Reward for Retief (6 page)

            "Still, the A/C
works," Retief pointed out. He sat on the bed. "And the mattress
isn't bad."

            "Retief." Magnan
protested. "Don't go being cheerful about this disaster! And after we were
promised the Imperial Suite, too," he carped.

            "Maybe the emperor was
the one they hanged; drew, and quartered," Retief suggested.

1

           
An hour later,
Retief and Magnan had settled into their spartan quarters, and adjusted to the
lack of anything resembling a bathroom, or even a chair.

            "We must remember to
call it Zanny-du, like the indiginees,'' Magnan remarked, adjusting the lie of
his Top Three Grader lapels. "Now, we'd best hurry along to Staff Meeting.
His Ex no doubt has some choice bits of gossip—useful tips from the Classified
Report—that is."

2

           
It was a
greenish dusk when the two newly-arrived diplomats emerged from the building
via the irregularly-shaped pedestrian exit, pointed out earlier by their local
guide/guard, to emerge on the city's main avenue. Main or otherwise, it was the
only route to the lofty, shedding, wattle-and-daub structure across the way
bearing the newly-installed brass plate lettered 'Embassy of Terra.'

            "B-but Retief—"
Magnan stammered, eyeing their proposed route, a springy plank of goomwood some
twenty-seven inches wide and three inches thick, "it's nothing but an
oversized two-by-four!"

            "It's quite broad by
local standards, sir," Retief reassured him, as he stepped out on the
narrow bridge. It bounced alarmingly as the two Terrans proceeded along it,
fifty feet above the ground, which was invisible in the black shadows below.

            "Great heavens,
Retief!" Magnan blurted when he reached the intersection with Embassy
Drive, an unplaned two-by-six. He froze in place, his arms windmilling, unable
to advance the first step. "Why in the worlds," he demanded of an
unheeding cosmos, "did Ambassador Shortfall select
this
Acrobat's
nightmare as the address for his Mission? No mere human could be expected to
cross this thing, without even a handrail." He peered anxiously down past
his feet and shuddered. "At least the gnats aren't so bad here," he
offered.

            "There wasn't much
choice," Retief reminded his supervisor. "All the other main streets
are narrower."

            "Doubtless all sorts of
dreadful creatures lurk down in those lightless depths," Magnan told
Retief. "What if one should lose one's footing and fall amongst
them?"

            "Don't worry,"
Retief comforted his supervisor. "You'd no doubt be killed by the fall.
But we only have this short stretch to cross to make it to Staff Meeting on
time." He preceeded his chief out onto the final narrow stretch of timber,
well-worn, presumably by the multiple feet of generations of Zanny-duers.

            "Wait!" Magnan
called. "Don't leave me here!" As if goaded by the concept of being
alone on the swaying foot-path, he took a hesitant step. "Look there,
Retief!" he cried, pointing to the entry to the Embassy, below and to the
left, just ahead, opening on a relatively broad ledge where a crowd of elongated
locals had gathered, some armed, all shouting and shaking half a dozen fists
each, while others busied themselves with prybars levering open the folding
metal gate.

            "The Embassy is under
attack!" Magnan yelled, in his excitement hurrying past Retief to the
point opposite and above the wide doorway and its besieging mob, crowding onto
the porch-like entry slab.

            "Here, now, you in the
yellow headdress!" he shouted over the din, addressing a noisy fellow who
seemed to be the prime agitator.

            Having thus captured the
attention of the locals, Magnan retreated along the plank as the focus of the
angry mob shifted instantly from the intransigent gate to himself. Rocks arced
toward him, a few chipping wood near his feet.

            "Get Terry!" the
cry went up. And "there's two of em!

            "Rush 'em!" the
boss troublemaker commanded, and his minions obediently crept forward, first
crowding, then crawling atop each other, forming a mound directly below the
point where Magnan crouched, babbling.

            "Retief!
Do
something!"
he yelped. "Remember, as Ambassador Straphanger so stirringly put it when
the avalanche cut off the rescue party: 'Do something, even if it's the wrong
thing!', an exhortation to the implementation of which his whole career bore
witness! However, in this instance I feel you should improve upon His
Excellency's example at least to the extent that you avoid availing yourself of
his alternative!"

            "Good thinking, Mr.
Magnan," Retief congratulated his supervisor. "Any ideas as to what
might not be the wrong thing?"

            "Just get me inside,
intact, instantly," Magnan specified. "And yourself, as well, of
course, if you can manage it," he conceded generously.

            "Incisive instruction,
indeed, Mr. Magnan," Retief commented. He backed off a few steps, then,
taking a running start, jumped over the fringe of the mob to impact feet-first
atop the heap of eager rioters on the porch; the mound promptly dissolved, its
individual numbers making all possible haste to withdraw to a more
statesmanlike distance from the rude tactics so unexpectedly employed by the
foreign barbarian. Yellow-headdress bustled forward like a ten-foot inchworm
completing his circuit.

            "Who," he demanded
with an accent even worse than that of Chief Smeer and his
swat
team, "are you, fellow? And
why? Can't you see that by your careless mode of perambulation, you've injured
a number of public-spirited citizens, to say very little of busting up this
traditional eating-pyramid formation!"

            "I noticed, Mr.
Loudmouth," Retief conceded. " 'Retief is the handle. Par me if I
don't offer to shake manipulatory members."

