Retief-Ambassador to Space (24 page)

"But—the post report said the
Zooners are a sort of animated blimp!" the Information Officer protested.
"Only a few have been seen, cruising at high altitude! Surely we're not
going after
them!"

"It was inevitable,
gentlemen." Oldtrick winced as the technician tugged the harness strap
tight across his narrow chest. "Sooner or later man was bound to encounter
lighter-than-air intelligence—a confrontation for which we of the
Corps
Diplomatique Terrestrienne
are eminently well qualified!"

"But, Your Excellency,"
First Secretary Magnan spoke up, "couldn't we have arranged to confront
these, er, gaseous brains here on solid land—"

"Nonsense, Magnan! Give up this
superb opportunity to display the adaptabality of the trained diplomat? Since
these beings dwell among the clouds of their native world, what more convincing
evidence of good will could we display than to meet them on their own ground,
so to speak?"

"Of course," the corpulent
Political Officer put in, "we aren't actually
sure
there's anyone
up there." He squinted nervously up at the lacy mass of land-coral that
reached into the Zoonian sky, its lofty pinnacles brushing a
seven-thousand-foot stratum of cumuloni-bus.

"That's where we'll steal a march
on certain laggards," Oldtrick stated imperturbably. "The survey
photos clearly show the details of a charming aerial city nestled on the peak.
Picture the spectacle, gentlemen, when the Mission descends on them from the
blue empyrean to open a new era of Terran-Zoon relations!"

"Yes—
a
striking
mise-en-scène
indeed, as Your Excellency points out." The Economic Officer's cheek gave
a nervous twitch. "But what if something goes wrong with the apparatus?
The steering mechanism, for example, appears a trifle insubstantial—"

"These devices were designed and
constructed under my personal supervision, Chester," the Ambassador cut
him off coolly. "However," he continued, "don't allow that
circumstance to prevent you from pointing out any conceptual flaws you may have
detected,"

"A marvel of light-weight
ingenuity," the Economic Officer said hastily. "I only meant
..."

"Chester's point was just that
maybe some of us ought to wait here, Mr. Ambassador," the Military
Attaché" said hastily. "In case any, ah, late despatches come in from
Sector, or something. Much as I'll hate to miss participating, I
volunteer—"

"Kindly rebuckle your harness,
Colonel," Oldtrick said through thinned lips, "I wouldn't dream of
allowing you to make the sacrifice."

"Good Lord, Retief," Magnan
said in a hoarse whisper behind his hand. "Do you suppose these little
tiny things will actually work? And does he really mean ..." Magnan's
voice trailed off as he stared up into the bottomless sky.

"He really means," Retief confirmed.
"As for His Excellency's invention, I suppose that given a large-diameter,
low-density planet with a standard mass of 4.8 and a surface G of .72, plus an
atmospheric pressure of 27.5 P.S.I, and a superlight gas—it's possible,"

"I was afraid of that,"
Magnan muttered. "I don't suppose that if we all joined together and took
a firm line ...?"

"Might be a savings at
that," Retief nodded judiciously. "The whole staff could be
court-martialed as a group."

"... and now," Ambassador
Oldtrick's reedy voice paused impressively as he settled his beret firmly in
place. "If you're ready, gentlemen—inflate your gasbags!"

A sharp hissing started up as a dozen
petcocks opened as one. Bright-colored plastic bubbles inflated with sharp
popping sounds above the shoulders of the Terran diplomats. The Ambassador gave
a little spring and bounded high above the heads of his staff, where he hung,
supported by the balloon, assisted by a softly snorting battery of air jets
buckled across his hips. Colonel Smartfinger, a large bony man, gave a
halfhearted leap, fell back, his toes groping for contact as a gust of air
bumbled him across the ground. Magnan, lighter than the rest, made a creditable
spring, rose to dangle beside the Chief of Mission. Retief adjusted his
bouyancy indicator carefully, jumped off as the rest of the staff scrambled to
avoid the distinction of being the last man airborne.

"Capital, gentlemen!"
Oldtrick beamed at the others as they drifted in a ragged row, roped together
like alpinists, five yards above the surface. "I trust each of you is
ready to savor the thrill of breaking new ground!"

