces of the stumps.

Ahead of him, Fornri and a half dozen other young natives kept a steady, killing pace and did not look back. They had covered a good five miles, and there seemed to be no end to it. Dillinger was perspiring, and already tired.

Fornri had come to him at Hotel Langri. 'We would like for you to come with us,' he said. 'You alone.' And Dillinger had come.

Hotel Langri was all but deserted. At dawn tomorrow the 984th Squadron would head back into space, where it belonged. Wembling and his workmen had already left. Langri had been returned to the possession of its rightful owners.

It had been an absurdly simply thing, this Plan of the natives— absurdly simple and devastatingly effective. First there had been the application for Federation membership, which fortunately had arrived in Galaxia just as Dillinger's anonymous letters went off with a resounding explosion that overturned the government, caused a turmoil in the Colonial Bureau and Navy Department, and stirred up repercussions as far away as Langri, where a committee touched down briefly for a stormy investigation.

The application was acted upon immediately, and it received unanimous approval.