Retief-Ambassador to Space

As Retief paid off his canal barge and stepped up on the jetty, Second Secretary Magnan pushed his way through the throng at the wharf entrance to the Royal Enclosure, his narrow face flushed with exertion. "There you are!" he cried as he spied his junior. "I've been searching everywhere! Ambassador Pinchbottle will be furious—"

"What's that on your head?" Retief eyed a half-inflated bladder of a sour yellow color which lolled over Magnan's left ear.

Magnan rolled an eye up at the varicolored cluster which bobbed with each movement, draggled feathers wagging and lengths of dirty string swaying, the entire assembly secured under his chin by a stained pink ribbon.

"Why, that's my ceremonial Rockamorra headdress; here ..." He fumbled in his violet afternoon formal cutaway, brought out a bundle of puckered balloons and feathers, offered it. "Here's one for you: you'd better slip into it at once. I'm afraid a couple of the plumes are bent—"

"Where's the Ambassador?" Retief interrupted. There's something I have to tell him—"

"There are a number of things you'll be expected to tell him!" Magnan snapped. "Including why you're half an hour late for the Credentials Ceremony!"

"Oh-oh; there he goes with the staff, headed for the temple; excuse me, Mr. Magnan ..." Retief pushed off through the crowd toward the wide doorless entry set in the high, blocky structure at the end of the courtyard. A long-legged, short-bodied, neckless local with immense flat feet, wearing an elaborate set of ruffles and holding a pike waved him through. The Ambassador and his four staff members were grouped in the gloom a few yards distant, before a gaudy backdrop of luminous plastic in slime green, dyspepsia pink and cirrhotic yellow.

"... classic diplomatic coup," Pinchbottle was saying. "I should like to see the looks on the faces of our Groaci collegues when they learn we've stolen a march on them!"

"Mr. Ambassador," Retief started—

Pinchbottle spun, stared for an instant at a point just above Retief's belt-buckle, then tilted his spherical bald head back, gazed up at his junior.

"I've warned you about pussyfooting, Retief!" he yelped. "When you're around me, stamp your feet when you walk!"

"Mr. Ambassador, I'd like—"

The senior diplomat raised a small, plump-fingered hand. "Spare me a catalogue of your likes and dislikes, Mr. Retief! The ceremony is about to begin." He turned to include a wider audience. "Gentlemen, I trust you all observed my handling of protocol since our arrival here on Rockamorra this morning. Scarcely six hours, and we're about to become the first diplomatic mission ever to be accredited to this world! A world, I need not remind you, with a reputation for vigorous commercial activity and unrelenting hostility to diplomats; and yet I—"

"Before this goes any farther, Mr. Ambassador"— Retief cut in—"I think—"

"May I remind you, sir!" Pinchbottle shrilled. "I am talking! About a subject of vast importance, namely myself! Er, my contribution, that is, to diplomatic history—"

A pair of robed Rockamorrans bustled up waving elaborate candelabra which emitted clouds of pungent red and green smoke; they struck poses before the Terrans, intoned resonant ritual phrases in sonorous tones, then stepped back, One pointed a thin, multi-jointed digit at Retief, made a sound like a saw blade dragged across a base-viol string.

"Where's your headdress, Retief?" Pinchbottle hissed.

"I don't have one; what I wanted to tell you—" "Get one! Instantly! And take your place in my entourage!" the Ambassador screeched, moving off at the heels of the local officials. Magnan, rushing up at that moment, waved the bladders excitedly. "Don't bother inflating it, just get it on!" "Never mind that," Retief said, "I won't be needing it."

"What do you mean? We all have to wear them—" "Not me; I won't be taking part in the ceremony; and I advise you to—"

"Crass insubordination!" Magnan gasped, and rushed off in the Ambassador's wake, as large bouncers moved in to bar the headdressless Retief from following.

2

It was a colorful ceremony, involving a vigorous symbolic beating of the diplomats with real laths, immersion in a pond which to judge from the expressions of the bathers when they surfaced, was considerably chillier than the bracing morning air, and finishing off with a brisk run around the compound— ten laps—during which the panting Terrans were spurred to creditable efforts by quirtwielding native dignitaries loping along behind them. Retief, observing the activities from a position among the curious at the sidelines, won ten credits in local currency on the Chief of Mission whose form he had correctly judged superior to that of his staff in the final event.

Amid a tolling of deep-toned gongs, the Rockamorran officials herded the wheezing Terrans together, read off a long speech from a scroll; then a small local stepped forward bearing a six-foot sword on a purple velvet cushion lettered MOTHER—a Terran import, Retief noted.

A tall Rockamorran in mauve and puce vestments strode up, lifted the sword; the Ambassador backed a step, said, "Look here, my good man—" and was prodded back into line. The sword-handler solemnly hung a beaded baldric over the stout diplomat's shoulderless frame and attached the scabbard to it.

The locals fell silent, staring at the Terran Envoy expectantly.

"Magnan, you're protocol officer; what am I supposed to do now?" the Ambassador muttered from the corner of his mouth.

"Why, I'd suggest that Your Excellency just sort of, ah, bow and then we all turn and leave, before they think up any more tortures—"

"All right, men: all together," Pinchbottle whispered hoarsely. "About face—" Magnan yelped as the two-yard-long cutlass connected solidly with his shin as the group turned; then they strode away, the Ambassador in the lead, drawn up to his full five feet, with the sword cutting a trail in the dust behind him. There was a happy mutter from the locals, then a swelling shout of joy; eager hands clapped the Terrans on the back, offered them sulphuretted dope sticks, proffered flasks of green liquid as the ceremony broke up into mutual rejoicing.

Retief made his way through the press, intercepted the Ambassador as he pushed through.

"Well, Retief!" the latter barked. "Absented yourself from the proceedings, I noted! Having sulked in your quarters during the voyage out, you now boycott official functions! I'll see you in my office as soon as I've seen to the safekeeping of this handsome ceremonial weapon I've been awarded—"

"That's what I wanted to tell you, Mr. Ambassador; it's not ceremonial. You're expected to use it."

"What? Me use this?" Pinchbottle smiled sourly. "I shall hang it on the wall as a symbol—"

"Possibly later, sir," Retief cut in. "Today you have a job to do with it."

"A job?"

"I think you misunderstood the nature of the ceremony. The Rockamorrans don't know anything about diplomacy. They thought you came here to help them—"

"As indeed we did," Pinchbottle snorted. "Now if you'll stand aside—"

"—so they're expecting you to make good on your promise."

"Promise? What promise?"

"That's what the ceremony was all about; the Rockamorrans are in trouble, but you've promised to get them out of it."

"Of course!" Pinchbottle nodded vigorously. "I've already planned an economic survey—"

"That won't do the job, Mr. Ambassador; there's a ninety-foot dinosaur named Crunderthush loose in the area—"

"Dinosaur?" Pinchbottle's voice rose to a squeak.

Retief nodded. "And you've just sworn to kill him before sundown tomorrow."

3

"Look here, Retief," First Secretary Whaffle said in an accusing tone, "how is it you appear to understand the proceedings, conducted as they were in this barbaric local patois?"

"I didn't; they talked too fast. But I picked up a smattering of the language studying tapes on the way out, and I had a nice chat with the boatman—"

"I dispatched you to arrange for lodging and servants, not natter with low-caste locals!" Pinchbottle chirped.

"I had to do a little nattering in order to rent rooms; the locals don't understand sign language—"

"Impertinence, Mr. Retief? You may consider yourself under suspension—"

A group of Rockamorran officials had gathered, a column of pikemen behind them, stolid and menacing in green-scaled breastplates and greaves.

"Ah—before you confine yourself to quarters, Retief," Pinchbottle added, "just tell these chaps we won't be available for monster-killing. However, I think I can promise them a nice little Information Service Library, well-stocked with the latest CDT pamphlets—"

One of the Rockamorrarts stepped forward, ducked his head, addressed the Ambassador:

"Honorable sir, I have pleasure of to be Haccop, interpretator of Terry mouth-noise learn from plenty Japanee, Dutch, Indian, and Hebrew Terry trader. We had nice chin-chin via telescreen before you-chap hit beach ..."

"Ah, to be sure! Pity you weren't standing by during the ceremony. Now we'll get to the bottom of this nonsense!" The Ambassador shot Retief a withering look. "I have heard ... ah ... rumors, to the effect that there's some sort of ha ha dinosaur roaming the countryside—"

"Yes, yes, excellent sir! Damm decent you-chap come along us, under circumstances!"

Pinchbottle frowned. "Perhaps I'd better clarify our position, just in case there was any confusion in translation. I am, of course, accredited by the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne as Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to your government, with full authority to—"

"Hkkk! With title like that, how can you miss?" Haccop exulted. "You want few our boys along for pick up pieces, or you handle Crunderthush alone, catch more glory?"

"Here, I'm a diplomat! My offer was to assist your poor backward nation—"

"Sure; swell gesture of interplanetary chumship—"

"Just a moment!" Pinchbottle thrust out his lower lip, pointing a finger heavenward. "I deal in words and paper, sir, not deeds! That is, I am empowered to promise you anything I deem appropriate, but the actual performance is up to lesser persons—"

Haccop arranged his wide features in what was obviously a frown. "Around this end Galaxy, chum say, chum do—"

"Surely; and I'll speak to Sector HQ early next month when my vessel returns; I imagine something can be arranged—"

"Crunderthush on rampage now! No catchem wait next month! You owner genuine Japanese-made sword; you use!"

The Ambassador's chins quivered. "Sir! You forget yourself! I am the Terrestrial Ambassador, not a confounded exterminator service!"

"You-chap violate Rockamorran tradition number six-oh-two, passed two hours ago by Council of Honorable Dotards!"

Pinchbottle unbuckled the sword, tossed it aside. Retief lunged, caught it before it hit the dirt. Arms folded, the Ambassador glared at the Rockamorran.

"Let me state unequivocally, at once, that I have no intention of attacking a dinosaur!"

Haccop's face fell—an effect like a mud-pack slipping. "Is final decison?"

"Indeed it is, sir!"

The Rockamorran turned, spoke to the pikeman in glottal Rockamorran; they closed in, pikes aimed at Pinchbottle and the four diplomats who had participated in the oath-taking ceremony.

"Here, what's going on?" the Ambassador yelped.

"It seems they're taking you away to the local lockup, sir," Retief said.

"They can't do this to me! And why aren't you included?"

I didn't take the oath—"

"You-chap move along,", Haccop said. "Rockamorran got no time be patience with oath-busters."

"H-how long will we be incarcerated?" First Secretary Whaffle bleated.

"One day," Haccop said.

"Well, that's not too bad, Your Excellency," Magnan pointed out. "We can spend the time figuring out an alibi—I mean, of course, composing a despatch to Sector Headquarters explaining how this is really a sort of diplomatic victory, in reverse,"

"Tomorrow, my good man," the Ambassador barked, "I can assure you I shall take drastic steps—"

"Have honor of to doubt that, faithless one," Haccop said. "Pretty neat trick take steps with head off."

4

Ambassador Pinchbottle glared at Retief through the barred window of his cell.

"I hold you fully responsible, sir, for not warning me of this barbaric custom! I trust you've established communication with the Corps Transport and ordered their instant return?"

"I'm afraid not; the local transmitter doesn't have the range—"

"Are you out of your mind? That means ..." Pinchbottle sagged against the bars. "Retief," he whispered. "They'll lop our heads off ..."

A squad of Rockamorran pikemen rounded a corner, marched up to the Terrans' cell; Haccop produced a large key.

"Well, you-chap ready to take part in execution?"

"Just a minute," Retief said. "They promised to kill Crunderthush by sundown tomorrow. That's still a full day away."

"True; but always had head-cutting after lunch; pack in better house that way, at one credit per ticket."

Retief shook his head. "Highly illegal procedure. Killing off a few diplomats is perfectly understandable, but it has to be done in accordance with protocol or you'll have a squadron of Peace Enforcers in here revising Rockamorran traditions before you can say 'interference with internal affairs.'"

"Hmmm. You might have point there. OK, we hold off until tomorrow night, have torchlight execution, very colorful."

"Retief?" Magnan gasped, pushing up against the bars. "Isn't there some way to prevent this ghastly miscarriage of justice?"

"Only way, you-chap change mind, kill Crunderthush," Haccop said cheerfully.

Retief looked thoughtful. "Do these gentlemen have to do the job personally?"

"Posilutely! Can't have every Tom, George and Meyer getting into act. After all, killers of Crunderthush not only national heroes, win plenty refrigerator and green stamp too!"

"How about it, sir?" Whaffle addressed his chief. "Have a go, eh? Not much to lose ..."

"How? I can't kill the beast by firing off a despatch!"

"Maybe we could dig a hole and let him fall in—"

"Do you have any idea what size excavation would be required to inconvenience a ninety-foot behemoth, you idiot!"

"Suppose the Ambassador had a little help; would that be cricket?"

Haccop cocked his wide head. "Is good questioning; have to check with Ministry of Tradition on that point."

"I'd love to help, of course," Magnan said brightly. "It's just that I have this cough—"

"Yes, kaff kaff," Whaffle said. "Must be the damp air, all these confounded canals—"

"Will you let them out of the cell to scout the area and plan some strategy for the kill?" Retief asked.

Haccop shook his head. "Nix. Oath-breakers incarcerated by order of Big Shots. Release also have to clear through same. But glad to check up after nap-time."

"When will that be?"

"Nap over late tomorrow afternoon; maybe Midget-with-shiny-head and pals have just time turn trick before deadline."

"How can we kill a dinosaur while we're locked in here?" Pinchbottle demanded.

"Should have think of this before break oath," Haccop said briskly. "Interesting problem; interesting see how ... comes out."

5

Outside, Retief drew Haccop aside. "I don't suppose there's any objection to my taking a look around? I'd like to see what this monster looks like."

"Sure; do what you like, not charge for look at Crunderthush, see free any time—just so you got money pay way."

"I see. I don't suppose you'd lend me an official guide?"

"Correct. Rockamorran great tightwad, don't lend nothing, especially to foreigner."

"All I have is pocket change; I don't suppose you'd cash a check?"

"Hey, you skillful guesser, Terry, you like gamble?"

"I can see it's going to be a bit difficult to get around, without funds—"

"Oh-oh, guess wrong that time, spoil record. Better find answer, though; you run out of cash, you automatically slave."

"I get the feeling you don't much care whether this monster menace is removed or not."

"Is correct assumptation. Big tourist drawing card. Also more fun this way, have something to bet on. Odds ten to one against Terries now."

"Meanwhile, he goes on eating people."

"Sure, few peasants got devour, but so long Crun-derthush avoid eat me, is no scales off my stiz-plats, in word of immortal bard."

"Shakespeare?"

"No. Egbert Hiesenwhacker, early Terran trader introduce cards and dice to Rockamorra."

"Cards and dice, eh?"

"Sure; you like play? Come on, have fun, forget troubles, help kill time up to big affair tomorrow."

"That's a good idea, Haccop; lead the way ..."

6

It was dawn when Retief emerged from the Rockamorran gambling hell; Haccop followed him at the end of a light chain attached to a steel ring rivetted to his ankle, carrying a large basket of Rockamorran currency.

"Hey, Retief-master, lousy trick fill up when I got three ladies of ill repute—"

"I warned you about those inside straights, Haccop. Now tell me something; all that information the boys gave me about Crunderthush's habits. Was that all the straight dope?"

"Sure, Retief: pukka information—"

"All right, next stop the Ministry of Tradition. Lead on, Haccop."

7

An hour later, Retief emerged from the Ministry, frowning.

"It's not the best deal in the world, Haccop, but I suppose it's better than nothing."

"Should have offered bigger bribes, boss."

"I'm on a tight budget. Still I think we have a fighting chance. I'm going to need a heli and a good pair of binoculars. See to it at once, and meet me at the Grand Canal in half an hour."

"Boss, why worry about small-timers back in hoose-gow? Look, I got plan; we be partners. You deal, and I circulate around behind opposition and signal with trick sunglasses—"

"We can discuss business later. Get going, before I report you to the Slave Relations Board for insubordination."

"Sure, chief, chop-chop!" Haccop set off at a lope, and Retief headed for the nearest sporting-goods shop.

8

Half an hour later, Haccop dropped a second-hand float-mounted heli in beside the quay where Retief waited beside a heap of goods. The Terran caught the mooring rope, pulled the light machine close, handed in his purchases and stepped aboard.

"They say Crunderthush is foraging a mile or two east of town; let's buzz over that way and size him up."

The heli lifted above the fernlike palms, beat its way across the gleaming pattern of canals and dome-shaped dwellings of Rockamorra City, gaining altitude; beyond the tilled paddies at the edge of the town a vast swamp stretched to distant smudges of jungle.

"That's him, boss!" Haccop called, pointing. Retief used the binoculars, picked out a towering shape almost invisible among the tall trees rising in clumps from the shallow water.

"He's big, all right. But he seems to be eating treetops; I thought he was a meat-eater."

"Sure, meat-eater, master. Dumb peasant climb tree get away, Crunderthush not have to bend neck."

The heli approached the browsing dinosaur at three hundred feet, circled him while Retief observed. The giant saurian, annoyed by the buzzing interloper, raised his great-jawed head, emitted a bellow like a blast on a giant tuba. Retief caught a vivid glimpse of a purple throat wide enough to drive a ground car through, studded with fangs like stalactites.

"Friendly-looking fellow. Is it possible to predict his course?"

"Maybe; Crunderthush always take it easy, graze village over pretty good before move on to next. About done here, I estimation. By lunchtime start toward next stop, half mile south."

"Let's cruise over that way."

Haccop dropped the heli to a fifty-foot altitude, buzzed across the flat water, leaving behind a pattern of blastripples, bending the scattered reeds in the wind of its passage.

"How deep is the water here?" Retief called.

"Knee-deep at low tide."

"When's low tide?"

"Hour before sunset tonight."

"What's the bottom like?"

"Exquisite soft mud. Hey, master, you like go down scroonch around in mud awhile? Is good for what ails you—"

"Sorry, we Terries aren't amphibians, Haccop."

"Oops, big excuses, chief; not mean draw attention to racial deficiencies."

"Will Crunderthush follow a straight course across the swamp?"

The heli was over the mud walls of the next village now. Retief could see the inhabitants going about their business as usual, appartently undisturbed by their position next on the menu.

"No telling, boss; might get distracted by juicy fisherman or unwary swimming party."

"Can we hire boats down there, and a few helpers?"

"Retief-master, you got enough cash to hire whole town." Haccop signed. "That pot before last; I never figured you for eagles back to back—"

"No post-mortems," Retief admonished. "Land there, in the marketplace."

Haccop dropped the flier in, grinned at the quickly gathering crowd of curious locals.

"I tell hicks go away, give Retief-boss room walk around, do little shopping?" he suggested.

"Absolutely not; we're going to need them. Listen carefully, Haccop; here's what I have in mind ..."

9

It was late afternoon when Retief, wet and plastered to the hips with black mud, signaled to Haccop to land at the northernmost point of the village, a narrow ringer of land edged by a baked-mud' retaining wall. Half a mile away, wading ponderously across the shallows, Crunderthush rumbled softly to himself.

"The sound carries well, across the water," Retief commented. "It sounds as though he's right on top of us."

"Arid will be, plenty chop-chop," Haccop pointed out. "Retief-master think rope across water make big fella fall down?" The Rockamorran waved a hand at the taut one-inch nylon cable stretch two feet above the surface of the water across the oncoming monster's path.

"He won't get that far, if everything works out all right. How much time do we have? Another hour?"

"Crunderthush stop now to scratch—"

Retief observed the dinosaur sinking to his haunches, bringing up a massive hind leg to rake at the armored hide with two-foot talons, amid a prodigious splashing. "Maybe have hour, hour and half before dinnertime." Haccop concluded judiciously.

"OK, let's get moving! Get the hauling crew over here on the double. Have them attach a line to the center of the cable, and winch it this way until they can hook it over the trigger." Retief pointed to a heavy timber construction consisting of an eighteen-inch pile projecting a yard from the ground with a toggle mounted atop it.

"Retief-chief, humble slave bushed from all day stringing wires to trees—"

"We'll be through pretty soon. How's the axe-crew doing with that pole?"

"Top hole, sahib. Pretty near get nice point on one end, notch on other—"

"Get it set up here as soon as they're finished; prop it in the two forked saplings the boys are supposed to set in the bottom out there."

"Too many thing do all one time," Haccop complained. "Bwana Retief have strange hobby—"

"I'm taking the heli into town; I'll be back in half an hour. Have everything ready just the way I explained it, or it won't be just Terry heads rolling around here."

10

The great pale sun of Rockamorra, with its tiny blue-white companion close behind, was just sinking in a glory of purple and old rose as Retief returned to ground the heli at the village.

"Ohio, Retief-san!" Haccop called. "All set, accordingly to plan! Now we hit trail, plenty quick! Crunder-thush too close for maximizing adjustment!"

"Look at the creature!" Whaffle quavered, descending from the heli. "As big as a Yill Joss Palace—and coming this way!"

"Why have you brought us here, Retief?" Pinchbot-tle demanded, his jowls paler than usual. "I prefer beheading to serving as hors d'oeuvre to that leviathan!"

"It's quite simple, Mr. Ambassador," Retief said soothingly, leading the stout diplomat across to where Haccop stood beaming beside the completed apparatus. "You merely use this mallet to hit the trigger; this releases the cable, which drives the lance—"

"R-R-R-R-Retief! Are you unaware that-that-that—"

"I know: he looks pretty big at a hundred yards, doesn't he, Mr. Magnan? But he moves slowly. We have plenty of time—"

"We? Why include us in this mad venture?" the portly envoy demanded.

"You heard what Haccop said, sir. You gentlemen have to personally kill the creature. I think I have it arranged so that—"

"Oh-oh, Master!" Haccop pointed. "Look like distraction! Couple drunks going fishing!"

Retief followed the Rockamorran's gaze, saw a dugout pushing off with two staggering locals singing gaily as they took up paddles, steered for deep water on a course that would take them within fifty feet of the dinosaur.

"Try to stop them, Haccop! If he changes course now, we're out of luck!"

Haccop splashed out a few yards into the mud, floundering, cupped his hands and bellowed. The fishermen saw him, waved cheerfully, kept going.

"No use, boss." Haccop waded back to shore. "Look, better you and me make tracks, hit town farther up archipelago; swell floating crap game going—"

"Mr. Ambassador, stand by!" Retief snapped. "I'll have to bait him in. When I give the word, hit that trigger, and not a second before!" He sprinted to the small wharf nearby, jumped into a tethered boat, slipped the painter, plied quickly out toward Crunder-thush. The monster was poised now, mouth open, gazing toward the fishermen. He emitted a rumbling growl, turned ponderously, took a step to intercept them. Retief, cutting in front of the dinosaur, waved his paddle and shouted. The giant reptile hesitated, turned to stare at Retief, rumbled again. Then, at a burst of song from the happy anglers, swung back their way. Retief stopped, plucked a rusty fishing weight from the bottom of his skiff, hurled it at Crunderthush. It struck the immense leathery chest with a resounding whop! at which the monster paused in mid-swing, brought its left eye to bear on Retief. It stared, cocked its head to bring the right eye into play, then, its tiny mind made up, raised a huge foot from the mud with a sucking sound, started for Retief. He eased the boat back with quick strokes of the paddle; the dinosaur, tantalized by the receding prey, lunged, gained thirty feet, sending up a swell which rocked the tiny craft violently. Retief grabbed for balance, dropped the paddle.

"Retief-boss!" Haccop boomed. "This no time to goof!"

"Somebody do something!" Magnan's voice wailed.

"He'll be devoured!" Whaffle yelped.

The dinosaur lunged again; his power-shovel jaws gaped, snapped to with a clash of razor-edged crockery a yard short of the boat. Retief, standing in the stern, gauged the range, then turned and raised an arm, brought it down in a chopping motion.

"Let her go, Mr. Ambassador!" he called, and dived over the side. Ambassador Pinchbottle, standing transfixed beside the trigger apparatus of the oversized arbalest, gaped as Crunderthush raised his long neck twenty feet above the water, streaming mud, emitted an ear-splitting screech, and struck at Retief, swimming hard for shore. At the last instant, Retief twisted, kicked off to the left. The monster, confused, raised his head for another look; his eye fell on the diplomats on shore, now only fifty feet distant. At his glance, Pinchbottle dropped the heavy mallet, turned and sprinted for the heli. Three other Terrans gave sharp cries and wheeled to follow. As the stout mission chief bounded past Secretary Magnan he tripped, dived face-down in the soft dirt. The mallet skidded aside; Magnan sprang for it, caught it on the second bounce, leaped to the trigger, and brought the hammer over and down in an overarm swing—

There was a deep, musical boing! The sharpened twelve-foot hardwood pole leaped forward as the taut nylon sprang outward. Crunderthush, just gathering himself for the final satisfying snap at the morsel in the water before him, rocked back as the lance buried half its length full in his chest. Retief surfaced in time to see the dinosaur totter, fall sideways with a tremendous splash that swamped the sea wall, sent a tide of mud-and-blood-stained water washing around the frantic Terrans fighting for position at the heli hatch. Pinchbottle staggered to his feet sputtering, as the flood receded from his position. Magnan sat down hard, fumbled out a hanky and daubed mud from his lapels, watching the stricken monster kicking spasmodically. Haccop whooped delightedly, plunged into the water to assist Retief ashore.

"Nice going, Sidi! Plenty meat here for barbecue for whole town! Dandy substitute event for disappoint of not to see Terry head-chopping after all!"

11

Dabbing at his mud-caked shirt front, Ambassador Pinchbottle nodded curtly at Retief.

"Having gotten me into this awkward situation, young man, I'm glad to see that you carried on to rectify matters. Naturally, I could have extricated myself and my staff at any time, merely by a skillful word in the right quarter, but I felt it would be valuable experience for you to work this out for yourself—"

"Hey, Retief-master, I form Terries up in column of ducks, go get fitted for leg irons?"

"No, I don't think that will be necessary, Haccop—"

"What's that? Leg irons?" Pinchbottle whirled on the Rockamorran. "See here, you nincompoop, I've slain your monster, as required by your barbaric code! Now I demand—"

"Slave not demand nothing," Haccop said. "Slave hold mouth right, work hard, hope for escape beating—"

The Ambassador spun to face Retief. "What, may I ask, is the meaning of this idiot's driveling?"

"Well, Mr. Ambassador, the Rockamorrans have very rigid rules about this sort of thing, However, I managed to work out a deal with them. Ordinarily, you couldn't have any assistance in carrying out your oath—"

"Assistance? I seem to recall that you were disporting yourself in the swamp yonder when I—er, ah—a member of my staff, that is—dispatched the brute!"

"True; but the Rockamorrans seem to think I had something to do with it. Under the circumstances they agreed to commute your sentence to slavery for life."

"Slavery!"

"Fortunately, I was able to buy up an option on your contracts—provided you still had heads—"

"Buy up ... ? Well, in that case, my boy, I suppose I can overlook the irregularity. If you'll just run along and see to my baggage—"

"I'm afraid it's not quite that simple, sir. You see, I still have to pay your upkeep, and since I've spent all my money buying you—"

Pinchbottle sputtered incoherently.

"... I've had to hire you out to earn enough to cover living expenses until the ship gets back."

"But-but—that will be weeks—"

"OK, Terries; I, Haccop, am slave foreman. First job, strip out blubber from dead monster. Good job, take maybe two weeks, keep you in ration with maybe little left over for pack of Camels once a week—"

"But-but—Retief! What will you be doing in the meantime?"

"Haccop tells me there's another dinosaur operating a few miles east. If I can bag it, that will give you another two weeks' work after this job's finished. With a little luck, I can keep you going until the ship arrives."

"Hey, Retief ..." Haccop came close, whispered behind his hand, "Maybe better bring thin-face slave name Magnan along you, me. Got idea Midget-with-bad-temper hold grudge, Magnan trip him and make him lose number one position in dash for heli ..." "Good idea, Haccop, bring him along ..."

12

Two hours later, Retief, Haccop, and Magnan, bathed and clad in new Rockamorran hose and doublets, sat on a tiled roof terrace, dining on a delicately spiced casserole of whitefish and sea vegetables. The view out over the town and the water to the east was superb; the brilliant light of the three moons showed the silvery waterways, the island-villages, and, distantly, the great hulk of the dead dinosaur, its four legs in the air, and four tiny figures crawling over it like fleas. Their arms, wielding machetes, could be clearly discerned.

"Retief, no time linger over succulent native dishes," Haccop said. "Plenty big game of Red Eye just getting under way at Tavern of Golden Ale Keg. ..."

"Don't rush me, Haccop. Order us a second round of drinks—but none for Mr. Magnan. He doesn't indulge. The Ambassador doesn't approve of booze."

Magnan blinked at him thoughtfully.

"Ah, Retief, knowing your skill with the pasteboards and the, er, galloping dominoes, why couldn't you secure sufficient capital to provision Ambassador Pinchbottle and the others without the necessity for their stripping all that blubber?"

Retief sampled the fresh drink the waiter put before him, nodded appreciatively.

"Mr. Magnan, the ship won't arrive for at least six weeks, possibly longer. Would you recommend that a nonaccredited diplomat with Ambassador Pinchbottle's personality be permitted to run loose among the Rockamorrans for that length of time?"

Magnan looked grave, swallowed hard. "I see what you mean, Retief; but if he finds out, he'll be furious. ..."

"I don't intend to burden him with the knowledge, Mr. Magnan. Do you?"

Magnan pursed his lips. "No," he said. "What he doesn't know won't hurt him, eh?" He managed a tentative smile. "Speaking of which, I think I'll have that drink after all."

DAM NUISANCE

I

JAME RETIEF, Second Secretary of the Terrestrial Embassy to South Skweem, turned at a shrill hail from the low doorway of one of the squat grass huts lining the dusty main street of the capital village.