"An unfortunate turn of
phrase," Magnan quavered, looking down at the rocky outcropping below. The
grassy plain on which the lighter had deposited the mission stretched away to
the horizon, interrupted only by the upthrusting coral reefs dotted across it
like lonely castles in the Daliesque desert, and a distant smudge of smoky
green.

"And now—onward to what I hope I
may, without charges of undue jocularity, term a new high in diplomacy,"
Oldtrick cried. He advanced his jet control lever and lifted skyward, trailed
by the members of his staff.

Five hundred feet aloft, Magnan
clutched the arm of Retief, occupying the adjacent position in the line.

"The lighter is lifting
off!" He pointed to the slim shape of the tiny Corps vessel, drifting
upward from the sands below. "It's abandoning us!"

"A mark of the Ambassador's
confidence that we'll meet with a hospitable reception at the hands of the
Zooners," Retief pointed out.

"Frankly, I'm at a loss to
understand Sector's eagerness to accredit a Mission to this wasteland."
Magnan raised his voice above the whistling of the sharp wind and the
polyphonous huffing of the jato units. "Retief, you seem to have a way of
picking up odd bits of information; any idea what's behind it?"

"According to a usually reliable
source, the Groaci have their eyes—all five of them—on Zoon. Naturally, if
they're interested, the Corps has to beat them to it."

"Aha!" Magnan looked wise.
"They must Know Something. By the way," he edged closer. "Who
told you? The Ambassador? The Undersecretary?"

"Better than that; the bartender
at the Departmental snackbar."

"Well, I daresay our five-eyed
friends will receive a sharp surprise when they arrive to find us already on a
cordial basis with the locals. Unorthodox though Ambassador Oldtrick's
technique may be, I'm forced to concede that it appears the only way we could
have approached these Zooners." Magnan craned upward at the fanciful
formation of many-fingered rock past which they were rising. "Odd that
none of them have sallied forth to greet us."

Retief followed his gaze. "We
still have six thousand feet to go," he said. "I suppose we'll find a
suitable reception waiting for us at the top."

Half an hour later, Ambassador
Oldtrick in the lead, the party soared above the final rampart to look down on
a wonderland of rose and pink and violet coral, an intricacy of spires,
tunnels, bridges, grottos, turrets, caves, avenues, as complex and delicately
fragile as spun sugar.

"Carefully, now, gentlemen."
Oldtrick twiddled his jato control, dropped in to a gentle landing on a
graceful arch spanning a cleft full of luminous gloom produced by the
filtration of light through the translucent coral. Other members of his staff
settled in around him, gazing with awe at the minarets rising all around them.

The Ambassador, having twisted a knob
to deflate his gasbag and laid aside his flying harness, was frowning as he
looked about the silent prospect.

"I wonder where the inhabitants
have betaken themselves?" he lifted a finger, and six eager underlings
sprang to his side.

"Apparently the natives are a
trifle shy, gentlemen," he stated. "Nose around a bit, look friendly,
and avoid poking into any possibly taboo areas such as temples and public
comfort stations."

Leaving their deflated gasbags heaped
near their point of arrival, the Terrans set about peering into caverns and
clambering up to gaze along twisting alleyways winding among silent coral
palaces. Retief followed a narrow path atop a ridge which curved upward to a
point of vantage. Magnan trailed, mopping at his face with a scented tissue.

"Apparently no one's at
home," he puffed, coming up to the tiny platform from which Retief
surveyed the prospect spread below. "A trifle disconcerting, I must say. I
wonder what sort of arrangements have been laid on for feeding and housing
us?"

"Another odd thing," Retief
said. "No empty beer bottles, tin cans, old newspapers, or fruit rinds. In
fact, no signs of habitation at all."

"It rather appears we've been
stood up," the Economic Officer said indignantly. "Such cheek! And
from a pack of animated intangibles, at that!"

"It's my opinion the town's been
evacuated," the Political Officer said in the keen tones of one delivering
an incisive analysis of a complex situation. "We may as well leave."

"Nonsense!" Oldtrick
snapped. "Do you expect me to trot back to Sector and announce that I
can't find the government to which I'm accredited?"

