Diplomat at Arms (22 page)

            "I
take it he feels that darkness and solitude will be conducive to creative
thinking."

            "Don't
disparage the efficacy of the Deep-think technique. Why, I've already evolved
half a dozen proposals for dealing with the situation."

            "Will
any of them work?"

            Magnan
looked grave. "No—but they'll look quite impressive in my personnel file
during the hearings."

            "A
telling point, Mr. Magnan. Well, save a seat for me in a secluded corner. I'll
be along as soon as I've run down a couple of obscure facts."

            Retief
employed the next quarter hour in leafing through back files of classified
despatch binders. As he finished, a Blort attired in shapeless blues and a flak
helmet thrust his organ cluster through the door.

            "Hello,
Mr. Retief," he said listlessly. "I'm back."

            "So
you are, Kark," Retief greeted the lad. "You're early. I didn't
expect you until after breakfast."

            "I
got shoved on the first convoy; as soon as we landed I sneaked off to warn you.
Things are going to be hot tonight."

            "So
I hear, Kark—" A deafening explosion just outside bathed the room in green
light. "Is that a new medal you're wearing?"

            "Yep."
The youth fingered the turquoise ribbon anchored to his third rib. "I got
it for service above and beyond the call of nature." He went to the table
at the side of the room, opened the drawer.

            "Just
what I expected," he said. "That Gloian creep didn't leave any cream
for the coffee. I always leave a good supply, but does he have the same
consideration? Not him. Just like an Oranger."

            "Kark,
what do you know about the beginning of the war?"

            "Eh?"
The new clerk looked up from his coffee preparations. "Oh, it has
something to do with the founding fathers. Care for a cup? Black, of
course."

            "No
thanks. How does it feel to be back on good old Plushnik IT again?"

            "Good
old? Oh, I see what you mean. OK, I guess. Kind of hot and dry, though."
The building trembled to a heavy shock. The snarl of heavy armor passing in the
street shook the pictures on the walls.

            "Well,
I'd better be getting to work, sir. I think I'll start with the Breakage
Reports. We're three invasions behind."

            "Better
skip the paperwork for now, Kark. See if you can round up a few members of the
sweeping staff and get some of this glass cleaned up. We're expecting several
varieties of VIP about daybreak, and we wouldn't want them to get the
impression we throw wild parties."

            "You're
not going out, sir?" Kark looked alarmed. "Better not try it; there's
a lot of loose metal flying around out there, and it's going to get
worse!"

            "I
thought I'd take a stroll over toward the Temple of Higher Learning."

            "But—that's
forbidden territory to any non-Plushnik ..." Kark looked worried, as
evidenced by the rhythmic waving of his eyes.

            Retief
nodded. "I suppose it's pretty well guarded?"

            "Not
during the battle. The Gloians have called up everybody but the inmates of the
amputees ward. They're planning another of their half-baked counter-invasions.
But Mr. Retief—if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, I don't
think—"

            "I
wouldn't think of it, Kark." Retief gave the Blortian a cheery wave and
went out into the deserted hall.

            In the
twilit street, Retief glanced up at the immense orb of Plushnik I, barely a
thousand miles distant, a celestial relief map occluding half the visible sky.
A slim crescent of the nearby world sparkled in full sunlight; the remainder
was a pattern of lighted cities gleaming in the murk of the shadow cast as its
twin transited between it and the primary. The route of the Blortian invasion
fleet was clearly visible as a line of tiny, winking fires stretching in a
loose catenary curve from the major staging areas on the neighbor world across
the not-quite-airless void. As Retief watched, the giant disk sank visibly
toward the horizon, racing in its two-hour orbit around the system's common
center.

            A
quarter of a mile distant across the park, the high, peach-colored dome of the
university library pushed up into the evening sky. The darting forms of fighter
planes were silhouetted beyond it, circling each other with the agility of
combative gnats. At the far end of the street, a column of gaily caparisoned
Gloian armored cars raced past, in hot pursuit of a troop of light tanks flying
the Blort pennant. The sky to the north and west winked and nickered to the
incessant dueling of Blue and Orange artillery. There was a sharp, descending
whistle as a badly aimed shell dropped half a block away, sending a gout of
pavement chips hurtling skyward. Retief waited until the air was momentarily
clear of flying fragments to cross the street and head across the park.

            The high
walls of the Center of Learning, inset with convoluted patterns in dark-colored
mosaic tile, reared up behind a dense barrier of wickedly thorned shark trees.
Retief used a small pocket beamer to slice a narrow path through into the
grounds, where a flat expanse of deep green lawn extended a hundred yards to
the windowless structure. Retief crossed it, skirted a neatly trimmed rose bed
where a stuffed dustowl lay staring up into the night with red glass eyes.
Above, a ragged scar showed in the brickwork of the sacrosanct edifice. There
were dense vines on the wall at that point.

            It was
an easy two-minute climb to the opening, beyond which shattered glass cases and
a stretch of hall were visible. Retief gave a last glance at the
searchlight-swept sky and stepped inside. Dim light glowed in the distance. He
moved silently along the corridor, pushed through a door into a vast room
filled with racks containing the fan-shaped books favored by both Gloians and
Blorts. As he did, a light stabbed out and flicked across his chest, fixed on
the center button of his dark green early-evening blazer.

            "Don't
come any farther," a reedy voice quavered. "I've got this light right
in your eye, and a bloop gun aimed at where I estimate your vitals to be."

            "The
effect is blinding," Retief said. "I guess you've got me." Beyond
the feeble glow, he made out the fragile figure of an aged Gloian draped in
zebra-striped academic robes.

