Retief at Large (44 page)

            "J
... j ... just starting now," the counsellor choked. "It happens I
don't like Groaci iodine chowder, so I just stepped out for a breath of
air." He stumbled back as Retief dashed on.

            At
the high double doors to the banquet hall, a Marine in dress blues, polished
helmet and chrome-plated ceremonial .45 departed from his rigid position of
attention sufficiently to roll his eyes as the newcomers surged down on him. At
what he saw, he grabbed for the holster at his hip. Retief slammed a
side-handed blow at his wrist. "Sorry, son," he snapped and sent the
doors flying open on the roomful of startled diplomats. From both sides of a
long U-shaped table, oculars of every description goggled at the spectacle that
burst upon them. Retief pointed to the impassive Sulinorian servitors standing
behind the diners, spaced all along the room, one to a customer.

            "Get
'em" he commanded and reached for the nearest as the troop at his heels
boiled past to carry out his instruction.

            "You've
gone out of your mind, Retief!" Counsellor Clutchplate gazed, white-faced
and shaken, from the broken doorway at the scene of carnage after the capture
of the last of the servitors. "What can it mean, leading this party of
dacoits to violate the Embassy? I must protest, even at risk of my life,
whatever atrocities you plan to visit on these poor chaps! They're under CDT
protection!"

            "They'll
survive—some of 'em," Retief said, and plucking a steak knife from the
table, he stooped over one of the fallen waiters and with a quick stroke, laid
him open from chin to navel. Clutchplate uttered a strangled yelp; Ambassador
Shindlesweet turned pale and quietly collapsed under the table as Retief
reached, extracted a limp, two-foot-tall creature resembling a shelled lobster
from the interior of the pseudoflesh costume.

            "They're
not Sulinorians; they're Blugs." He reached again, pulled out a small
pressure-tank. "This is his air supply; liquid nitrogen."

            "Blugs?"
Clutchplate gaped at the unconscious creature, from whose breathing orifice a
brown exhalation now was issuing. "But what—how—? See here, Retief! even
if these are, er, Blugs, what harm could they have done unarmed, which would
warrant your outrageous behavior?"

            "Blugs
are rock-eaters," Retief explained. "And they seem to have a
remarkable degree of control over their metabolism. Normally, they exhale
innocuous gases; under stress, they start exhaling nitrogen trioxide. But when
occasion demands, they can switch to production of any one of three or four
poisonous oxides of nitrogen. Here in this closed room, all it would have taken
was one good whiff down each guest's neck, on signal, and bingo! Clean
sweep."

            "But
why?" Clutchplate wailed.

            "I
have an idea Ambassador Shith can tell us how they happened to be here, instead
of Coriale's regular table-waiting staff," Retief suggested.

            Shith,
still dangling in Tussore's grasp, emitted a harsh bleat. "Gloat while you
can, Mr. Retief!" he hissed. "True, every word! I commend your
cleverness! But while you spent your efforts in thwarting this feint—yes,
feint!—the squadron of Blug warships which you Terries so naively permitted to
pass your blockade were discharging fifty thousand picked troops, the cream of
the Bluggish navy! Even now these diminutive but doughty doughboys are
spreading out over the town, breathing their deadly halitosis on every living
creature in their paths! By morning, no Sulinorian will be alive to dispute the
Groaci claim to planetary ownership!"

            "Shith—have
you taken leave of your senses?" Shindlesweet had revived sufficiently to
crawl forth, spluttering. "When this is known you'll be hauled before a
Galactic tribunal and dealt with in a manner that will make the name of Groac a
byword to replace that of Doctor Mush!"

            "Mud,"
Shith corrected. "Permit me to contradict you, my dear George! Not one
word of the coup will be noised abroad. My constabulary have already taken the
precaution of securing the only communications facilities on the planet capable
of contacting CDT naval forces; in a matter of moments my chaps will arrive to
put an end to your illusions of success! Don't fret, however. I promise you a
swift and painless demise." He paused, aiming several eyes at Retief. "Why
do you shake your head, sir! My scheme is flawless! My invasion is an
accomplished fact!"

            "True—but
you missed one small point," Retief said. "The Sulinorians were
gradually fading off the scene due to the exhaustion of the planet's supply of
a certain element vital to their well-being. But instead of dying, after about
the age of five hundred, they'd drift off into a comatose state. You and your
nitrogen-fixing Blugs have changed all that, Mr. Ambassador. Thanks to you,
Sulinore has a new lease on life."

            "You
seek even in the eleventh hour to delude yourself!" Shith hissed.
"Hearken! Even now my occupation forces approach the door!"

            There
was a noisy clump of feet from the hall outside.

            Then
the mighty figure of Bozdune the Bestial, broad and bronzed, appeared in the
entry. He plucked a shattered door from its hinges with one hand and tossed it
aside.

            "Nice
going, Retief," he boomed. "I don't know how you worked it, but the
place is swarming with those lovable little guys you called Blugs. All the boys
are catching 'em and making pets of 'em. I've got one in my pocket, and he's
keeping me supplied like a tall glunthound!" The behemoth's ochre eyes
fell on the laden table. "Chow!" he bassooned. "I haven't had a
square meal in eight hundred years!"

            "Then—this
means my invasion has failed?" Shith wailed. "My so meticulously
planned invasion, spoiled in the eleventh hour by one trivial oversight?"

