Retief! (60 page)

Leon drew a finger across his forehead like a wind-shield wiper, slung sweat from it. "Help in staying alive," he said. "There's forty-six of us Terries over at Rum Jungle. Ikk's got us surrounded with about half a million troops and he swears he's going to eat us for breakfast."

"I see," Retief nodded. "And you'd ask a Bug for help?"

"We'll take any help we can get," Leon stated flatly.

"What makes you think you can get it?"

Leon grunted. "You got a point there—but let's can the chatter. Where'll I find this Tief-tief character?"

Retief folded his arms. "That's what they call me," he said.

"Huh?" Leon's mouth closed slowly. "Uh-huh," he nodded. "It figures. The only Quopp on the planet I want to make pals with, and I stick a gun in his chest-plates." He holstered the weapon. "Well, how about it?"

"I'd like to help you—" Retief said.

"Great. That's settled, then. Call your army out of the bushes and let's get rolling. Something tells me the Voion will hit us at dawn—"

"As I was saying," Retief interrupted, "I'd like to help you Terries, but unfortunately I seem to have misplaced my army."

Leon's hand went to his gun. "What kind of a stall is this?" he grated.

"My hundred seasoned veterans wandered off while I wasn't looking," Retief explained.

"A hundred!" the big Terran burst out. "I heard you had half the Bugs on Quopp with you! I heard you were cutting Ikk's troops into Christmas tree ornaments! I heard—"

"You heard wrong. The Federated Tribes were a spark glimmering in the night. Now they're not even that."

Big Leon let out a long breath. "So I had a little walk for nothing. OK. I should have known better. Now all I've got to do is get back through the Voion lines so I can help the boys pick off as many of those Jaspers as we can before they ride over us." He half turned away, then faced Retief again. "A hundred against an army, huh? Maybe you Bugs are all right—some of you." He turned and was gone.

Retief motioned a hovering Phip over.

"No sign of any other Stilters in the neighborhood?"

"Not-not," the Phip stated.

"How each one of you fellows knows what all the other ones know beats me," Retief said. "But that's a mystery I'll have to investigate later. Keep looking for her; she can't have gotten far through this growth in the dark with a Voion behind every third clump of brush."

"Sure-sure, Tief-tief! Look-look!" the Phip squeaked and darted off. Retief pulled off his helmet, unbuckled the chest and back armor, laid it aside with a sigh of relief. He removed the leg coverings gingerly; there was a nasty blister above the ankle where the Voion jailer had plied his torch carelessly. Clad in the narrow-cut trousers and shirt he had retained when donning his disguise in Sopp's shop, he stacked the armor together, tied it with a loop of wire vine, concealed it behind a bush, then made his way back to the place where he had left Gerthudion.

"All right, let's go, Gertie," he called, coming up her port quarter. The Rhoon started nervously, tilted a foot-long ocular over her dorsal plates, then gave a rumbling growl.

"It's all right," Retief soothed. "I'm wearing a disguise."

"You look like a Terry," Gerthudion accused.

"That's right; it's all part of an elaborate scheme I'm rapidly getting wrapped up in like King Tut."

"Kink Tut? Who's he? Sounds like a Voion. Now royal they'll declare themselves—"

"Steady, girl. Just a literary allusion."

"But now, Tief-tief, what of dear Aunt Vulugulei, I long to seek her out, or her destroyers to rend!"

"I'm afraid you Rhoon are on your own, Gertie. Those fighting tribes I told you about won't be available to carry out their end of the war after all."

"No matter; even now the tribal host circles far to the west in a wide sweep, our enemies to spy. Then retribution will me take in full measure—allies or no."

"How long would it take them to get here?"

"Many hours, Tief-tief—if their search they'd abandon to heed a call."

"Do you know where Rum Jungle is?"

"Certainly—if by that you mean that clustering of huts yonder to the south, whence emanate curious odors of alien cookery with a disfavorable wind—"

"That's the place. I need a lift in there. And there's another Stilter up ahead; he's wearing the same kind of disguise I am. We can gather him in on the way."

"As you wish, Tief-tief."

"Gertie, now that the Federated Tribes are dispersed, I can't hold you to our agreement. This is a dangerous trip I'm asking you to make. You might run into the whole Voion Air Force."

"Why then, I'll know where to find the ghouls!" Gerthudion honked. "Mount up, Retief! Fly where I will, that will I—and let the villains beware!"

