Reward for Retief (8 page)

            "It is precisely your
responsibility, Chet," Shortfall intoned heavily, "to keep your superiors,
namely myself, informed well in advance as to the tactics the locals are most
likely to employ!"

            "We ain't got no
crystal ball nor nothing, Mr. Ambassador," Colonel Underknuckle reminded
his Principal Officer. "But whatever they pull, it'll be what they think
will lose us the most face. They'll try to make us look like a bunch of
monkeys!"

            "While I see no point
in casting unwarranted opprobium on innocent simians, Chester," Shortfall
objected withja somewhat mournful 610-d (Looka Me,
I'm liberal!)
expression.
"It is apparent that the unruly element among our hosts would indeed
desire to discredit Terra, no doubt at the instigation of an irresponsible
foreign power, in hope of influencing the devision of spheres of influence at
the upcoming Summit over on Lumbaga."

            "Everybody knows the
Groaci got the fix in with the Sardonic Foreign Ministry," Chet riposted.

            "Your sullen attitude,
Chet, ill befits a field-grade officer dreaming of stars on his
shoulder-tabs," Shortfall reminded his military advisor. "I suggest
you turn your attention to the devising of a viable strategy to oppose
precisely the Groaci strategy you cite."

            "Sure," Nat
Sitzfleisch of the Econ Section spoke up as One Who'd Been Awaiting an
Opportunity to Weigh in on the Side of Enlightened Policy. "Sure, what we
gotta do, we gotta get the fix in our own selfs."

            "Nat," Shortfall
said, almost kindly, "while it is self-apparent that the wisdom of Terran
counsel should receive due consideration by the Sardonic Council—"

            "Hold it!" Herb
Lunchwell, Nat's second-in-command cut in. "That 'Terran counsel' and
'Sardonic Council' mixes me up. And right here in the Embassy ya got your
Consular Officers, and your Counselor of Embassy, and now this local Council,
and I don't see why the
Corps
don't come up with some new terminology,
which it won't rely so heavily on homonyms!"

            "The personal lives of
our personnel, Herb, are no concern of the
Corps,"
Shortfall
rebuked the portly Second Secretary and Consul. "You will doubtless recall
the landmark Kablitzki decision back in '86 which established that a policy of
openness and official disinterest in such unfortunate matters would disarm in
advance any supposed vulnerability to pressures to which deviant personnel
might otherwise be subject. You were saying ...?"

            "We could call 'em
'Advisor of Embassy,' instead of 'Counselor of Embassy,' for openers,"
Herb proposed. "And how about changing 'Consul' to, say, 'Liaison'? I'm
just noodling, mind you. And this here local Council; we could call it the
Cabinet. Then maybe a fella'd know what he's talking about. And I didn't say
nothing about no deviants."

            "What
I'm
saying
about," Shortfall said waspishly, "is the dire necessity for
affirmative action on the part of this Mission, preferably
prior
to our
demise at the hands of the unruly local element!"

            "Too bad the unruly
local element is the
de jure
government," Ted Whaffle, the
Political Officer, put in glumly.

            "And the
de facto
gubment,
too," Hy Felix reminded him promptly. "So we can't hardly lodge no
official protest with
them
babies."

            "This Mission, Ted,
does, as you suggest, face more than usual difficulties," Shortfall
conceded. "I assume," he went on in a tone of Deep Synthetic Interest
(12-w), "that you will now extend your remarks to include your proposed
solution to the contretemps."

            "As to that,"
spoke up young Marvin Lacklustre, the Assistant Consular Officer, "it
appears judging from the complaints lodged even prior to our arrival, with my
office by the local Terran Entrepreneurs, Realtors, and Retailers Institute,
that the local Ministry of Stuff expects to extract license fees, taxes,
insurance, and protection, amounting to some hundred and fifty percent of gross
transactions. It's highway robbery. They seem to imagine that
terri
has access to unlimited funds, of
which they demand their exhorbitant cut. Shocking! A combination in restraint
of trade of the most arrant stripe!"

            "Pity Taft-Hartly's
writ doesn't run here in Tip Space, Marvin," Shortfall murmured
sympathetically. "I suggest you huddle with Herb Lunchwell to devise a
viable strategy to counter this unrealistic policy."

            "But, sir," Marvin
protested. "I
did\
And still they're intransigent to a
degree!"

            "Sorry His Ex cut you
off when you were going good, Marv," his immediate supervisor murmured
consolingly as the lad resumed his seat.

            "What
I
don't
see," the irrepressible Hy Felix interjected, "is how TERM got the
local chapter which there ain't never been no Terries allowed in here."

            "As you so cogently
point out, Marvin, it's shocking," Shortfall intoned stonily, ignoring
Felix's jibe. "Still, something must be done, and you're just the fellow
within whose job description such action falls. Such are the burdens of the
diplomat," he pursued his thesis with a resonate delivery suggesting that
massed mediamen were recording each sonorous syllable, "selflessly saving
mankind, and
terri
, too, on many
a far-flung world!"

            A spattering of spontaneous
applause broke out, cut short, but not unkindly, at a gesture from the Great
Man.

            "Fellows," he
almost whined, in an overly abrupt return to normal Staff Meeting tones,
"if we could just find out what the devil it is these brigands want, we'd
have made an important advance, BTCWYA (*
Brightening The Corner Where You Are—a
hallowed Corps principle
)
wise! So— thinking-caps, gentlemen! I want to see half a dozen constructive
proposals on my desk by tea-time. Dismissed ... yes, what is it, Magnan?"
he concluded as the slender Budget-and-Fiscal man burst into the room,
signalling for attention like a distressed schoolboy with an urgent Number Two.