            "Come down at once,
sir," Loudmouth yelled to the Terran standing atop half a dozen stunned
rioters who were writhing feebly as they attempted to disentangle their
elongated bodies each from the other.

            "Done busted Roy's
cranial plumes, too," the leader noted aggrievedly, just as Retief
launched himself at him, slamming the excited fellow backward, sending the
yellow headdress rolling in the gutter. Its owner turned back upon himself to
scramble frantically after the badge of office, snatching it up, dripping
gutter-goo just as one of his retreating underlings was about to trample it.

            Retief stepped over a
laggard rioter which snapped green teeth an inch short of his ankle, and used
his key to open the folding gate just wide enough to slip inside, slamming it
on the elongated neck of Loudmouth, who, after a quick recovery, had thrust his
upper end, bearing various sense organs, through the opening. The trapped alien
yelled and whipped his orange-and-black bristled length against the
frail-looking barrier.

            The gate bulged inward as
the crowd, noting their chief s discomfiture, heaped themselves against it,
and, incidentally, against their trapped leader, who redoubled his efforts as
well as his vocalizations.

            Retief went across to the
closed door to the Guard Room just as it burst outward, and a resentful-looking
Marine Guard sergeant burst out, power pistol in hand.

            "Let me to 'em!"
the excited lad yelled. "Oh, hi, Mr. Retief," he added, attempting to
peer over Retief's shoulder. "Where
are
the crud-bums? Two of em
come under the gate and conned me into the hut and slammed the door. Les and
Dick are due here to relieve me any second, and if they woulda found me locked
in—!" He left the rest to his hearer's imagination. As his eye fell on the
first invaders just slithering under the bulging gate, he loosed off a burst of
needles which chipped the hard, red, unpolished stone floor and sent the
pillars scrambling back to the safety of numbers. Retief took the sergeant's
arm gently and said, "No more shooting at this point in the negotiations,
Bill. It's still early in the day. Let Mr. Magnan and me try the verbal
approach."

            "Verbal,
schmerbal," Bill responded carelessly, and attempted to throw off Retief s
restraining grip.

            "Here, Mr.
Retief," he said, surprised at his failure to shrug off the latter's
seemingly casual hold. "You got a pretty good grip on you, for a
civilian."

            "I wasn't always a
civilian," Retief reminded him.

            "Yeah," Bill
offered. "I seen you at the last Armed Forces Day shindig, all tricked out
like a Batt;e Commander, medals and orders and all. Some kind a reservist on
some backwater world, I heard."

            "Sergeant!"
Magnan's strained voice cut in abruptly from the gate, through which he had at
last struggled. "Our Mister Retief s rank is quite legitimate, I assure
you; and as you know a Battle Commander outranks a Fleet Admiral-General.
Commander Retief is General-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of his native world,
Northroyal, on detached duty to the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne."

            "Oh, par me,
General," Bill said more quietly, to Retief. "But are we just gonna
stand here and let them savages cut us up for bait? Is that how they win wars
out on Northroyal?"

            "Hardly, Bill,"
Retief soothed the excited non-com. "But I might point out that no war, in
fact, exists here on Sardon."

            "And," Magnan put
in, "it is precisely to the contravention of such an eventuality that our
efforts are dedicated."

            Tm glad you made it inside,
sir," Retief told Magnan.

            "While they were busy
with the gate, I jumped down like you," Magnan explained. "Tight
squeeze, and I had to step on the yellow headdress while that noisy fellow was
wearing it. But then I can always point out that his head had no business being
in a position to be stepped on.

            "I heard that,
Terry!" Loudmouth yelled from his awkward position pinned in the gate.
" 'A technical defense is the last refuge of the scoundrel,' just like
your own CDT Handbook says!"

            "The wretch is too
cheeky by half," Magnan huffed, "but still, let us not precipitate
formal hostilities unduly."

            "There ain't nothing
formal about a good hose-down with a particle gun," Bill objected. He made
another, less casual attempt to free his arm, which Retief released, at the
same moment plucking the potent handgun from the sergeant's grip. He checked
the charge indicator and handed it back. "Don't fire until you see the
yellow of their eyes," he advised. At that moment, Loudmouth, who had
succeeded in forcing entry in advance of the main body, jittered to a stop
before Retief.

            "Your name?" he
demanded in his squeaky voice, which had been slightly bent by the gate.

            Magnan stepped forward.
"I am Consul General Magnan," he advised the nosy local. "First
Secretary of Embassy of Terra, and Budget and Fiscal Officer to the Terran
Mission to Sardon," he elucidated. "May I inquire to what we are
indebted for the honor of this delegation's informal visit?"

            "Sure, go ahead and
inquire," the Sardoner agreed. "But don't wait around for an answer;
I got nothing to say, except Terry Go Home'."

            "Your manner,
sir," Magnan countered stiffly, "is hardly that which one expects
from a representative of the government to which I am accredited, and which has
issued to me an Exequatur confirming the acceptance of my credentials. Now do
step aside and permit me, and my colleague, Mr. Retief, to proceed without
further boisterousness."

            "Boysters will be
boysters," the local dismissed Magnan's plea. "Retief, eh? I heard o'
that one from Chief Smeer; hows come he's threatening I and my boys with that
weapon?"