Retief! (52 page)

"Well, that the first of them big noises I see trimmed up like he ought to be," Jik-jik said. "You got him just in time, Fut-fut, before he call on the Name of the Worm—" He broke off, looked at Retief.

"In the Name of the Worm," Retief said, "what about a little hospitality?"

"You and your big vocalizing apparatus," someone said disgustedly. "Well, back to camp. At least us can fry up some policeman to tide us over." A quartet of Ween lifted the limp body; someone picked up the head.

"Lucky for you you call on the Name of the Worm," Jik-jik said conversationally. "Old Hub-hub ready to dine right now, what I mean."

"Mentioning the Worm takes me off the menu, eh?"

"Well, it give you time to get you thoughts in order, anyway."

"I have a feeling that remark is pregnant with meanings, none of them pleasant."

"Hoo, it simple enough, big boy. It mean us keep you pen up for five days, and then skin you out for a old-fashioned tribal blowout."

An aggressive-looking Ween pushed forward. "How about if us trim off a few edges now—just to sample the flavor?"

"Get back there, Hub-hub," Jik-jik admonished. "No snacking between meals."

"Come on, Meat-from-sky," the aggressive pygmy called. "Get you wheels in gear." He reached out with his claw to prod Retief—and jumped back with a screech as the heavy sword whipped down, lopped off an inch of the member's pointed tip.

"Look what he do to my chopper!" he shrilled.

"You ask for it, Hub-hub," Fut-fut said.

"I like a lot of space around me," Retief said, swinging the sword loosely in his hand. "Don't crowd me."

The Ween edged back, fifty or more small, dark-glittering creatures like oversized army ants in a wide ring around Retief, his armor a splash of vivid color in the gloom. Hub-hub jittered, holding his damaged claw high, torchlight glinting on his metallic sides. "I is hereby taking this piece of meat off the chow list!" he screeched. "I is promoting him to the status of folks!"

"Hey, Hub-hub, is you gone out of you head? What the idea of doing a trick like that . . . ?" A chorus of protest broke out.

Jik-jik confronted the outraged tribesman.

"He chop off a piece of you, and now you chumming up to him. What the idea?"

"The idea is now I ain't got to wait no five days to get a piece back!" Hub-hub keened. "Get back, all of you . . ." He waved the two-foot long, steel-trap claw in a commanding gesture. "I is now going to snip this Stilter down to size!"

The Ween drew back, disappointed but obedient to tribal custom. Hub-hub danced before Retief, who waited, his back to the tree, the sword held before him, torchlight glinting along its steel-hard razor-sharp edge. Hub-hub darted in, legs twinkling, snick-snacked a double feint high and low with the big fighting arm, lashed out viciously with a pair of small pinchers, then struck with the big claw, eliciting a loud clang! from Retief's chest armor—and staggered as the flat of Retief's blade knocked him spinning.

"Hoo!" Jik-jik shrilled. "Old Hub-hub chew off more than he can bite this time!"

"Let's call this off, Shorty," Retief suggested. "I'd hate to have to skewer you before we've really gotten acquainted—"

The Ween danced in, pivoting on spider legs, feinted, struck with his fighting claw—

Retief's sword flashed in a lightning arc, sang as it bit through steel-hard metallo-chitin. The oversized claw dropped to the ground.

"He . . . he done chop off my chopper . . . !" Hub-hub said faintly. "Now he going to stick me for sure . . ." He crouched, waiting, a drop of syrupy dark fluid forming on the stump.

"Serve you right, Hub-hub," someone called.

"Suppose I let you go?" Retief stepped forward and prodded the Ween's slender neck with the sword point. "Promise to be good and speak only when spoken to?"

"Way I feels now, I done talking for good," Hub-hub declared.

"Very well." Retief lowered the blade. "Go with my blessing."

"Well, that a neat trick, big boy," Jik-jik commented. "Take him six months to grow a new arm, and meantime he learn to keep his mandibles buttoned."

Retief looked around. "Anybody else?" he inquired. There were no takers.

"In that case, I'll be on my way. You're sure you haven't noticed a ship crashing in the vicinity in the past few hours?"

"Well, now, that different," Jik-jik stated. "They was a big smash over yonder way a while back. We was looking for it when we found you, Stilter."

"The name's Retief. Now that we're all friends and tribesfellows, how about a few of you showing me the spot where it came down?"