"Good mornings, Terry," a knobby, brown-mottled, four-foot alien with a bewildering variety of appendages waved a couple of the latter at the diplomat. "How's trick? Say, I've been meaning to ask ones of you fellow a question: any chance of you Terry supplying a little economic aid in the forms of a new roofs for my pad here?" the Skweeman gesticulated with half a dozen limbs. "Every time it rain, all the squish goes out of my mud pack."

"Sorry, Mr. Uptakapacheenobufers, but you know the ground-rules. Much as we Terries want to impress you people with a Public Works Project, it can't be anything useful. According to the Underground Deep-Think Teams back at Sector, that might be taken as an implied criticism of your culture."

The Skweeman made a rubbery noise indicating mild disappointment. "Yous know I'd likes to throw my weights behind the Terry program, but without a few goody to show for it, what's the percentage?"

"I see what you mean, Mr. Uptakapacheenobufers. I'd better start by installing a couple of new transistors in that language teacher I lent you. It seems to have imparted a faulty grasp of the plural."

"Hecks, Retief, call me 'takapacheenobufers for shorts. I guess we're chum now, after those snort we had together last night. Wows, what a hangovers!"

"Speaking of headaches, I have to hurry along to Staff Meeting. Too bad about the roof, but if you think of something spectacularly superfluous the town needs, hasten to let Ambassador Treadwater know. He's sweating out his next E.R."

Retief went along to the large hut which served as the Terran Chancery; inside, he took a camp stool among the staff assembled before a low split-bamboo podium which sagged visibly under the bulk of the chief of Mission.

"Now, then," the Ambassador opened the meeting briskly. "First this morning we'll take a look at the challenge which confronts us, gentlemen." He signalled and the lights dimmed. A projector hummed. On the rostrum, a life-sized, three-dimensional, vividly colored image of a stubby, boxy Skweeman appeared under a glowing legend reading KNOW YOUR ENEMY. Treadwater tapped the solidogram with his rubber-tipped pointer.

"This, gentlemen," he stated, "might appear to some of you to bear a superficial resemblance to our great allies, those valiant freedom fighters, the South Skweemans. However, to a practiced eye it's at once apparent that it is, in fact, a North Skweeman. Note the sly expression, the general air of inscrutability, the fierce cast of eye ..." The pointer rapped each feature in turn.

"Ah ... Mr. Ambassador." Colonel Pluckwyn, the Military Attache, raised an interrogatory finger from his seat in the front row. "I don't believe that last organ was precisely an eye. More of an ear, I think you'll find."

"Whatever it is, it has a fierce cast!" Treadwater snapped. "Now let's move along to the coloration." He studied the simulacrum. "Hmm—an offensive greenish purple with clashing dun rosettes."

"Golly, Mr. Ambassador," the Cultural Attaché's voice piped from the rear. "Maybe I'm mixed up, but aren't our Skweemans the same color?"

"Certainly not! Quite the opposite! The South Skweeman is characterized by a soothing overall tan-nish tone, tastefully set off with purply-green rosettes. Not the same at all."

"Yes, but—"

"Now, about the warts." The Ambassador pursued his point. "Note that this fellow has large blue ones, with tufts of yellowish hair."

"But, sir—isn't that what the South Skweemans have?"

Treadwater smiled patronizingly. "A common mistake, Dimplick. Actually, the South Skweeman is adorned with somewhat smaller warts, bearing attractive tufts of golden hair."

"Oop, my mistakes, boss," a thin South Skweeman voice chirped from the direction of the projector.

"Looks like I accidentally slipped in a shots of the South Skweeman Minister of Eats and Drinks. A nice likeness, too, made just before the mob got him." The image flicked out of existence and another, obscurely different, took its place.

"Well, I'm sure we all get the general idea, anyway," the Cultural Attache offered breathlessly, as Treadwater's face took on a dangerous shade of purple.

"Yeah—these are a shot of the common foe," the projectionist announced. "Boy, will you look at those look of ferocity?"

"Take it away!" Treadwater bellowed. "And I suggest you look to your labels, sir, before you create an international incident!" He yanked his pale violet lapels back in line. "Now, it's time to get on to the substantive portion of today's briefing." He beetled his brows at his audience.

"You're all aware that the success of our mission here depends on establishing the legitimacy of the government to which I—that is; we—are accredited. Namely, that of Free Skweem, formerly known as South Skweem. We are similarly aware that next month's plebiscite will determine once and for all whether the mantle of planetary leadership falls on the shoulder of our sturdy allies, the South Skweemans, or on the bowed backs of the North Skweeman insurgents, the satellites of the unprincipled Groaci."

"I have a suggestion," the Political Officer broke in excitedly. "We could hire some of the rougher local patriots to patrol the polling places, weeding out undesirables, distributing special disappearing ballots among the opposition and making a few minor adjustments to the counting machines to insure a victory for democratic processes!"

"This is no time for subtlety," Treadwater stated flatly. "We must impress the locals of both political persuasions with our superior capacity to bestow largesse. We need, gentlemen, a large and impressive symbol of Terran generosity and technical virtuosity. The floor is now open for your suggestions."

The Ambassador waited. The silence was profound.

"Gentlemen," Treadwater said ominously, "a full week has passed since I first requested suggestions from the staff—and as of today, the net response has been nil!"

A shuffling of feet greeted the accusation.

"A curious lethargy seems to have afflicted you, gentlemen." The Ambassador stared around belligerently. "This, while a certain foreign mission daily entrenches itself more securely, prestige-wise, by virtue of a certain probably illegal but nonetheless highly effective propaganda device. I refer, of course, to the dam the Groaci have bestowed on their North Skweeman toadies."

"I propose we build a dam too," someone said quickly.

"Wonderful notion," the Economic Officer rumbled. "About to suggest it myself—"

"Say, Charlie, you're hitting right in there this morning," a First Secretary offered. There were clucks and chuckles of admiration from the rest of the staff. Treadwater waited for the approbation to die down.

"The dam constructed by the Groaci engineers at the point where the river loops briefly into North Skweem," he purred, "has not only crippled South Skweeman commerce, but has effected a drought which is rapidly starving our brave allies into an advanced state of malnutrition, complicated by dust storms. Add to this the unfortunate flooding of that portion of the nation's farmland lying above the dam and we see, gentlemen, a striking example of creative public relations—unhappily, in the service of the opposition. Now—" he smiled thinly at the group— "will someone kindly tell me what possible detriment would accrue to our rivals if I were so ill-advised as to construct still another navigational hazard in what was once this nation's main artery of communication!" His voice rose to an apoplectic bellow on the last words. No one volunteered a reply.

A junior Third Secretary raised a hand timidly. Treadwell blinked expectantly.

"Ah ... sir. The dam is creating a sizable lake, I understand. What do the Groaci have in mind doing with all that water?"

"Eh? Do? Nothing, of course!" the Ambassador snapped. "The entire project was designed merely to harass me! Or rather, us! The proud and independent populace of South Skweem, that is to say!"

"Oh." The young man subsided.

"Well, then," the Ambassador went on, icily calm now. "Let us try again, gentlemen, avoiding, if possible, the idiotic."

"Well, Mr. Ambassador, Project Proposals are a tricky proposition," the quavering voice of the elderly Press Attache offered. "There was quite a row kicked up in certain journals concerning that hundred-man bird bath the CDT built for the Quornt before we discovered they were allergic to water. And it will be quite a while before we live down the shoe factory we gave the Jaq, since they seem to have no feet to speak of. And there was a certain amount of criticism of—"

"I'm well aware of the history of the fiasco, as practiced by my colleagues," Treadwater cut him off glacially. "It is precisely for that reason that I am determined to present to Sector Headquarters a Proposal which will bear microscopic scrutiny, farce-wise. Now, thinking caps, men! I needn't remind you that we are caught between the mortar of Groaci expansionism and the pestle of Corps policy. If the government to which we are accredited is not starved out from under us, we still face an unfilled Project Quota."

"Damned awkward, sir," Colonel Pluckwyn murmured. "Couldn't we just give the beggars a touch of the old quirt? A small fractional megatonner, say, just to teach 'em their manners."

"Bomb Headquarters?" Treadwater looked astonished.

"Actually I was thinking of the North Skweemans, sir, but your suggestion has merit—"

"Colonel, I think you'd better report to the dispensary after Staff Meeting, for skull X-rays," Treadwater said bleakly. "I suspect the plates will come out blank. Now, let's move along to Mr. Magnan's report." The Ambassador glanced expectantly over the seated diplomats.

"Magnan? Where is the fellow, drat it!" The Ambassadorial eye fixed on Retief. "You, there. What's-your-name. Magnan's your chief, I believe. Where the devil is he?"

"Mr. Magnan failed to confide in me, Your Excellency," Retief said.

"Didn't your Excellency send him over to call on the Groaci Ambassador?" Dimplick queried.

"Of course," Treadwater agreed. "I instructed him to unobtrusively scout out the effects of the new dam under cover of the protocol visit. It is that on which I wish his report."

"Mr. Magnan went across the line into North Skweem, alone?" Retief inquired casually.

"I believe that is where his Groacian Excellency is usually to be found," Treadwater replied testily, glancing at his finger watch. "And he was distinctly directed to be back before tiffin time."

"The present crisis may have thrown off the tiffin schedule," Retief conjectured.

Treadwater frowned ominously. "Are you suggesting the scoundrels may have so far forgotten their protocol as to have detained an accredited diplomat in the performance of his duty?"

"I hope he didn't go sniffing too closely around the dam," the Political Officer said soberly. "Those North Skweemans can be pretty nasty. I saw some atrocity photos our visual aid people mocked-up, based on reliable rumors—"

"Oh, boy." The Press Attache doddered to his feet. "This'll make great copy, chief. 'TERRY ENVOY MURDERED ...' "

"Who said anything about murder, you cretin!" Treadwater roared. "I merely noted that the man is late for Staff Meeting!"

"Yes, I suppose you're right." The Press Attache sat down reluctantly. Then he brightened. "Still, if he hasn't shown up by sundown ..."He began jotting notes on his scratch pad.

"Well, if there are no further follies with which to waste our time, that's all for this morning, gentlemen," the Ambassador growled. "But I shall be looking for results—prompt, dramatic results!" He swept the group with a final expectant glare, moved ponderously down from the shaky platform.

"Say, Mr. Retief," the young Third Secretary came up beside him as they stepped out into the hot, dusty sunlight. "What really is the difference between North Skweemans and South Skweemans?"

"Very simple, Teddy. South Skweemans are natural democrats."

"Oh ..." The youth fell back as Treadwater beckoned Retief over.

"About Magnan," the Ambassador said offhandedly. "It's occurred to me the situation might bear looking into. Never can tell what these unprincipled foreigners might take a fancy to perpetrate—not that I think Magnan is in any difficulty, of course. But I've been thinking possibly we might just dispatch someone to make sure."

"Excellent idea, sir," Retief agreed.

"Actually, I've been wondering whom I could spare long enough to attend to the chore." Treadwater put a thoughtful finger to his chins.

"Indeed, sir?" Retief encouraged.

"Frankly, your name popped into my mind."

"Very flattering, Mr. Ambassador. A pity you assigned me to do the liquor inventory. Ottherwise I'd be delighted."

"Never mind the inventory—if you're sure you really feel you should go ..."

"Well ..."

"Very well, then, if you insist. Though personally I think you young fellows spook too easily. Well, I must hurry along, Retief. Let me hear from you." He turned and strode away.

"How'd it go, Retief?" Uptakapacheenobufers called from his doorway.

"Predictably," Retief said.

II

The once-purple and verdant countryside of Skweem was a wan, sun-baked expanse of water-starved fields criss-crossed with the dusty gulleys of empty irrigation ditches. Tinder-dry stalks of mudwheat stood in endless, arid rows across the cracked, concrete-like clay.

Retief studied the view as he steered the official ground-car with the CDT pennant flapping from the prow along the rocky road that paralleled the dry river bed, where stranded boats rested high and dry, their formerly bright paint and rigging as bleached and sere as the land. A few listless South Skweeman peasants waved spiritless greetings from the shade of their huts as he passed. Others merely stared with drooping visual organs.

It was an hour's drive to the heavy barbed-wire fence that marked the North Skweeman border. Retief pulled to a stop at the gate. A large, warty North Skweeman in official loops of braid decorated by dangling straps and medals undulated over, fingering a blast rifle of unmistakable Groaci manufacture.

"What's your problem, Two-eyes?" he inquired in Skweemish.

"Just a courtesy call," Retief replied in the same tongue. "Tell me, did you see another Terry pass here early this morning?"

The Skweeman's eyes shifted. "Naw, nothing like that," he said flatly.

"This fellow would be hard to miss," Retief persisted. "Twelve feet tall, flaming red hair all over, three eyes—"

"Frinkle-fruit! The guy wasn't as big as you, and ..." His voice trailed off.

"I see," Retief nodded. "Well, he was taking a birthday cake to the Groaci Ambassador, and it seems he lost the cherry off the top of it. We Terries are pitching in to help locate anyone who might have delayed him."

"Not me, Terry! I waved him through and he headed straight for town—thataway." He pointed along the road.

"Fine. I'll tell them you're clean, then."

"Gee, thanks, fella." The guard set his gun aside and opened the gate.

"Think nothing of it." Retief waved cheerily and drove through.

A mile and a half past the gate he encountered a small village, identical with its South Skweeman equivalent. Rows of grass huts, of various sizes depending on the status of their occupants, were arranged around a small grassed plaza in the center of which the public structures were grouped. As Retief pulled up to the tall, conical buildings which presumably housed the town officials, half a dozen uniformed North Skweemans came to the alert. One, more elaborately decorated than his fellows, wobbled forward and looked the car over with the air of a Customs officer tipped off to a load of contraband.

"What brings you here?" he demanded.

"I'm looking for the Groaci Consulate General," Retief said.

"Yeah? Where'd you lose it?" the Skweeman came back snappily.

"The last I heard it was neck-deep in North Skweeman internal affairs," Retief replied breezily. "But that's for you fellows to worry about." He looked around the somnolent town square. "I don't suppose you know where I might find a fellow Terry who wandered over the line while chasing a promotion?"

"You got that one right," the Skweeman nodded.

"Well, in that case I'll just move along and take a look at the dam the Groaci suckered you into letting them build on your property." He glanced along the line of the arched river-bed to the looming wall of concrete half a mile distant. "I see it's still holding. Water's about halfway to the spillway now, eh?" He looked thoughtful.

"Whattaya mean, suckered? That's the finest dam on Skweem!"

"Um," Retief said. "What's it for?"

"Huh? To hold back the water, whattaya think?"

"Why?"

"Onacountof ... so we can ... I mean, it's for ..." The Skweeman broke off. "Listen, you better talk to old Five-eyes personal; I mean, what's the big idea trying to pump me for military secrets?"

"Military secrets, eh? Well, that's interesting. Just what sort of illegal military plans are you concocting over on this side of the line?"

"We got no illegal plans!"

"Any military plans are illegal," Retief said flatly.

"Who says so?"

"The CDT."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Uh-huh. And we have the military resources to back it up, if you'll goad us far enough. Starting a war ought to do it. And now, if you'll just sort of slither to one side, I'll get on with my business."

"Hey, you can't—" The North Skweeman's words were drowned in a cloud of dust as Retief gunned the car off toward the massive pile of the dam.

Retief parked the car on a stretch of bulldozed gravel on the shoulder of the hill against which the abutment was anchored. Carrying a pair of miniaturized 100x9 binoculars, he moved up in the shelter of a small shed housing the dam's power controls, looked over the scene below.

To the right of the massive concrete barrier a parched valley wound away toward the North Skweeman border. Patches of mud gleaming here and there at the bottom of the gorge were all that remained of the former river. To the left stretched a broad lake of blue-black water, its breeze-riffled surface reflecting the greenish late-morning sun. Under it lay a hundred square miles of South Skweem's best farm land, now forty feet deep in backed-up river water.

A narrow catwalk lined with pole-mounted polyarcs for night operations crossed the top of the dam. On the far side a crew of Skweeman construction workers in baggy ochre overalls toiled under the supervision of a spindle-legged Groaci engineer, putting the finishing touches on the job. Other Skweeman's, heavy-laden, struggled up a trail across the steep slope from below like a column of ants. A touch of color met Retief's eye. He fine-focused the glasses, picked out the sagging shape of a small hut half-concealed in the brush near the base of the dam. Through its open door he saw the edge of a coil of wire, shelves, the corners of packing cases.

A Groaci supervisor stepped into the field of vision, closed the door, hung a lock on it, followed the workers up the trail. Retief lowered the glasses thoughtfully. Then, keeping low, he moved off in the concealment of deep brush.

It was a stiff climb down to the floor of the ravine. Retief completed it without arousing unwelcome attention. He came up on the supply hut from the rear. Nothing moved near it now. The lock looked stout enough, but the warped boards of the door were riddled with dry rot. At a sharp kick it bounced rattlingly open.

Inside, Retief looked over a stock of tools, reinforcing steel fittings, detonator caps, mechanical spares for the pumps—and a generous supply of compressed smashite: three-inch rods of a bilious yellow color, each capable of excavating a hundred cubic yards of hard rock in one blast. Quickly, Retief selected materials and set to work.

III

He left the shed ten minutes later, unreeling a coil of two-conductor insulated wire behind him. The ascent to the cliff-top took half an hour, by which time the workmen had completed the task at hand and were busily packing up their tools. Retief made his way up-slope to the control shed.

Its corrugated metal door stood half open. Inside, the floor was littered with snipped-off bits of wire, empty cartons that had contained switching gear and the butts of several dozen Groaci dope sticks. An inspection of the panels showed that the wiring was complete. Five more minutes' study indicated that the large white toggle switch beside the door controlled the polyarcs atop the dam.

Retief brought the ends of his wires into the shed, linked them into the lighting circuit. Against the gray floor, the insulated lines were almost invisible.

Back outside, he brushed loose sand over the wires leading up from below, then headed back to the car. He topped the rise, halted at sight of two bile-green cars bearing the crossed-oculars insignia of the North Skweeman Home Guard, parked across the bumpers of the CDT vehicle. There were eight armed Skweemans in sight, patrolling alertly around the blocked car, while a pair of Groaci stood by, dapper in Bermuda shorts and solar topis, deep in conversation.

As Retief strolled down to meet the reception committee, the locals swiveled to cover him with their guns. The two Groaci stared, their eye-stalks twitching hypnotically. Retief recognized one as a member of the Groaci diplomatic staff.

"Good morning, Lith," Retief greeted the Groaci Councillor as he came up. "Keeping busy, I see."

"To depart instantly," the Groaci diplomat hissed in his faint voice. "To explain at once this illegal intrusion on North Skweeman soil!"

"Which would you like first, the explanation or the departure?" Retief inquired interestedly.

"To make no jest of this red-handed crime, Terran interloper!" Lith whispered urgently. His multiple eyes fell on the miniature binoculars in Retief's hand.

"As I thought." He motioned to his Skweeman aides. "Your presence explains itself." He stepped back to allow the gun-handlers to close in. "Cover him," he ordered. "At the first false move, fire."

"You're in a devil-may-care mood this morning," Retief noted. "Given up all hope of advancement, I suppose, and want to go out in a blaze of notoriety by making an even bigger mistake than usual."

"What did you observe up there?" The second Groaci indicated the top of the rise.

"Just what's there," Retief replied easily.

The two Groaci exchanged glances, a feat they accomplished with one pair of eyes while keeping two on Retief and another on the Skweemans. Retief whistled in admiration.

"No signalling," one of them warned.

"To poke your long Terry nose in once too often," Lith said. He made a curt gesture with a pair of arms. "Take him," he commanded the Skweemans.

"Before you do that—" Retief held up an admonitory hand—"maybe it would be a good idea to ask Lith what the future plan for North Skweem might be—if North Skweem has a future."

"Silence!" Lith keened. "To take care, Terry, not to tempt me too far!"

. "Hey, talk Skweemish," one of the guards objected. "What are you two foreigners cooking up, anyway?"

"We're merely nattering of trivialities," Lith explained. "Now do your duty, fellows."

"Yeah ... but I been thinking: this sapsucker is a Terry diplomat."

"Enough," Lith cut him off. "I assure you no complaints will be lodged by his associates."

The Skweemans closed in on Retief. "All right, big boy, let's go," the lieutenant said, poking his gun at the prisoner.

Retief glanced at the weapon. It was a heavy-duty power pistol, a Groacian copy of an early Terran type.

"Have you ever fired that thing?" he inquired interestedly.

"Who, me?" the Skweeman rotated a number of sense organs in a gesture expressing astonishment. "Heck, no. We got orders to only shoot at live targets." He looked meaningfully at Retief.

"A wise precaution. I understand that model blows up rather easily. That's why the Groaci sold them to you at bargain prices."

"To make no attempt to subvert my minions!" Lith hissed.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Retief assured the ruffled diplomat. "I prefer minions who change sides on their own."

"You will have long to wait for that eventuality," Lith snapped. "In a cell which, alas, lacks most of the amenities."

"That's all right," Retief said. "Perhaps I won't be in it long enough to need them."

Lith vibrated his throat-sac, expressing amusement.

"You may be right, my dear Terran," he commented blandly. "Now, into your vehicle, and drive as directed, remembering that guns are upon you!"

Escorted by the two police cars, Retief drove the CUT Monojag at a sedate pace along the indicated route to the village, pulled it.in before a low mud brick building with one small window set with metal bars. Lith and the Skweeman police surrounded him as he stepped out into the street. One of the cops stared into the interior oHhe Monojag.

"Hey, this is a fancy job," he commented. "What's that?" He pointed at a short red-handled lever labeled EMERGENCY LIFT. At his side, Lith goggled, then whirled on Retief.

"To explain at once!" he hissed. "Our intelligence reports have indicated that vehicles so equipped are capable of VTO and supersonic speeds! Why, then, did you permit yourself to be so docilely convoyed?"

"Well, Lith, maybe those reports you read were exaggerated," Retief smiled deprecatingly. "After all, your gumshoe brigades have to report something."

Lith snorted. "So much for the vaunted Terry technology." He turned to his troops.

"Lock him up."

The Skweemans closed in to box Retief, like alert, waist-high goblins modelled in blotchy clay; their guns prodded him along an alley to a small metal door set in the side of the brick building. The lieutenant opened it with a clumsy electrokey, waved him inside. The door clanked shut and a shadowy figure rose up, its face pale in the dim light.

"Retief!" First Secretary Magnan gasped. "You mean they captured you, too?"

"It seemed the simplest way to solve the problem of finding you," Retief said. "Now all we have is the problem of getting out."

IV

The Skweeman sun was low in the sky now. A brisk, hot wind had sprung up from the north, whirling streamers of dust into the cell through the barred window from which Retief watched the activity in the street. Behind him, Magnan turned away, coughing.

"They're as busy as Verpp in moulting season," he sniffed. "No one is paying us the slightest attention. I suppose we may rot here for hours more before Ambassador Treadwell secures our release."

"There's just one cop patrolling the jail now," Retief said. "The rest of them have trooped off, arm in arm with their friends the Groaci. I think we picked a bad time for our calls; they're up to something.

"I can't think what's keeping him!" Magnan eyed his watch fretfully. "I'm missing my afternoon coffee break, to say nothing of dinner." He sighed heavily, settled himself on the floor.

"I simply can't grasp it," he muttered. "The Groaci are famed for their chicaneries, but open diplomat-napping broaches an entirely new field of rascality. Why, an honest diplomat won't even be able to run around to trouble areas, picking up eye-witness impressions, without the risk of being treated as a mere spy."

"On the other hand, if we join in the spirit of the thing—" Retief turned from the window—"we might find that it opens up new avenues to us, too." He went across to the narrow door, leaned over the barred, waist-high opening, and shouted for the guard.

"Good idea." Magnan got to his feet. "I think it's time we spoke sharply to these brigands. Just step aside, Retief, and I'll drop a few broad hints." His voice faded as the fierce visage of the police lieutenant appeared beyond the aperture. Retief spoke first:

"Do you have any idea what a blaster would do to you if I fired from this range?" he inquired. "Don't give any alarm," he went on as the speechless cop goggled into the dark cell. "Just quietly unlock the door—and be sure no one notices anything unusual going on."

"B ... b ... b ..."the Skweeman said.

"You can express your astonishment later," Retief said briskly. "Open up now, before I have to demonstrate how well armed I am."

"I ...1 didn't see any weapon on you when we brought you in," the jailer expostulated.

"Naturally; it's the sort of thing a fellow likes to keep secret. Hop to it, now. My trigger finger is twitching."

"I had to be a wise guy and volunteer to be a big shot," the Skweeman muttered to himself. Retief heard the scrape of the key in the lock. Tumblers clicked over. The door swung in with a dry squeak.

"Shhh!" Magnan put a finger to his lips, looked severely at the native as he sidled out past him. He looked both ways.

"The coast seems to be clear," he whispered as Retief lifted the cop's pistol from its holster. "Maybe you'd better let me have one of the guns."

"Hey!" The Skweeman waved several sensory organs in an agitated way. "I don't see any blaster— except mine!"

"Nothing wrong with your vision, anyway," Retief congratulated him. Now we have to be running along." He looked thoughtfully at the local. "I really should shoot you ..."he said judiciously.

"Sh ... shoot me?" the Skweeman gulped. "But I' ve got a couple of dozen chicks ready to break through the shell any day now! Those little devils will have the hide off the old lady in five minutes flat if I'm not there to protect her when they hatch out!"

"On the other hand," Retief went on, "I could give you a break."

"Yeah!" the Skweeman breathed. "Now you're talking, Terry!"

"You just carry on as though nothing had happened. We'll go about our business and trouble you no more. I don't think you'll want to bother Uncle Lith by mentioning our departure; he might take the unreasonable attitude that you're in some way to blame. Just play them close to your medals and act innocent when they notice the cell's empty."

"You bet, boss. I always knew you Terries were gents. Between us, I never went much for that two-legged slicker—"

"Mind your derogatory references to the number of a being's limbs, sir," Magnan said stiffly. "Two legs appears to me to be an admirable endowment of such members."

"Sure, no offense, gents. Now, how's about beating it quick, before somebody comes along? And you better give me back my gun. Somebody might get nosy if I don't have it."

Retief ejected the power cylinder from the butt of the gun, dropped it into his pocket, handed the empty weapon over.

"We can't reach the car," he said to Magnan. "They towed it away to tinker with at leisure. Weil have to ease out the back way and see how far we get."

Keeping to the narrow alley, Retief and Magnan safely traversed a block of ragged grass dwellings, emerged at the end of a long avenue that meandered down a slope toward the mile-distant fence marking the South Skweeman border, barely visible now in the late twilight.

"If there were just some way to cover that ghastly open stretch," Magnan muttered, "we could be safe in a matter of minutes ..."He broke off, pointed at a flickering glow, a smudge of smoke rising lazily from a point near the gate where the road crossed the international line. "What's that? Dust, perhaps? Or smoke?"

"The wind's from the north," Retief said. "And there's nothing but twenty miles of dry mud-wheat between here and those haystacks housing our friends, the South Skweeman leaders. Something tells me that's a fire, Mr. Magnan—and not an accidental one."

"Fire?" Magnan gasped. "Great heavens, Retief— the capital is directly down-wind! They'll be roasted alive—the Ambassador, the staff, the South Skweemans—and no water anywhere to fight the blaze!"

"That's one way of influencing an election," Retief pointed out.

"Why, there's nothing to keep it from burning off the prairie all the way to the sea," Magnan blurted. "The entire country will be incinerated! There'll be nothing left of our allies but a pall of smoke!"

There was a scratchy Skweeman shout from behind the Terrans. They turned to see a policeman approaching up the alley on the run—a spectacle not unlike a cubic yard of olive-drab noodles rolling up-hill.

"Let's go," Retief snapped. He turned and ran for it, with Magnan pelting at his heels and a gathering force of pursuers baying on the trail.

-

"It's ... no ... use," Magnan gasped as they toiled up the last hundred yards toward the mighty flank of the dam. "They're ... gaining." He cast a look back at the mob of half a hundred North Skweeman patriots strung out in a torch-waving line-halfway to the village.

"Just a little farther," Retief caught Magnan's arm and hauled him along. "You're doing fine."

They reached the top of the dam, massive and ominous in the darkness. A blaster bolt crackled blue nearby, from extreme range.

"Retief, we're not going to cross that!" Magnan stared in horror at the narrow unrailed catwalk that led out to disappear in darkness, the great black void on one side, the lapping waters slapping at the concrete on the other.

"Unless we want to be shot, we are." Retief started out at a trot. Magnan bleated, then followed, edging along flat-footed. Another shot chipped concrete behind him. He yelped and broke into a nervous canter.

They reached the far side, scrambled up the dry slope, lit only by the blaster that peppered them with flying gravel as the shots struck around them.

"Where are they?" a Skweeman voice sounded. "I can't see a thing; those Terries must have eyes like a weenie-bug!"

"Lights," someone else called. "Don't let 'em get away, boys!"

Retief stood, cupped his hands beside his mouth.

"Lith," he called. "A word of advice: don't light up!"

"We can't ... hide here," Magnan gasped out. "No cover ... and those shots ... getting close!" He dived flat as a shot kicked up dirt almost at his feet.

"They won't find us in the dark," Retief said.

"But—they'll switch on the lights."

"There is that chance—but they were warned."

There was a shock through the mound that bounced both men three inches into the air. Then a deep-throated tooom! rolled from the abyss like chained thunder, as brilliant light flooded the entire length of the dam.

Retief raised his head, saw great chunks of masonry rising with languid grace high in the air. Atop the stricken dam, the few bold Skweemans who had started across dithered momentarily, then pelted for safety as the walkway subsided with dream-like majesty under them. Most of them reached the far side as the immense bulk of the dam cracked with a boom like a cannon; the rest dived for the glistening surface of the pent-up water, splashed desperately for shore as dust boiled up from the gorge, obscuring the scene of destruction.

