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Lieutenant Commander James Vorish, 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 development with
Lieutenant Robert Smith.
"Someone's been stirring up an indigenous population," Vorish said. "We're to take over, and protect
Federation citizens and property."
"Some people never learn," Smith said. "But Langri? Where the devil is Langri? I've never heard of it."
Vorish thought it was the most beautiful place he had ever seen. To the west, that is. Trees stretched
glistening pale-green foliage over the narrow beach. Flowers were closing delicately beautiful petals as
the evening sun abandoned them. Waves rippled in lazily from an awesomely blue sea.
Behind him, the hideous skeleton of an enormous building under construction stood out sharply in the
dusk. The afternoon shift was busily and loudly at work. Clanging sounds and thuds echoed along the
shore. Motors chugged and gurgled. Mercifully, the uncertain light disguised the havoc the construction
work had wrought in the unspoiled forest.
The man Wembling was still talking. "It is your duty to protect the lives and property of citizens of the
Federation."
"Certainly," Vorish said. "Within reason. The installation you want would take a division of troops and a
million credits worth of equipment. And even then it wouldn't be foolproof. You say part of the time the
natives come in from the sea. We'd have to ring the entire peninsula."
"They're unprincipled scoundrels," Wembling said. "We have a right to demand protection. I can't keep
men on the job if they're in terror of their lives."
"How many men have you lost?"
"Why, none. But that isn't the natives' fault."
"You haven't lost anybody? What about property? Have they been damaging your equipment or
supplies?"
"No," Wembling said. "But only because we've been alert. I've had to turn half my crew into a police
force."
"We'll see what we can do," Vorish said. "Give me some time to get the feel of the situation, and then I'll
talk with you again."
Wembling summoned two burly bodyguards, and hurried away. Vorish strode on along the beach,
returned a sentry's salute, and stood looking out to sea.
"There's nobody out in front of us, sir," the sentry said. "The natives "
He halted abruptly, challenged, and then saluted. Smith came down the slope, nodded at Vorish, and
faced west.
"What'd you get?" Vorish asked.
"There's something mighty queer about this situation. These 'raids' Wembling talked about the natives
usually come one at a time, and they don't come armed. They simply sneak in here and get in the way
lie down in front of a machine, or something like that and the work has to stop until someone carries
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Give Me Liberty
them away and dumps them back in the forest."
"Have any natives been hurt?"
"No. The men say Wembling is pretty strict about that. It's gotten on the men's nerves because they
never know when a native is going to pop up in front of them. They're afraid if one did get hurt the
others would come with knives or poison arrows, or some such thing."
"From what I've seen of Wembling, my sympathy is with the natives. But I have my orders. We'll put a
line of sentry posts across the peninsula, and distribute some more about the work area. It's the best we
can do, and even that will be a strain on our personnel. Some of the specialized ratings are going to howl
when we assign them to guard duty."
"No," Smith said. "No, they won't. A couple of hours on this beach are worth eight hours of guard duty.
I'll start spotting the sentry posts."
Vorish went back to the Hiln, and became the target of an avalanche of messengers. Mr. Wembling
would like to know . . . Mr. Wembling suggests . . . If it would not be too much trouble . . . Compliments
of Mr. Wembling . . . Mr. Wembling says. . . At your earliest convenience . . . Mr. Wembling's
apologies, but . . .
Damn Mr. Wembling! Vorish had been on the point of telling his communications officer to put in a
special line to Wembling's office. He breathed a sigh of relief over his narrow escape, and gave a junior
officer the full-time assignment of dealing with Wembling's messengers.
Smith strode in out of the darkness from his job of posting the sentries. "Native wants to see you," he
said. "I have him outside."
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