"Sure, Tief-tief. It not far from where you was."

Retief walked over to examine the body of the decapitated Voion. He had obviously been a member of Ikk's police—or army—complete with brand-new chromalloy inlays and an enameled cranium insignia with a stylized picture of what looked like a dragonfly.

"I wonder what this fellow was doing out here, so far from town," Retief said.

"I don't know," Jik-jik said; "but I got a feeling when us finds out us ain't going like it."

The bright disk of Joop was high above the treetops, shedding a cold white light on the village street. Retief followed as Jik-jik and two other tribesmen led the way along a trail worn smooth by the wheels of generations of forest dwellers. It was a fifteen minute trek to the spot where Pin-pin halted and waved an arm. "Yonder's where I found that policeman," he said. "Back in the brush. I heard him cussing up a cyclone back there."

Retief pushed through, came to a spot where fallen limbs and scattered leaves marked the position of the injured Voion. Above, the silvery ends of broken branches marked a trajectory through the treetops.

"What I wondering, how he get up there?" Pin-pin inquired. "Funny stuff going on around here. Us heard the big crash—that why us out here—"

"The big crash—which way was that?" Retief asked.

"Yonder," Pin-pin pointed. Again he led the way, guided by the unerring Quoppina instinct for direction. Fifty feet along the trail, Retief stooped, picked up a twisted fragment of heavy, iron-gray metallo-chitin, one edge melted and charred. He went on, seeing more bits and pieces—a bright-edge shred here, swinging from a bush, a card-table-sized plate there, wedged high in a tree. Then suddenly the dull-gleaming mass of a major fragment of the wrecked Rhoon loomed through the underbrush, piled against the ribbed base of a forest giant.

"Hoo, that big fellow hit hard, Tief-tief," Pin-pin said. "Wonder what bring him down?"

"Something he tried to eat disagreed with him." Retief made his way around the giant corpse, noting the blaster burns on the stripped hub of the rotors, the tangle of internal organic wiring exposed by the force of the crash, the twisted and shattered landing members. The rear half of the body was missing, torn away in the passage through the trees.

"Wonder what a Rhoon meet big enough to down him?" Pin-pin wondered. "He the toughest critter in this jungle; everybody spin gravel when a Rhoon flit overhead." The Ween dipped a finger in a smear of spilled lubricant, waved it near an olfactory organ.

"Fool!" he snorted. "That gone plumb rancid already! I guess we don't make no meal off this fellow!"

Retief clambered up the side of the downed behemoth, looked down into an open cavity gouged in the upper side of the thorax, just anterior to the massive supporting structures for the rotating members. Wires were visible; not the irregular-diametered organic conduits of the Quoppina internal organization, but bright-colored cables bearing lettering . . .

"Hey, Tief-tief!" Pin-pin called suddenly. "Us better get scarce! This boy's relations is out looking for him!"

Retief looked up; a great dark shape was visible, hovering a few hundred feet above treetop level. By the bright light of Joop, a second and a third Rhoon appeared, cruising slowly back and forth over the position of their fallen comrade.

"They going to spot him any minute now," Pin-pin said. "I say let's get!"

"They can't land here," Retief said. "They've already spotted him; they're patrolling the location . . ." He looked around, listening. There was the whine of the breeze among metallic leaves, the high throb of idling Rhoon rotors, a distant rustle of underbrush . . .

"Somebody's coming," Retief said. "Let's fade back and watch."

"Look, Tief-tief, I just remembered, I got a roof needs patching—"

"We'll lie low and pull back if it's more than we can handle, Pin-pin. I don't want to miss anything."

"Well . . ." The three Ween went into a hurried consultation, then clacked palps in reluctant agreement. "OK—but if it's a bunch of them no-good Voion coming to see what can they steal, us leaving," Pin-pin announced. "They getting too quick with them clubs lately."

It was five minutes before the first of the approaching group came into view among the great scarlet- and purple-boled trees, laden with full field packs and spare tires.

"What I tell you?" Pin-pin whispered shrilly. "More of them policemen! They all over the place!"

Retief and the Ween watched as more and more Voion came up, crowding into the clearing leveled by the passage of the Rhoon, all chattering in a subdued buzz, fingering their blackwood clubs and staring about them into the forest.

"Plenty of them," a Ween hissed. "Must is six sixes of sixes if they's a one . . ."

