Retief and the PanGalactic Pageant of Pulchritude (12 page)

"Now,
if we're
quite
ready," His Excellency began in an ominous tone,
"I—"

"A
moment, if you please, Harvey," Jith spoke up in his breathy whisper.
"It happens to be my turn to chair the meeting, so if you don't
mind—"

"What's
this, one of your little jokes?" Pouncetrifle barked. "Most amusing,
Mr. Ambassador. Now, as I was saying—"

"Just
hand me the gavel, there's a good chap, and we'll get on with the
meeting." Jith plucked the microphone from before the Terran dignitary.
"Fellow beings—" he started.

"Look
here, Jith," the Terran said sharply, "you know perfectly well you
took precedence in the elevator this morning—and at breakfast, I distinctly
noted the bearer handing you your menu before so much as whisking the crumbs
off my chair—"

"Doesn't
count," Jith cut in tersely, and keyed the microphone. "This
afternoon, I should like to review our progress in bringing racial equality to
Lumbaga." His amplified voice crackled through the room.

"—to
say nothing of your subtle maneuver in bribing the chief of the motor pool to
repaint your parking space upwind of mine!" Pouncetrifle's remonstrance
rose above the PA system.

"And in
bringing the blessings of noncombatant status to the unhappy natives of this
benighted world," Jith continued, "no offense to our native guests
intended, of course." The Groaci inclined three of his five eyestalks in a
perfunctory salute to the latter—a pair of observers squatting silently on a
bench by the far wall, both bulky, multilimbed, and heavily swathed in beaded
robes. They returned the gesture with stony expressions.

"Now,
the past six years during which the Interplanetary Peace Tribunal has exercised
its good offices in the search for an avenue of racial rapprochement have not
been unmarked by progress," Pouncetrifle stated, leaning across to address
the microphone. "To date, we've completed forty-two VIP villas for Class
One personnel and above, a hundred-table billiardium, and a forty-bed fun
house—"

"Frivolities
aside," Jith breathed, recommandeering the mike, "I direct your attention
to the recent consecration of a hundred-stall cybernetic confessional,
featuring coin-operated holy sand dispensers, a scourgomat capable of
processing one gross of penitents per hour, and a most ingenious mechanized
collection plate, employing 1000-Gauss magnets—"

"On the
substantive side," Pouncetrifle's voice boomed out amid a vicious feedback
howl as he ripped the mike from his rival's grasp, "pacification efforts
proceed apace. In reply to certain critics I can report that close statistical
analyses by departmental teams skilled in the detection of obscure phenomena
report that the percentage of casualties among unemployed frume-leaf gatherers
between the ages of eighteen and forty-nine during the daylight hours in
alternate months are down a big, big .0046 percent over a similar period last
year."

Jith ducked
under Pouncetrifle's arm to clutch the microphone.

"While
it's quite true that the bases of the racial conflicts here on Lumbaga have not
yet been isolated," he stated breathily, "nor have the precise
ideological battle lines been delimited, nor the values involved definitely
identified, some progress has been made in the study of native beadwork, a
circumstance which lends substance to the hope that in the near future—say the
next half-dozen years—we may meet with limited success in determining who is
fighting whom—or should I say whom is fighting who—if not why."

"Come
to the point," the assistant military attaché muttered. "What it
boils down to is that with all these rival cliques, factions, races, mobs,
unions, congregations, bands, platoons, crews, and clans constantly involved in
squabbles, bickerings, pitched battles, bombings, disagreements, feuds,
wrangles, wars, altercations, misunderstandings, ruptures, brawls, rows,
sit-ins, shoot-ins, and assorted Donnybrooks, with the participants changing
sides at irregular intervals according to no known scheme, our chances of
unifying the planet under a single flag are on a par with the likelihood of my
making Light Colonel by Voom Festival."

"Alas,
I fear we're actually losing ground," the Groaci functionary seated beside
him whispered in tones of deepest pessimism. "Not content with strewing
each other's members in the public ways, the aborigines now widen the scope of
their hostilities to include us selfless diplomats. Only yesterday I was
savaged by a seeing-eye leg—"

"Heavens,
what about me?" Magnan cut in. "Only minutes ago I was forced to deal
sharply with a chap intent on an audacious diplomatnapping."