Polyarcs still blazing bravely, the great dam crumbled, sinking from sight. Wave after wave of sound rolled across the slope. Rocks and pebbles thudded down near the diplomats. They gained their feet, sprinted for the top of the hill, then turned, watched as the surface of the artificial lake heaved, recoiling ponderously from the blast, then bulged toward the broached dam, formed a vast spout like translucent black syrup that arched out, out, over, and spilled down, foaming white now, plunging into the boiling dust. The ground shook as the incalculable tonnage of water struck far below. A roaring like caged dinosaurs bellowed upward from the gorge as the river poured back into its bed in a torrent that shredded concrete and steel from the broken rim of the dam like water dissolving dry mud. In a scant five minutes, nothing remained of the great Groaci Dam but the denuded abutments, studded with the stripped ends of clustered reinforcing rods.

"Retief!" Magnan piped over the roar of the waters. "The ... the dam broke!"

Retief nodded judiciously. "Yes, Mr. Magnan," he said. "I think you could say that."

V

Retief and Magnan waded past the tattered remains of the soggy huts thrusting up from the swirling, mud-brown waters that covered the site of the South Skweeman capital, inundated by the flood that had swept down so abruptly an hour earlier. Ambassador Treadwater stood with his staff before the remains of the Chancery hut, waist deep in the flow. "Ah, there you are, Magnan." He turned to look disapprovingly at the new arrivals. "Remind me to speak to you about punctuality. I'd almost begun to wonder if you'd met with foul play. Even considered sending someone after you."

"Mr. Ambassador—about all this water—"

"Hark!" Someone raised a hand torch, shot its blue-white beam out across the water, picked up the low silhouette of an inflated dinghy on which a number of bedraggled, knobby-kneed Groaci crouched. Several Skweemans splashed forward to intercept the craft.

"Well, nice of you to drop in, my dear Shish," Treadwater called. "Most unfortunate that your engineers have apparently proved unequal to their task. Possibly their slide-rules were out of adjustment. Still their timing was good, conflagration wise."

He smiled sourly as the staff chuckled dutifully.

"Bah, the design was flawless," Shish whispered as the raft bobbed on the ripples. "We were sabotaged!"

"Sabotage?" Treadwater surveyed the Groaci Ambassador as haughtily as his sodden puce cutaway would allow. "I think you are as aware as I that import of explosives to an emergent planet like Skweem is quite impossible, but for certain industrial types allocated to massive engineering projects."

"You suggest that Groaci detonants were employed in this dastardly fashion? Why, the very idea ..." Shish fell sulkily silent.

"Confidentially, Retief," Magnan whispered behind his hand, "Just what do you supposed'd happen to the dam?"

"Possibly someone got their wires crossed," Retief murmured.

"Now, Mr. Ambassador," Treadwater said. "I fear I shall have to expropriate your conveyance for official CDT use. I find it necessary to remove to my hill station at once to prepare my dispatches." He broke off as a muddy scarecrow faintly recognizable as the Agricultural Attache splashed up to join the group.

"Did you notice the current change, Mr. Ambassador?" he cried gaily. "The water's draining off into the river bed now—and the new channel cut by the flood is just this side of the border. I fancy we'll have no more interference from these meddlesome Groaci—oh, Ambassador Shish," he nodded to the sodden dignitary. "Nice night Your Excellency."

"Bah," Shish replied.

The attache was rubbing his hands together. "My preliminary study seems to indicate that the inundation has deposited a good six inches of new topsoil over a large portion of South Skweem. All scoured off Northern Skweem, of course, but then, they will allow defective dams to be built on their land ..." His voice trailed off. He pointed across the rapidly receding waters. Amid much splashing, a large party of Skweemans was approaching at a rapid clip.

"Gad!" Colonel Pluckwyn boomed. "We're being invaded!"

"Here, do something!" Treadwater turned to Shish. "They're your allies! Tell them to go along quietly and we'll see about a handsome CDT reparation for any inconvenience—"

-

"I claim sanctuary!" Shish whistled in agitation. "Treadwater, it's your duty to protect me and my chaps from these soreheads!"

"They do appear somewhat irate." Magnan began backing away. "Don't lose your heads, gentlemen!" Treadwater croaked. "We'll demand the privileges of honorable prisoners of war—"

"We haven't lost, yet," Retief pointed out.

"An excellent point, Mr. Retief." The Ambassador reached for the Groaci raft. "I hereby appoint you as a special committee to meet with these fellows and study their grievances. If you can drag the talks out for an hour, the rest of us will go for help."

"Quite an honor, my boy," Colonel Pluckwyn said, as he tumbled a faintly protesting Groaci over the side. "And you merely a Second Secretary."

"I don't think we should do anything hasty," Retief said. "Now that the North Skweemans have had a taste of Groaci sponsorship, they may be ready for our program."

Councillor Lith, showing signs of wear and tear, surfaced beside Retief, having been replaced by a Terran aboard the raft. "Some day, Terry, the truth of this affair will out," he hissed in faint Groaci ferocity.

"Why be pessimistic?" Retief responded. "If you play your cards right, the North Skweemans may never learn that the dam was placed so that when the basin was full you could open the flood gates and wipe out their capital along with anything that might have been left of South Skweem, leaving an open field for a Groaci take-over."

"What? Are you suggesting—"

"I'd suggest dawn as a reasonable deadline," Retief went on. "If you wade along with Ambassador Treadwater, you can get off a 'gram and have a ship in here to pick you up by then. I can't guarantee that I can keep it quiet much longer than that."

"Hey!" Dimplick shouted suddenly. "Look at the placard they're waving!" Retief glanced toward the approaching North Skweemans, coming up rapidly now.

"Why, those appear to be hastily lettered pro-Terry slogans," the Political Officer burst out.

"Have you lost your wits?" Treadwater rumbled. He peered through the gloom. "Hmmm. It appears you're right." He straightened his back. "Just as I expected, of course. I knew that my policies toward these fellows would bear fruit, given time." He shot Magnan a reproving look. "A pity you chose to go junketing just at the climactic point of the finesse. You missed a valuable lesson in diplomatic subtlety."

Magnan opened his mouth, caught a look from Retief, closed it again.

"I'm sure we were all fooled by Your Excellency's apparent total inactivity, sir," he gulped.

"Exactly." Treadwater beamed around at the others as the front-runners of the North Skweeman delegation arrived, uttering cries of delight and pledging eternal friendship. "It appears we'll have a solid electorate behind us, gentlemen! My job—that is to say, the future of Terran-Skweeman relations seems secure. Now, if we just had an adequate Project Proposal to offer Sector Headquarters, our cup would be brimming." He stepped forward, began shaking members left to right. "Sir!" Secretary Dimplick bounded forward. "I've a dandy notion! Why not build a new capital for United Skweem to replace the former city swept away by the flood?"

"Of course!" Colonel Pluckwyn chimed in. "My idea exactly; just waiting for an appropriate moment to mention it. I'd also suggest a massive aid program to rectify the other ravages of the disaster."

"Food!" the Agricultural Attache shouted. "I think I can justify a schedule of deliveries under the Chrunchies for Lunchies program that will keep two dozen Corps bottoms in use for the next fiscal quarter!"

"Superb, gentlemen!" Treadwater warbled. "I can see promotions all around—to say nothing of extra staff, monuments to Skweeman independence and democratic solidarity, larger operational budgets, and a magnificent new Terran Chancery rising from the ruins!"

"Say, Mr. Retief." The junior Third Secretary plucked at his sleeve. "I thought these North Skweemans were little better than dacoits and brigands; suddenly they're welcomed as bosom friends.

"True, they're a shifty lot," Retief confided as he accepted a moist Skweeman handshake. "But who are we to be choosy?"

-

TRUCE OR CONSEQUENCES

1

First Secretary Jame Retief of the Terran Embassy pushed open the conference room door and ducked as a rain of plaster chips clattered down from the ceiling. The chandelier, a baroque construction of Yalcan glasswork, danced on its chain, fell with a crash on the center of the polished greenwood table. Across the room, drapes fluttered at glassless windows which rattled in their frames in resonance with the distant crump-crump! of gunfire.

"Mr. Retief, you're ten minutes late for staff meeting!" a voice sounded from somewhere. Retief stooped, glanced under the table. A huddle of eyes stared back.

"Ah, there you are, Mr. Ambassador, gentlemen," Retief greeted the Chief of Mission and his staff. "Sorry to be tardy, but there was a brisk little aerial dogfight going on just over the Zoological Gardens. The Gloys are putting up a hot resistance to the Blort landings this time."

"And no doubt you paused to hazard a wager on the outcome," Ambassador Biteworse snapped. "Your mission, sir, was to deliver a sharp rebuke to the Foreign Office regarding the latest violations of the Embassy! What have you to report?"

"The Foreign Minister sends his regrets. He was just packing up to leave. It looks as though the Blorts will be reoccupying the capital about dinnertime."

"What, again? Just as I'm on the verge of re-establishing a working rapport with His Excellency?"

"Oh, but you have a dandy rapport with His Blortian Excellency, too," the voice of Counsellor of Embassy Magnan sounded from his position well to the rear. "Remember, you were just about to get him to agree to a limited provisional preliminary symbolic partial cease-fire covering left-handed bloop guns of calibre .25 and below!"

"I'm aware of the status of the peace talks!" Bite-worse cut him off. The peppery diplomat emerged, rose and dusted off the knees of his pink- and green-striped satin knee-breeches, regulation early afternoon semi-informal dress for top three graders of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne on duty on prenuclear worlds.

"Well, I suppose we must make the best of it." He glared at his advisors as they followed his lead, ranging themselves at the table around the shattered remains of the chandelier as the chatter and rumble of gunfire continued outside. "Gentlemen, in the nine months since this Mission was accredited here on Plushnik II, we've seen the capital change hands four times. Under such conditions, the shrewdest diplomacy is powerless to bring to fruition our schemes for the pacification of the system. Nevertheless, today's despatch from Sector indicates that unless observable results are produced prior to the upcoming visit of the Inspectors, a drastic reassessment of the personnel requirements may result—and I'm sure you know what that means!"

"Ummm. We'll all be fired." Magnan brightened at a thought. "Unless, perhaps, Your Excellency points out that after all, as Chief of Mission, you're the one"—he paused as he noted the expression on the Biteworse features—"the one who suffered most," he finished weakly.

"I need not remind you," the Ambassador bored on relentlessly, "that alibis fail to impress visiting inspection teams! Results, gentlemen! Those are what count! Now, what proposals do I hear for new approaches to the problem of ending this fratricidal war which even now ..."

The ambassadorial tones were drowned by the deep-throated snarl of a rapidly approaching internal-combustion engine. Glancing out the window, Retief saw a bright blue twin-winged aircraft corning in from the northwest at treetop level, outlined against the sky-filling disk of the planet's sister world, Plushnik I. The late-afternoon sun glinted from the craft's polished wooden propellor blades; its cowl-mounted machine guns sparkled as they hosed a stream of tracers into the street below.

"Take cover!" the Military Attache barked and dived for the table. At the last instant, the fighter plane banked sharply up, executed a flashy slow roll and shot out of sight behind the chipped tile dome of the Temple of Erudition across the park.

. "This is too much!" Biteworse shrilled from his position behind a bullet-riddled filing cabinet. "That was an open, overt attack on the Chancery! A flagrant violation of interplanetary law!"

"Actually, I think he was after a Gloian armored column in the park," Retief said. "All we got was the overkill."

"Inasmuch as you happen to be standing up, Mr. Retief," Biteworse called, "I'll thank you to put a call through on the hot line to Lib Glip at the Secretariat. I'll lodge a protest that will make his caudal cilia stand on end!"

Retief pressed buttons on the compact CDT issue field rig which had been installed to link the Embassy to the local governmental offices. Behind him, Ambassador Biteworse addressed the staff:

"Now, while it's necessary to impress on the Premier the impropriety of shooting up a Terran Mission, we must hold something in reserve for future atrocities. I think we'll play the scene using a modified Formula Nine image: Kindly Indulgence tinged with Latent Firmness, which may at any moment crystallize into Reluctant Admonition, with appropriate overtones of Gracious Condescension."

"How would you feel about a dash of Potential Impatience, with maybe just a touch of Appropriate Reprisals?" the Military Attache suggested.

"We don't want to antagonize anyone with premature sabre-rattling, Colonel," Biteworse frowned a rebuke.

"Hmmm." Magnan pulled at his lower lip. "A masterful approach as you've outlined it, Your Excellency. But I wonder if we mightn't add just the teeniest hint of Agonizing Reappraisal?"

Biteworse nodded approvingly. "Yes—an element of the traditional might be quite in order."

A moment later the screen cleared to reveal a figure lolling in an easy chair, splendidly clad in an iridescent Bromo Seltzer blue tunic, open over an exposed framework of leathery-looking ribs from which gaily be-jeweled medals dangled in rows. From the braided collar, around which a leather strap was slung supporting a pair of heavy Japanese-made binoculars, a stout neck extended, adorned along its length with varicolored patches representing auditory, olfactory, and radar organs, as well as a number of other senses the nature of which was still unclear to Terran physiologists. At the tip of the stem, a trio of heavy-lidded eyes stared piercingly at the diplomats.

"General Barf!" Biteworse exclaimed. "But I was calling the Premier! How—what—"

"Evening, Hector," the general said briskly. "I made it a point to seize the Secretariat first, this trip." He brought his vocalizing organ up on the end of its tentacle to place it near the audio pick-up. "I've been meaning to give you a ring, but I'll be damned if I could remember how to operate this thing."

"General," Biteworse cut in sharply, "I've grown accustomed to a certain amount of glass breakage during these, ah, readjustment periods, but—"

"I warned you against flimsy construction," the general countered. "And I assure you, I'm always careful to keep that sort of thing at a minimum. After all, there's no telling who'll be using the facilities next, eh?"

"... but this is an entirely new category of outrage!" Biteworse bored on. "I've just been bombed and strafed by one of your aircraft! The scoundrel practically flew into the room! It's a miracle I survived!"

"Now, Hector, you know there are no such things as miracles," the Blortian officer chuckled easily. "There's a perfectly natural explanation of your survival, even if it does seem a bit unreasonable at first glance."

"This is no time to haggle over metaphysics!" Biteworse shook a finger at the screen. "I demand an immediate apology, plus assurances that nothing of the sort will occur again until after my transfer!"

"Sorry, Hector," the general said calmly. "I'm afraid I can't guarantee that a few wild rounds won't be coming your way during the course of the night. This isn't a mere commando operation this time; now that I've secured my beachhead, I'm ready to launch my full-scale Spring Offensive for the recovery of our glorious homeland. Jump-off will be in approximately eight hours from now; so if you'd care to synchronize chronometers—"

"An all-out offensive? Aimed at this area?"

"You have a fantastic grasp of tactics," Barf said admiringly. "I intend to occupy the North Continent first, after which I'll roll up the Gloian Divisions like carpets in all directions!"

"But—my Chancery is situated squarely in the center of the capital! You'll be carrying your assault directly across the Embassy grounds!"

"Well, Hector, I seem to recall it was you who selected the site for your quarters—"

"I asked for neutral ground!" Biteworse shrilled. "I was assigned the most fought-over patch on the planet!"

"What could be more neutral than no-man's-land?" General Barf inquired in a reasonable tone.

"Gracious," Magnan whispered to Retief. "Barf sounds as though he may be harboring some devious motivation behind that open countenance."

"Maybe he has a few techniques of his own," Retief suggested. "This might be his version of the Number Twenty-three Leashed Power gambit, with a side order of Imminent Spontaneous Rioting."

"Heavens, do you suppose ...? But he hasn't had time to learn the finer nuances; he's only been in the business for a matter of months."

"Perhaps it's just a natural aptitude for diplomacy."

"That's possible; I've observed the intuitive fashion in which he distinguishes the bonded whiskey at cocktail parties."

"... immediate cessation of hostilities!" the Ambassador was declaring. "Now, I have a new formula, based on the battle lines of the tenth day of the third week of the Moon of Limitless Imbibing, as modified by the truce team's proposals of the second week of the Moon of Ceaseless Complaining, up-dated in accordance with Corps Policy Number 746358-b, as amended—"

"That's thoughtful of you, Hector," Barf held up a tactile member in a restraining gesture. "But as it happens, inasmuch as this will be the final campaign of the War for Liberation of the Homeland, peacemaking efforts become nugatory."

"I seem to recall similar predictions at the time of the Fall Campaign, the pre-Winter Offensive, the Winter Counteroffensive, the post-Winter Anschluss, and the pre-Spring Push," Biteworse retorted. "Why don't you reconsider, General, before incurring a new crop of needless casualties?"

"Hardly needless, Hector. You need a few casualties to sharpen up discipline. And in any case, this time things will be different. I'm using a new technique of saturation leaflet bombing followed by intensive victory parades, guaranteed to crumble all resistance. If you'll just sit tight—"

"Sit tight, and have the building blown down about my ears?" Biteworse cut in. "I'm leaving for the provinces at once—"

"I think that would be unwise, Hector, with conditions so unsettled. Better stay where you are. In fact, you may consider that an order, under the provisions of martial Law. If this seems a trifle harsh, remember, it's all in a good cause. And now I have to be moving along, Hector. I have a new custom-built VIP-model armored car with air and music that I'm dying to test drive. Ta-ta." The screen blanked abruptly.

"This is fantastic!" The Ambassador stared around at his staff for corroboration of his assessment of the situation. "In the past, the opposing armies have at least made a pretense of respecting diplomatic privilege; now they're openly proposing to make us the center of a massive combined land, sea, and air strike!"

"We'll have to contact Lib Glip at once," the Political Officer said urgently. "Perhaps we can convince him that the capital should be declared an open city!"

"Sound notion, Oscar," the Ambassador agreed. He mopped at his forehead with a large monogrammed tissue. "Retief, keep trying until you reach him."

Half a minute later, the circular visage of the Gloian Foreign Minister appeared on the screen, against a background of passing shopfronts seen through a car window. Two bright black eyes peered through a tangle of thick tendrils not unlike a tangerine-dyed oil mop capped by a leather Lindy cap with goggles.

"Hi, fellows," he greeted the Terrans airily. "Sorry to break our lunch date, Biteworse, but you know how foreign affairs are: Here today and gone to dinner, as the saying goes, I think. But never mind that. What I really called you about was—"

"It was I who called you!" the Ambassador broke in. "See here, Lib Glip; a highly placed confidential source has advised me that the capital is about to become the objective of an all-out Blort assault. Now, I think it only fair that your people should relinquish the city peaceably, so as to avoid a possible interplanetary incident—"

"Oh, that big-mouth Barf has been at you again, eh? Well, relax, fellows; everything's going to be OK. I have a surprise in store for those indigo indigents."

"You've decided to propose a unilateral cease-fire?" Biteworse blurted. "A munificent gesture—"

"Are you kidding, Biteworse? Show the white feather while those usurpers are still in full possession of our hallowed mother world?" The Gloian leaned into the screen. "I'll let you in on a little secret. The retreat is just a diversionary measure to suck Barf into over-extending his lines. As soon as he's poured all his available reinforcements into this dry run—whammo! I hit him with a nifty hidden-ball play around left end and land a massive expeditionary force on Blort! At one blow, I'll regain the cradle of the Gloian race and end the war once and for all!"

"I happen to be directly in the path of your proposed dry run!" Biteworse keened. "I remind you, sir, this compound is neither Gloian nor Blortian soil, but Ter-ran!" A patch of plaster fell with a clatter as if to emphasize the point.

"Oh, we won't actually bombard the Chancery itself—at least not intentionally—unless, that is, Barfs troops try to use it as a sanctuary. I suggest you go down into the subbasement; some of you may come through with hardly a scratch."

"Wait! We'll evacuate! I hereby call upon you for safe-conduct—"

"Sorry; I'll be too busy checking out on the controls of my new hand-tooled pursuit craft to arrange transport to the South Pole just now. However, after the offensive—"

"You'll be manning a fighter?"

"Yes, indeed! A beaut. Everything on it but a flush John. I handle the portfolio of Defense Minister in the War Cabinet personally, you know. And a leader's place is with his troops at the front. Maybe not actually at the front," he amended. "But in the general area, you know."

"Isn't that a little dangerous?"

"Not if my G-2 reports are on the ball. Besides, I said this was an all-out effort."

"But that's what you said the last time, when you were learning how to operate that leather-upholstered tank you had built!"

"True—but this time it will be all-out all-out. And now I have to scoot or I'll have to flip my own prop.

You won't hear from me again until after the victory, since I'm imposing total communications silence now for the duration. Chou." The alien broke the connection.

"Great galloping Galaxies." Biteworse sank into a plaster-dusted chair. "This is catastrophic! The Embassy will be devastated, and we'll be buried in the rubble."

There was a discreet tap at the conference room door; it opened and an apologetic junior officer peered in. "Ah ... Mr. Ambassador; a person is here, demanding to see you at once. I've explained to him—"

"Step aside, junior," a deep voice growled. A short, thick-set man in wrinkled blues thrust through the door.

"I've got an Operational Instantaneous Utter Top Secret despatch for somebody." He stared around at the startled diplomats. "Who's in charge?"

"I am," Biteworse barked. "These are my staff, Captain. What's this despatch all about?"

"Beats me. I'm Merchant Service. Some Navy brass hailed me and asked me to convoy it in. Said it was important." He extracted a pink emergency message form from a pouch and passed it across to Biteworse.

"Captain, perhaps you're unaware that I have two emergencies and a crisis on my hands already!" Biteworse looked at the envelope indignantly.

The sailor glanced around the room. "From the looks of this place, I'd say you had a problem, all right, Mister," he agreed. "I ran into a few fireworks myself, on the way in here. Looks like Chinese New Year out there."

"What's the nature of the new emergency?" Magnan craned to read the paper in Biteworse's hand.

"Gentlemen, this is the end," Biteworse said hollowly, looking up from the message form. "They'll be here first thing in the morning."

"My, just in time to catch the action," Magnan said.

"Don't sound so complacent, you imbecile!" Biteworse yelped. "That will be the final straw! An inspection team, here to assess the effectiveness of my pacification efforts, will be treated to the sight of a full-scale battle raging about my very doorstep!"

"Maybe we could tell them it's just the' local Water Festival—"

"Silence!" Biteworse screeched. "Time is running out, sir! Unless we rind a solution before dawn our careers will end in ignominy."

"If you don't mind sharing space with a cargo of Abalonian Glue-fish eggs, you can come with me," the merchantman offered over a renewed rumble of artillery. "It will only be for a couple of months, until I touch down at Adobe. I hear they've got a borax mining camp there where you can work out your board until the Spring barge convoy shows up."

"Thank you," Biteworse said coldly. "I shall keep your offer in mind."

"Don't wait too long. I'm leaving as soon as I've off-loaded."

"All right, gentlemen," the Ambassador said in an ominous tone as the captain departed in search of coffee. "I'm ordering the entire staff to the cellars for the duration of the crisis. No one is to attempt to leave the building, of course. We must observe Barfs curfew. We'll be burning the midnight fluorescents tonight— and if by sunrise we haven't evolved a brilliant scheme for ending the war, you may all compose suitable letters of resignation—-those of you who survive!"

2

In the corridor, Retief encountered his local clerk-typist, just donning a floppy beret dyed a sour orange as an expression of his political alignment.

"Hi, Mr. Retief," he greeted the diplomat glumly. "I was just leaving. I guess you know the Blorts are back in town."

"So it appears, Dil Snop. How about a stirrup cup before you go?"

"Sure; they won't have the streets cordoned off for a while yet."

In Retief s office, the clerk parked his bulging briefcase and accepted a three-finger shot of black Bacchus brandy, which he carefully poured into a pocket like a miniature marsupial's pouch.

He heaved a deep sigh. "Say, Mr. Retief, when that Blue incompetent shows up, tell him not to mess with the files. I've just gotten them straightened out from the last time."

"I'll mention your desires," Retief said. "You know, Snop, it seems strange to me that you Gloians haven't been able to settle your differences with the Blorts peaceably. This skirmishing back and forth has been going on for quite a while now, with no decisive results."

"Hundreds of years, I guess," Snop nodded. "But how can you settle your differences with a bunch of treacherous, lawless, immoral, conscienceless, crooked, planet-stealing rogues like those Blorts?" Dil Snop looked amazed, an effect he achieved by rapidly intertwining the tendrils around his eyes.

"They seem harmless enough to me," Retief commented. "Just what did they do that earns them that description?"

"What haven't they done?" Dil Snop waved a jointed member. "Look at this office—a diplomatic mission! Bullet holes all over the place, shrapnel scars on the walls—"

"The shrapnel scars were made by your boys in orange the last time they took over," Retief reminded him.

"Oh. Well, these little accidents will happen in the course of foiling the enemy's efforts to ravish our foster home—and this, mind you, sir, after they've invaded the hallowed soil of Plushnik I, swiped the entire planet, and left us to scrabble for ourselves on this lousy world!"

"Seems like a pretty fair planet to me," Retief said. "And I was under the impression this was your homeland."

"Heck, no! This place? Pah! That"—Dil Snop pointed through window at the looming disk of the nearby sister planet—"is my beloved ancestral stamping ground."

"Ever been there?"

"I've been along on a few invasions, during summer vacations. Just between us," he lowered his voice, "it's a little too cold and wet for my personal taste."

"How did the Blorts manage to steal it?"

"Carelessness on our part," Snop conceded. "Our forces were all over here, administering a drubbing to them, and they treacherously slipped over behind our backs and entrenched themselves."

"What about the wives and little ones?"

"Oh, an exchange was worked out. After all, they'd left their obnoxious brats and shrewish mates here on Plushnik II."

"What started the feud in the first place?"

"Beats me. I guess that's lost in the mists of antiquity or something." The Gloian put down his glass and rose. "I'd better be off now, Mr. Retief. My reserve unit's been called up, and I'm due at the armory in half an hour."

"Well, take care of yourself, Dil Snop. I'll be seeing you soon, I expect."

"I wouldn't guarantee it. Old Lib Glip's taken personal command, and he burns troops like joss sticks." Snop tipped his beret and went out. A moment later, the narrow face of Counsellor Magnan appeared at the door.

"Come along, Retief. The Ambassador wants to say a few words to the staff; everyone's to assemble in the commissary in five minutes."

"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.

3

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 ..."

4

"... 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.

5

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.

"What's the meaning of this?" the Gloian yelled. "Who are you! How ..." he broke off. "Hey, aren't you What's-his-name, from the Terry Embassy?"

"Correct," Retief nodded. "I congratulate Your Excellency on your acute memory."

"What's the idea of this piece of unparalleled audacity?" the Gloian leader barked. "Don't you know there's a war on? I was in the middle of leading a victorious air assault on those Blortian blue-bellies—"

"Really? I had the impression your squadrons were several miles to the north, tangling with an impressive armada of Blortian bombers and what seemed to be a pretty active fighter cover."

"Well, naturally I have to stand off at a reasonable distance in order to get the Big Picture," Lib Glip explained. "That still doesn't tell me why a Terry diplomat had the unvarnished gall to interfere with my movements! I've got a good mind to blast you full of holes and leave the explanations to my Chief of Propaganda!"

"I wouldn't," Retief suggested. "This little thing in my hand is a tight-beam blaster—not that there's any need for such implements among friendly associates."

"Armed diplomacy?" Lib Glip choked. "I've never heard of such a thing!"

"Oh, I'm off duty," Retief said. "This is just a personal call. There's' a little favor I'd like to ask of you."

"A ... favor? What is it?"

"I'd like a ride in your airplane."

"You mean you forced me to the ground just to ... to ..."

"Right. And there's not much time, so I think we'd better be going."

"I've heard of airplane fanciers, but this is fantastic! Still, now that you're here, I may as well point out to you she has a sixteen-cylinder V-head mill, swinging a twenty-four lamination sword-wood prop, synchronized 9mm lead-spitters, twin spotlights, low-pressure tires, foam-rubber seats, real instruments—no idiot lights—and a ten-coat hand-rubbed lacquer job. Sharp, eh? And wait till you see the built-in bar."

"A magnificent craft, Your Excellency," Retief admired the machine. "I'll take the rear cockpit and tell you which way to steer."

"You'll tell me—"

"I have the blaster, remember?"

Lib Glip grunted and climbed into his seat. Retief , strapped in behind him. The Premier started up, taxied to the far end of the field, gunned the engine, and lifted off into the tracer-streaked sky.

6

"That's him," Retief pointed to a lone vehicle perched on a hilltop above a lively fire-fight, clearly visible now against a landscape bathed in the bluish light of the newly risen crescent of Plushnik I, the lower curve of which was at the horizon, the upper almost at Zenith.

"See here, this is dangerous," Lib Glip called over the whine of air thrumming the rigging wires as the plane glided down in a wide spiral. "That car packs plenty of firepower, and—" he broke off and banked sharply as vivid flashes of blue light stuttered suddenly from below. The brilliant light of Plushnik I glinted from the armored car's elevated guns as they tracked the descending craft.

"Put a short burst across his bow," Retief said. "But be careful not to damage him."

"Why, that's Barfs personal car!" the Gloian burst out. "I can't fire on him, or he might—that is, we have a sort of gentleman's agreement—"

"Better do it," Retief said, watching the stream of tracers from below arc closer as Barf found the range. "Apparently he feels that at this range, the agreement's not in effect."

Lib Glip angled the nose of the craft toward the car, and activated the twin lead-spitters. A row of. pockmarks appeared in the turf close beside the car as the plane shot low over it, "That'll teach him to shoot without looking," Lib Glip commented.

"Circle back and land," Retief called. The Premier grumbled but complied. The plane came to a halt a hundred feet from the armored car which turned to pin the craft down in the beams of its headlights. Lib Glip rose, holding both hands overhead, and jumped down.