            "Oh,
your invasion is a huge success," Retief said comfortingly. "But this
time the invadees are the winners."

            "I
really must protest this flagrant interference in the internal affairs of a
sovereign world, George," Ambassador Shith whispered vehemently from his
position on the platform where the group of local and foreign dignitaries
stood, awaiting the appearance of the parade organized by the Sulinorians to
celebrate the invasion. "I demand the immediate return of the impounded
units of the Blug navy and the repatriation of all Blug nationals!"

            "Spare
me your threnodies, my dear Shith." Ambassador Shindlesweet raised a
remonstrative hand. "We'd have a sticky time of it were we to attempt to
dislodge the Blugs now. You're aware, I'm sure, that as their breathing tanks
ran low, they escaped their captors and burrowed their way down half a mile to
a nitrogen-rich stratum and are busily digesting rock and releasing free
radicals—that, and reproducing. I think you might be said to be fortunate to be
sharing the honors today as co-sponsor of the Blug Immigration Plan, rather
than languishing in the VIP suite of a CDT brig, awaiting trial."

            "Pah!"
the Groaci envoy vibrated his throat-sac in indignation. "In that case,"
he changed tack, "I see no reason why Groac should share credit for this
enlightened program under which, at no cost to these ungrateful locals, their
atmosphere is being so rapidly renewed!"

            "Really,
Shith," the Terran chief of mission said in a low voice, "it's only
the fact that a full disclosure of the events leading up to the present
rapprochement
might tempt certain petty critics at Sector to the faulty conclusion that I
had been in some way remiss, that prevents me from releasing the transcript of
the rather excited pronouncement which you so providently delivered into the
recorders set up to capture the after-dinner speeches ..."He cupped an ear
as distant bugles sounded. "Gentlemen, I think I hear them coming
now."

            Along
the ancient street, a procession was advancing, banners awave. In the front
rank were Tussore and Bozdune, grim and gigantic, CDT-supplied nitrogen tanks
slung at their hips, their armor sparkling in the red rays of the swollen sun.

            Behind
them, rank on rank, marched the revived immortals of Sulinore, a column that
stretched away out of sight along the shadowy street.

            "This
matter of allowing these chaps to seize the Blug ships as spoils of war and set
off on a raiding expedition is an irregularity that I'm going to have
difficulty glossing over in my report," Shindlesweet said behind his hand
to Therion. "But off the record," he added, "I suppose I'll
manage—so long as you're sure they'll do their raiding in Groaci-mandated
territory."

            "Indeed,
I hope you'll interpose no obstacles to the ruffians departing Sulinore as
expeditiously as possible," the elder whispered loudly.

            "We're
well rid of the smelly brutes. They have no conception of the dignity
appropriate to legendary heroes."

            Tussore,
catching sight of Retief, broke ranks and cantered over to the group, puffing
smoke from the cigar clamped in his mouth.

            "Well,
we're off," he called heartily. "And glad to be going! The old place
isn't the same any more. I can't even step on the grass without some
whisk-broom handler jumping out and giving me a hard time. And that dying sun!
Paugh! It gives me the Deep Willies!" He puffed out a great cloud of smoke,
raised an eyebrow at Retief.

            "Say,
why don't you change your mind and join us, Retief?" he demanded.
"We'll have a lot more fun out there chasing across the universe than you
will staying back here with these stick-in-the-muds."

            "It's
a temptation," Retief said. "Maybe some day I'll take you up on it. I
have an idea your trail will be easy to follow."

-

            "GENTLEMEN,"
Undersecretary for Extraterrestrial Affairs Thunderstroke announced in tones of
doom, "it looks like war."

            "What
looks like war?" a stout man in plainly tailored civvies asked blurrily,
as one just awakened from a pleasant nap. "War, you say?" He slapped
the conference table with a well-manicured hand. "Well, it's about time we
taught the beggars a lesson!"

            "You've
leaped to a faulty conclusion, Colonel," the undersecretary said sourly.
"We are not on the point" of embarking on hostilities—"

            "Naturally
not," the military advisor said, rising. "Not your job. Civilians all
very well—but time now for military to take over. You'll excuse me, Mr.
Secretary? I must rejoin my regiment at once—"

            "Sit
down, Henry," the chief of the Groaci Desk said tiredly. "You haven't
got the big picture. No Terran forces are involved on Yudore at all. Strictly
an Eetee affair."

            "Sound
thinking." The colonel nodded approvingly. "Why throw away the lives
of Terran lads when plenty of native lives are available for the purpose? To be
given selflessly in defense of sacred Terran principles, that is to say. By the
way, which is our side?"

            "Try
to grasp the point, Colonel," the undersecretary said acidly. "We're
neutral in the affair."

            "Of
course—but whom are we neutral in favor of? Or in favor of whom, I should say,
are we—"

            "No
one. And we intend to keep it that way."

            "Umm."
The colonel resumed his seat and his nap.

            "It
appears," the undersecretary resumed, "that our old friends the
Groaci are locked in an eyestalk-to-eyestalk confrontation with the Slox."

            "What
are these shlocks called, sir?" the acting assistant deputy undersecretary
inquired in a tone of deep synthetic interest.

            "Slox,
Magnan, S-l-o-x. Inveterate trouble-makers from the Slox System, half a dozen
lights in-Arm. It appears both they and the Groaci are claiming mandate-ship of
Yudore, an unexceptional planet of a small Class G sun well off the trade
routes."