            "Why, Mr.
Ambassador," Magnan responded in his thin voice, "why don't we just
send someone out to ask them—since the Minister refuses to respond on the
hot-line?"

            "Never could pronounce
that 'bitch-wa'," Hy muttered. "You surprise me, Ben," Shortfall
told his underling in the tone of One Whom Nothing can Surprise (717-d).
"Candidly, I had never given you high marks in the 'Suicidal Tendencies'
column under 'Devotion to Duty' on the ER's."

            "Changed his
tune," Hy remarked barely sub-audibly, to Herb Sitzfleisch. "A minute
ago they were 'high-spirited merry-makers.' Now he's talking suicide."

            Shortfall ignored the not
quite sub-audible after all remark with the elan of the seasoned diplomat.
"Just how, Ben," His Ex bored on, "do you propose both to secure
the relevant information and to relay it here to me prior to your demise at the
tentacles of these Terricidal maniacs?"

            "Whom? I, sir?"
Magnan said, his voice tending to crack on the personal pronoun.

            "Whomever else,
Ben?" Shortfall boomed, "when it was you who volunteered. Yes,"
he went on gravely, "yours is the honor, Ben, and you will find Terra not
ungrateful."

            "In that case,"
Retief spoke up, coming up behind Magnan, "I guess we'd better get going,
Mr. Magnan."

            "Yes, yes, that's all
right," Shortfall snapped. "As Ben's immediate subordinate, it's
fitting that you should go along to hold his coat. And by the way, I note that
both of you gentlemen are late, by a full—" he broke off to consult an
antique pocket-watch the size of a hockey puck "—five minutes!"

4

           
Back outside, in
the red-carpeted corridor, Magnan mopped his forehead with a small, blackish
tissue with the embossed arms of the Fustian embassy, leaving patches of purplish-dark
dye on his face. He cast the tissues from him as he noticed the stain on his
fingers. "Drat!" he commented. "I forgot Ambassador Whonk likes
to keep always at hand the aroma and pigmentation of his native mud!"

            "Just what did you have
in mind, Mr. Magnan?" Retief asked his immediate supervisor.

            "What
I
had in
mind?" Magnan echoed in a tone of Deep Astonishment at an Unwarranted
Assumption (246-z). " 'What did His Excellency Ambassador and Minister
Plenipotentiary Theophilus Clyde Shortfall have in mind?' I assume you
mean."

            "A fine technical
distinction," Retief pointed out. "But since it was indeed yourself,
sir, who spoke up at the precise moment when His Ex was desperate for a
patsy—or perhaps 'dedicated public servant' is the more dignified term—surely
you had anticipated that anything you said would be seized upon to provide an
Ambassadorial out."

            "Doubtless,"
Magnan mused contritely, "I was imprudent. But it was good of you, Retief,
to come along on what will doubtless be my final mission in the service of
Terra."

            "Just following
orders," Retief pointed out. "So I can claim no credit. Meanwhile,
we'd better work out some tactics, strategy being out of the question."

            "I recall a somewhat
irrational, but pertinent motto attributed to an admittedly obscure Venetian
general of the Fifteenth Century," Magnan offered hesitantly: " 'When
in doubt, attack!' "

            "What happened to this
general?" Retief asked. "I don't remember hearing of him."

            "He died young,"
Magnan admitted.

            "It appears the
question is academic," Retief notified the skittish Budget and Fiscal
Officer, as they turned to see a swarm of armed locals boiling up from the
ceremonial main staircase, improvised weapons gripped in an improbable number
of hard, purplish-gray fists, which they shook aloft in a manner universally
recognizable as other then cordial. Above them, hand-made placards bobbed,
crudely lettered in Standard:
get terry
and
sardon for the sardonic
. As well
as one hastily chalked card demanding:
hand
over retief!

           
"Great
Heavens, Retief!" Magnan blurted. "The cheeky fellows intend to
violate the Chancery itself! I'd best notify his Ex at once—" He broke off
and ducked as a rusty iron spear wrenched from the fence outside came hurtling
toward him, to crash noisily on the terrazo behind him. Retief caught the next
one, reversed it, and swung it in a whistling arc which sent out one bold
agitator reeling back among his associates, who paused in their heading advance
to gather round him curiously.

            "Not friendly clobber
local citizen," one called in his squeaky voice. "Violate ancient
Sardonic code of hospitality!"

            "Be off with you,
sir," Magnan returned briskly, "before I report you to the
authorities!" He ducked a well-aimed spitoon.

            "Rots o' ruck,
Terry!" came the reply. "We
are
the authorities! Anyways,
Chief Smudge is, which this Retief gave him a sore foof-organ where he can't be
up here to arrest youse his ownself! Now hold still so I can get my placement
right this time!" The spokesman pegged a medium-sized rock which Retief
returned sharply, wielding his iron spear like a Louisville Slugger. The noisy
mob split to allow the missile to pass through, to impact at last against the
rump of a fleeing comrade, who yelled and accelerated his pace. At the top of the
staircase, Retief grabbed Magnan and draped him over the ornate bannister which
ran up the center of the broad steps, down which he slid, straight through the
throng. Then Retief shouldered his spear and took a position astride the
handrail, to slide quickly down to the lobby, where Magnan lay in a heap after
his abrupt descent, surrounded by the throng, through which Retief had cut a
swath in his arrival. Chief Smudge sulked near the ruined gate. Bill stood by,
keeping an eye on him.