From the Ocean from teh Stars Read Online Free PDF Page B

immediately; Heron Island was a pleasant place where you could enjoy yourself if you knew how to deal with the red tape that always entangled headquarters establishments.
    A light truck whisked them and their belongings along a road beneath an avenue of Pisonia trees whose heavily leafed branches blocked all direct sunlight. The road was less than a quarter of a mile long, but it spanned the little island from the jetties and maintenance plants on the west to the administration buildings on the east. The two halves of the
    island were partly insulated from each other by a narrow belt of jungle which had been carefully preserved in its virgin state and which, Don
remembered sentimentally, was full of interesting tracks and secluded clearings. \
    Administration was expecting Mr. Franklin, and had\made all the necessary arrangements for him. He had been placed in a kind of priv ileged limbo, one stage below the permanent staff like Burley, but several stages above the ordinary trainees under instruction. Surprisingly, he had a room of his own—something that even senior members of the bureap could not always expect when they visited the island. This was a great relief to Don, who had been afraid he might have to share quarters with his mysterious charge. Quite apart from any other factors, that would have interfered badly with certain romantic plans of his own.
    He saw Franklin to his small but attractive room on the second floor of the training wing, looking out across the miles of coral which stretched eastward all the way to the horizon. In the courtyard below, a group of trainees, relaxing between classes, was chatting with a second warden instructor whom Don recognized from earlier visits but could not name. It was a pleasant feeling, he mused, going back to school when you already knew all the answers.
    "You should be comfortable here," he said to Franklin, who was busy unpacking his baggage. "Quite a view, isn't it?"
    Such poetic ecstasies were normally foreign to Don's nature, but he could not resist the temptation of seeing how Franklin would react to the leagues of coral-dappled ocean that lay before him. Rather to his disap pointment, the reaction was quite conventional; presumably Franklin was not worried by a mere thirty feet of height. He looked out of the window, taking his time and obviously admiring the vista of blues and greens which led the eye out into the endless waters of the Pacific.
    Serve you right, Don told himself—it's not fair to tease the poor devil. Whatever he's got, it can't be fun to live with.
    "I'll leave you to get settled in," said Don, backing out through the door. "Lunch will be coming up in half an hour over at the mess—that building we passed on the way in. See you there."
    Franklin nodded absently as he sorted through his belongings and piled shirts and underclothes on the bed. He wanted to be left alone while he adjusted himself to the new life which, with no particular enthusiasm, he had now accepted as his own.
    Burley had been gone for less than ten minutes when there was a knock on the door and a quiet voice said, "Can I come in?"
    "Who's there?" asked Franklin, as he tidied up the debris and made his room look presentable.
    "Dr. Myers."
    The name meant nothing to Franklin, but his face twisted into a wry smile as he thought how appropriate it was that his very first visitor should be a doctor. What kind of a doctor, he thought he could guess.
    Myers was a stocky, pleasantly ugly man in his early forties, with a disconcertingly direct gaze which seemed somewhat at variance with his friendly, affable manner.
    "Sorry to butt in on you when you've only just arrived," he said apologetically. "I had to do it now because I'm flying out to New Caledonia this afternoon and won't be back for a week. Professor Stevens asked me to look you up and give you his best wishes. If there's anything you want, just ring my office and we'll try to fix it for you."
    Franklin admired the skillful way