"I hope you realize what you're doing," he said bitterly. "Forcing me to place myself in the hands of this barbarian is flagrant interference in Plushniki internal affairs! So here, if he's been crooked enough to offer you a bribe, I give you my word as a statesman that I'm crookeder. I'll up his offer—"

"Now, now, Your Excellency, this is merely a friendly get-together. Let's go over and relieve the general's curiosity before he decides to clear his guns again."

As Retief and the Gloian came up, a hatch opened at the top of the heavy car and the ocular stalk of the Blortian generalissimo emerged cautiously. The three eyes looked over the situation; then the medal-hung chest of the officer appeared.

"Here, what's all this shooting?" he inquired in an irritated tone. "Is that you, Glip? Come out to arrange surrender terms, I suppose. Could have gotten yourself hurt—"

"Surrender my maternal great-aunt Bunny!" the Gloian shrilled. "I was abducted by armed force and brought here at gunpoint!"

"Eh?" Barf peered at Retief. "I thought you'd brought Retief along as an impartial witness to the very liberal amnesty terms I'm prepared to offer—"

"Gentlemen, if you'll suspend hostilities for just a moment or two," Retief put in, "I believe I can explain the purpose of this meeting. I confess the delivery of invitations may have been a trifle informal, but when you hear the news, I'm sure you'll agree it was well worth the effort."

"What news?" both combatants echoed.

Retief drew a heavy, fan-shaped paper from an inner pocket. "The war news," he said crisply. "I happened to be rummaging through some old papers, and came across a full account of the story behind the present conflict. I'm going to give it to the press first thing in the morning, but I felt you gentlemen should get the word first, so that you can realign your war aims accordingly."

"Realign?" Barf said cautiously.

"Story?" Lib Glip queried.

"I assume, of course, that you gentlemen are aware of the facts of history?" Retief paused, paper in hand.

"Why, ah, as a matter of fact—" Barf said.

"I don't believe I actually, er ..." the Gloian Premier harrumphed.

"But of course, we Blort don't need to delve into the past to find cause for the present crusade for the restoration of the national honor," Barf pointed out.

"Gloy has plenty of up-to-date reasons for her determination to drive the invaders from the fair soil of her home planet," Lib Glip snorted.

"Of course—but this will inspire the troops," Retief pointed out. "Imagine how morale will zoom, Mr. Premier," he addressed the Gloian, "when it becomes known that the original Blortians were a group of government employees from Old Plushnik, en route to the new settlements here on Plushnik I and II."

"Government employees, eh?" Barf frowned. "I suppose they were high-ranking civil servants, that sort of thing?"

"No," Retief demurred. "As a matter of fact, they were prison guards, with a rank of GB 19."

"Prison guards? GB 19?" Barf growled. "Why, that was the lowest rank in the entire Old Plushniki government payroll!"

"Certainly there can be no charge of snobbery there," Retief said in tones of warm congratulation.

A choking sound issued from Lib Glip's speaking aperture. "Pardon my mirth," he gasped. "But after all the tripe we've heard—eek-eek—about the glorious past of Blort ..."

"And that brings us to the Gloians," Retief put in smoothly. "They, it appears, were traveling on the same vessel at the time of the outbreak—or should I say break-out?"

"Same vessel?"

Retief nodded. "After all, the guards had to have something to guard."

"You mean ...?"

"That's right," Retief said cheerfully. "The Gloian founding fathers were a consignment of criminals sentenced to transportation for life."

General Barf uttered a loud screech of amusement and slapped himself on the thigh.

"I don't know why I didn't guess that intuitively!" he chortled. "How right you were, Retief, to dig out this charming intelligence!"

"See here!" Lib Glip shrilled. "You can't publish defamatory information of that sort! I'll take it to court—"

"And give the whole Galaxy a good laugh over the breakfast trough," Barf agreed. "A capital suggestion, my dear Glip!"

"Anyway, I don't believe it! It's a tissue of lies! A bunch of malarkey! A dirty, lousy falsehood and a base canard!"

"Look for yourself." Retief offered the documents.

Lib Glip fingered the heavy parchment, peered at the complicated characters.

"It seems to be printed in Old Plushnik," he grumbled. "I'm afraid I never went in for dead languages."

"General?" Retief handed over the papers. Barf glanced at them and handed them back, still chuckling. "No, sorry, I'll have to take your word for it—and I do."

"Fine, then," Retief said. "There's just one other little point. You gentlemen have been invading and counterinvading now for upward of two centuries. Naturally, in that length of time the records have grown a trifle confused. However, I believe both sides are in agreement that the original home planets have changed hands, and that the Blortians are occupying Gloy territory while the Gloians have taken over the original Blort world."

Both belligerents nodded, one smiling, one glumly.

*That's nearly correct," Retief said, "with just one minor correction. It isn't the planets that have changed hands; it's the identities of the participants in the war."

"Eh?"

"What did you say?"

"It's true, gentlemen," Retief said solemnly. "You, and your troops, General, are descendants of the original Gloians; and your people," he inclined his head to the Gloian Premier, "inherit the mantle of Blortship."

7

"But this is ghastly," General Barf groaned. "I've devoted half a lifetime to instilling a correct attitude toward Gloians in my chaps. How can I face them now!"

"Me, a Blort?" Lib Glip shuddered. "Still," he said as if to himself, "we were the guards, not the prisoners. I suppose on the whole we'll be able to console ourselves with the thought that we aren't representatives of the criminal class—"

"Criminal class!" Barf snorted. "By Pud, sir, I'd rather trace my descent from an honest victim of the venal lackeys of a totalitarian-regime than to claim kinship with a pack of hireling turnkeys!"

"Lackeys, eh? I suppose that's what a pack of butter-fingered pickpockets would think of a decent servant of law and order!"

"Now, gentlemen, I'm sure these trifling differences can be settled peaceably—"

"Ah-hah, so that's it!" Barf crowed. "You've dug the family skeletons out of the closet in the mistaken belief it would force us to suspend hostilities!"

"By no means, General," Retief said blandly. "Naturally, you'll want to exchange supplies of propaganda leaflets and go right on with the crusade. But of course you'll have to swap planets, too."

"How's that?"

"Certainly. The CDT can't stand by and see the entire populations of two worlds condemned to live on in exile on a foreign planet. I'm sure I can arrange for a fleet of Corps transports to handle the transfer of population—"

"Just a minute," Lib Glip cut in. "You mean you're going to repatriate all us, er, Blortians to Plushnik I, and give Plushnik II to these rascally, ah, Gloians?"

"Minus the slanted adjectives, a very succinct statement of affairs."

"Now, just a minute," Barf put in. "You don't expect me to actually settle down on this dust-ball full time, do you? With my sinus condition?"

"Me, live in the midst of that swamp?" Lib Glip hooked a thumb skyward at the fully risen disk of the gibbous planet, where rivers and mountains, continents and seas gleamed cheerfully, reflecting the rays of the distant sun. "Why, my asthma would kill me in three weeks! That's why I've always stuck to lightning raids instead of long, drawn-out operations!"

"Well, gentlemen, the CDT certainly doesn't wish to be instrumental in undermining the health of two such cooperative statesmen ..."

"Ah ... how do you mean, cooperative?" Barf voiced the question cautiously.

"You know how it is, General," Retief said. "When one has impatient superiors breathing down one's neck, it's a little hard to really achieve full rapport with even the most laudable aspirations of others. However, if Ambassador Biteworse were in a position to show the inspectors a peaceful planet in the morning, it might very well influence him to defer the evacuation until further study of the question."

"But ... my two-pronged panzer thrust," the general faltered. "The crowning achievement of my military career ...!"

"My magnificently coordinated one-two counter-strike!" Lib Glip wailed. "It cost me two months' golf to work out those logistics!"

"I might even go so far as to hazard a guess," Retief pressed on, "that in the excitement of the announcement of the armistice, I might even forget to publish my historical findings."

"Hrnmm," Barf eyed his colleague. "It might be a trifle tricky, at that, to flog up the correct degree of anti-Blort enthusiasm on such short notice."

"Yes; I can foresee a certain amount of residual sympathy for Gloian institutions lingering on for quite some time," Lib Glip nodded.

"I'd still have the use of my car, of course," the general mused. "As well as my personal submarine, my plushed-up transport, and my various copters, hoppers, unicycles, and sedan chairs for use on rough terrain."

"I suppose it would be my duty to keep the armed forces at the peak of condition with annual War. Games," Lib Glip commented. He glanced at the general. "In fact, we might even work out some sort of scheme for joint maneuvers, just to keep the recruits sharpened up."

"Not a bad idea, Glip. I might try for the single-engine pursuit trophy myself."

"Ha! Nothing you've got can touch my little beauty when it comes to close-in combat work."

"I'm sure we can work out the details later, gentlemen," Retief said. "I must be getting back to the Embassy now. I hope your formal joint announcement will be along well before presstime."

"Well ..." Barf looked at Lib Glip. "Under the circumstances ..."

"I suppose we can work out something," the latter assented glumly.

"I'll give you a lift back in my car, Retief," General Barf offered. "Just wait till you see how she handles on flat ground, my boy ..."

8

In the pink light of dawn, Ambassador Biteworse and his staff waited on the breeze-swept ramp to greet the party of portly officials descending from the Corps lighter.

"Well, Hector," the senior member of the inspection team commented, looking around the immaculate environs of the port. "It looks as though perhaps some of those rumors we heard as to a snag in the disarmament talks were a trifle exaggerated."

Biteworse smiled blandly. "A purely routine affair. It was merely necessary for me to drop a few words in certain auditory organs, and the rest followed naturally. There aren't many of these local chieftains who can stand up to the veiled hint of a Biteworse."

"Actually, I think it's about time we began considering you for a more substantive post, Hector. I've had my eye on you for quite some time ..." The great men moved away, fencing cautiously. Beside Retief, a tiny, elderly local in striped robes shook his head sadly.

"That was a dirty trick, Retief, getting a pardon directly from young Lib Glip. I don't get much excitement over there in the stacks, you know."

"Things will be better from now on," Retief assured the oldster. "I think you can expect to see the library opened to the public in the near future."

"Oh, boy," the curator exclaimed. "Just what I've been wishing for, for years now! Plenty of snazzy young co-eds coming in, eager to butter an old fellow up in return for a guaranteed crib sheet! Thanks, lad! I can see brighter days a-coming!" He hurried away.

"Retief," Magnan plucked at his sleeve. "I've heard a number of fragmentary rumors regarding events leading up to the truce; I trust your absence from the Chancery for an hour or two early in the evening was in no way connected with the various kidnappings, thefts, trespasses, assaults, blackmailings, breakings and enterings, and other breaches of diplomatic usage said to have occurred."

"Mr. Magnan, what a suggestion." Retief took out a fan-folded paper, began tearing it into strips.

"Sorry, Retief. I should have known better. By the way, isn't that an Old Plushniki manuscript you're destroying?"

"This? Why, no. It's an old Chinese menu I came across tucked in the classified despatch binder." He dropped the scraps in a refuse bin.

"Oh. Well, why don't you join me in a quick bite before this morning's briefing for the inspectors? The Ambassador plans to give them his standard five-hour introductory chat, followed by a quick run-through of the voucher files ..."

"No thanks. I have an appointment with Lib Glip to check out in one of his new model pursuit ships. It's the red one over there, fresh from the factory."

"Well, I suppose you have to humor him, inasmuch as he's premier." Magnan cocked an eye at Retief. "I confess I don't understand how it is you get on such familiar terms with these bigwigs, restricted as your official duties are to preparation of reports in quintuplicate."

"I think it's merely a sort of informal manner I adopt in meeting them," Retief said. He waved and headed across the runway to where the little ship waited, sparkling in the morning sun.

-

TRICK OR TREATY

1

A large green-yolked egg splattered across the flexglas panel as it slammed behind Retief. Across the long, narrow lobby, under a glare-sign reading HOSTELRY RITZKRUDLU, the Gaspierre room clerk looked up, then came quickly around the counter. He was a long-bodied, short-legged creature, wearing an expression as of one detecting a bad odor on his flattened, leathery-looking face. He spread six of the eight arms attached to his narrow shoulders like a set of measuring spoons, twitching the other two in a cramped shrug.

"The hotel, he is fill!" he wheezed. "To some other house you convey your custom, yes?"

"Stand fast," Retief said to the four Terrans who had preceded him through the door. "Hello, Strupp," he nodded to the agitated clerk. "These are friends of mine. See if you can't find them a room."

"As I comment but now, the rooms, she is occupy!" Strupp pointed to the door. "Kindly facilities provide by management to place selves back outside use!"

A narrow panel behind the registration desk popped open; a second Gaspierre slid through, took in the situation, emitted a sharp hiss. Strupp whirled, his arms semaphoring an unreadable message.

"Never mind that, Strupp," the newcomer snapped in accentless Terran. He took out a strip of patterned cloth, mopped under the breathing orifices set in the sides of his neck, looked at the group of Terrans, then back at Retief. "Ah, something I can do for you, Mr. Retief?"

"Evening, Hrooze," Retief said. "Permit me to introduce Mr. Julius Mulvihill, Miss Suzette la Flamme, Wee Willie, and Professor Fate, just in from out-system. There seems to be a room shortage in town. I thought perhaps you could accommodate them."

Hrooze eyed the door through which the Terrans had entered, twitched his nictating eyelids in a nervous gesture.

"You know the situation here, Retief!" he said. "I have nothing against Terries personally, of course, but if I rent to these people—"

"I was thinking you might fix them up with free rooms, just as a sort of good-will gesture."

"If we these Terries to the Ritz-Krudlu admit, the repercussions political out of business us will put!" Strupp expostulated.

"The next ship out is two days from now," Retief said. "They need a place to stay until then."

Hrooze looked at Retief, mopped his neck again. "I owe you a favor, Retief," he said. "Two days, though, that's all!"

"But—" Strupp began.

"Silence!" Hrooze sneezed. "Put them in twelve-oh-three and -four!"

He drew Retief aside as a small bellhop in a brass-studded harness began loading baggage on his back.

"How does it look?" he inquired. "Any hope of getting that squadron of Peace Enforcers to stand by out-system?"

"I'm afraid not; Sector HQ seems to feel that might be interpreted by the Krultch as a warlike gesture."

"Certainly it would! That's exactly what the Krultch can understand—"

"Ambassador Sheepshorn has great faith in the power of words," Retief said soothingly. "He has a reputation as a great verbal karate expert; the Genghis Khan of the conference table."

"But what if you lose? The cabinet votes on the Krultch treaty tomorrow! If it's signed, Gaspierre will be nothing but a fueling station for the Krultch battle fleet! And you Terries will end up as mess-slaves!"

"A sad end for a great oral athlete," Retief said, "Let's hope he's in good form tomorrow."

2

In the shabby room on the twelfth level, Retief tossed a thick plastic coin to the baggage slave, who departed emitting the thin squeaking that substituted in his species for a jaunty whistle. Mulvihill, a huge man with a handlebar mustache, looked around, plumped his vast, bulging suitcase to the thin carpet, mopped at the purple-fruit stain across his red plasti-weve jacket.

"I'd like to get my hands on the Gasper that threw that," he growled in a bullfrog voice.

"That's a mean crowd out there," said Miss La Flamme, a shapely redhead with a tattoo on her left biceps. "It was sure a break for us the Ambassador changed his mind about helping us out. From the look the old sourpuss gave me when I kind of bumped against him, I figured he had ground glass where his red corpuscles ought to be."

"I got a sneaking hunch Mr. Retief swung this deal on his own, Suzy," the big man said. "The Ambassador's got bigger things on his mind than out-of-work variety acts."

"This is the first time the Marvelous Merivales ever been flat out of luck on tour," commented a whiskery little man no more than three feet tall, dressed in an old-fashioned frock coat and a checkered vest. His voice was like the yap of a Pekinese. "How come we got to get mixed up in politics?"

"Shut up, Willie!" the big man said. "It's not Mr. Retiefs fault we came here."

"Yeah," the midget conceded. "I guess you fellows in the CDT got it kind of rough, too, trying to pry the Gaspers outa the Krultch's hip pocket. Boy, I wish I could see the show tomorrow when the Terry Ambassador and the Krultch brass slug it out to see whose side the Gaspers'll be neutral on."

"Neutral, ha!" the tall, cadaverous individual looming behind Wee Willie snorted. "I caught a glimpse of that ferocious war vessel at the port, openly flying the Krultch battle flag! It's an open breach of interworld custom—"

"Hey, Professor, leave the speeches to the CDT," the girl said.

"Without free use of Gaspierre ports, the Krultch plans for expansion through the Gloob cluster would come to naught. A firm stand—"

"Might get 'em blasted right off the planet," the big man growled. "The Krultch play for keeps."

"And the Gaspers aim to be on the winning side," the midget piped. "And all the smart money is on the Krultch battlewagon to put up the best argument."

"Terries are fair game around here, it looks like, Mr. Retief," Mulvihill said. "You better watch yourself going back."

Retief nodded. "Stay close to your rooms; if the vote goes against us tomorrow, we may all be looking for a quick way home."

3

Outside, on the narrow elevated walkway that linked the gray slablike structures of the city, thin-featured Gaspierre natives shot wary looks at Retief, some skirting him widely, others jostling him as they crowded past. It was a short walk to the building where the Terrestrial delegation occupied a suite. As Retief neared it, a pair of Krultch sailors emerged from a grogshop, turned in his direction. They were short-coupled centauroid quadrupeds, with deep, narrow chests, snouted faces with business-like jaws and fringe beards, dressed in the redstriped livery of the Krultch Navy, complete with sidearms and short swagger sticks. Retief altered course to the right to give them passing room; they saw him, nudged each other, spaced themselves to block the walk. Retief came on without slowing, started between them. The Krultch closed ranks. Retief stepped back, started around the sailor on the left. The creature sidled, still blocking his path.

"Oh-hoh, Terry loose in street," he said in a voice like sand in a gear box. "You lost, Terry?"

The other Krultch crowded Retief against the rail. "Where you from, Terry? What you do—?"

Without warning, Retief slammed a solid kick to the shin of the Krultch before him, simultaneously wrenched the stick from the alien's grip, cracked it down sharply across the wrist of the other sailor as he went for his gun. The weapon clattered, skidded off the walk and was gone. The one whom Retief had kicked was hopping on three legs, making muffled sounds of agony. Retief stepped quickly to him, jerked his gun from its holster, aimed it negligently at the other Krultch.

"Better get your buddy back to the ship and have that leg looked at," he said.

A ring of gaping Gaspierre had gathered, choking the walk. Retief thrust the pistol into his pocket, turned his back on the Krultch, pushed through the locals. A large coarse-hided Gaspierre policeman made as if to block his way; Retief rammed an elbow in his side and kept going. A mutter was rising from the crowd behind him. The Embassy was just ahead now. Retief turned off toward the entry; two yellow-uniformed Gaspierre moved into sight under the marquee, eyed him as he came up.

4

"Terran, have you not heard of the curfew?" one demanded in shrill but accurate Terran.

"Can't say that I have," Retief replied. "There wasn't any, an hour ago."

"There is now!" the other snapped. "You Terries are not popular here. If you insist on inflaming the populace by walking abroad, we cannot be responsible for your safety—" he broke off as he saw the Krultch pistol protruding from Retiefs pocket.

"Where did you get that?" he demanded in Gaspierran, then switched to pidgin Terran: "Where you-fella catchum bang-bang?"

"A couple of lads were playing with it in the street," Retief said in the local dialect. "I took it away from them before someone got hurt." He started past them.

"Hold on there," the policeman snapped. "We're not finished with you, fellow. We'll tell you when you can go. Now ..." He folded his upper elbows. "You're to go to your quarters at once. In view of the tense interplanetary situation, all you Terries are to remain inside until further notice, I have my men posted on all approaches to, ah, provide protection—"

"You're putting a diplomatic mission under arrest?" Retief inquired mildly.

"I wouldn't call it that. Let's say that it wouldn't be safe for foreigners to venture abroad—"

"Threats too?"

"This measure is necessary in order to prevent unfortunate incidents—!"

"How about the Krultch? They're foreigners; are you locking them in their bedrooms?"

"The Krultch are old and valued friends of the Gaspierre," the police captain said stiffly. "We—"

"I see now; ever since they set up an armed patrol just outside Gaspierran atmosphere, you've developed a vast affection for them. Of course, their purchasing missions help too."

The captain smirked. "We Gaspierre are nothing if not practical." He held out his clawlike two-fingered hand. "You will now give me the weapon."

Retief handed it over silently.

"Come, I will escort you to your room," the cop said.

Retief nodded complacently, followed the Gaspierre through the entry cubicle and into the lift.

"I'm glad you've decided to be reasonable," the cop said. "After all, if you Terries should convince the cabinet, it will be much nicer all around if there have been no incidents."

"How true," Retief murmured.

He left the car at the 20th floor.

"Don't forget, now," the cop said, watching Retief key his door. "Just slay inside and all will yet be well." He signaled to a policeman slanding a few yards along the corridor.

"Keep an eye on the door, Klosta ..."

5

Inside, Retief picked up the phone, dialed the Ambassador's room number. There was a dry buzz, no answer. He looked around the room. There was a tall, narrow window set in the wall opposite the door, with a hinged section that swung outward. Retief opened it, leaned out, looked down at the dizzying stretch of blank facade that dropped sheer to the upper walkway seventy yards below. Above, the wall extended up twenty feet to an overhanging cornice. He went to the closel, yanked a blankel from the shelf, ripped it inlo four wide strips, knotted them together, tied one end to a chair which he braced below the window.

Retief swung his legs outside the window, grasped the blanket-rope, and slid down.

The window at the next level was closed and curlained. Retief braced himself on the sill, delivered a sharp kick to the panel; it shattered with an explosive sound. He dropped lower, reached through, released the catch, pulled the window wide, knocked the curtain aside, scrambled through into a darkened room.

"Who's there?" a sharp voice barked. A tall, lean man in a ruffled shirt with an unknotted string tie hanging down the front gaped at Retief from the inner room.

"Retief! How did you get here? I understood that none of the staff were to be permitted—that is, I agreed that protective custody—er, it seems ..."

"The whole staff is bottled up here in the building, Mr. Ambassador. I'd guess they mean to keep us here until after the Cabinet meeting. It appears the Krultch have the fix in."

"Nonsense! I have a firm commitment from the Minister that no final commitment will be made until we've been heard—"

"Meanwhile, we're under house arrest—just to be sure we don't have an opportunity to bring any of the cabinet around to our side."

"Are you suggesting that I've permitted illegal measures to be taken without a protest?" Ambassador Sheepshorn fixed Retief with a piercing gaze which wilted, slid aside. "The place was alive with armed gendarmes," he sighed. "What could I do?"

"A few shrill cries of outrage might have helped," Retief pointed out. "It's still not too late. A fast visit to the Foreign Office—"

"Are you out of your mind? Have you observed the temper of the populace? We'd be torn to shreds!"

Retief nodded. "Quite possibly; but what do you think our chances are tomorrow, after the Gaspierre conclude a treaty with the Krultch?"

Sheepshorn made two tries, then swallowed hard. "Surely, Retief, you don't—"

"I'm afraid I do," Retief said. "The Krultch need a vivid symbol of their importance—and they'd also like to involve the Gaspierre in their skulduggery, just to ensure their loyalty. Packing a clutch of Terry diplomats off to the ice-mines would do both jobs."

"A great pity," the Ambassador sighed. "And only nine months to go till my retirement."

"I'll have to be going now," Retief said. "There may be a posse of annoyed police along at any moment, and I'd hate to make it too easy for them."

"Police? You mean they're not even waiting until after the Cabinet's decision?"

"Oh, this is just a personal matter; I damaged some Krultch naval property and gave a Gaspierre cop a pain in the neck."

"I've warned you about your personality, Retief," Sheepshorn admonished. "I suggest you give yourself up, and ask for clemency; with luck, you'll get to go along to the mines with the rest of us. I'll personally put in a good word—"

"That would interfere with my plans, I'm afraid," Retief said. He went to the door. "I'll try to be back before the Gaspierre do anything irrevocable. Meanwhile, hold the fort here. If they come for you, quote regulations at them; I'm sure they'll find that discouraging."

"Plans? Retief, I positively forbid you to—"

6

Retief stepped through the door and closed it behind him, cutting off the flow of ambassadorial wisdom. A flat policeman posted a few feet along the corridor came to the alert, opened his mouth to speak-

"All right, you can go home now," Retief said in brisk Gaspierran. "The chief changed his mind; he decided violating a Terran Embassy's quarters was just asking for trouble. After all, the Krultch haven't won yet."

The cop stared at him, then nodded. "I wondered if this wasn't kind of getting the rickshaw before the coolie ..." he hesitated. "But what do you know about it?"

"I just had a nice chat with the captain, one floor up."

"Well, if he let you come down here, I guess it's all right."

"If you hurry, you can make it back to the barracks before the evening rush begins." Retief waved airily and strolled away along the corridor.

Back at ground level, Retief went along a narrow service passage leading to the rear of the building, stepped out into a deserted-looking courtyard. There was another door across the way. He went to it, followed another hall to a street exit. There were no cops in sight. He took the sparsely peopled lower walkway, set off at a brisk walk.

Ten minutes later, Retief surveyed the approaches to the Hostelry Ritz-Krudlu from the shelter of an interlevel connecting stair. A surging crowd of Gaspierre blocked the walkway, with a scattering of yellow police uniforms patrolling the edge of the mob. Placards lettered TERRY GO HOME and KEEP GASPIERRE BROWN bobbed above the sea of flattened heads. Off to one side, a heavily braided Krultch officer stood with a pair of age-tarnished locals, looking on approvingly.

Retief retraced his steps to the debris-littered ground level twenty feet below the walkway, found an eighteen-inch-wide air space leading back between the buildings. He inched along it, came to a door, found it locked. Four doors later, a latch yielded to his touch. He stepped inside, made out the dim outlines of an empty storage room. The door across the room was locked. Retief stepped back, slammed a kick against it at latch level; it bounced wide.

After a moment's wait for the sound of an alarm which failed to materialize, Retief moved off along the passage, found a rubbish-heaped stair. He clambered over the debris, started up.

At the twelfth level, he emerged into the corridor. There was no one in sight. He went quickly along to the door numbered 1203, tapped lightly. There was a faint sound from inside; then a bass voice rumbled, "Who's there?"

"Retief. Open up before the house dick spots me."

Bolts clattered and the door swung wide; Julius Mulvihill's mustached face appeared; he seized Retiefs hand and pumped it, grinning.

"Gripes, Mr. Retief, we were worried about you. Right after you left, old Hrooze called up here and said there was a riot starting up—"

"Nothing serious; just a few enthusiasts out front putting on a show for the Krultch."

"What's happened?" Wee Willie chirped, coming in from the next room with lather on his chin. "They throwing us out already?"

"No, you'll be safe enough right here. But I need your help."

The big man nodded, flexed his hands.

Suzette la Flamme thrust a drink into Retiefs hand. "Sit down and tell us about it."

"Glad you come to us, Retief," Wee Willie piped.

Retief took the offered chair, sampled the drink, then outlined the situation.

"What I have in mind could be dangerous," he finished.

"What ain't?" Willie demanded.

"It calls for a delicate touch and some fancy footwork," Retief added.

The professor cleared his throat. "I am not without a certain dexterity—" he started.

"Let him finish," the redhead said.

"And I'm not even sure it's possible," Retief stated.

The big man looked at the others. "There's a lot of things that look impossible—but the Marvelous Merivales do 'em anyway. That's what made our act a wow on a hundred and twelve planets."

The girl tossed her red hair. "The way it looks, Mr. Retief, if somebody doesn't do something, by this time tomorrow this is going to be mighty unhealthy territory for Terries."

"The ones the mob don't get will be chained to an oar in a Krultch battlewagon," Willie piped.

"With the Mission pinned down in their quarters, the initiative appears to rest with us," Professor Fate intoned. The others nodded.

"If you're all agreed then," Retief said, "here's what I have in mind ..."

7

The corridor was empty when Retief emerged, followed by the four Terrans.

"How are we going to get out past that crowd out front?" Mulvihill inquired. "I've got a feeling they're ready for something stronger than slogans."

"We'll try the back way—"

There was a sudden hubbub from the far end of the corridor; half a dozen Gaspierre burst into view, puffing hard from a fast climb. They hissed, pointed, started for the Terrans at a short-legged trot. At the same moment, a door flew wide at the opposite end of the hallway; more locals popped into view, closed in.

"Looks like a necktie party," Wee Willie barked. "Let's go get 'em Julie!" He put his head down and charged. The oncoming natives slowed, skipped aside. One, a trifle slow, bounced against the wall as the midget rammed him at knee level. The others whirled, grabbing at Wee Willie as he skidded to a hall. Mulvihill roared, look three giant sleps, caught two Gaspierre by the backs of their leathery necks, bounced them off the wall.

The second group of locals, emitting wheezes of excitement, dashed up, eager for the fray. Retief met one with a straight right, knocked two more aside with a sweep of his arm, sprinted for the door through which the second party of locals had appeared. He looked back to see Mulvihill toss another Gaspierre aside, pluck Wee Willie from the melee.

"Down here, Julie!"

The girl called, "Come on, Professor!"

The tall, lean Terran, backed against the wall by three hissing locals, stretched out a yard-long arm, flapped his hand., A large white pigeon appeared, fluttered, squawking, into the faces of the attackers; they fell back, slapping and snorting. Professor Fate plunged through them, grabbed the bird by the legs as he passed, dashed from the door where Retief and the girl waited.

There was a sound of pounding feet from the stairwell; a fresh contingent of locals came charging into view on stub legs. Retief took two steps, caught the leader full in the face with a spread hand, sent him reeling back down among his followers, as Mulvihill appeared, Wee Willie over his shoulder, yelling and kicking.

"There's more on the way," Retief called. "We'll have to go up."