"Great heavens!" Magnan
blinked at a lone dark cloud drifting ominously closer under the high overcast.
"I thought I sensed something impending! Oh, Mr. Ambassador ... !" he
called, starting back down. At that moment, a cry from an adjacent cavern
focused all eyes on the Military Attaché, emerging therefrom with a short
length of what appeared to be tarred rope, charred at one end.

"Signs of life, Your
Excellency!" he announced. "A dope stick butt!" He sniffed it.
"Freshly smoked."

"Dope sticks! Nonsense!"
Oldtrick prodded the exhibit with a stubby forefinger. "I'm sure the
Zooners are far too insubstantial to indulge in such vices."

"Ah, Mr. Ambassador," Magnan
called. "I suggest we all select a nice dry cave and creep inside out of
the weather—"

"Cave? Creep? Weather? What
weather?" Oldtrick rounded on the First Secretary as he came up. "I'm
here to establish diplomatic relations with a newly discovered race, not set up
houskeeping!"

"That
weather," Magnan said stiffly,
pointing at the giant cloud sweeping swiftly down on them at a level which
threatened to shroud the party in fog in a matter of minutes.

"Eh? Oh ..." Oldtrick stared
at the approaching munderhead. "Yes, well, I was about to suggest we seek
shelter—"

"What about the dope stick?"
The Colonel tried to recapture the limelight. "We hadn't finished looking
at my dope stick when Magnan came along with his cloud."

"My cloud is of considerably more
urgency than your dope stick, Colonel," Magnan said loftily.
"Particularly since, as His Excellency has pointed out, your little find
couldn't possibly be the property of the Zooners."

"Ha! Well if it isn't the
property of the Zooners, then whose is it?" The officer looked at the butt
suspiciously, passed it around. Retief glanced at it, sniffed it.

"I believe you'll find this to be
of Oroaci manufacture, Colonel," he said.

"What?" Oldtrick clapped a
hand to his forehead. "Impossible!" Why I myself hardly know—that is,
they couldn't—I mean to say, drat it, the location of the town is Utter Top
Secret!"

"Ahem." Magnan glanced up
complacently at his cloud, now a battleship-sized shape only a few hundred feet
distant. "I wonder if it mightn't be as well to hurry along now before we
find ourselves drenched."

"Good Lord!" The Political
Officer stared at the gray-black mass as it moved across the hazy sun, blotting
it out like an eclipse. In the sudden shadow, the wind was abruptly chill. The
cloud was above the far edge of the reef now; as they watched, it dropped
lower, brushed across a projecting digit of stone with a dry
squeee!
,
sent a shower of tiny rock fragments showering down. Magnan jumped and blinked
his eyes hard, twice.

"Did you see ... ? Did
I
see ... ?"

Dropping lower, the cloud sailed between
two lofty minarets, scraped across a lower tower topped with a series of sharp
spikes. There was a ripping sound, a crunch of stone, a sharp powf, a
blattering noise of escaping gas. A distinct odor of rubberized canvas floated
across to the diplomats, borne by the brisk breeze.

"Ye Gods!" the Military
Attaché shouted. "That's no cloud! It's a Trojan Horse! A dirigible in
camouflage! A trick—" He cut off and turned to run as the foundering
four-acre balloon swung, canted at a sharp angle, and thundered down amid
gratings and crunchings, crumbling bridges, snapping off slender towers,
settling in to blanket the landscape like a collapsed circus tent. A small,
agile creature in a flared helmet and a black hip-cloak appeared at its edge,
wading across the deflated folds of the counterfeit cloud, cradling a
formidable blast gun in its arms. Others followed, leaping down and scampering
for strategic positions on the high ground surrounding the Terrans.

"Groaci shock troops!" the
Military Attaché shouted. "Run for your lives!" He dashed for the
concealment of a shadow canyon; a blast from a Groaci gun sent a cloud of coral
chips after him. Retief, from a position in the lee of a buttress of rock, saw
half a dozen of the Terrans skid to a halt at the report, put up their hands as
the invaders swarmed around them, hissing soft Groaci sibilants. Three more
Terrans, attempting flight, were captured within forty feet, prodded back at
gunpoint. A moment later a sharp
oof!
and a burst of military expletives
announced the surrender of Colonel Smartfinger. Retief made his way around a
rock spire, spotted Ambassador Oldtrick being routed from his hidingplace
behind a cactus-shaped outcropping.