"That's the way to talk, Gertie."

Retief climbed into position on the Rhoon's back. "Now let's go see if things at Rum Jungle are as bad as reported—or worse."

"I don't get it," Big Leon said between clenched teeth from his position just behind Retief atop Gerthudion's ribbed shoulder-plates. "How'd you get out here in the woods? How'd you spot me? And how in the name of the Big Worm did you tame this man-eater? In forty years in the jungle I never—"

"You never tried," Retief finished for him.

"I guess I didn't," Leon sounded surprised. "Why would I?"

"We're sitting on one reason. I'll go into the other answers later, when things quiet down."

Gerthudion's rotors thumped rhythmically; wind whistled past Retief's head. A thousand feet below, the jungle was a gray-green blanket, touched with yellow light here and there where the afternoon sun reached a tall treetop.

"Hey, Retief!" Leon called above the whine of the slipstream. "Has your friend here got a friend?"

Retief looked back, following Big Leon's pointing arm. Half a mile behind, a Rhoon was rapidly overhauling the laden Gerthudion.

"Goblin at seven o'clock," Retief called to her. "Anyone you know, Gertie?"

The Rhoon lifted her massive head, then swung her body sideways—a trick she performed with only a slight lagging of forward motion.

"That's—but it couldn't be! Not Aunt Vulugulei!" the great creature honked. At once, she banked, swept in a tight curve back toward the trailing Rhoon, now closing fast.

"Aunt Vulgy!" she trumpeted. "Where in Quopp have you been? I've been worrying myself into a premature molt—"

The other Rhoon, a scant five hundred yards distant now, banked up suddenly, shot away, rising fast, its rotors whick-whicking loudly. Gerthudion swerved, causing her riders to grab for better holds, gave chase.

"Auntie! It's me, Gerthudion! Wait . . . !" The agitated flyer was beating her rotors frantically as she fell behind the unladen Rhoon, a quarter of a mile ahead now and two hundred feet higher. Sunlight glinted on spinning rotors as the strange Rhoon tilted, swung in a tight curve, swept down at top speed on its pursuer.

"Duck!" Retief called. "It's a zombie!"

Yellow light winked from a point behind the pouncing Rhoon's head. The buzz of a power gun cut through the tumult of rushing air. There was a harsh rattle of sound from behind Retief; blue light glared and danced at close hand as a pencil-thin beam lanced out, picked out the attacking Rhoon's left rotor, held on it as Gerthudion wheeled to the left, dropped like a stone, rocking violently in the air blast as the enemy flyer shot past.

"I nicked him," Leon growled. "The range is too long for a handgun to do much damage."

"He's got the same problem." Retief leaned forward. "Gertie, I'm sorry about Aunt Vulugulei, but you see how it is. Try to get above him; he can't fire through his rotors."

"I'll try, Tief-tief," Gerthudion wailed. "To think that my own auntie—"

"It's not your aunt anymore, Gertie; just a sneaky little Voion getting a free ride."

Gerthudion's rotors labored. "I can't gain on her—or it," she bawled. "Not with this burden . . ."

"Tell her not to try dumping us off," Leon barked. "My gun is the only thing that'll nail that Jasper! Just get me in position!"

The Voion-controlled Rhoon cadaver was far above now, still climbing. Gerthudion, her rotors thumping hard, was losing ground.

"He'll drop on us again in a minute," Retief said. "Gertie, as he gets within range, you're going to have to go into a vertical bank to give Leon a clear shot . . ."

"Vertical? I'll fall like a stone from a frost-shattered peak!"

"That's the way it's got to be, I'm afraid. Lead him down—and don't flare out until we're at treetop level. If we give him time to think, it will dawn on him all he has to do is stay right over us and pour in the fire!"

"I'll try . . ." The Rhoon was in position now, above and slightly off-side to the right. It stooped then, moving in for an easy kill. Gerthudion held her course; abruptly the enemy gun fired, a wide-angle beam at extreme range that flicked across Retief's exposed face like a breath from a blast furnace.

"Now," Retief called. Instantly, Gerthudion whipped up on her left side, her rotors screaming in the sudden release of load, and in the same moment Leon, his left arm clamped around Retief, lanced out with his narrow-beam weapon. A spot of actinic light darted across the gray belly-plates of the zombie, then found and held steady on the left rotor.

The fire from above was back on target now, playing over Gerthudion's exposed side-plates with an odor like hot iron.