The girl nodded, started up, three steps at a time. Mulvihill dropped the midget, who scampered after her. Professor Fate tucked his bird away, disappeared up the stairs in giant strides, Mulvihill and Retief behind him.

8

On the roof, Retief slammed the heavy door, shot the massive bolt. It was late evening now; cool blue air flowed across the unrailed deck; faint crowd sounds floated up from the street twenty stories below.

"Willie, go secure that other door," Mulvihill commanded. He went to the edge of the roof, looked down, shook his head, started across toward another side. The redhead called to him.

"Over here, Julie ..."

Retief joined Mulvihill at her side. A dozen feet down and twenty feet distant across a narrow street was the slanted roof of an adjacent building. A long ladder was clamped to brackets near the ridge.

"Looks like that's it," Mulvihill nodded. Suzette unlimbered a coil of light line from a clip at her waist, gauged the distance to a projecting ventilator intake, swung the rope, and let it fly; the broad loop spread, slapped the opposite roof, encircling the target. With a tug, the girl tightened the noose, quickly whipped the end around a four-inch stack. She stooped, pulled off her shoes, tucked them in her belt, tried the taut rope, with one foot.

"Take it easy, baby," Mulvihill muttered. She nodded, stepped out on the taut, down-slanting cable, braced her feet, spread her arms, and in one smooth swoop, slid along the line and stepped off the far end, turned and executed a quick curtsy.

"This is no time to ham it up," Mulvihill boomed.

"Just habit," the girl said. She went up the roof, freed the ladder, released the catch that caused an extensible section to slide out, then came back to the roofs edge, deftly raised the ladder to a vertical position.

"Catch!" she let it lean toward Mulvihill and Retief; as it fell both men caught it, lowered it the last foot.

"Hey, you guys," Willie called. "I can't get this thing locked!"

"Never mind that now," Mulvihill rumbled. "Come on, Prof," he said to the lean prestidigitator. "You first."

The professor's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. He peered down at the street far below, then threw his shoulders back, clambered up onto the ladder, and started across on all fours.

"Don't look down, Professor," Suzie called. "Look at me."

"Let's go, Willie!" Mulvihill called over his shoulder. He freed the rope, tossed it across, then stepped up on the ladder, started across, one small step at a time. "This isn't my strong suit," he muttered, teeth together. The professor had reached the far side. Mulvihill was half way. There was a sudden yelp from Willie. Retief turned. The midget was struggling against the door, which was being forced open from inside.

"Hey!" Mulvihill boomed. Suzie squealed. Retief sprinted for the embattled midget, caught him as he was hurled backward as the door flew open, disgorging three Gaspierre who staggered for balance, went down as Retief thrust out a foot. He thrust Wee Willie aside, picked up the nearest native, pitched him back inside, followed with the other two, then slammed the door, tried the bolt.

"It's sprung," he said. "Let's go, Willie!" He caught up the small man, ran for the ladder where Mulvihill still stood, halfway across.

"Come on, Julie!" the girl cried. "It won't hold both of you!"

There were renewed breathy yells from the site of the scuffle. The door had burst open again, and more Gaspierre were spilling from it. Mulvihill snorted, finished the crossing and scrambled for footing on the slanting roof. Retief stepped out on the limber ladder, started across, Willie under his arm.

"Look out!" Suzette said sharply. The rungs jumped under Retiefs feet. He reached the roof in two jumps, dropped the midget, turned to see a huddle of Gaspierre tugging at the ladder. One, rendered reckless in his zeal, started across. Retief picked up the end of the ladder, shook it; the local squeaked, scrambled back. Retief hauled the ladder in.

"Up here," the girl called. Retief went up the slope, looked down at an open trap door in the opposite slope. He followed the others down through it into a musty loft, latched it behind him. The loft door opened into an empty hall. They followed it, found a lift, rode it down to ground level, Outside in a littered alley, the crowd noises were faint.

"We appear to have out-foxed the ruffians," Professor Fate said, adjusting his cuffs.

"The Gaspers ain't far behind," Wee Willie shrilled. "Let's make tracks!"

"We'll find a spot and hide out until dark," Retief said. "Then we'll make our try."

9

A faint gleam from Gaspierre's three bright star-sized moons dimly illuminated the twisting alley along which Retief led the four Terrans.

"The port is half a mile from the city wall " he said softly to Mulvihill at his side. "We can climb it between watchtowers, and circle around and hit the ramp from the east."

"They got any guards posted out there?" the big man asked, "I think the Krultch will have a few sentries out."

"Oh-oh, here's the wall ..." The barrier loomed up, twelve feet high, Suzette came forward, looked it over.

"I'll check the top," she said. "Give me a boost, Julie." He lifted her, raised her to arm's length. She put a foot on the top of his head, stepped up. Mulvihill grunted. "Watch out some Gasper cop doesn't spot you!"

"Cpast is clear." She pulled herself up. "Come on, Willie, I'll give you a hand." Mulvihill lifted the midget, who caught the girl's hand, scrambled up. Mulvihill bent over, and Retief stepped in his cupped hands, then to the big man's shoulders, reached the top of the wall. The girl lowered her rope for Mulvihill. He clambered up, swearing softly, with Retiefs help hoisted his bulk to the top of the wall. A moment later the group was moving off quietly across open ground toward the south edge of the port.

10

Lying flat at the edge of the ramp, Retief indicated a looming, light-encrusted silhouette.

"That's her," he said. "Half a million tons, crew of three hundred."

"Big enough, ain't she?" Wee Willie chirped.

"Hsst! There's a Krultch ... !" Mulvihill pointed.

Retief got softly to his feet. "Wait until I get in position behind that fuel monitor ..."he pointed to a dark shape crouching fifty feet distant. "Then make a few suspicious noises."

"I better go with you, Retief," Mulvihill started, but Retief was gone. He moved forward silently, reached the shelter of the heavy apparatus, watched the Krultch sentinel move closer, stepping daintily as a deer on its four sharp hooves. The alien had reached a point a hundred feet distant when there was a sharp ping! from behind Retief. The guard hailed; Retief heard the snick! of a power gun's action. The Krultch turned toward him. He could hear the cli-clack, cli-clack of the hooves now. At a distance of ten feet, the quadruped slowed, came to a hall. Retief could see the vicious snout of the gun aimed warily into the darkness. There was another sound from Mulvihill's position. The guard plucked something from the belt rigged across his chest, started toward the source of the sound. As he passed Retief, he shied suddenly, grabbed for his communicator. Retief leaped, landed a haymaker on the bony face, caught the microphone before it nil the pavement. The Krultch, slaggering back from the blow, went to his haunches, struck out with knife-edged forefeet. Retief ducked aside, chopped hard at the collarbone. The Krultch collapsed with a choked cry. Mulvihill appeared at a run, seized the feebly moving guard, pulled off the creature's belt, trussed his four legs together, then used other straps to bind the hands and gag the powerful jaws as the others joined the group.

"Now what?" Wee Willie inquired. "You gonna cut his throat?"

"Shove him back of the monitor," Mulvihill said.

"Now let's see how close we can get to the ship without getting spotted," Retief said.

11

The mighty Krultch war vessel was a black column towering into the night, ablaze with varicolored running and navigation lights. Giant floods mounted far up on the ship's sleek sides cast puddles of blue-white radiance on the tarmac; from the main cabin amidships, softer light gleamed through wide view-windows.

"All lit up like a party," Mulvihill growled.

"A tough party to crash," Wee Willie said, looking up the long slant of the hull.

"I think I see a route, Mr. Retief," the girl said. "What's that little square opening up there, just past the gun emplacement?"

"It looks as though it might be a cargo hatch. It's not so little, Miss La Flamme; it's a long way up—"

"You reckon I could get through it?"

Retief nodded, looking up at the smooth surface above. "Can you make it up there?"

"They used to bill me as the human ladybug. Nothing to it."

"If you get in," Retief said, "try to find your way back down into the tube compartment. If you can open one of these access panels, we're in."

Suzette nodded, took out her rope, tossed a loop over a projection fifteen feet above, clambered quickly up the landing jack to its junction with the smooth metal of the hull. She put her hands flat against the curving, slightly inslanting wall before her, planted one crepe-soled shoe against a tiny weld seam and started up the sheer wall.

Ten minutes passed. From the deep shadow at the ship's stern, Retief watched as the slim girl inched her way up, skirting a row of orange glare panels spelling out the name of the vessel in blocky Krultch ideographs, taking advantage of a ventilator outlet for a minute's rest, then going on up, up, thirty yards now, forty, forty-five ...

She reached the open hatch, raised her head cautiously for a glance inside, then swiftly pulled up and disappeared through the opening.

Julius Mulvihill heaved a sigh of relief. "That was as tough a climb as Suzie ever made," he rumbled.

"Don't get happy yet," Wee Willie piped up. "Her troubles is just starting."

"I'm sure she'll encounter no difficulty," Professor Fate said anxiously. "Surely there'll be no one on duty aft, here in port ..."

More minutes ticked past. Then there was a rasp of metal, a gentle clatter. A few feet above ground, a panel swung out; Suzie's face appeared, oil streaked.

"Boy, this place needs a good scrubbing," she breathed. "Come on; they're all having a shindig up above, sounds like."

Inside the echoing, gloomy vault of the tube compartment, Retief studied the layout of equipment, the placement of giant cooling baffles, the contour of the bulkheads.

"This is a Krultch-built job," he said. "But it seems to be a pretty fair copy of an old Concordiat cruiser of the line. That means the controls are all the way forward."

"Let's get started!" Wee Willie went to the wide-runged catwalk designed for goatlike Krultch feet, started up. The others followed. Retief glanced around, reached for the ladder. As he did, a harsh Krultch voice snapped, "Halt where you are, Terrans!"

12

Retief turned slowly. A dirt-smeared Krultch in baggy coveralls stepped from the concealment of a massive ion-collector, a grim-looking power gun aimed. He waited as a second and third sailor followed him, all armed.

"A nice catch, Udas," one said admiringly in Krultch. "The captain said we'd have Terry labor to do the dirty work on the run back, but I didn't expect to see 'em volunteering."

"Get 'em down here together, Jesau," the first Krultch barked. His partner came forward, motioned with the gun.

"Retief, you savvy Fustian?" Mulvihill muttered.

"Uh-huh," Retief answered.

"You hit the one on the left; I'll take the bird on the right. Professor—"

"Not yet," Retief said.

"No talk!" the Krultch barked in Terran. "Come down, plenty quick-quick!"

The Terrans descended to the deck, stood in a loose group.

"Closer together!" the sailor said; he poked the girl with the gun to emphasize the command. She smiled at him sweetly. "You bat-eared son of a goat, just wait till I get a handful of your whiskers—"

"No talk!"

Professor Fate edged in front of the girl. He held out both hands toward the leading Krultch, flipped them over to show both sides, then twitched his wrists, fanned two sets of playing cards. He waved them under the astounded nose of the nearest gunman, and with a flick they disappeared.

The two rearmost sailors stepped closer, mouths open. The professor snapped his fingers; flame shot from the tip of each pointed forefinger. The Krultch jumped. The tall Terran waved his hands, whipped a gauzy blue handkerchief from nowhere, swirled it around; now it was red. He snapped it sharply, and a shower of confetti scattered around the dumbfounded Krultch. He doubled his fists, popped them open; twin puffs of colored smoke whoofed into the aliens' face. A final wave, and a white bird was squawking in the air.

"Now!" Retief said, and took a step, uppercut the leading sailor; the slender legs buckled as the creature went down with a slam. Mulvihill was past him, catching Krultch number two with a roundhouse swipe. The third sailor made a sound like tearing sheet metal, brought his gun to bear on Retief as Wee Willie, hurtling forward, hit him at the knees. The shot melted a furrow in the wall as Mulvihjll floored the hapless creature with a mighty blow.

"Neatly done," Professor Fate said, tucking things back into his cuffs. "Almost a pity to lose such an appreciative audience."

13

With the three Krultch securely strapped hand and foot in their own harnessess, Retief nudged one with his foot.

"We have important business to contract in the control room," he said. "We don't want to disturb anyone, Jesau, so we'd prefer a nice quiet approach via the back stairs. What would you suggest?"

The Krultch made a suggestion. Retief tsked. "Professor perhaps you'd better give him a few more samples."

"Very well," Professor Fate stepped forward, waved his hands; a slim-bladed knife appeared in one. He tested the edge with his thumb, which promptly dripped gore. He stroked the thumb with another finger; the blood disappeared. He nodded.

"Now, fellow," he said to the sailor. "I've heard you rascals place great store by your beards; what about a shave?" He reached—

The Krultch made a sound like glass shattering. "The port catwalk!" he squalled. "But you won't get away with this!"

"Oh, no?" The professor smiled gently, made a pass in the air, plucked a small cylinder from nowhere.

"I doubt if anyone will be along this way for many hours," he said. "If we fail to return safely in an hour, this little device will detonate with sufficient force to distribute your component atoms over approximately twelve square miles." He placed the object by the Krultch, who rolled horrified eyes at it.

"O-on second thought, try the service catwalk behind the main tube," he squeaked.

"Good enough," Retief said. "Let's go."

14

The sounds of Krultch revelry were loud in the cramped passage.

"Sounds like they're doing a little early celebrating for tomorrow's big diplomatic victory," Mulvihill said. "You suppose most of them are in there?"

"There'll be a few on duty," Retief said. "But that sounds like a couple of hundred out of circulation for the moment—until we trip something and give the alarm."

"The next stretch is all right," Professor Fate said, coming back dusting off his hands. "Then I'm afraid we shall have to emerge into the open."

"We're not far from the command deck now," Retief said. "Another twenty feet, vertically, ought to do it."

The party clambered on up, negotiated a sharp turn, came to an exit panel. Professor Fate put his ear against it.

"All appears silent," he said. "Shall we sally forth?"

Retief came to the panel, eased it open, glanced out; then he stepped through, motioned the others to follow. it was quieter here; there was deep-pile carpeting underfoot, an odor of alien food and drug smoke in the air.

"Officers' country," Mulvihill muttered.

Retrief pointed toward a door marked with Krultch lettering. "Anybody read that?" he whispered.

There were shakes of the head and whispered negatives.

"We'll have to take a chance," Retief went to the door, gripped the latch, yanked it suddenly wide. An obese Krultch in uniform but without his tunic looked up from a brightly colored magazine on the pages of which Retief glimpsed glossy photos of slender-built Krultch mares flirting saucy derriers at the camera. The alien stuffed the magazine in a desk slot, came to his feet, gaping, then whirled and dived for a control panel across the narrow passage in which he was posted. He reached a heavy lever, hauled it down just as Retief caught him with a flying tackle. Man and Krultch hit the deck together; Retiefs hand chopped; the Krultch kicked twice and lay still.

"That lever—you suppose—" Wee Willie started,

"Probably an alarm," Retief said, coming to his feet. "Come on!" he ran along the corridor; it turned sharply to the right. A heavy door was sliding shut before him. He leaped to it, wedged himself in the narrowing opening, braced himself against the thrust of the steel panel. It slowed, with a groaning of machinery. Mulvihill charged up, grasped the edge of the door, heaved. Somewhere, metal creaked. Together, Retief and the strong man strained. There was a loud clunk! and a clatter of broken mechanism. The door slid freely back.

"Close," Mulvihill grunted. "For a minute there—" he broke off at a sound from behind him. Ten feet back along the passage a second panel had slid noiselessly out, sealing off the corridor. Mulvihill jumped to it, heaved against it.

Ahead, Retief saw a third panel, this one standing wide open. He plunged through it; skidded to a halt. A braided Krultch officer was waiting, a foot-long purple cigar in his mouth, a power gun in each hand. He kicked a lever near his foot. The door whooshed shut behind Retief.

"Welcome aboard, Terran," the captain grated. "You can be the first of your kind to enjoy Krultch hospitality."

15

"I have been observing your progress on my inspection screen here," the captain nodded toward a small panel which showed a view of the four Terrans pushing fruitlessly against the doors that had closed to entrap them.

"Interesting," Retief commented.

"You are surprised at the sophistication of the equipment we Krultch can command?" the captain puffed out smoke, showed horny gums in a smilelike grimace.

"No, anybody who can steal the price can buy a Groaci spy-eye system," Retief said blandly. "But I find it interesting that you had to spend all that cash just to keep an eye on your crew. Not too trustworthy, eh?"

"What? Any of my crew would die at my command!"

"They'll probably get the chance, too," Retief nodded agreement. "How about putting one of the guns down—unless you're afraid of a misfire."

"Krultch guns never misfire." The captain tossed one pistol aside. "But I agree: I am overprotected against the paltry threat of a single Terran."

"You're forgetting—I have friends."

The Krultch made a sound like fingernails on a blackboard. "They are effectively immobilized," he said. "Now, tell me: what did you hope to accomplish by intruding here?"

"I intend to place you under arrest," Retief said. "Mind if I sit down?"

The Krultch captain made laughing noises resembling a flawed drive bearing; he waved a two-fingered claw-hand.

"Make yourself comfortable—while you can," he said. "Now, tell me; how did you manage to get your equipment up to my ship without being seen? I shall impale the slackers responsible, of course."

"Oh, we have no equipment," Retief said breezily. He sniffed. "That's not a Lovenbroy cigar, is it?"

"Never smoke anything else," the Krultch said. "Care for one?"

"Don't mind if I do," Retief admitted. He accepted an eighteen-inch stogie, lit up.

"Now, about the equipment," the captain persisted. "I assume you used fifty-foot scaling ladders, though I confess I don't see how you got them onto the port—"

"Ladders?" Retief smiled comfortably. "We Terrans don't need ladders; we just sprouted wings."

"Wings? You mean?"

"Oh, we're versatile, we Terries."

The captain was wearing an expression of black disapproval now. "If you had no ladders, I must conclude that you broached my hull at ground level," he snapped. What did you use? It would require at least a fifty K-T/Second power input to penetrate two inches of flintsteel—"

Retief shook his head, puffing out scented smoke. "Nice," he said. "No, we just peeled back a panel barehanded. We Terrans—"

"Blast you Terrans! Nobody could ..." The captain clamped his jaws, puffed furiously. "Just outside, in the access-control chamber, you sabotaged the closure mechanism. Where is the hydraulic jack you used for this?"

"As I said, we Terrans—"

"You entered the secret access passage almost as soon as you boarded my vessel!" the captain screeched. "My men are inoculated against every talk-drug known! What did you use on the traitor who informed you—"

Retief held up a hand. "We Terrans can be very persuasive, Captain. At this very moment, you yourself, for example, are about to be persuaded of the futility of trying to outmaneuver us."

The Krultch commander's mouth "opened and closed. "Me!" he burst out. "You think that you can divert a Krultch officer from the performance of his duty?"

"Sure," a high voice piped from above and behind the captain. "Nothing to it."

The Krultch's hooves clattered as he whirled, froze at the sight of Wee Willie's small, round face smiling down at him from the ventilator register above the control panel. In a smooth motion, Retief cracked the alien across the wrist, twitched the gun from his nerveless hand.

"You see?" he said as the officer stared from him to the midget and back. "Never underestimate us Terrans."

16

The captain dropped in his chair, mopping at his face with a polka-dotted hanky provided by Wee Willie.

"This interrogation is a gross illegality!" he groaned. "I was assured that all your kind did was talk—"

"We're a tricky lot," Retief conceded. "But surely a little innocent deception can be excused, once you understand our natures. We love strife, and this seemed to be the easiest way to stir up some action."

"Stir up action?" the Krultch croaked.

"There's something about an apparently defenseless nincompoop that brings out the opportunist in people," Retief said. "It's a simple way for us to identify troublemakers, so they can be dealt with expeditiously. I think you Krultch' qualify handsomely. It's convenient timing, because we have a number of new planet-wrecking devices we've been wanting to field-test—"

"You're bluffing!" the Krultch bleated.

Retief nodded vigorously. "I have to warn you, but you don't have to believe me. So if you still want to try conclusions—"

There was a sharp buzz from the panel; a piercing yellow light blinked rapidly. The captain's hand twitched as he eyed the phone.

"Go ahead, answer it," Retief said. "But don't say anything that might annoy me. We Terrans have quick tempers."

The Krultch flipped a key.

"Exalted One," a rapid Krultch voice babbled from the panel. "We have been assassinated by captives! I mean, captivated by assassins! There were twelve of them—or perhaps twenty! Some were as high as a hundred-year Fufu tree, and others smaller than hoof-nits! One had eyes of live coals, and flames ten feet long shot from his hands, melting all they touched, and another—"

"Silence!" the captain roared. "Who are you? Where are you? What in the name of the Twelve Devils is going on here!" He whirled on Retief. "Where are the rest of your commandos? How did they evade my surveillance system? What—"

"Ah-ah," Retief clucked. "I'm asking the questions now. First, I'll have the names of all Gaspierre officials who accepted your bribes."

"You think I would betray my compatriots to death at your hands?"

"Nothing like that; I just need to know who the cooperative ones are so I can make them better offers."

A low brackk! sounded; this time a baleful blue light winked. The Krultch officer eyed it warily.

"That's my outside hot line to the local Foreign Office," he said. "When word reaches the Gaspierre government of the piratical behavior you alledgedly peaceful Terries indulge in behind the fagade of diplomacy—"

"Go ahead, tell them," Retief said. "It's time they discovered they aren't the only ones who understand the fine art of the triple-cross."

The Krultch lifted the phone. "Yes?" he snapped. His expression stiffened. He rolled an eye at Retief, then at Wee Willie.

"What's that?" he barked into the communicator. "Flew through the air? Climbed where? What do you mean, giant white birds!"

"Boy," Wee Willie exclaimed, "them Gaspers sure exaggerate!"

The captain eyed the tiny man in horror, comparing his height with Retiefs six-three. He shuddered.

"I know," he said into the phone. "They're already here ..." He dropped the instrument back on its hook, glanced at his panel, idly reached—

"That reminds me," Retief said. He pointed the gun at the center of the captain's chest. "Order all hands to assemble amidships," he said.

"They-they're already there," the Krultch said unsteadily, his eyes fixed on the gun.

"Just make sure."

The captain depressed a key, cleared his throat.

"All hands to the central feeding area, on the double," he said.

There was a moment's pause. Then a Krultch voice came back: "All except the stand-by crews in power section and armaments, I guess you mean, Exalted One?"

"I said all hands, damn you!" the officer snarled. He flipped off the communicator. "I don't know what you think you'll accomplish with this," he barked. "I have three hundred fearless warriors aboard this vessel; you'll never get off this ship alive!"

Two minutes passed. The communicator crackled. "All hands assembled sir."

"Willie, you see that big white lever?" Retief said mildly. "Just pull it down, and the next one to it."

The captain made as to move. The gun jumped at him. Willie went past the Krultch, wrestled the controls down. Far away, machinery rumbled. A distinct shock ran through the massive hull, then a second.

"What was that?" the midget inquired.

"The disaster bulkheads, sliding shut," Retief said. "The three hundred fearless warriors are nicely locked in between them."

The captain slumped, looking stricken. "How do you know so much about the operation of my vessel?" he demanded. "It's classified..."

"That's the result of stealing someone else's plans; the wrong people may have been studying them. Now, Willie, go let Julius and the rest of the group in; then I think we'll be ready to discuss surrender terms."

"This is a day that will live in the annals of treachery," the captain grated hollowly.

"Oh, I don't think it needs to get into the annals," Retief said. "Not if we can come to a private understanding, just between gentlemen ..."

17

It was an hour past sunrise when the emergency meeting of the Gaspierre Cabinet broke up. Ambassador Sheepshorn, emerging from the chamber deep in amiable conversation with an uncomfortable-looking Krultch officer in elaborate full dress uniform, hailed as he spied Retief.

"Ah, there, my boy! I was a trifle concerned when you failed to return last evening, but as I was just pointing out to the captain here, it was really all jutt a dreadful misunderstanding. Once the Krultch position was made clear—that they really preferred animal husbandry and folk dancing to any sort of warlike adventures, the Cabinet was able to come to a rapid and favorable decision online Peace-and-Friendship Treaty."

"I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Ambassador," Retief said, nodding to the stony-faced Krultch commander. "I'm sure we'd all rather engage in friendly competition than have to demonstrate our negotiating ability any further."

There was a stir at the end of the corridor; a harried-looking Krultch officer with a grimy Krultch yeoman in tow appeared, came up to the captain, saluted.

"Exalted One, this fellow has just escaped from a sort of magical paralysis—"

"It was that one," the sailor indicated Retief. "Him and the others." He looked reproachfully at Retief. "That was a dirty trick, telling us that was a bomb you were planting; we spent a rough night waiting for it to go off before we found out it was just a dope stick."

"Sorry," Retief said.

"Look, Exalted One," the sailor went on in a stage whisper. "What I wanted to warn you about, that Terry—the long one, with the pointed tail and the fiery breath; he's a warlock; he waves his hands and giant white flying creatures appear—"

"Silence, idiot!" the captain bellowed. "Have you no powers of observation? They don't merely produce birds; any fool could do that! They transform themselves! Now get out of my sight! I plan to enter a monastery as soon as we return home, and I want to get started on my meditating!" He nodded curtly and clattered away.

"Odd sort of chap," Sheepshorn commented. "I wonder what he was talking about?"

"Just some sort of in-group joke, I imagine," Retief said. "By the way, about that group of distressed Terrans I mentioned to you yesterday—"

"Yes; I may have been a bit abrupt with them, Retief; but of course I was busy planning my strategy for today's meeting. Perhaps I was hasty. I hereby authorize you to put in a good word for them."

"I took the liberty of going a little further than that," Retief said. "Since the new treaty calls for Terran cultural missions, I signed a six-months contract with them to put on shows here on Gaspierre."

Sheepshorn frowned. "You went a bit beyond your authority, Retief," he snapped. "I'd thought we might bring in a nice group or two to read classic passages from the Congressional Record, or perform some of the new silent music, and I had halfway promised the Groaci Minister I'd have one of his nose-flute troupes—"

"I thought it might be a good idea to show Terran solidarity, just at this juncture," Retief pointed out. "Then, too, a demonstration of sword-swallowing, prestidigitation, fire-eating, juggling, tight-rope walking, acrobatics, and thaumaturgics might be just the ticket for dramatizing Terran versatility."

Sheepshorn considered with pursed lips, then nodded. "You may have a valuable point there, my boy; we Terrans are a versatile breed. Speaking of which, I wish you'd been there to see my handling of the negotiation this morning! One moment I was all fire and truculence; the next, as smooth as Yill silk."

"A brilliant performance, I daresay, Mr. Ambassador."

"Yes, indeed." Sheepshorn rubbed his hands together, chuckling. "In a sense, Retief, diplomacy itself might be thought of as a branch of show business, eh? Thus, these performers might be considered colleagues of a sort."

"True; but I wouldn't mention it when they're within earshot."

"Yes; it might go to their heads. Well, I'm off, Retief. My report on this morning's work will become a classic study of diplomatic subtlety."

He hurried away. A Gaspierre with heavy bifocal lenses edged up to Retief.

I'm with the Gaspierre Morning Exhalation," he wheezed. "Is it true, sir, that you Terries can turn into fire-breathing dragons at will ... ?"

A second reporter closed in. "I heard you read minds," he said. "And about this ability to walk through walls—"

"Just a minute, boys," Retief held up a hand. "I wouldn't want to be quoted on this of course, but just between you and me, here's what actually happened, as soon as the Ambassador had looked into his crystal ball ..."

THE FORBIDDEN CITY

I

AN EVENING BREEZE bearing the fragrance of ten-thousand year old Heo trees in bloom moved across the Embassy dining terrace. In the distance pipes sounded softly, picking out a haunting melody, like fairy feet retracing a forgotten path through an enchanted forest. The setting sun, vast and smoky red, cast crimson shadows along the leaf-shaded streets below.

"A pity all this is dying." First Secretary Magnan of the Terran Mission to Sulinore waved a hand toward the fragile, crumbling towers silhouetted against the dusk. "In spite of a million years of civilization and a reputation for immortality, the Sulinorians seems impotent to stem the population decline. I suppose in a century or less they'll all be gone."

"With ninety-nine per cent of the planetary surface devoted to cemeteries, historical shrines and monuments to the past, there's not much room for the living," Second Secretary Retief commented. "And you can tie up a lot of minerals in a planet-wide graveyard."

"I suppose you're referring to their belief that the world's supply of Divine Effluvium is exhausted," Magnan sniffed. "Mere folklore.of course. Still, one might almost be tempted to look into the matter of depletion of essential elements—except that Corps policy forbids poking into local religious doctrine. And in any event, they won't permit any deep-mining operations which might disturb the hallowed dead—or the sleeping heroes, as they prefer to put it."

Magnan cocked an eye at the small humanoid waiter standing at a discreet distance, apparently lost in thought. "One can't help thinking that the modern Sulinorian is a far cry from his legendary ancestors," he said behind his hand. "Just compare these civilized little chaps with those ghastly statues you see everywhere."

The local turned, approached the table, a polite expression on his elfin features.

"You wished something, sir?"

"Why, ah, tell me." Magnan cleared his throat. "How does the Sulinorian in the street feel about all this? Wouldn't you be willing to see a modest rock-mining operation set up here to unlock some of those scarce elements that are tied up in the planetary crust?"

"Modest, my lord? The figure I heard was a million metric tons per day per unit, and Great Tussore knows how many units." He looked toward the ruin-crowned skyline. "Rather the easy erosion of eons than eaten by industry's engines insatiable," he quoted. "At least that's what the poet Eulindore said a couple of millenia ago. Me, I wouldn't know."

"But what about importation?" Magnan persisted.

"Why, your Administrative Council turned thumbs down flatly on the CDT proposal that we haul in a few million cubic miles of useful minerals and establish raw material dumps that all could draw on freely!"

"I guess we'd rather look at the landscape the way it is, sir," the Sulinorian said. "And besides, rooting in a dump isn't our style. You know, a race of heroes and all that." He flicked an imaginary crumb from the table. "How about another flagon of ancient wine, my lords? Laid down by Yodross in the year 574,635. That would be about 3600 B.C., old Terry reckoning."

