give it to them, General Construction can, or Earth-Mars, or Johnson and Hearn. Planets aren’t that scarce. You understand that, don’t you?”
Morrison’s temper had been uncertain since the accidents had started. Now it flared suddenly. He shouted, “What in hell do you want out of me? Do you think I’m stalling? You can take your lousy contract and —”
“Now, now,” Mr. Shotwell said hurriedly. “I didn’t mean anything personally, Morrison. We believe – we know – that you’re the best man in planetary construction. But the stockholders —”
“I’ll do the best I can,” Morrison said, and signed off.
“Rough, rough,” the radio operator murmured. “Maybe the stockholders would like to come out here with their little shovels?”
“Forget it,” Morrison said, and hurried off.
Lerner was waiting for him at Control Point Able, gazing somberly at the mountain. It was taller than Everest on Earth, and the snow on its upper ranges glowed pink in the afternoon sun. It had never been named.
“Charges all planted?” Morrison asked.
“Another few hours.” Lerner hesitated. Aside from being Morrison’s assistant, he was an amateur conservationist, a small, careful, graying man.
“It’s the tallest mountain on the planet,” Lerner said. “Couldn’t you save it?”
“Not a chance. This is the key location. We need an ocean port right here.”
Lerner nodded, and looked regretfully at the mountain. “It’s a real pity. No one’s ever climbed it.”
Morrison turned quickly and glared at his assistant. “Look, Lerner,” he said. “I am aware that no one has ever climbed that mountain. I recognize the symbolism inherent in destroying that mountain. But you know as well as I do that it has to go. Why rub it in?[4]”
“I wasn’t —”
“My job isn’t to admire scenery. I hate scenery. My job is to convert this place to the specialized needs of human beings.”
“You’re pretty jumpy,” Lerner said.
“Just don’t give me any more of your sly innuendoes.”
“All right.”
Morrison wiped his sweaty hands against his pants leg. He smiled faintly, apologetically, and said, “Let’s get back to camp and see what that damned Dengue is up to.”
They turned and walked away. Glancing back, Lerner saw the mountain without a name outlined red against the sky.
Even the planet was nameless. Its small native population called it Umgcha or Ongja, but that didn’t matter. It would have no ofifcial name until the advertising staff of Transterran Steel figured out something semantically pleasing to several million potential settlers from the crowded inner planets. In the meantime, it was simply referred to as Work Order 35. Several thousand men and machines were on the planet, and at Morrison’s order they would fan out, destroy mountains, build up plains, shift whole forests, redirect rivers, melt ice caps, mold continents, dig new seas, do everything to make Work Order 35 another suitable home for homo sapiens’ unique and demanding technological civilization.
Dozens of planets had been rearranged to the terran standard. Work Order 35 should have presented no unusual problems. It was a quiet place of gentle fields and forests, warm seas and rolling hills. But something was wrong with the tamed land. Accidents happened, past all statistical probability, and a nervous camp chain-reacted to produce more. Everyone helped. There were fights between bulldozer men and explosions men. A cook had hysterics over a tub of mashed potatoes, and the bookkeeper’s spaniel bit the accountant’s ankle. Little things led to big things.
And the job – a simple job on an uncomplicated planet – had barely begun.
In headquarters tent Dengue was awake, squinting judiciously at a whiskey and soda.
“What ho?” he called. “How goes the good work?”
“Fine,” Morrison said.
“Glad to hear it,” Dengue said emphatically. “I like watching you lads work. Efifciency. Sureness of touch. Know-how.”
Morrison had no jurisdiction over the man or his tongue. The government construction code stipulated that observers from other companies could be present at all projects. This was designed to reinforce the courts’ “method-sharing” decision in planetary construction. But practically, the observer looked, not for improved methods, but for hidden weaknesses which his own company could exploit. And if he could kid the construction boss into a state of nerves, so much the better. Dengue was an expert at that.
“And what comes next?” Dengue asked.
“We’re taking down a mountain,” Lerner said.
“Good!” Dengue cried, sitting upright. “That big one? Excellent.” He leaned back and stared dreamily at the ceiling. “That mountain was standing while Man was grubbing in the dirt for insects and scavenging what the saber-tooth left behind. Lord, it’s even older than that!” Dengue laughed happily and sipped his drink. “That mountain overlooked the sea when Man – I refer to our noble species homo sapiens – was a jellyfish, trying to make up its mind between land and sea.”
“All right,” Morrison said, “that’s enough.”
Dengue looked at him shrewdly. “But I’m proud of you, Morrison, I’m proud of all of us. We’ve come a long way since the jellyfish days. What nature took a million years to erect we can tear down in a single day. We can pull that dinky mountain apart and replace it with a concrete and steel city guaranteed to last a century!”
“Shut up,” Morrison said, walking forward, his face glowing. Lerner put a restraining hand on his shoulder. Striking an observer was a good way to lose your ticket.
Dengue finished his drink and intoned sonorously, “Stand aside, Mother Nature! Tremble, ye deep-rooted rocks and hills, murmur with fear, ye immemorial ocean sea, down to your blackest depths where monsters unholy glide in eternal silence! For Great Morrison has come to drain the sea and make of it a placid pond, to level the hills and build upon them twelve-lane super highways, complete with restrooms for trees, picnic tables for shrubs, diners for rocks, gas stations for caves, billboards for mountain streams, and other fanciful substitutions of the demigod Man.”
Morrison arose abruptly and walked out, followed by Lerner. He felt that it would almost be worthwhile to beat Dengue’s face in and give up the whole crummy job. But he wouldn’t do it because that was what Dengue wanted, what he was hired to accomplish.
And, Morrison asked himself, would he be so upset if there weren’t a germ of truth in what Dengue said?
“Those natives are waiting,” Lerner said, catching up with him.
“I don’t want to see them now,” Morrison said. But distantly, from a far rise of hills, he could hear their drums and whistles. Another irritation for his poor men. “All right,” he said.
Three natives were standing at the North Gate beside the camp interpreter. They were of human-related stock, scrawny, naked stone-age savages.
“What
Why rub it in? – Зачем постоянно к этому возвращаться?