"Stay with that wide beam another ten seconds, and you're a gone Bug," Leon grated out. The Rhoon above dipped to one side now, feeling the sting of the blaster, but Leon followed, held the rotor in the beam while air shrieked up past him like a tornado.

"Right myself now I must, or perish!" Gerthudion honked. "Which is it to be, Tief-tief?"

"Pull out!" Retief grabbed for handholds as the great body shifted under him, surging upward with a crushing pressure. The whirling vanes bit into air, hammering; Leon broke off his fire—

"Hey, look!" The attacking Rhoon had veered off at the last possible instant, gun still firing; now lazily it rolled over, went into a violent tumble. Pieces flew; then the zombie was gone against the darkness below.

"I think you burned through his wiring," Retief called. "Gertie, stay low now; it's only another couple of miles."

"Low shall I stay, like it or no," the Rhoon called. "I thought my main armature, its windings I would melt!"

Retief felt the heat of the overworked body scorching his legs. "If we meet another one in the air we've had it."

"If far it is, we're lost," she wheezed. "I'm all but spent . . ."

"There it is!" Leon pointed to a tiny cluster of buildings against the sweep of jungle ahead, ringed by tilled fields.

Gerthudion flew on, dropping even lower, until she labored just above the high crowns of trees whose leaves glittered in her backwash like rippling water. The forest ended abruptly, and she was swooping across the fields that surrounded the trading town, packed solid now with Voion soldiery.

"Look at 'em," Leon called. "Jammed in so tight they can't even maneuver! If those Bugs knew anything about siege tactics, they'd have wiped us out the first night!"

"Better try some evasive action," Retief called. "They may have some big stuff down there."

Gerthudion groaned, complied sluggishly.

"If they have, they're holding it back," Leon yelled behind him. "All they hit us with so far is a lot of talk, plenty of rocks and arrows, and a few handguns."

Blasters winked below now, searching after the Rhoon as she threw her massive weight from one side to another, flying a twisting course toward the squatty palisade ahead and the cluster of low buildings behind it. Leon took careful aim, poured a long burst from his power gun into a Voion gun crew. There was a flicker, then a violent burst of pale yellow light that puffed outward in a dingy smoke cloud, faded quickly as fragments whistled past Gerthudion's head and clattered against her rotors. Then the giant flyer staggered over the wall in a billow of dust, slammed the ground at the center of the wide central plaza of the town. Men appeared, running toward the Rhoon.

"Hold your fire!" Big Leon bellowed. "It's me—and Retief! This Rhoon's a tame one! The first bushwhacker lays a hand on her's got me to answer to!"

The embattled Terrans were all around now, gaping as Retief and Leon slid down from their places.

"Jumping jinkberries, Leon—how'd you catch that critter?"

"You sure it don't bite?"

" . . . thought you was one of them that been buzzing us all day—"

"Quiet, the lot of you!" Leon held up his hands. "The bug rebels are out of the picture. We're on our own." He motioned to Retief. "I picked up a recruit, name's Retief."

"Well, you're just in time for the massacre, Mister," someone greeted.

"Hey, Leon—what about this Rhoon of yours? Maybe it could airlift us out of here—"

"I'll carry no burden . . . this day," the Rhoon gasped out. Her rotors sagged as she squatted, her massive keel against the ground. "Grave damage . . . to my windings . . . I fear I've done . . . such burdens to bear up . . . the while I gamboled like a Phip . . ."

"You did OK, Gertie," Leon said. "Just take it easy, girl." He faced the crowd of some forty unshaven, unwashed frontiersmen. "What's been going on while I was gone?"

"They hit us again just after First Eclipse," a wide, swarthy man with a low-slung pistol belt said. "Same old business: Come at us in a straight frontal assault, whopping it up and shooting arrows; a couple Rhoon making passes, dropping leaflets and stones; our guns—we still got three working—kept 'em at a safe altitude. We kept our heads down and peppered 'em and they pulled back before they hit the stockade. They been quiet since noon—but they're up to something. Been working since before dawn on something."

Leon grunted. "After a while those Bugs are going to figure out all they have to do is hit us from four sides at once, get a couple magnesium fires going against the walls, and we've had it."

"Their tactics are likely to improve suddenly," Retief said. "There's a Groaci military adviser in the area. I imagine he'll take the troops in hand before many hours pass. In the meantime, we'd better start making some plans—"