"I think not—" Magnan broke off as the table-side P.A. unit pinged and lit up. The plump features of Ambassador Shindlesweet snapped into mirror-bright focus on the one-way screen.

"Ah, gentlemen," the portly diplomat beamed. "It's my pleasure to inform the staff that the Blug delegation has, after all, been prevailed upon to be present at the Peace Conference here on Sulinore."

"What, those bloodthirsty little killers?" Magnan gasped. "With their armor and their opaque atmosphere helmets and their sneaky ways? Why, everybody knows they're the Groaci's protégés, and responsible for all the fighting!"

"At least that's a dozen or so Blugs that won't be off plundering somewhere—as long as the conference is on anyway," Retief pointed out.

"... a gesture which reflects their sincere desire to see peace restored to the Sector," Shindlesweet was rumbling on. "And with all due modesty, I think I may say—"

A pale visage sporting five stalked eyes crowded onto the screen, thrusting the Terrestrial ambassador aside.

"As you're perhaps aware," the Groaci ambassador whispered in his faint voice, "it was through my efforts as co-sponsor of the present talks that this happy eventuality was brought about. And—"

"Look here, Mr. Ambassador," Shindlesweet muttered from the side of his mouth, turning a glassy smile to the camera. "I was on the air first!"

"Hogging the limelight, as usual, George," the Groaci hissed. "An unfortunate habit of yours. But as I was saying," he addressed the screen, "I was able, through deft handling of a number of sensitive issues—"

"Now just a minute, Shith!" The Terran forced his way back to center screen. "When I agreed to lend the weight of Terran participation to your confounded gab-fest, I—"

"Ha! You begged me on bended anterior ginglymus joint to be permitted to crowd in!"

"Why, you little—"

"Ah-ah," Ambassador Shith admonished. "No racial epithets, George. Open mike, remember?"

Retief and Magnan had a last quick glimpse of Shindlesweet's rage-flushed features as he reached to blank the screen.

"Well, the peace talks are off to a rousing start," Retief said cheerfully. Magnan shook his head, looking grave.

"I foresee no good to come of this gathering." He rose and looked at his watch. "We've time for a constitutional before dinner, Retief. And if we're to dine cheek by mandible with our Groaci colleagues at tonight's banquet, I for one have need of a hearty appetite."

II

A block from the renovated palace housing the Terran Chancery, Magnan plucked at Retief's arm.

"Look there; another party of Groaci Peacekeepers, in full armor. You'd think they were expecting full scale rioting to break out at any moment."

A block away, a squad of constabulary, in grotesque flaring helmets and black hip-cloaks, side-arms at knobby hips, minced briskly along the empty avenue.

"Shith was quite insistent that the Groaci be assigned responsibility for the security arrangements for the Conference," Magnan muttered. "They have the only guns on the planet."

"For alleged police, those fellows have a suspicious look of regular infantry about them," Retief said.

"Good lord, you don't imagine they're planning anything foolish?" Magnan gasped. "Everybody knows the Groaci secretly covet Sulinore. They've even tried to have it officially declared a deserted world, open to colonization."

"It's a little hard to see how they could swing it, with a full squadron of CDT Peace Enforcers standing by off-planet," Retief said.

"You're right. We're imagining things." Magnan shook his head briskly. "A few dozen blasters can't take over a world. Still, I'd as soon avoid these bravos. In their arrogance they might attempt some sort of harassment." He angled across toward the entrance to a side street.

"That's the route to the Forbidden City, off-limits to foreigners," Retief said. "How badly do you want to miss the fuzz?"

"Not that badly." Magnan shuddered, veered in the opposite direction. "If even half the stories are true, not even our gnawed bones would ever be found."

Fifteen minutes later they were in a narrow, crooked street where age-weathered carved griffins, satyrs and nymphs adorned the steep facades of the deserted buildings lining the way.

"This isn't the most cheerful route for a stroll," Magnan commented uneasily. "At least not after sundown." He cocked his head. "One almost imagines one can hear stealthy footsteps behind one."

"Not so stealthy at that," Retief said. "They've been getting pretty careless the last five minutes, as if they didn't care whether we heard them or not."

"You mean someone's really following us?" Magnan turned to stare back along the shadowy late-evening street.

"Two someones," Retief corrected. "Non-humans, I'd say, weighing in at under a hundred pounds, and wearing padded shoes."

"That could mean anything! There are forty-six non-human species on-world this week for the conference, and I can think of at least ten of them that wouldn't be above assaulting a pair of peaceful Terran diplomats for their own nefarious ends."

"Or for the iridium in their teeth," Retief amplified.

"I think I recognize the street ahead," Magnan muttered. "Coriale's Comestible Counter is just around the corner. I was there last week—in daylight—making some arrangements for the Reception. We can nip inside and 'phone the Embassy for transportation back ..."He broke off as they came in view of a high, narrow shop-front displaying the cranium and crossed thighbones, the Sulinorian symbols of a caterer's establishment. Beneath the deeply incised device, the windows were dark, the massive stonewood door shut tight.

"It's closed!" Magnan put his nose against the glass. "But there's someone inside. I heard a sound."

Retief tried the heavily patinaed bronze door latch, cast in the form of fanged jaws clenched on a leg.

"Perhaps—great heavens, Retief! What are you doing?" Magnan blurted as Retief gripped the knob in both hands and twisted hard. There was a sharp tinkle of breaking metal.

"Retief, stop!" Magnan gasped. "You can't—"

"I think it might be a good idea to get in off the street—now!" Retief thrust his protesting senior through into the gloomy interior, whirled to ease the door silently shut.

"We found the door unlocked," he said briskly, looking around the room. "And stepped inside to see if everything was okay."

Magnan peered from the window, made a choking sound. "Two Sulinorians in artisan's headdress just came around the corner! They'll find us here!"

"Let's check the back room." Retief led the way past tables heaped with displays of Sulinorian pastries, stuffed fowls and candied nutmeats, thrust aside a curtain. The dim shapes of stacked cartons bulked in the darkness. He sniffed the air, took a tiny handlight from his pocket, played the pencil-thin beam across the floor.

"What's that?" Magnan hissed, pointing. From behind a wall locker, a pair of narrow high-arched, long-toed feet protruded. Retief went across, flashed the light on a small, crumpled body. The bright robes were bedraggled and torn. A wound in the narrow chest oozed ochre blood.

"A Sulinorian," Magnan breathed. "He's been shot!" His lips moved in a faint whisper. Retief knelt beside him.

"Who did it?" he asked urgently. "Why?"

"He was not ... what he seemed." Retief caught the whispered words. Then the luminous eyes closed; the last tinge of vital color drained from the small face, leaving it an unattractive shade of waxy green.

"It looks like Coriale, the caterer," Magnan groaned. "How terrible!"

"Listen!" Retief raised a hand. From the far comer of the storeroom a faint rustle sounded. He motioned Magnan to the left, started around the right side of the stacked boxes. There was a hurried scuttling sound.

"Why—there you are, Coriale," Magnan's voice squeaked. "We, er, just stepped in to increase our order. We'll have twelve gross of the bean and kidney pies and six dozen jellied bramble-hens—under glass, of course ..." Magnan backed into view, keeping himself between the small local and the body in the corner. The Sulinorian pulled free of Magnan's grip on his elbow. His bright eyes flicked around the room.

"But if you're busy," Magnan went on hastily, "we'll just toddle along now ..."

"Ummm. You are Terrestrials, isn't it?" the alien piped in a piercingly high voice.

"I'm, er, why, ah ..." Magnan swallowed audibly. "I was here just the other day, Mr. Coriale. Don't you remember me?"

"Yes. Quite so, I recalled now." The Sulinorian moved toward the door. "Six dozen jellied kidney-beans and glass hens under mud, I'll make notes of it. And now, you wish to leave, are you? To be sure. Goodby quickly, please."

Magnan reached the door ahead of the local, fumbled it open. "Well, it was jolly seeing you, Coriale. By, now ..."He tugged at Retief's sleeve. "Come along!" he hissed. "We're in a frightful rush, remember?"

"I'm not sure Mr. Coriale got the order just right." Retief eased Magnan aside, glanced out the door. The dark street was empty. Pale flames burning in blue glass globes high on the walls cast wavering shadows along the ancient cobbles.

"It doesn't matter! I'm sure he can cope." Magnan's voice faltered as his eye fell on the Sulinorian, from whose nostrils brown smoke was filtering.

"Say, isn't that brown smoke filtering from your nostrils?" he blinked. "I didn't know you Sulinorians smoked."

Coriale edged sideways, eyeing the door. "A new vice, acquiring this week only. And now, reluctance, farewell."

Magnan frowned. "Curious," he said. "A few days ago you spoke perfect Galactic."

"Duck!" Retief snapped and dived past Magnan as the undersized alien made a lightning-fast motion.

Something flashed in his hand; a plate of hors d'oeuvres beside Magnan exploded in a shower of antipasto. With a yelp, Magnan leaped sideways, collided with the alien as the latter bounded aside from Retief's charge.

For a moment, there was a wild tangle of threshing limbs. Then Magnan staggered back, sat down hard. His head wobbled. He fell sideways and lay still.

The Sulinorian had whirled, bringing the gun up—

Retief swept a pie from a table, slammed it full into the pinched faced. The alien shrieked; the gun barked sharply, twice. One slug ripped the gilt epaulet from the shoulder of Retief's wine-red mid-evening semiofficial blazer. The second thunk!ed into a pewter tureen; thick purple soup spurted from paired holes. Then Retief was on the gunner. He twisted the alien's gun-hand behind him, reached to seize his quarry's other arm ... and felt the room expand suddenly to three times its former size.

He snorted hard, held his breath, threw the alien across the room. His legs felt like piano wire. He grabbed at a table for support, sent it crashing over on its side.

Magnan sat up, spluttering, as a cascade of icy green punch sluiced over him.

"Yes, yes, I'm coming, Mother," he gasped.

To Retief, Magnan's voice seemed to be filtered through an echo chamber. As in a dream, he saw the other totter to his feet.

"Wha ..." Magnan gobbled. "What happened?"

His eyes focused on the room, took in the smashed crockery, the overturned furnishings the spilled viands—and the crumpled figure against the wall. "Retief—he isn't ...?"

Retief shook his head to clear it. He went across to the fallen alien. The creature lay on his back, eyes wide open, glassy. A great shard of broken punch-bowl protruded from his chest. His dead face was a livid purple.

"Coriale!" Magnan choked. "Dead again!"

"We'd better get out fast," Retief said. "And sort out the Coriales in the morning."

"By all means!" Magnan whirled to the door, pulled it wide—and backed into the room, prodded by the gleaming barrel of a crater gun in the hands of a spindle-legged Groaci in the uniform of a Peacekeeper.

"To make no move, vile miscreants," the helmeted and greaved Shore Patroller hissed in his native tongue as his five stalked eyes scanned the shambles. "To have you red-handed this time, Soft Ones."

"You're making a frightful mistake," Magnan choked as half a dozen more Groaci pushed into the shop, all with levelled weapons. "We didn't—that is, I didn't—I mean, Retief only—"

"Ah, Mr. Magnan, is it not?" the Patrol captain whispered in his faint voice. "The acceptance of your complete innocence, of course, dear sir. Provided only the testimony against the true criminal!"

"True criminal?" Magnan stuttered. "You mean Retief? But—"

"What other?" the Groaci inquired in a reasonable tone.

"But ... but ..."

"To have no need to make a statement now," the captain soothed. "To come along quietly and to leave us to deal with the killer." He motioned sharply and his subordinates closed in, hustled the protesting Magnan away. Then the Groaci turned to Retief.

"To remember me, perhaps, Retief? Shluh by name, formerly of the Groacian Planetary Police, once deeply wronged by you. Tonight, in the cells of a Groaci prison, to even at last the bitter score."

III

The jeweled eye-shields of Captain Shluh gave back brilliant glints from the dazzling white Interrogation lights rigged at the center of the dusty room.

"Once more, my dear Retief," he whispered in accent-free Terran. "What was your motive for your atrocious crimes against the peace and order of Groac? Or Sulinore, if you prefer. Was it perhaps your plan to introduce subtle impurities into the provender to be supplied to the delegates? Or did your schemes run deeper? Was it your full intent to secrete illegal monitoring devices in the serving vessels—devices of the kind which I will testify were found on your person when you were searched?"

"A couple of years pounding a beat have done wonders for you, Schluh," Retief said conversationally. "You've lost that fat-behind-the-ears look. Unfortunately, you still sound about the same."

"And you, unlucky Terry, still indulge your penchant for flippancy! It will be amusing to watch the evolution of your japes into pleas for mercy, as our acquaintance ripens."

"You Groaci must be planning something a little more elaborate than usual," Retief mused aloud. "Conning Ambassador Shindlesweet into lending CDT backing to these phony peace talks took a lot of time and groundwork—and you lads don't waste credits on empty gestures."

"You imply that our motives are less than selfless?" Shluh inquired in a careless tone. "Ah, well, what matter your thoughts, Soft One? You may share them freely with your executioner."

"Let's look at it analytically," Retief went on. "What have you accomplished with all this effort, other than getting representatives of every important world in a CDT dominated sector of the Arm together in one room? But maybe that's enough, eh, Shluh? If some unfortunate incident occurred and wiped out the lot of them, whoever was responsible would find himself in a most unenviable position, public-relations-wise. And I have a feeling it wouldn't be you Groaci who'd be left holding the satchel. Which leaves the CDT, the other sponsor of the gathering."

"Enough, presumptuous Terry!" Shluh's eyestalks were whipping in an agitated manner. "In your panic, you rant nonsense!"

"And with the CDT discredited," Retief continued, "Groac would have to step in to straighten out the confusion; and they just might find it necessary to call on someone like their friends the Blugs to help keep the peace during the emergency. And maybe, before things got back to normal, the few remaining Sulinorians might just sort of go into a decline and die off, leaving an empty world for an enterprising power like Groac to latch onto."

"What fever fancies are these?" Shluh hissed. "It is known to all that you Terries, ever suspicious of the pure motives of others, have installed Mark XXI surveillance devices at the port and throughout the Conference rooms, thus making impossible the introduction of any weapons other than the handful allotted to my Security patrols!"

"A good point, Shluh. The Mark XXI's will frisk every attender from socks to hair-piece. Of course, a little poison in the caterer's salt-shaker wouldn't trip the detectors, but the metabolic monitors would catch that on the routine analysis that's run on food to be sure it's safe for alien consumption. So the Borgia approach is out, too."

"I tire of your theorizing!" Shluh was on his feet. "Think what you will! I tell you in confidence: Even now your Chancery is surrounded by my troops— ostensibly as honor guard—but none can leave or enter! By this hour tomorrow no Terry will dare to show his naked face in any capital in the Sector—"

"Tomorrow, eh?" Retief nodded. "Thanks for giving me your timetable."

"Have done, infamous meddler in the destinies of Groac! But before you die, tell me the name of the spy who sold you our secrets, and I shall personally supervise his impalement on the wall of one thousand hooks!"

"Secrets, eh? I guess that confirms my guesswork," Retief said. "One more question: What pay-off do the Blugs get—"

"Silence!" Shluh keened. "Be assured your brief remaining hours will be devoted not to questioning matters of policy beyond your grasp, but to supplying detailed answers to a number of queries of my own!"

"Wrong again," Retief said and took a step toward the desk on which the police officer leaned, shaking a gloved fist. Shluh jumped back, motioned to the armed guard standing by, who swung his power gun to the ready, aimed at Retief's face.

"Haven't your lads been told that you can't fire a blaster in an enclosed space like this without incinerating everything in it, including the shooter?" Retief asked casually, and took another step. The guard lowered the gun hesitantly, his eyes twitching in confusion.

"He lies, cretinous hive-mate of broodfoulers! Fire!" Shluh screeched, and ducked to snatch at an open drawer. Retief reached him in a bound, caught the unfortunate captain by the neck, sent him skidding toward the guard as a belated shot lit the room like a photoflash. As the two Groaci went down in a heap, Retief caught up the dropped gun.

"Well, another myth exploded," he said. "Shluh, take off your belt and strap him up." With the gun covering the two aliens, he seated himself at the desk, flipped up the OUT key on the desk field-phone, punched in a number. A moment later, the glum face of Counsellor of Embassy Clutchplate appeared on the screen. He gaped.

"Retief! What—how—Do you realize—? Did you actually—? How could you have ..."his voice faltered as he took in the scene in the background. "Isn't that Chief Shluh? What's he doing?'

"He just ran into an old acquaintance," Retief soothed, ignoring a sharp rap at the door. "Mr. Clutch-plate, how far along are the arrangements for Blug participation in the Conference?"

"Why, their delegation will arrive within the hour. The convoy just 'vised Port Authority for landing clearance. But see here—"

"Convoy?" Retief glanced up as pounding sounded at the door.

"Just fifty first-class cruisers; as escort for the transport. The Blug never travel unarmed, you know. But—"

"See if you can get the ambassador to turn them down," Retief rapped. "Failing that, meet 'em with an armed guard and—"

"Mr. Retief!" the counsellor barked. "I don't know what mad scheme you've embarked on, but it won't work! I know how you feel about the Blugs, and the Groaci too, for that matter. But taking the law into your own hands—"

"No time for any long discussions, Mr. Clutch-plate," Retief cut in as a heavy thud rocked the door. "I'd ask you for a squad of Marines if I knew where I was, but—"

"Turn yourself in," Clutchplate blurted. "It's the only way. You can plead guilty due to temporary insanity brought on by outraged political convictions, and get off with no more than half a dozen years on a penal satellite."

"It's an interesting proposal." Retief ducked as splinters of door whined past his head. "What am I guilty of?"

"Murder, of course," Clutchplate yelped. "Two Sulinorians, remember?"

"It slipped my mind," Retief said. "But see if you can hold the charge open a little longer. I may have a few Groaci to add to it." He flipped off the screen as the door shuddered and bulged inward.

"Time for you to talk fast, Shluh," he said crisply. "I've decided to slip out the back way to avoid the autograph hounds. There are three doors I could use. You'll tell me which one's the best route."

"Never!"

Retief fired a bolt from the hip past the Groaci.

"On the other hand," Shluh hissed quickly, "what matter if you temporarily elude my overzealous troops? Our plans will proceed—and the measures you sought to set in motion will avail naught to stop them!" He darted to a side door, keyed it open.

"Go, then, Retief! But take what path you will, a dreadful end awaits you!"

"In that case, you'd better go first." Shluh hissed and tried to dart aside, but Retief caught him, propelled him ahead with a foot in the seat. He slammed and barred the panel behind him, as the outer door fell in with a crash.

IV

They followed dim, dusty passages, ascended winding stairways, moved silently along dark, lofty halls lined with ancient armor and hung with rotted banners. Half a dozen times Retief eluded Groaci search parties by a hair's breadth. In a wide room decorated with painted murals showing centauroids cavorting on purple grass, Shluh gestured toward a high-arched, doorless opening through which pale moonlight gleamed.

"There is your exit to the night, Retief!" he keened sardonically. "Make what use of it you will! The way is clear!"

Retief crossed the room, stepped out onto a tiny balcony, thick with the droppings of the tiny bat-like creatures that wheeled and skree!ed at his appearance. Ragged vines grew over a low balustrade, beyond which darkness spread to a skyline of tower-encrusted hills. He looked down. The wall dropped sheer into inky shadows far below.

"Thanks for everything, Shluh." He threw a leg over the stone railing. "I'll see you at your trial—if your bosses let you live that long, after the way you've botched your assignment."

"Stop, impetuous outworlder!" Shluh keened, as Groaci feet clicked in the room behind him. "Even should you survive the descent, you know not what you do! Not even you would I urge on to to what waits in the darkness below!"

"You mean your short patrols?"

"Not my patrols, nor the Marines of your own embassy which even now seek you, warrant in hand, will ever find you, if once you set foot in those demon-haunted byways!"

"So that's where you set up your jail-house?" Retief looked thoughtful. "Still, I'd rather mingle with spooks than go back to your little party. Ta-ta, Shluh. Stay as sweet as you are." Shluh hit the deck as Retief -raised the gun and fired a burst toward the approaching search party, slung the blast rifle over his shoulder and started down toward the silent streets of the Forbidden City.

It was an easy climb. Once a pair of Groaci heads appeared over the balcony rail above, but they drew back quickly. The wall was deeply carved, and the stout vines provided ample hand-and foot-holds. It was less than ten minutes before Retief swung down and dropped the last few feet into a mass of unpruned shrubbery from which he emerged in an avenue of marble mansions like abandoned funeral homes. The two pale moons of Sulinore came from behind a cloud and shone down ghostly white. Something small and dark flitted overhead, emitting thin cries. Far away, a mournful wail sounded. Retief set off at a brisk walk, his footsteps echoing hollowly on the worn mosaics that paved the way.

Ahead, a lofty obelisk reared up. The inscription, nearly effaced by time, seemed to commemorate a battle fought with giants. At the next corner, the carved heads of ogres peered blindly down at him from an ornate cornice. He passed a fountain, dry and silent, where finned and tailed maidens of stone disported themselves amid marble waves. The dank wind blew dead leaves along the street. As Retief paused, a sound as of small feet pattered for a moment, then fell silent.

"Come on out," Retief called. "There's some news you ought to hear."

There was a ghostly laughter—or perhaps it was only the wind, searching among the fluted columns of a temple. Retief went on. Rounding an abrupt angle, he caught a glimpse of movement—a darting shape that disappeared into a gaping doorway. He followed, found himself in a hall, open to the sky. From its walls, giant frescoed figures stared down with empty eyes.

"I need a guide," Retief called. "Any volunteers?"

"Tears ... tears ... tears," the echoes rolled back from every side.

"There's a small matter of an invasion to deal with right now."

"Now ... now ... now ..." the sound faded and died, and as if the word were a signal, a creak sounded from the high doors through which Retief had entered.

He spun in time to see them clash shut with a dull boom that echoed and re-echoed. He went to them, found them jammed tight, immovable. He turned back to the interior of the roofless room. A wide passage was visible at the rear. Skirting a black pool that reflected a shattered moon, he entered the passage, emerged after twenty paces on a terrace above a flight of wide, shallow steps. Below a dark and wild-grown park spread out, a wilderness of untrimmed shrubs and lofty, black-leaved trees.

He descended to the foot-high sward; soft rustlings from the shadows retreated as he advanced along a weed-obscured path winding among the buttressed trunks of patriarchal trees. Carved faces leered at him from the shadows. The eerie shapes of stone monsters gleamed through the unpruned foliage. He emerged onto a broad mall along the center of which a double rank of what appeared to be painted statues of heroic size were drawn up along an aisle that led away into the night. Near at hand, a small collonaded shrine was almost hidden among the low-sweeping boughs of a giant conifer. Silently, Retief approached the building from the side.

Through a latticed opening, faint moonlight fell on the vine-entwined effigy of an oversized Sulinorian in the armor of an ancient warrior. In the darkness behind the graven hero, something moved minutely. Retief tossed a pebble through the window, flattened himself against the wall by the doorway. A moment later, a head poked cautiously from the entry—and Retief's hand clamped on the slender Sulinorian neck.

"Pardon my interrupting the game," he said. "But it's time we had a talk."

V

"The price of entrance into the Sacred Grove of Heroes is death, Terran!" the tenor voice of the alien shrilled.

"So I understand," Retief said holding his catch at arm's length to avoid the wildly kicking feet. "However, my little intrusion is nothing compared with what the Groaci have scheduled. Maybe you'd better listen to what I have to say before you carry out the sentence."

"Tomorrow is nothing; the past is all," the Sulinorian declaimed. "Why struggle against Destiny, outworlder?"

"We can give destiny a run for her money if you'll spread the word that I need a few hundred able-bodied Sulinorians to distract the Groaci patrols long enough for me to get through to the Terry Embassy—"

"Offer your final devotions to your gods, man of Terra," the Sulinorian cut in. "Your fate is sealed."

"You're consistent, I'll concede that," Retief said. "it looks as though I'll have to look a little farther for a public-spirited citizen." He released the native, who jerked his varicolored toga straight and faced him defiantly.

"Not so, Terran!" The local folded his knobby arms. "Never will you leave these hallowed precincts!"

Rustlings sounded behind Retief. He turned. From every shadowed clump of shrubbery, a Sulinorian emerged; light winked from the foot long stilettos in their hands. Silently, the ring of aliens closed in. Retief backed to the shrine, unlimbered the blast rifle, swung it to cover the throng which halted, facing him.

"Welcome to the party," he said. "Now that we've got a quorum, maybe we'll get somewhere."

"You outrage the glorious past, Terran," a wizened Sulinorian quavered, staring up at Retief. "You heap outrage on outrage!"

"The outrage the Groaci are planning is the one I'm concerned with," Retief said. "You people don't seem to care much, but from the Terry viewpoint, it might set an unfortunate precedent for other budding empire-builders."

"Terry, gone are the days when we of Sulinore were mighty warriors. If now it falls our lot to die, we face our fate in dignity."

"There's nothing dignified about being scragged by the Groaci, or strung up by the heels by a platoon of Blugs," Retief cut in. "I hear they have a curious sense of humor when it comes to dealing with anyone who's proved his inferiority by getting conquered by them."

"Kill this alien at once, isn't it?" a scratchy-voiced Sulinorian in the front rank called. "After, everybody die nicely, as scheduled."

"Enough talk," the elderly Sulinorian declared.

"Let the disturber of the sleep of heroes suffer the penalty!"

The Sulinorians eyed the gun in Retief's hands, shuffled their feet. No one advanced.

"Maybe you'd better call the penalty off," Retief suggested. "Then you can divert your righteous indignation into doing something about the invasion."

"Hmmmm." The elderly spokesman beckoned to a couple of his fellows; they put their heads together.

"We have decided," the oldster stated as the conference ended, "that the matter must be referred to the Old Ones for decision." He raised a trembling hand. "Not that we fear to fall under your murderous weapon, Terran—but it is a death which lacks elegance." He waved a hand and an avenue opened up through the dense ranks of armed locals.

"Terran, I give you temporary safe-conduct and the honor of confrontation with the Ancient Lords of Sulinore, who will themselves dispose of this case. Come, if you fear not!"

"Fair enough," Retief said. "When you want fast action, there's nothing like going direct to the top brass. Where do we find them?"

"Behold the Lords of Sulinore!" the ancient piped feebly. The locals made sweeping bows to the ranks of still figures about them. Retief inclined his head respectfully .

"They cut an impressive figure," he said. "I'll be interested to see how they go about dealing with the problem at hand."

"Simplicity itself," the old Sulinorian said. "One waft of the sacred incense, and a faint shadow of their vanished vitality will energize them. Then will they hear our pleas and hand down justice in the ancient way."

Retief walked slowly along the row of motionless effigies, noting the worn trappings, the realistically scarred limbs and fierce visages, the tarnished armor of the ancient warriors. In spite of their size and varied forms, all bore some resemblance to the shrunken Sulinorians who followed, silent and awed.

"Once the races of Sulinore were many," the ancient said as he noticed Reliefs questing gaze. "And mighty was their prowess.

"There stands Zobriale the Intense, Requiter of Wrongs. Beyond, we see proud Valingrave, victor at Har and Jungulon and Spagetwraithe. Here—" he indicated the modest crypt "—behold the shrine of Bozdune the Restial, known also as Bozdune the Baresark, of ferocious memory. And there—" he pointed to a four-legged barrel-chested creature with a typical Sulinorian torso and head "—stand the mortal remains of Great Tussore, he who single-handed vanquished the hordes of Doss, on a world so distant that even now the sunlight of his day of battle has not yet reached the face of Sulinore!"

"He looks like a tough boy," Retief commented. "Too bad he's not still around. He might take a dim view of the way things are going."

"Did I not say Mighty Tussore would give his judgment? Aye, and Cranius the August, and Maglodore the Swift, and Belgesion, and Vare, and High Pranthippo, King of Kings—"

"A most august assemblage," Retief conceded. "But they seem a rather taciturn group."

"You jape at the Lords of Sulinore, Terran?" The oldster drew himself up, made an imperious gesture. A pair of locals nearly as old as himself came forward, bearing a large case which they placed on the grass, opening the lid. Inside was a cylindrical tank fitted with valve and a coil of flexible plastic tubing. The dodderer lifted the nozzle of the hose, advanced to the pedestal on which the centauroid stood.

"Awaken, Great Tussore!" he cried in his cracked voice. "Rouse from thy long dreams to render judgment on one who comes unbidden to the Place of Heroes!" He raised the hose and waved it under the flared nostrils. Retief heard a faint hiss of escaping gas.

"Give us of thy ancient wisdom, as in days of old, O Tussore," the old fellow exhorted. He shoved the hose closer. "Almost is the sacred effluvium exhausted," he muttered. "I'll bet a pretty some of these backsliders have been tapping it on the sly."

Suddenly one pointed ear of the statue twitched. The flared nostrils quivered. The eyelids fluttered. As Retief watched the lips parted.

"Glop," the mighty figure said, and fell silent. "Drat it, what a time for the tank to run out," someone beside Retief muttered.

"How does he work it?" Retief inquired softly as the Keeper of the Sacred Fumes waved the hose agitatedly, vainly invoking the unmoving demigod.

"We work nothing, interloper," the Sulinorian said sullenly. "A good shot of sacred gas, and their metabolism starts ticking over fast enough to start them talking, that's all."

Abruptly Tussore stirred again. "The devil take the blackguards," a deep voice suddenly rumbled from his chest. "Where's my greaves? Where's my fetlock powder? Where's my confounded mace? Blast that butter-fingered squire ..."

"Great Tussore, wake from thy dreams!" The hosewielder redoubled his efforts. "Hear me! Even now there stands in our midst a stranger who violates the honored rest of the Lords of Sulinore with his presence!"