"You
didn't lend substance to any potential charges of Terran intellectual
brutality, I trust, Magnan?" a sharp-eyed cultural attaché said.

"Naturally
not," Warbutton spoke up. "I was present, luckily, and smoothed the
incident over."

"Pah!"
the Groaci whispered. "There are plots afoot here, I feel it in my
cartilaginous members!"

"Poppycock,"
Warbutton snorted. "The natives may appear to detest our internal
integuments, but down deep they like us."

"About
six feet down, preferably," someone muttered.

"Now,
before we can set about establishing one-world rule on Lumbaga,"
Pouncetrifle cut through the chatter, the smooth flow of his diction somewhat
marred by the silent scuffle in which he was engaged for possession of the
floor. "It's clear that until we devise some means of discriminating—pray
pardon the expression—between the wildlife and the population, certain problems
will inevitably crop up in categorization of life forms as to vermin,
livestock, and constituents. I now call on Mr. Lunchbun, our xenoecologist, for
a brief report on the complexities of Lumbagan biology." The ambassador
favored his Groacian colleague with a frosty smile and subsided. From his place
near the foot of the table, a sad-faced chap with thinning hair rose, rattled
papers, and cleared his throat.

"As his
Excellency so discerningly pointed out," he began in a nasal drone,
"the ecological situation here on Lumbaga is hardly susceptible to
analysis by conventional means. To begin with, we've so far identified over two
hundred thousand distinct phyla of basic wild life running loose on the
islands, a circumstance which has sent our ecological computer into catatonic
withdrawal—"

"Yes,
yes, Mr. Lunchbun," Jith prompted impatiently. "If you have nothing
further to report—"

". . .
we deduce from paleontological evidence," Lunchbun bored on, "that
life has spontaneously arisen from the primordial Lumbagan mud on at least a
hundred thousand separate occasions—"

"Fascinating,
no doubt," Jith said sibilantly. "Now to other matters, such as
provisions for a rest and recreational camp for Groaci ladies and their lovable
grubs—"

"While
all of the surviving life forms are mutually infertile," Lunchbun droned
on, "—in fact, reproduction in the conventional sense is not practiced by
Lumbagan life—it seems that symbiotic relationships provide the necessary
proliferation of ecological niche-holders necessary for the full exploitation
of the environment—"

"Yes,
yes, quite so," Jith piped faintly. "Now as for my proposal for a
gift to the Lumbagan masses of a Bolshoi-type ballet theater—"

"Now,
as for the VH—vital hierarchy, a term referring to the ascending order of
complexity of competing and cooperating species—it appears we're faced here
with a regular gradation from the mindless free-living gall bladder and/or
medulla oblongata through the
pneumopteryx
, or flying lung, the
night-blooming liver, or
Hepaticus noctens
—"

"Kindly
speak either Terran or Groaci," a representative of the latter species
whispered irritably, "as a courtesy to those of us who are not specialists
in arcane linguistic lore."

"—to
the subcultural forms such as the Gliding Leg,
Pedis volens
, and the
Bounding Rib Cage,
Os leapifrons
—"

"Splendid,"
Pouncetrifle said heartily, "I'm sure we all enjoyed Mr. Lunchbun's most
lucid rundown on the subject on which he has just presented his briefing. Now,
the next item on the agenda—"

"To
continue," Lunchbun cut through the rising conversation level, "I've
recently achieved a breakthrough, classificationwise." He turned to pull
down a wall chart. "The basic building blocks of Lumbagan life, which I've
designated here with Chinese ideographs for convenience, are capable of a large
but finite number of cross-combinations, indicated by Egyptian hieroglyphics,
which compound forms in turn are capable of further linkages to create still
more complex entities, shown on the accompanying schematic by Greek letters,
Norse runes, and the letters A thru Q inclusive. The chart represents
schematically the theoretical relationships of biological subgroups and groups
within the hyper- or supergroups, in light of the presumed intergroup taboo
structure, the affinity-schemes implicit in observed pro- and
counter-indications social-mobilitywise, and the mutual interdependency pattern
as deduced from a careful sifting of rumors from the interior. Naturally, it's
only approximate."