"More than that. Look at 'em come!"

An imposing-looking Voion with a jewel in his left palp appeared; the others fell back, let him through. He rolled up beside the dead Rhoon, looked it over.

"Any sign of Lieutenant Xit?" he demanded in trade dialect.

"What he say?" Pin-pin whispered.

"He's looking for the one you fellows found," Retief translated.

"Oh-oh; they ain't gonna to like it if they finds him."

The conversation among the Voion continued:

" . . . trace of him, Colonel. But there a native village not far away; maybe they can help us."

The colonel clacked his palps. "They'll help us," he grated. "Which way?"

The Voion pointed. "Half a mile—there."

"All right, let's march." The column formed up, started off in a new direction.

"For a minute I figure they mean Weensville," Pin-pin said. "But they headed for the Zilk town."

"Can we skirt them and get there first?" Retief asked.

"I reckon—but I ain't hungry just now—and besides, with them policemens on the way—"

"I'm not talking about grocery shopping," Retief said. "Those Voion are in a mean mood. I want to warn the villagers."

"But they's Zilk. What we care what happen to them babies?"

"The Terries I'm looking for might be there; I'd prefer to reach them before the Voion do. Beside which, you villagers should stick together."

"Tief-tief, you is got funny ideas, but if that's what you wants . . ."

Retief and his guides pushed through a final screen of underbrush, emerged at the edge of a cleared and planted field where the broad yellow leaves of a ripening crop of alloy plants caught the Jooplight.

"Them Zilk a funny bunch," Pin-pin said. "Eats nothing but greens. Spends all they time grubbing in the ground."

"In that case, I don't suppose they have to wait until a policeman drops in to plan a meal," Retief pointed out. He started across the open field.

"Hoo, Tief-tief!" Pin-pin hurried after him. "When I say they don't eat folks, that don't mean they don't snap a mean chopper! Us is tangled with them before, plenty of times! You can't just wheel in on 'em!"

"Sorry, Pin-pin. No time for formalities now. Those cops aren't far behind us."

A tall, lean Quoppina appeared at the far side of the field—a bright yellow-orange specimen with long upper arms tipped with specialized earth-working members, shorter, blade-bearing limbs below.

"Oh-oh; they sees us. Too late to change our minds now." Jik-jik held his fighting claw straight up in a gesture indicating peaceful intentions.

"What d'ye want here, ye murderous devils?" a high, mellow voice called.

"I'm looking for a party of Terrans whose boat crash-landed near here a few hours back," Retief called. "Have you seen them?"

"Terrans, is it?" the Zilk hooted. "I've not seen 'em—and if I had, I'd not be likely to turn 'em over to the likes o' you."

Other Zilk were popping from the low, domed huts now, fanning out, moving forward on both flanks in an encircling pincer movement. At close range, Retief could see the businesslike foot-long scythes tipping the lower arms.

"Listen here, you Zilk," Jik-jik called in a voice which may have quavered a trifle. "In the Name of the Worm—us ain't just here to ask foolish questions; us is got news for you folks."

"And we've got news for you—not that ye'll ever have the chance to spread it about—"

"Us come to tip you folks off," the Ween persisted. "They a mob of mean-looking Voion on the way! Less you wants to tangle with 'em, you better head for the brush!"

"Don't try to put us off with wild tales, Ween!"

"It's the truth, if I ever told it."

"Why would ye tell us—if t'were true?"

"It beat me; it were Tief-tief here had the idea."

"What kind o' Quoppina is he?" the Zilk called. "I've seen no Stilter wi' half the length o' member that one shows."

"He a out-of-town boy; just passing through."

"T'is a trick, Wikker," a Zilk beside the spokesman hooted. "I'd not trust the little butchers as far as I could kick 'em—nor the big Stilter, neither."

"The Voion are looking for a friend of theirs," Retief said. "They have an idea you'll help them look."

"We'll help 'em off our land," a Zilk stated. "I seen a mort o' the scoundrels about the acreage lately, running in packs and trampling the crops—"

"They're armed and they mean business," Retief said. "Better get ready."

The Zilk were closing in now; the three Ween crowded up against Retief, their fighting claws clicking like castanets. Retief drew his sword.

"You're making a mistake," he told the advancing Zilk leader. "They'll be here any minute."

"A sly trick, ye heathens—but we Zilk are too shrewd for ye—"