"Oh ... it's you, Therion," Tussore mumbled. His eyes were open now, bleary and dull. "You look terrible. Been a long time, I guess. And it's not the stranger who disturbs my rest—it's you, with your infernal babbling!" He reached, plucked the hose from the oldster's hand, jammed it under his nose, drew a deep breath. "Ahhhh! That's what the doctor ordered."

"Even so, Great Tussore!" The Sulinorian proceeded to relate the circumstances surrounding Retief's presence. Halfway through the recital, Tussore's eyelids drooped. The hose fell from his hand. He snored.

"So the problem, Great One, is how to administer the prescribed rituals without suffering the indecorum of being mowed down like ripe beer-corn by the condemned one," the oldster concluded. "Great Tussore? Mighty one?" He waved the hose frantically, but his efforts this time were unavailing. The still figure stood, unmoving as a sphinx.

"So much for the wisdom of the ages," Retief said. "Nice try, Therion, but it looks like the oracle's not interested. Let's go."

"Make silent this one, plenty quick!" a small Sulinorian rasped—the same one, Retief thought, who had spoken up earlier. "No more time for pulling string on wooden god! Cut away the head of this Terry, yes! And soon after, fates proceed on schedule!"

"Silence, impertinent oaf!" Therion rounded on the speaker. "Your cacophonous squeakings impugn the majesties of Sulinore! Give me your name, for later disciplining!"

The one addressed backed away, looking flustered, as if suddenly conscious of being conspicuous. Retief studied his face.

"Well, if it isn't my old friend Coriale," he said. "You ought to be an expert on the subject of dying. Seems to me I've seen you expire twice already this evening."

The Coriale-faced alien whirled suddenly, plunged for the rear rank.

"Seize him!" Therion called. The quarry ducked, dodged, dived through a gap in the suddenly surging ranks, scuttled sideways as his retreat was cut off, made a dash for the shrubbery. The chase pounded off into the underbrush. Retief seated himself on a convenient pedestal and lit a dope-stick. Five minutes passed before the crowd again surged into view, the darting quarry still in the lead. He put on a sprint, scuttled to the shrine, dived inside.

"His impiety passes all bounds!" Therion puffed, coming up to Retief. "Now the mad creature seeks shelter in the very crypt of Bozdune!"

"Let him be fetched out and dealt with!" someone shrilled.

"Stay!" Therion piped as the aroused crowd closed in. "We'll not bring dishonor to the hero by scuffling about his feet. Come! Let us withdraw and leave this fevered maniac to regain his sense among the shadows of the greatness which was his race's!"

Retief took out his pocket light and played the beam between the columns of the refugee's hiding place. Between the great steel-toed boots of Bozdune, a smaller pair of feet was visible. He directed the light higher.

"Correction," he said. "Not his race's; that's no Sulinorian. Look." The light revealed a cloud of brown mist coiling upwards around the rigid features of the preserved hero. "The meeting's been infiltrated by a masquerading alien—an alien who exhales brown gas when he gets excited."

"What's this? Brown gas—?" Therion's question was interrupted by a startled cry from a Sulinorian near the temple entry, followed a moment later by a snort like a teased bull.

"He stirs! Bozdune rouses!" Suddenly Sulinorians were running in every direction. Retief caught Therion's arm as the elder turned to follow the general flight.

"Unhand me, fellow!" the oldster screeched as a bellow sounded from the shrine. "Death I face with a proud smile—but there's something inappropriate about being ripped limb from limb by an ancestor!"

"Is that the kind of fellow you make a hero of?' Retief inquired as smashing sounds emanated from the crypt, followed by the hurtling body of the Coriale double, which skidded to Retief's feet and lay moving feebly.

"Unfortunately Bozdune lost his wits as a result of three month's exposure to the Tickling Torture at the hands of the infamous Kreee," Therion explained hastily. "He's prone to rages, when suddenly aroused, and prudence demands my swift removal hence!" He pulled free and bounded away with an agility remarkable in a being of his age. Retief turned as a rumble of falling stone sounded from the shrine. A mighty figure had appeared between the columns, stood with hands pressed against them. Great cords of muscle stood out on his neck; his biceps bulged; his latissimi dorsi strained. The column buckled and went over, bringing down a section of the arhictrave. Bozdune roared as the marble slab bounced from his back. With a final thrust he toppled a second column, stepped forth as stone collapsed behind him. Eight feet high, massive as a buffalo, he stood in the moonlight, snarling. His wild gaze fell on Retief.

"Kreee!" he bellowed. "I have you now!" and charged the lone Terran.

VI

Retief stood his ground as Bozdune closed in.

"You've got me confused with someone else. Bozdune," he called. "I'm just a Terry doing a little job of planet-saving."

With a bellow, the ancient fighter thundered past the spot where Retief had stood a moment before. He fought his way clear of the underbrush into which the momentum of his dash had carried him, rounded up his elusive prey.

"And in that connection, I'd like to ask a little favor of you," Retief continued. "A group of opportunists called the Groaci are planning to massacre all the foreign diplomats in town—"

"Arrrrghhh!" Bozdune roared and closed in swinging roundhouse swipes sufficient to decapitate a horse. Retief leaned aside from one wild swing, ducked under another, planted his feet and drove a solid left-right to the giant's stomach, an effect like punching a sea-wall. He jumped aside as Bozdune grunted and made an ineffective grab, landing a blow in his own midriff that staggered him.

"Now, the Groaci have the streets cordoned off," Retief went on. "And since it's important that I get through to the Embassy with the news, I'd like to ask you to lend a hand." He stepped back as Bozdune ripped his six-foot blade from its sheath, whirled it overhead. Retief tossed the last rifle aside, plucked a wrist-thick spear from the grip of a horned warrior which loomed immobile beside him. Bozdune made a bound, brought the massive claymore down in a whistling arc that cleaved air an inch to Retief's right as he faded aside.

"Now, if you'd just say a word to your descendants, I think they might consent to lend a hand." Retief poked the spear hard against Bozdune's breastplate. "How about it?"

Bozdune dropped his sword, grabbed the spear shaft with both hands, and gave a prodigious pull—and as Retief let go, tottered backward, tripped over a fragment of shattered column and went down like a fallen oak. Retief heard the dull thonk! as his head struck the marble steps of his erstwhile shelter. He stepped quickly forward, used the warrior's own harness straps to bind his wrists together, then his ankles. At that moment, the bushes parted and Therion's aged faced appeared.

"What transpires?" he piped. His eye fixed on the prone giant. "What, Bozdune the Bestial, felled by a mere outworlder?"

"I'm afraid I can't claim the glory," Retief said. "He ran out of gas." He glanced toward the spot where the false Coriale had lain. "But if you can find the ringer, I may be able to remedy that."

"He's here, the infamous dastard," a Sulinorian called, dragging the unfortunate imposter from a clump of gorse. Retief got a grip on the captive's collar, assisted him to Bozdune's side.

"Breathe on the nice man, Shorty," he ordered.

A great gout of brown gas puffed obediently forth.

"Again."

The prisoner huffed and puffed, exhaling the vapor past the fallen fighter's snoring visage. In a moment, Bozdune twitched, jerked and opened his eyes.

"You're still here, eh?" he said to Retief. "I thought I dreamed you." He sniffed again.

"Gadzoons, first good air I've breathed in a couple hundred years. More!" He raised his voice as Retief withdrew the pseudo-Coriale.

"Not unless you agree to lend a hand," Retief countered. "Then I promise you all the sacred essence you want."

"Are you kidding? Just let me get my hands on these Gruckles or whoever they are that think they can carve my home town up, and I'll grind them into library paste!"

"It's a deal." Retief turned to Therion. "How about it? You in or out?"

"If Bozdune approves the enterprise, then who are we to demur?" the oldster inquired of the cool night air. "Rise, loyal Sons of Sulinore! For this night at least, the ancient glories live again!"

Retief gave Bozdune another shot of gas, then passed the captive to Therion.

"Don't squeeze him too hard," he cautioned. "We've got to make him stretch as far as we can; if this caper's going to succeed, we'll need all the ancient glory we can muster."

From a shadowy arch half a block from the carved gates of the Terran Embassy, Retief, seated astride Tussore's broad back, watched as the fifty-Groaci guard detail sauntered past, their stemmed eyes scanning the street alertly, their blast rifles ready at port arms. Behind him, the tread of booted Groaci feet approached relentlessly.

"Get ready," he said softly. "Another ten seconds ..."

There was a chorus of weak shouts from the rear, a slapping of running feet, the buzzzz-whapp! of power guns firing; then a pair of Groaci troopers appeared, pelting along in advance of a mighty figure in ancient armor. In full stride, he overtook them, snatched them up by their necks and tossed them aside. Behind him, a crowd of Sulinorians, toga skirts hitched high, brandished their ceremonial knives as they followed their massive leader toward the gate. A moment later, the giant was among the patrollers, flailing with a spike-studded mace before the gun was fired.

"Let's go!" Retief kicked his heel into Tussore's sides, and the mighty centauroid bounded forward. In an instant, they were in the thick of the melee, Retief swinging a yard-long club as Tussore reared and struck out with iron-hard hooves.

"Cut your way through!" Retief called to his mount. We can mop up later, after we've taken care of the main event!"

"Aiii! What a lovely squishing sound these Gruckers make beneath my hooves!" the old warrior yelled, but he wheeled and charged the gate. Half a block away, Retief caught a glimpse of Bozdune, tossing Groaci troopers aside like straw dummies. From every dark alleymouth and byway, Sulinorians were pouring. A lone Groaci in the gatehouse brought up his blast-rifle, loosed a round that missed by inches; then Retief's club felled him, and they were through, crossing the lawn toward the lighted entry at full gallop. A startled Marine guard let out a yell and reached for the lever which would slam the grill in the faces of the invaders, but a sweep of Tussore's arm sent the sentry sprawling. Inside, Retief swung down, started up the grand staircase, five steps at a time. Suddenly Counsellor Clutchplate appeared on the landing above.

"Retief!" His eyes took in the massive, sweaty, horse-bodied Tussore, helmeted and sword-girded, the motley horde of Sulinorians swarming behind.

"Good lord! Treason! Treachery! Hallucinations!" He whirled to run as Retief caught him, spun him around.

"Has the banquet begun yet?" he demanded.

"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.

VII

"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."

VIII

"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."

-

GRIME AND PUNISHMENT

I

THE VOICE of Consul General Magnan, Terran envoy to Slunch, crackled sharply through Vice-consul Retief's earphones as he steered the slab-sided mud-car up the slope through the dense smog issuing from the innumerable bubbling mud-pockets in the rocky ground.

"Retief, this whole idea is insane! We're likely to bog down or be blown up; we'll have to turn back!"

"It's just a few hundred yards now," Retief replied.

"Look here! As chief of mission, I'm responsible for the safety of all Terran personnel on Slunch, which means, specifically, you and me. It's not that I'm timid, you understand, but—Look out!" he shouted suddenly, as Retief cut hard at the wheel to avoid the uprearing form of a twenty-foot tangleworm. Magnan chopped with his machete as the blind creature swung its capacious jaws toward him. Brown juices spattered as the severed, football head tumbled into the car, still biting the air.

He kicked it away and wiped a mud-stained sleeve across his face, peering ahead through the smoky air.

"There it is now," Retief pointed. Through the murky atmosphere, a dull glow swam into visibility. Half a minute later the mud-car came to a halt at the brink of a vast sinkhole, from which choking, sulphurous fumes rose in ochre billows, reflecting the fitful play of light from below.

Retief swung over the side of the car, went forward to the precipitous edge. Magnan advanced cautiously behind him.

"You see those openings down there?" Retief pointed through the swirling vapors. "I think we can work our way down along the ledge on this side, then—"

"Great heavens, Retief!" Magnan broke in. "You seriously propose that we explore this—this subterranean furnace—on foot?" His voice rose to the breaking point.

"We'll be all right inside our thermal suits," the junior diplomat said. "If we can discover which vents are the ones—"

"Mark!" Magnan raised a hand. A new, deeper, rumble was rising to drown the fretful murmurings from underfoot.

"Is that—could that be high tide coming?" he gasped.

Retief shook his head. "Not due for six hours yet. You're not by any chance expecting a ship today?"

"A ship? No, I wasn't—but yes—it could be ..." Far above, a faint bluish light flickered through the clouds, descending. "It is!" Magnan turned toward the car. "Come along, Retief! We'll have to go back at once!"

Ten minutes later, the car emerged from the fumes of the field onto an expanse of waving foot-high stems which leaned to snatch at the car's oversized wheels with tiny claws. Retief shifted to low gear, to the accompaniment of ripping sounds as the strands of tough grabgrass parted. Beyond the town, the newly arrived vessel stood, a silvery dart against the black clouds rolling slowly upward from the tar pits in the distance.

"Retief, that's a Corps vessel!" Magnan said excitedly. "Heavens! You don't suppose Sector has decided to cut the tour of duty on Slunch to three months, and sent our relief along a year and a half ahead of schedule?"

"It's more likely they're shipping us a new ping-pong table .to soften the blow of the news the tour's being extended to five years."

"Even ping-pong equipment would be a shade nearer the mark than the six gross of roller skates the Recreational Service sent out, Magnan sniffed.

"They're running out the VIP pennant," Retief called.

Magnan shaded his eyes. "Damn it! No doubt it's a party of junketing legislators, out to be wined and dined out of our consular luxury allowance."

Five minutes later, the car pulled up in the lee of the gleaming vessel with the ornate crest of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne blazoned on its prow. Already, a few questing runners of creeper vine had found the ship and were making their way rapidly up the landing vanes and twining over the access lock. As Magnan descended, machete in hand, to clear the entry, the ship's exit lock swung open and extruded a landing ramp. Half a dozen Terrans, resplendent in pearl-gray pre-tiffin sub-informal coveralls and lime green seersucker dickeys emerged, drawing deep, healing lungfuls of air and immediately coughing violently.

"No time to waste, gentlemen," Magnan called, his voice muffled by his breathing mask. "Everybody out and into the car!"

A stout man with the look of a senior attache shied violently as Magnan confronted him. Those behind recoiled toward the lock.

"Good Lord! Dacoits!" The fat man raised his hands, backing away. "Don't strike sir! We're merely harmless bureaucrats!"

"Eh?" Magnan stared at the newcomers. "Look here, I don't wish to alarm you, but unless you come along at once, you're all going to be in serious danger. The air ..."

"Ransom!" the fat man cried. "I have a doting auntie, sir, who'll pay handsomely! The old minniehas more money than she knows what to do with."

"What's going on here!" A tall, broad-shouldered man had appeared at the lock, staring down at the tableau with a stern look.

"Lookout, sir!" a small, wispy staffer chirped. "He has a dreadful-looking sword!"

"I'll handle this!" The big man pushed forward, stared down at Magnan. "Now then, what was it you wanted, fellow?"

"Why, ah," the consul general temporized, backing a step. "I just came out to welcome you to Slunch, sir, and to offer you transportation back to the consulate—"

"You 're from the consulate?" the big man boomed. "Of course."

"I'll have a word to say to the consul about sending a sweeper to welcome an arriving trade mission," the fat attache said, pushing forward. "I knew the moment I laid eyes on him."

Magnan gobbled. "A full-scale trade mission? But I've only been here three months! There hasn't been time—"

"Ha!" the big man cut him off. "I'm beginning to understand. You're a member of the diplomatic staff, are you?" He looked Magnan up and down, taking in the hip boots, the gauntlets, the battered poncho, the black smudges of soot under his eyes.

"Of course. And—"

"Yes, you'd be that fellow Whatshisname. They told me about you back at Sector. Well, there are a number of matters I intend to set you straight on at the outset." The big man's steely eye transfixed the astounded Magnan. "I'm putting you on notice that I have no sympathy with undisciplined upstarts!"

"I ... I think your excellency has the wrong upstart," Magnan stammered. "That's Retief over there, in the old horse blanket. I'm Magnan, the principal officer."

"Wha ...?"

"It's not really a horse blanket," Magnan amended hastily. "Actually it's an urze-beast blanket. It's for the mud, you understand; and the rain, and the soot, and the nitmites—"

"Well, anyone could have made the mistake," the fat staff member said. "This chap certainly looks ferocious enough."

"That's enough!" The new arrival thrust out his lower lip. "I'm Rainsinger. Just pass along what I said to the proper party."

He smoothed his features with an effort. "Mr. Magnan, you'll be delighted to know I've brought along a number of items for you."

"How grand!" Magnan beamed. "Gourmet foods for the consulate larder, I suppose? A nice selection of wines, of course—and possibly—" he winked playfully—"a library of racy sense-tapes?"

Rainsinger blinked. "Nothing so frivolous," he said flatly. "Actually, it's an automatic tombstone factory, complete, adequate to serve a community of one hundred thousand souls." He rubbed his hands together briskly. "After we've gotten the natives started on proper interment, we can expand into the casket and embalming end. The possibilities are staggering." His eye fell on the mud car. "What's that?"

"You gentlemen will have to excuse the' limousine," Magnan said. "Freddy didn't have time to dust it up after the little shower we had this morning. Mind your trousers, now."

"This is a Marx DC diplomatic issue limousine?" The fat man gaped at the conveyance. "Why, it's made of baling wire and clapboards!"

"The mud crabs ate the other body," Magnan explained. "They found the plastic highly palatable. I saved the cigar lighters, though."

"By golly, speaking of eating, I could do with a bite of lunch," the fat man said to no one in particular.

Rainsinger gave Magnan a hard stare. "Well, under the circumstances, I suppose a case could be made for a Report of Survey. By the way, how is the berp-nut crop?" He looked around the mud-coated port. "How many bottoms will you require for the first shipment?"

"Ah ... none, to be precise," Magnan said faintly. "There isn't any shipment."

"No berp-nuts?" Rainsinger's left eyebrow went up as the right came down in a ferocious scowl. "As I understand your instructions, Magnan, your sole mission here is to flog up a little enthusiasm among the Slunchans for Terry goods. Since berp-nuts are the sole Slunchan source of foreign exchange, I fail to see how we can succeed without them!"

"Unfortunately, the mud seems to have a corrosive effect on most everything we manufacture," Magnan said. "Like shoes, for example." He eyed Rain-singer's feet. The visitor followed his gaze.

"My shoes!" he yelped. "Magnan, you idiot, get me out of this mud at once!"

Coughing, the newcomers sloshed across to the vehicle, mounted the rude ladder, stared with dismay at the mud-coated benches.

"Hold tight," Magnan called with an attempt at gaiety. "Weil have to hurry to get you in out of the weather. Don't be alarmed. We should get through with no more than a few mud burns, and maybe the old firebug bite."

At the wheel, he gunned the car in a wide circle, inadvertently sending a sheet of mud sluicing over the polished stern of the vessel and the crisp whites of the crewmen peering from the lock. There were shrill cries as the passengers went reeling to form an untidy heap at the rear of the car. Of the visitors, only Inspector Rainsinger remained on his feet, gripping the upright that supported the sheet-metal awning.

"You'll soon catch on," Magnan called over his shoulder. "Gracious, you already look like old veterans, and you've only been here ten minutes!"

II

Magnan steered the car across the soft, black half-inch mud of the plaza, pulled up before an entry where a paunchy, splay-footed little humanoid with a flattened skull and a loose, liver-colored hide leaned on a combination broom-rake, humming to himself.

"Drive on, Mr. Magnan," Rainsinger barked." We can tour the slum areas later, after my staff and I have had an opportunity to freshen up a bit."

"But—but this is the consulate," Magnan explained with a glassy smile.

Rainsinger stared with a darkening expression at the scorched, chipped and discolored facade, banked with drifted muck from which tufts of greenery sprouted.

"Ah, that's right, sir." Magnan climbed down from his seat.

Rainsinger looked down at the sea of oleaginous black mud in which the car rested hub-deep. "I'm supposed to walk through that?" he demanded.

"Retief could carry you," Magnan proposed brightly.

Rainsinger shot him a sharp look. "If there's any carrying to be done, I'll do it." He stepped down, followed by his staff, squelched through the ankle-deep mud that coated the ornamental tile steps. As they passed, Magnan beckoned to the native sweeper.

"See here, Freddy, let's see a little more spit and polish," he whispered. "Don't just knock those mud-puppy nests down; sweep the extra mud into neat little piles or something. We don't want our visitors to imagine we've grown slovenly, you know. And you'd better dig out the entrance to the snack bar and squirt a little more deodorant around; the stench-fungus is getting the upper hand again."

"Mud smooth nice my up messing are fellows these, Magnan Mister, hey!" the local protested in his scratchy voice.

"It's all right, Freddy," Magnan soothed. "Ah ... headquarters from shots big, they're," he added in an undertone.

Inside, Rainsinger stared about incredulously at the runners of vine poking in through shattered windows, the dried and caked mud through which footpaths led to the grand staircase, itself well nigh buried under a luxuriant growth of coiling green weed. He started as a sharp-nosed rat scurried into view, scuttled away into the shelter of a pile of brush heaped carelessly beside the balustrade.

"Shall we have a look at the chancery wing?" he inquired in ominous tones.

"Say, where do we eat lunch?" the portly attache looked around curiously.

"Maybe we'd better not go up just yet ..." Magnan broke off as a cascade of brown water came surging down from the landing above, bearing with it a flotsam of papers, twigs, vigorously swimming small animals and other odds and ends. The stream struck the floor, sluiced its way across to the exit and poured out into the street, eliciting a loud cry from Freddy.

"Conception esthetic whole my up loused they've!" his voice was hoarse with indignation. "On going what's?"

"Unplugged drains those got I, Magnan Mister Oh!" a cheery Slunthan voice called from above.

"Hmmm. Unfortunate timing," Magnan said. "But at least it scoured a path for us." He led the way up the stairs and along a corridor, the walls of which were obscured by a ragged growth of vines, through which discolored wallpaper was visible. He ducked under a festoon of creepers undulating in a doorway, waved the team members into his spacious office. Rainsinger stopped dead as his eye fell on the mud-clotted weeds layering the floor, the slab of rough ironwood spanning two upended oil drums serving as a desk, the clustered stems crowding the glassless windows.

There was a moment of profound silence. Then:

"Gentlemen!" The trade mission chief's voice had something of the quality of a volcano preparing to erupt. "During my career I've encountered slackness, inefficiency and disorder at many a station. A little dust on the filing cabinets, a few dope-stick burns in the upholstery, gum wrappers in the John—even some minor discrepancies in the voucher files—all these are normal concomitants of life at a remote post. But this!" His voice rose. "This model town, built with CDT funds as a gift to the Slunchan people less than six months ago—a perfect example of civic design produced by the most skillful Deep Think teams on the departmental payroll! Look at it! A blighted area! A pest hole! And the consulate general itself! Two inches of mud in the main lounge! Broken drains flooding the halls! Rats, mice and vermin swarming in every nook and cranny! Weeds sprouting in the corridors! Broken glass! Vanished furnishings! Vandalism! Dereliction of duty! Destruction of Corps property! And withal— no berp-nuts!"

With an effort he pulled his voice back into the lower registers and directed a chilling gaze at Magnan.

"Sir, as of this moment you may consider yourself suspended, relieved of duty and under close house arrest! Under emergency powers vested in me under Article Nine, Section Four, Title Two of Corps Regulations, I'm taking personal command!"

"But—but, sir!" Magnan protested. "I haven't yet had time to settle in, as it were. The mud crabs ate the furniture; and the conditions here—the mud tides and the cinder storms, and the shortage of local labor and ... and ..."

"Say, I was wondering—how about a sandwich," the fat attache put in.

"No excuses!" Rainsinger bellowed. "We built the town to point these benighted natives the way to higher living standards and an increased consumption of Terry-manufactured goods! A fine example you've set, sir! But I'll do what I can in the eleventh hour to retrieve the situation!"

He whirled on his staff.

"Blockchip, you'll take a detail and attend to the broken plumbing. Horace—" he addressed the stout attache— "you'll see to shovelling out the mud from the ground floor. Poindexter will seal off the upper floors and fumigate. As for you, Mr. Magnan—I'm suspending your arrest long enough for you to round up an adequate labor force to unload the cargo I brought in." He looked at his old-fashioned strap watch.

"I'll expect to see this building spotless by sundown, in time for a reception to be held this evening at eight o'clock sharp. Full formal attire, including clean fingernails! I'll show these natives how civilized Terrans live—and inspire the wish to emulate us!"

"Ah—there might be a little trouble about the local labor," Magnan spoke up. "The Slunchans have rigid taboos against working on weekdays."

"This is Sunday!"

"How true, sir. Unfortunately, they don't work on Sundays, either."

"Offer them double wages!"

"They don't use money."

"Then offer them what they want!"

"All they want is for us to go away."

"Mr. Magnan." Rainsinger cut him off with an ominous tone. "I suggest you discontinue your obstructionism at once, or the word 'insubordination' will be cropping up in my report, along with a number of other terms non-conducive to rapid advancement in the service!" He broke off to grab up a bound volume of Corps regulations from the improvised desk and hurl it at an inquisitive vine rat which poked its snout above the window sill.

"Oh, I wouldn't do that, sir," Magnan blurted. "In about five hours—"

"Save your advice!" Rainsinger roared. "I'm in charge here now! You may make yourself useful by ringing up the Slunchan Foreign Minister and making me an appointment. I'll show you how to handle these locals! In an hour I'll have him begging for Terran imports!"

"Ah, about lunch," the stout attache began.

"I'll have him here in a jiffy," Magnan said. He stepped to the door. "Oh, Freddy," he called. A moment later a Slunchan appeared in the doorway.

"It is what; boss, yeah?" the local looked around the office. "Mat floor a for sneakweed the using, effect snazzy a that's, say!" he exclaimed.

"Mr. Rainsinger, may I present—" Magnan started.

"Here, isn't this the fellow who was raking mud at the front door as we came in?" Rainsinger demanded.

"Yes, indeed. Of course Freddy is just filling in for the regular man. As I was saying, may I present Sir Frederik Gumbubu, K.G.E., L. deC., N.G.S., Slunchan Minister of Foreign Affairs."

"A Foreign Minister? A part-time janitor?" Rainsinger took the proffered hand gingerly.

"Know you, do to ministering foreign my got I've," the Slunchan said defensively. "Janitor time full a be to me expect couldn't you, all after, well." He rolled a ball of dried mud between his fingers, lined up on a framed photo of the sector undersecretary and scored a bull's-eye.

"Mr. Magnan, I stand astounded at your ingenuity," Rainsinger said in a voice like broken crockery. "Not content with failing in your mission while violating every regulation in the book, you invent a unique offense by demeaning an official of a friendly foreign power to the performance of menial tasks in your own Consulate!"

"But, sir! Freddy's one of the few locals with a taste for Pepsi. And the only way he can get it," he added behind his hand, "is to work here. I pay him off with a case a week."

"Get somebody else!"

"Job my me lose to trying you are—hey?" Freddy broke in.

"I can't!" Magnan wailed. "Scout's honor, sir— they won't work!"

"Union labor the with beef a for looking you're maybe," Freddy said. "Action fast you promise can I, member sole and president the be to happen I as and!"

"Look here, ah, Sir Frederik." Rainsinger faced the foreign minister. "I'm sure we can work out a mutually agreeable arrangement. You round up and send along about a hundred good workers, and I'll see to it that Slunch is given full Most Favored Nation status in the new Trade Agreement I'm about to propose."

"It do can't, nope," the Slunchan said shortly.

"Now, don't be hasty, Mr. Minister," Rainsinger persisted. "I'm prepared to promise you prompt shipment of any items you care to' name. What about a nice line of genuine machine-loomed antimacassars, inscribed with patriotic and inspirational mottos? I can make you an attractive price on lots of a hundred thousand."

Sir Frederik shook his flat head sadly. "Items luxury afford can't we, bringing nuts-berps prices the at— nix!"

Rainsinger took the minister's elbow in a fatherly grip. "Now, Freddy ..."

"It's no use, sir," Magnan interposed glumly. "Lord knows I've tried. But they're incurably content. They already have everything they want."

"That's enough of your defeatism," Rainsinger snapped. "You'd best be on your way, and take Mr. Retief with you. I'll pitch in myself, as soon as I've given a few more instructions. We have a great deal of ground to cover if we're to be ready to receive our guests in four and a half hours!"

III

"Well, Magnan," Rainsinger complacently surveyed the chattering conversational groups of Slunchans and Terrans dotted across the gleaming ballroom floor, newly ornamented along one wall by a tasteful display of engraved headstones and funerary urns. "I must say we've acquitted ourselves creditably. And I've taken measures to insure conditions don't deteriorate again." He lifted a glass from a passing tray borne by a Slunchan who limped heavily.

"Hmmm. Chap seems to have a cast on his foot," the Inspector remarked. "Couldn't you have secured able-bodied personnel to staff the catering function, Magnan?"

"He's not actually injured, sir," Magnan said. "He just happened to step in some, er, material."

"Say, isn't that a lump of powdered tombstone adhering to his foot?" Rainsinger demanded suspiciously. "I hope you haven't handled my cargo carelessly!"

"Say, when are the sandwiches coming?" the stout attache inquired testily.

"Ah, here comes the premier," Magnan cut in as a loose-hided local approached, rotating a hula-hoop with his torso. "Hi, there, your Excellency. May I present Mr. Rainsinger our new, er, ah. Sir, Mr. Blabghug, the leader of the Slunchan people in their fight against, ah, whatever it is they're fighting against."

Rainsinger nodded curtly, eyeing the muddy tracks across the floor left by the chief executive. "See here, Blabghug," he said in a no-nonsense tone. "I'd like to request that you have your people step up the street-cleaning program. Those pavements are a gift of the Terrestrial taxpayer."

"Too, was it gesture nice a and," Blabghug acknowledged cheerfully. "Them see to get never we bad too."

"Yes. My point exactly. Now, Mr. Prime Minister; I've been here for only five hours, but I've already gotten a firm grasp of the situation and I see what the source of our problem is. Once we've cleared up the more active vermin—"

"Vermin what?"