"Yes,
yes, we all know the woods are full of tongues, elbows and less mentionable
members," Pouncetrifle prompted the speaker. "Get to the point,
man!"

"Well,
I'm skipping over the most fascinating part—but as it happens, Mr. Ambassador,
I have a few slides for you this afternoon," Lunchbun said hastily.
"Freddy . . . ?" He signaled to a local employee hidden in the wings;
the lights dimmed and a pair of vivid trideo images flickered into existence
above the ornamental fungus centerpiece adorning the long board. One of the
beings represented was a seven-foot creature with an oversized head crowded
with sensory appendages in no particular arrangement, surmounting a cluster of
arms of varying lengths, which sprang directly from a flattened pelvic girdle
to which were attached three long, skinny legs, each ending in a pair of
multitoed feet, the whole encased in a warty hide of a mottled purplish hue.
The other was some four feet in height, with a lumpy head adorned by antlers, fangs,
tusks, eyestalks, and a bushy magenta crest matching a ruff springing from the
base of a long, limber neck. The remainder of the creature consisted largely of
a pendulous, leathery paunch of a peculiarly objectionable yellowish shade,
featuring stubby wings, tentacles, pincers, and a clump of noodlelike
appendages presumably designed for locomotion.

"Here
we have lab mock-ups of a pair of hypothetical composites, embodying what
appear to be the most popular elements of what I term the ABCD and WXYZ forms,"
Lunchbun stated in a proprietary tone.

"On the
whole," Colonel Warbutton commented, "I think the chap on the left
has the more wholesome look about him. True, he's gone a bit overboard
frequency-of-occurrencewise, but those are recognizable arms, legs, and the
like—"

"I
assume the simulacrum on the right represents the higher form," Ambassador
Jith spoke up, "inasmuch as it has tastefully selected handsome stalked
oculars, efficient grasping chelae, and a most soothing pigmentation,
reminiscent of my own."

"Hold
it right there," a reedy voice interrupted the proceedings. One of the
local observers was on his feet—six in number—waving several arms. "I
object! You foreigners are profaning the arcane mysteries by exhibiting
undraped bodies without throwing in some redeeming entertainment value. What do
those fellows do? Dance? Sing? Nonstop pray? Juggle zingfruit? No! They just
stand there!"

"Why,
how remarkable," Magnan whispered to Retief. "I didn't know the
observers spoke Terran. Heavens, I wonder if we've uttered any indiscretions,
racial-prejudicewise. . . ."

"They're
full of surprises," Retief agreed. "Not the least of which is the
fact that they've stayed awake through Lunch-bun's lecture."

"Curious,"
Magnan mused. "I would have sworn that yesterday the one with the six feet
had three eyes and a half a dozen snoof-organs; today he's down to two of the
latter and only one of the former."

"Now,
now, ah, sir or madam," Pouncetrifle was soothing the aroused local,
"I'm sure no offense to your local mores was intended. I'll see that it
doesn't happen again—"

"Don't
do that, sport," the Lumbagan said in a more expansive tone, producing a
tambourine from beneath his robes. "Just drop a little something in the
old collection box, and on with the show."

"Why,
yes, of course, I suppose a small contribution to a worthy charity would be
quite in order," the ambassador agreed hastily.

"Small,
nothing, sport! A couple thousand standard creds would be about right—and don't
try to tell me how to spend it. I'm not in business for my health. And while
I've got the floor, maybe I can interest some of you gents, Terry and Five-Eyes
alike, in a snappy line of musical spud peelers for which I happen to be sole
agent in this end of the archipelago—"

"What's
this? Mercantile endeavor in the midst of solemn diplomatic proceedings?"
Ambassador Jith whispered. "And a competing line, at that!"

"Look
here—you can't conduct yourself as a peddler," Pouncetrifle said sternly.