            "I
suppose you sneaked in here to make off with a load of Plushniki historical
treasures," the oldster charged.

            "Actually
I was just looking for a shady spot to load my Brownie," Retief said
soothingly.

            "Ah-hah,
photographing Cultural Secrets, eh? That's two death penalties you've earned so
far. Make a false move, and it's three and put."

            "You're
just too sharp for me, Professor," Retief conceded.

            "Well,
I do my job." The ancient snapped off the light. "I think we can do
without this. It gives me a splitting flurgache. Now, you better come along
with me to the bomb shelter. Those rascally Blorts have been dropping shells
into the Temple grounds, and I wouldn't want you to get hurt before the
execution."

            "Certainly.
By the way, since I'm to be nipped in the bud for stealing information, I
wonder if it would be asking too much to get a few answers before I go?"

            "Hmmm.
Seems only fair. What would you like to know?"

            "A
number of things," Retief said. "To start with, how did this war
begin in the first place?"

            The
curator lowered his voice. "You won't tell anybody?"

            "It
doesn't look as though I'll have the chance."

            "That's
true. Well, it seems it was something like this ..."

            "...
and they've been at it ever since," the ancient Gloian concluded his
recital. "Under the circumstances, I guess you can see that the idea of a
cessation of hostilities is unthinkable."

            "This
has been very illuminating," Retief agreed. "By the way, during the
course of your remarks, I happened to think of a couple of little errands that
need attending to. I wonder if we couldn't postpone the execution until
tomorrow?"

            "Well—it's
a little unusual. But with all this shooting going on outside, I don't imagine
we could stage a suitable ceremony in any case. I suppose I could accept your
parole; you seem like an honest chap, for a foreigner. But be back by
lunchtime, remember. I hate these last-minute noose adjustments." His hand
came up suddenly; there was a sharp
zopp!
and a glowing light bulb
across the room pooled and died.

            "All
the same, it's a good thing you asked," the old curator blew across the
end of his pistol barrel and tucked the weapon away.

            "I'll
be here," Retief assured the elder. "Now if you'd just show me the
closest exit, I'd better be getting started."

            The
Gloian tottered along a narrow passage, opened a plank door letting onto the
side garden. "Nice night," he opined, looking at the sky where the
glowing vapor trails of fighter planes looped across the constellations.
"You couldn't ask for a better one for—say, what
are
these errands
you've got to run?"

            "Cultural
secrets," Retief laid a finger across his lips and stepped out into the
night.

            It was a
brisk ten-minute walk to the Embassy garages, where the small official fleet of
high-powered CDT vehicles were stored. Retief selected a fast-moving one-man
courier boat; a moment later the lift deposited the tiny craft on the roof. He
checked over the instruments, took a minute to tune the tight-beam finder to
the personal code of the Gloian Chief of State, and lifted off.

            Rocketing
along at fifteen hundred feet, Retief had a superb view of the fireworks below.
The Blortian beachhead north of town had been expanded into a wide curve of
armored units poised ready for the dawn assault that was to sweep the capital
clear. To the west, Gloian columns were massing for the counterstrike. At the
point of juncture of the proposed assault lines, the lights of the Terran
Embassy glowed forlornly.

            Retief
corrected course a degree and a half, still climbing rapidly, watching the
quivering needles of the seek-and-find beam. The emerald and ruby glow of a set
of navigation lights appeared a mile ahead, moving erratically at an angle to
his course. He boosted the small flier to match altitudes, swung in on the
other craft's tail. Close now, he could discern the bright-doped fabric-covered
wings, the taut rigging wires, the brilliant orange blazon of the Gloian
national colors on the fuselage, above the ornate personal emblem of Marshal
Lib Glip. He could even make out the goggled features of the warrior Premier
gleaming faintly in the greenish light from the instrument faces, his satsuma-toned
scarf streaming bravely behind him.

            Retief
maneuvered until he was directly above the unsuspecting craft, then peeled off
and hurtled past it on the left close enough to rock the light airplane
violently in the buffeting slip stream. He came around in a hairpin turn, shot
above the biplane as it banked right, did an abrupt left to pass under it, and
saw a row of stars appear across the plastic canopy beside his head as the
Gloian ace turned inside him, catching him with a burst from his machine guns.

            Retief
put the nose of the flier down, dived clear of the stream of lead, swung back
and up in a tight curve, rolled out on the airplane's tail. Lib Glip, no mean
pilot, put his ship through a series of vertical eights, snaprolls, immelmans,
and falling leaves, to no avail. Retief held the courier boat glued to his tail
almost close enough to brush the wildly wig-wagging control surfaces.

            After
fifteen minutes of frantic evasive tactics, the Gloian ship settled down to a
straight speed run. Retief loafed alongside, pacing the desperate flier. When
Lib Glip looked across at him, Retief made a downward motion of his hand and
pointed at the ground. Then he eased over, placed himself directly above the
bright-painted plane, and edged downward.

            Below,
he could see Lib Glip's face, staring upward. He lowered the boat another foot.
The embattled Premier angled his plane downward. Retief stayed with him,
forcing him down until the craft was racing along barely above the tops of the
celery-shaped trees. A clearing appeared ahead. Retief dropped until his keel
almost scraped the fuel tank atop Lib Glip's upper wing. The Gloian, accepting
the inevitable, throttled back, settled his ship into a bumpy landing, rolled
to a stop just short of a fence. Retief dropped in and skidded to a halt beside
him.

            The
enraged Premier was already out of his cockpit, waving a large clip-fed hand
gun, as Retief popped the hatch of the boat.