"That little monster, for one!" Rainsinger nodded sharply toward an inquisitive rodentoid nose poking around the nearest door.

"Kidding be must you," Blabghug said. "Rats-vine the for wasn't it if—"

"As soon as we've completed dusting with fast-acting pesticides, we'll see no more of the creatures," Rainsinger bored on. "Meanwhile, a few zillion tons of weed killer will control these man-eating vines you've been tolerating so complacently."

"About talking you're what know don't you," Blabghug protested.

"I know how to conduct a clean-up campaign!" Rainsinger came back hotly. "This state of affairs is an insult to the Slunchan people and a reflection on the Terran Consulate! I've already set wheels in motion—"

He broke off as a low rumble tinkled the newly polished glass of the chandelier. A deep-throated ba-rooom! sounded, like a distant cannonade, followed by a vast, glutinous smooosh!

Magnan glanced at his watch. "Right on time," he said.

The Slunchan premier cocked his head thoughtfully. "Usual than fluid more little a sounds that," he commented. "High early an for ready get better we'd."

"What the devil's he saying, Magnan?" Rainsinger muttered in an aside. "I can't make out one word in three."

"High mud in a few minutes," Magnan translated, as a second shock rocked the ballroom. A heavy splattering sounded, as of moist material raining against the building.

"Up button to time, oh-oh," Blabghug warned. He stepped to the nearest window and slammed shut a set of improvised shutters.

"What's this, Mr. Retief?" Rainsinger inquired. "Some sort of religious observation? Tribal taboo sort of thing?"

"No, it's just to keep the worst of the soot and mud out of the building during the eruption."

"What's this about an eruption?"

"It's a sort of mud geyser. Shoots a few million tons of glop into the air every twenty-seven hours."

Rainsinger blinked. "A million tons of glop?"

A third, even more vigorous tremor caused the ballroom to sway drunkenly. Rainsinger braced his feet, thrust out his chin, glared at Magnan, who was staring anxiously toward the door.

"Glop or no glop, this is an official diplomatic function, gentlemen! We'll carry on, and ignore the disturbance!"

"Frankly, I don't like the sound of that mud, sir." Magnan turned to the window, peered through a crack in the shutter.

"No doubt the consulate has weathered such conditions before," Rainsinger said uncertainly. "No reason why ..."

His voice was drowned by an ominously rising bubbling sound swelling outside. At the window, Magnan emitted a sharp yelp, leaped back as something struck the side of the building with an impact like a tidal wave. Jets of ink-black mud squirted into the room like fire hoses through every cranny around the shutters. One stream caught Rainsinger full in the flowered weskit, almost knocked him down.

"One bad a is this!" Blabghug called over the hissing and splattering. "Look a have and roof the for head better we'd think I!"

"He's right, sir!" Magnan raised his voice. "This way!" He led the excited party along a hall, up a stair splattered with steaming mud from a shattered window on the landing. Emerging on the roof, Rainsinger ducked as a head-sized cinder slammed down beside him, bounded high and disappeared over the side. A rain of mud splattered down around them. The air was thick with tarry soot. Coughing, Rainsinger hastily donned the breathing mask offered by Magnan.

"This must be the worst disaster ever recorded here," he shouted over the groaning and squishing of the mud welling along the street below them.

"No, actually, by the sound of it, it's a rather mild one, as eruptions go," Retief leaned close to shout. "But the mud seems to be running wild."

"There look!" Blabghug shouted, pointing. "Seven-sixty in back made mark mud-high record the over it's!"

"There's something wrong," Retief called over the still-rising roar of the flowing mud. "The tide's not acting normally. Too fluid—and too much of it."

"Why on Slunch, with an entire planet to choose from, was the town situated in a disaster area?" Rainsinger frowned ferociously as sounds of massive gurglings and sloshing sounded from below.

"It appears this was one of the rush jobs," Magnan called. "The entire city was erected in four days which happened to be during a seasonal lull in the underground coolery."

"See here, Magnan, why didn't you report the situation?"

"I did. As I recall, my dispatch ran to three hundred and four pages!"

"A three hundred page dispatch? And nothing was done?"

"We received a consignment of twelve brooms, six dust-pans and a gross of mops. They must have been overstocked on mops back at Sector."

"And that's all?" Rainsinger's voice almost cracked.

"I think that's about as far as Headquarters could go without admitting a mistake had been made." Across the street, the swelling, bubbling surface of the mud flow was rising past the first row of windows. Shutters creaked and burst inward. Refugees were crowding onto roofs all along the streets now. Retief stepped to the edge of the roof, looked down at the heaving bosom of the sea of mud, dotted with small, sodden forms, floating inertly. A great mass of dead creeper vine came sweeping along on the flood. A tongue of mud sluicing in from a side street struck a wall, sent a great gout thundering upward to descend on the crowded consulate roof. Diplomats and locals alike yelped and slapped at the hot, corrosive muck.

"Look there!" Magnan pointed to the feebly struggling body of a large vine-rat, which gave a final twitch and expired.

"Trouble in we're, oh-oh!" Premier Blabghug exclaimed, as other Slunchans gathered about, talking rapidly.

"Why all the excitement about a dead animal?" Rainsinger barked.

"It's a vine-rat," Magnan blurted. "What could have killed it?"

"I imagine the vigorous application of pest-killer I ordered had something to do with it," the inspector snapped. "I suggest we defer grieving over the beggar until after we've taken steps to extricate ourselves from this situation!"

"You ... you ordered what?" Magnan quavered.

"Ten tons of rodenticide, from your own consulate stores," Rainsinger said firmly. "I don't wonder you're astonished at the speed with which I went into action—"

"You ... you didn't!"

"Indeed I did, sir! Now stop goggling at a purely routine display of efficiency, and let's determine what we're to do about this mud."

"But—" Magnan wailed. "If you killed off the vine-rats—that means the creeper-vine was allowed to grow all afternoon, uncontrolled—"

"Uncontrolled?"

"By the rats," Magnan groaned. "So the vines got the upper hand over the grab-grass—and it's the grass, of course, which suppresses the tangleworms—"

"Tangleworms?"

"And the young worms eat the egg-nit grubs," Magnan yelped. "The egg-nits being the only thing that keeps the firebugs under control—though of course the vine-rats need them for protein in the diet; while their droppings nourish the sneak weed which provides a haven for the nit-mites which prey on the mud-crabs—"

"Here, what's all this nonsense!" Rainsinger roared over the roar of the rising mud-flood. "You'd chatter on about the local wildlife, with disaster lapping at our ankles?"

"That's what I've been trying tell you!" Magnan's voice broke. "With the ecological cycle broken, there's nothing to control the mud! That's why it's rising! And in another hour it will be up over roof level and that—" he shuddered—"will be a very sticky ending for all of us!"

IV

"Why, I don't believe it," Rainsinger said hoarsely, as he stared over the roofs edge at the steadily rising mud, its surface hazed with sulphurous fumes. "You mean to tell me that these worms were all that kept the mud in check?"

"That's an oversimplification—but yes." Magnan dabbed at the mud on his chin. "I'm afraid you've upset the balance of nature."

"All right, men!" Rainsinger turned to face his staff, huddled in the most protected comer of the roof. "It seems we've painted ourselves into a bit of a corner, ha-ha." He paused to square his shoulders and clear his throat. "However, there's no point in crying over spilled mud. Now, who has a suggestion for a dynamic course of action from this point onward? Horace, Poindexter?"

"I suggest we write out our wills and place them in mud and heatproof jackets," a lean accountant type proposed in a reedy voice.

"Now, men! No defeatism! Surely there's some simple way to elude our apparent fate! Mr. Premier." He faced the Slunchan contingent, muttering together at a short distance from the Terrans. "What do your people have in mind?"

"Opinion of difference a there's," Blabghug said. "Mud the into you pitching for out holding are extremists the but. Limb from limb you tear to want fellow the of few a."

"It's hopeless!" a trembling Terran blurted, staring down at the heaving surface of the tarry mud. "We'll all be drowned, scalded and eaten alive by acid!"

"Magnan!" Rainsinger whirled on the former chief of mission. "You chaps must have had some sort of plan of action for such an eventuality!"

"Nothing." Magnan shook his head. "We never interfered with Nature's Plan." His eyes strayed across the steaming bog now washing about the fourth story windows of the model town. On high ground half a mile distant, the slim form of the vacated Corps Vessel stood. Beyond it rose the rugged peaks from which the mud-flow issued.

"Retief did have some sort of mad notion of diverting the gusher at its source," he said, "but of course that's hopeless—especially now. I daresay it's all under mud."

"Retief!" Rainsinger hurried across to where the young man was prying a board from a ventilator housing. "What's this about a scheme to dam off the mud?"

Retief pointed to a rickety construction of boards, afloat in the mud below. "It's the body off the car. It won't make the best boat in the world, I'm afraid, but as soon as it gets within reach I'll give it a try."

"You'll sink," Magnan predicted, standing at the fifth floor window through which Retief had climbed to secure the makeshift skiff. "You can't possibly row that contrivance with a board "across half a mile of mud!"

"Maybe not," Retief said. He dropped down into the boat. "But if it sinks, I won't have to row it."

"Maybe the mud won't come this high," someone offered. "Maybe if we just wait here—"

"If we don't go now, it will be too late," Rainsinger cut off the discussion.

"We?" Magnan said.

"Certainly." Rainsinger threw a leg over the sill, lowered himself down beside Retief. "It will take two men to row this thing. Cast off, Mr. Retief, whenever you're ready."

V

For ten minutes the two men paddled in silence. Looking back, Retief saw the consulate tower rising from the bubbling mud, almost obscured by the wafting vapors. In a bundle at his feet were the two thermal suits and a number of small packets previously prepared but unused.

"Better get your suit on, Mr. Rainsinger," he said.

"I give them another half hour," Rainsinger called, his voice muffled by his breathing mask. "How much farther?"

"Ten minutes," Retief said, "until we ground on the hill. Then five minutes walk." He paddled as Rainsinger pulled on the bulky thermal suit.

Beside him, a loose board creaked; mud slopped over the low gunwale. A sudden bulging of the mud almost swamped the boat; a bursting gas bubble threw a stinging spray across both men.

"When we get there—what?"

"We hope it's not already flooded out."

Five minutes later, just as Retief had pulled on his heat-suit, the overloaded boat emitted a sudden massive creaking and disintegrated.

"Jump!" Retief called; he grabbed the bundles and went over the side, landing in knee-deep muck, turned to lend a hand to Rainsinger, who floundered after him. They fought their way up-slope, emerged on a rocky shore at which the surging mud lapped like a sea of chocolate pudding.

"It's pretty deep," Retief said. "Let's hope it's not into the main bore yet."

Rainsinger followed Retief up the steep slope. Ahead, a ruddy glare lightened the murky scene. They reached the edge of the great circular vent from which smoke and cinders boiled furiously, whirling glowing embers high in the air. Rainsinger stared down into the white-hot pit.

"Ye gods, man," he shouted over the din. "That's an active volcano! What in the world do you plan to do here?"

"Climb down inside and pull the plug," Retief said.

"I forbid it!" Rainsinger yelled. "It's suicide!"

"If I don't, the consulate will go under with all hands—to say nothing of a few thousand Slunchans."

"That's no reason to throw your life away! Weil head for higher ground and try to work our way around to the ship. We might be able to summon help—"

"Not a chance," Retief said. He started forward. Rainsinger stepped in his way, a bulky figure in the mud-coated heat-suit. They faced each other, two big men, toe to toe.

"That's an order!" Rainsinger grated.

"Better stand aside, Mr. Rainsinger," Retief said.

"I've warned you," Rainsinger said, and drove a short, sledge-hammer right to Retief's mid-section. Retief grunted and took a step back.

"You throw a good right, Mr. Rainsinger," he said through his teeth. "How are you at catching?"—and he slammed a straight left that spun the other around, sent him to his knees. Retief started past him, and Rainsinger dived, tackled him from the side. Retief twisted, drove a knee to Rainsinger's chin. He went down on his face.

"Sorry," Retief said. He went forward, picked his spot and lowered his feet over the edge. Behind him, Rainsinger called out. Retief looked back. The trade mission chief struggled to his feet, stood swaying back and forth.

"You'll probably need a little help down there," he said blurrily as he started forward. "Wait for me ...

Roped together, the two men worked their way from one precarious foothold to the next, descending toward the smoky surface bubbling beneath them. A hundred feet below the crater's rim, Retief gripped Rainsinger's arm, pointed through the swirling clouds of soot.

"The level's risen about a hundred feet," he said. "If it reaches that series of vents along the north side before we can block them, the volume of the flow will double, and fill the valley in no time. We have to reach them and plug them before the mud covers them."

"What good will that do?" Rainsinger's voice came thinly through Retief's earset. "It will just keep rising until it goes all the way over the top!"

"That brings us to part two," Retief said. "You see that dark patch there, on the south wall, a little higher up? That's an old vent, silted up a long time ago. If we can blast it clear in time, the flow will go down the other side, away from the town."

Rainsinger studied the aspect below.

"Weil never make it," he said grimly. "Let's get started."

Another ten minutes' climb brought Retief and Rainsinger to the set of side-channels leading to the valley and the town. Working rapidly, Retief placed the charges of smashite so as to collapse the four six-foot-wide openings.

"All set," he called. "Weil take shelter from the blast in the other cave."

"It will be close," Rainsinger said. "The mud's risen ten feet in the last five minutes. Another ten feet and we're out of luck!"

"Come on!" Retief followed a ledge that led halfway around the seventy-foot throat of the volcano, then used a series of cracks and knobs to cover the remaining distance. The boiling muck was a bare six inches from his feet when he reached the dark conduit. Twenty feet inside its mouth, their progress was halted by an obstructing mass of hardened mud and volcanic ash.

"Weil fire our other charges first," Retief said. "As soon as they blow, we'll set another one here and head for the surface."

"I don't like the looks of this, Retief! All this rock is full of fractures!"

" I'm not too fond of it myself," Retief said. "Better turn off your earset. Here goes!"

He pressed the button on the detonator in his hand. White light winked; the crash that followed was deafening even over the shrieking of the volcano. Rock fragments rained down past the cave opening, sending geysers of steaming lava fountaining high. There was a deeper rumble, and the floor shook under them. A giant slab of stone dropped into view, lodged across the throat of the volcano. Others slammed down, packing themselves into place with impacts like mountains falling. Trapped smoke and dust recoiled, thickening into opacity.

"That does it!" Rainsinger shouted. "We've blocked the main passage! We can't get out!"

"It looks that way—" Retief started. His voice was cut off by a thunderous boom as the cave's roof fell in.

-

"Retief!" Rainsinger's voice was a hoarse croak in the relative silence after the last rattle of falling rock had died away. "Are you still alive?"

"For the moment," Retief reassured his companion.

"Well—if there was any doubt about whether we'd get out, this finishes it," Rainsinger said grimly.

"Let's take a look," Retief suggested. Using hand-lamps, they scanned their surroundings. The original cave was now a rubble-choked pocket, blocked at one end by the lava plug, at the other by multi-ton fragments of fallen rock, through which small trickles of mud were already finding their way.

"The only remaining question is whether we broil in hot mud, drown in lava or die of asphyxiation," Rainsinger said grimly.

"It would be interesting to know whether our blast did any good," Retief said. "Will the lava go over the top, or will the dam hold?"

"Let's tell ourselves it wasn't all in vain," Rainsinger grunted. "Don't misinterpret my remarks," he added. "I'm not complaining. I have only myself to blame. I started the whole thing with my misplaced zeal." He laughed hollowly. "And I was going to make a name for myself by putting Slunch on the map, businesswise."

"Let's just blame it on local conditions and let it go at that," Retief suggested. He looked at the gauge on his wrist. "The temperature in here is ninety-one and a half degrees Centigrade. It looks as if drowning is out."

"Look, the mud's hardening as it comes through the barrier," Rainsinger said. "The trickle's choking off." He looked thoughtful. "By now the level outside our door is up to the blockage. If the lava that squeezes through that hardens as fast as this did ..."

A tremor went through the cave's floor. "Oh-oh!" Rainsinger rocked on his feet. "Looks like this is it, Retief ..."

"Set your suit air on maximum pressure!" Retief said quickly. "Then lie down and wrap your arms around your knees and hold on!" His voice was drowned in an end-of-the-universe boom as the side of the mountain blew out.

VI

Retief's first impression, as he came back to consciousness, was of a gentle rocking motion, which ended rudely as something hard gouged him in the back. He rolled over and got to his feet. He was standing in shallow mud at the shore of a placid expanse of brown, already stiffening into hardness. A few yards distant, a lumpy mansized object stirred feebly. He went to it, assisted Rainsinger to his feet.

"Quite a view, eh?" He indicated the cone rising from the mists wreathing the expanse of mud. The entire wall of the volcano was gone, and from the vast rent a glistening river of gumbo poured.

"We're alive," Rainsinger said groggily. "Remarkable! And it looks as though we succeeded in diverting the mud." He pulled off his suit helmet, revealing a face puffed and bruised. "My apologies to you, Mr. Retief—for a number of things."

"And mine to you, Mr. Rainsinger, for an equal number of things. And I suggest we get these suits off before we harden into statues."

The two men stripped off the suits, thickly coated with rapidly hardening mud.

"Well, we may as well be getting back, I suppose," the trade mission chief said glumly. "I'll transmit my resignation to Sector, then gather up my chaps and be on my way."

They tramped along the lake shore in silence for half an hour. Rounding the curve of the mountain, the valley came into view. Where the town had been, a pattern of building tops reared up above a glossy expanse of eggplant brown.

"I came here to make commercial history," Rainsinger muttered. "Instead I destroyed a city, including enough Corps property to keep me in debt for six lifetimes ..."

"I wonder what's going on down there?" Retief said, pointing. On the level mud surrounding the buried buildings of the town, small figures darted and swooped.

"They look like giant water-bugs," Rainsinger said wonderingly. "What do you suppose it means?"

"Let's go down and see," Retief said.

"It's remarkable!" Magnan rubbed his hands together and beamed at the lively group of Slunchans disporting themselves on the mirror-flat surface of the hardened [ mud flow that occupied the former town plaza, brightly illuminated by the light from the surrounding windows. "It was Blabghug who discovered the crates stores in the consulate attic. He opened them, imagining they might contain something to eat—and discovered roller skates!"

"Rainsinger Mr., Hey!" One of the gracefully cavorting locals came whizzing across the newly formed rink, executed a flashy one-toe reverse spin and braked to a halt before the trade mission chief. "Foot-wheels these of shipment a get we can soon how?"

"They've had to set up a rotation system," Magnan said. "Every Slunchan who sees them simply goes mad for them!"

"With start to, sets thousand hundred a about take we'll," Blabghug cried. "More take we'll, ready rinks more get we as soon as!"

"I ... I don't understand," Rainsinger said. "The mud—what's happened to it? It feels like top-quality asphalt, worth fifty credits a ton!"

Magnan nodded happily. "Just after the mud began to recede, Freddy was doing a little foraging—for salvage, of course—and accidentally got into the powdered tombstones. When the mud contacted the plastic, it started hardening up. It must have had some sort of catalytic action, because the whole plaza froze over."

"So that's why the volcano plugged up so quickly," Rainsinger said in wondering tones. "And it's still hardening, just as fast as it's exposed to the air and the, er, catalyst!"

"You've brought off a real coup, sir!" Magnan caroled. "The Slunchans have never had anything but squishy mud underfoot before. Now that they see the possibilities, we'll be able to sell them on all the court games: tennis, volleyball, badminton—then on to the whole gamut of wheeled vehicles! I can see it now: Round-the-planet motorcycle races! The Grand Prix to end all Grand Prixes!"

"Grands Prix," Rainsinger corrected absently. "But not only that, Magnan, my boy! This new material—I'll wager we can corner the paving market for the entire Galactic Arm! And it's virtually free!"

"Ah, am I to understand then, sir, that your report won't place as much emphasis on certain apparent custodial deficiencies as your earlier remarks might have indicated?" Magnan inquired smoothly.

Rainsinger cleared his throat. "My first impressions were a bit wide of the mark," he said. "I was just wondering if you'd find it necessary in your report of my visit to detail the precise circumstances surrounding the discovery—or should I say invention?—of this new product."

"No point in burdening Sector with excess detail," Magnan said crisply.

"Now, about transport," Rainsinger mused aloud. "I'd estimate I could place ten million tons at once on Schweinhund's World—and another ten or twenty million tons on Flamme ..."

"I think it would be wise to place immediate orders for pogo sticks, croquet sets and bicycles," Magnan thought aloud. "We'll want to work through the small items before bringing on the heavy equipment ..."

The two strolled away, deep in conversation.

"Say, all this excitement has given me an appetite," the fat attache said. "I believe I'll go get myself a sandwich. Possibly two sandwiches." As he hurried off, Sir Frederik Gumbubu scooted up to Retief, executing a speed-braking stop.

"Terry, us join and pair a grab!" he shouted.

"Good idea," Retief said, and swung off across the plaza, arm in arm with the foreign minister.

-

THE FOREST IN THE SKY

1

As Second Secretary of Embassy Jame Retief stepped from the lighter which had delivered the Terran Mission to the close-cropped turquoise sward of the planet Zoon, a rabbit-sized creature upholstered in deep blue-violet angora bounded into view from behind an upthrust slab of scarlet granite. It sat on its oddly arranged haunches a few yards from the newcomers, twitching an assortment of members as though testing the air for a clue to their origin. First Secretary Magnan's narrow face registered apprehension as a second furry animal, this one a yard-wide sphere of indigo fuzz, came hopping around the prow of the vessel.

"Do you suppose they bite?"

"They're obviously grass-eaters," Colonel Smartfinger, the Military Attaché, stated firmly. "Probably make most affectionate pets. Here, ah, kitty, kitty." He snapped his fingers and whistled. More bunnies appeared.

"Ah—Colonel." The Agricultural Attaché touched his sleeve. "If I'm not mistaken—those are immature specimens of the planet's dominate life-form!"

"Eh?" The colonel pricked up his ears. "These animals? Impossible!"

"They look just like the high-resolution photos the Sneak-and-peek teams took. My, aren't there a lot of them!"

"Well, possibly this is a sort of playground for them. Cute little fellows—" Smartfinger paused to kick one which had opened surprising jaws for a nip at his ankle.

"That's the worst of these crash operations," the Economic Officer shied as a terrier-sized fur-bearer darted in close and crunched a shiny plastic button from the cuff of his mauve late-midmorning semi-informal hip-huggers. "One never knows just what one may be getting into."

"Oh-oh." Magnan nudged Retief as a technician bustled from the lock, heavy-laden. "Here comes the classified equipment the Ambassador's been sitting on since we left Sector HQ."

"Ah!" Ambassador Oldtrick stepped forward, rubbing his small, well-manicured hands briskly together. He lifted an article resembling a Mae West life jacket from the stack offered.

"Here, gentlemen, is my personal contribution to, ahem, high-level negotiations!" He smiled proudly and slipped his arms through a loop of woven plastic. "One-man, self-contained, power-boosted aerial lift units," he announced. "With these, gentlemen, we will confront the elusive Zooner on his home ground!"

"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.

2

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.

"Well, fancy meeting you here, Hubert." A slightly built, splendidly dressed Groaci strolled forward, puffing at a dope stick held in silver tongs. "I regret to submit you to the indignity of being trussed up like a gerp-fowl in plucking season, but what can one expect when one commits aggravated trespass, eh?"

"Trespass? I'm here in good faith as Terran envoy to Zoon!" Oldtrick sputtered. "See here, Ambassador Shish, this is an outrage! I demand you order these bandits to release me and my staff at once—"

"Field Marshal Shish, if you please, Hubert," Shish whispered. "These are a duly constituted constabulary.

If you annoy me, I may just order them to exercise the full rigor of the law which you have so airily disregarded!"

"What law? Your confounded dacoits have assaulted peaceful diplomats in peaceful pursuit of their duties!"

"Interplanetary law, my dear sir," Shish hissed. "That section dealing with territorial claims to uninhabited planets."

"But-but the Zooners inhabit Zoon!"

"So? An exhaustive search of the entire planetary surface by our Scouting Service failed to turn up any evidence of intelligent habitation."

"Surface? But the Zooners don't occupy the surface—"

"Exactly. Therefore we have assumed ownership. Now, about reparations and damages in connection with your release; I should think a million credits would be about right—paid directly to me, of course, as Planetary Military Governor, pro tem ..."

"A million?" Oldtrick swallowed hard. "But ... but ... see here!" He fixed Shish with a desperate eye. "What is it you fellows are after? This isn't the kind of sandy, dry real estate you Groaci prefer—and the world has no known economic or strategic value ..."

"Hmmm." Shish flicked his dope stick butt aside. "No harm in telling you, I suppose. We intend to gather a crop."

"Crop? There's nothing growing here but blue grass and land coral!"

"Wrong again, Hubert. The crop that interests us is this ..." He fingered the edge of his shaggy violet cape. "A luxury fur, light, colorful, nonallergic ..." He lowered his voice and leered with three eyes. "And with reportedly fabulous aphrodisiac effects; and there are millions of credits worth of it, leaping about the landscape below, free for the harvesting!"

"But—surely you jest, sir! Those are—"

There was a sudden flurry as one of the Terrans broke free and dashed for a cave. The Groaci constabulary gave chase. Shish made an annoyed sound and hurried away to oversee the recapture. Oldtrick, left momentarily alone, eyed the flying harness lying in a heap ten yards from him. He took a deep breath, darted forward, snatched up a harness. As he turned to sprint for cover, a breathy cry announced his discovery. Desperately, the Chief of Mission struggled into his straps as he ran, twisted the valve, fired his jato units, and shot into the air over the heads of a pair of fleet-footed aliens who had been about to lay him by the heels. He passed over Retiefs head at an altitude of twenty feet, driven smartly by the brisk breeze. Retief ducked his head, hugged the shadows as Groaci feet pounded past at close range, pursuing the fleeing Terr an. Retief saw half a dozen marksmen taking aim at the airborne diplomat as the wind swept him out over the reefs edge. Shots rang. There was a sharp report as a round pierced the gasbag. With a despairing wail, the Ambassador sank swiftly out of sight.

Retief rolled to his feet, ran to the pile of flight harnesses, grabbed up two, whirled and sprinted for the edge over which Oldtrick had vanished. Two Groaci, turning to confront the new menace descending on their rear, were bowled aside by Retiefs rush. Another sprang to intercept him, bringing his gun around. Retief caught the barrel in full stride, swung the gun with its owner still clinging desperately to it, slammed the unfortunate alien into the faces of his astounded comrades. Shots split the air past Retiefs ear, but without slowing, he charged to the brink and dived over into seven thousand feet of open air.

4

The uprushing wind shrieked past Retiefs ears like a typhoon. Gripping one of the two harnesses in his teeth, he pulled the other on as one would don a vest, buckled the straps. He looked down, squinting against the rush of air. The Ambassador, falling free now with his burst balloon fluttering at his back, was twenty feet below. Retief tucked his arms close, kicked his heels up to assume a diver's attitude. The distance between the two men lessened. The rock face flashed past, dangerously close. Retiefs hand brushed Old-trick's foot. The Ambassador twisted convulsively to roll a wild eye at Retief, suspended above him in the hurtling airstream. Retief caught the senior diplomat's arm, shoved the spare harness into his hand. A moment later Oldtrick had shed his ruined gasbag and shrugged into the replacement with a twist of the petcock, he inflated his balloon and at once slowed, falling behind Retief, who opened his own valve, fell the sudden tug of the harness. A moment later, he was floating lightly a hundred feet below the Ambassador.

"Quick thinking, my boy ..." Oldtrick's voice came family. "As soon as I'm back aboard the transport, I shall summon a heavy PE Unit to deal with those ruffians! We'll thwart their inhuman scheme to massacre helpless infant Zooners, thus endearing ourselves to their elders!" He was close now, dropping as Retief rose. "You'd better come along with me," he said sharply as they passed, ten feet apart. "I'll want your corroborative statements, and—"

"Sorry, Mr. Ambassador," Retief said. "I seem to have gotten hold of a heavy-duty unit. it wants to go up, and the valve appears to be stuck."

"Come back," Oldtrick shouted as he dropped away below the younger man. "I insist that you accompany me ..."

"I'm afraid it's out of my hands now, sir," Retief called. "I suggest you stay out of sight of any colonist who may have settled in down below. I have an idea they'll be a little trigger happy when they discover their police force is stranded on the reef; and a dangling diplomat will make a tempting target."

5

The southwest breeze bore Retief along at a brisk twenty-mile-per-hour clip. He twisted the buoyancy control lever both ways, to no avail. The landscape dwindled away below him, a vast spread of soft aquamarine hills. From this height, immense herds of creatures were visible, ranging in color from pale blue to deep grapejuice. They appeared, Retief noted, to be converging on a point not far from the base of the coral reef, where a number of black dots might have been small structures. Then the view was obscured, first by whipping streamers of fog, then by a dense, wet mist which enveloped him like a cool Turkish bath.

For ten minutes he swirled blindly upward; then watery sunshine penetrated, lighting the vapor to a golden glow; a moment later he burst through into brilliance. A deep blue sky arched above the blinding white cloud-plain. Squinting against the glare, he saw a misty shape of pale green projecting above the clouds at a distance he estimated at five miles. Using steering jets, he headed for it.

Fifteen minutes later, he was close enough to make out thick, glossy yellow columns, supporting masses of chartreuse foliage. Closer, the verdure resolved into clusters of leaves the size of tablecloths, among which gaudy blossoms shone scarlet and pink. In the leafy depths, the sun striking down from zenith was filtered to a deep, green-gold gloom. Retief maneuvered toward a sturdy-looking branch, only at the last moment saw the yard-long thorns concealed in the shadow of the spreading leaves. He ducked, twisted aside from the savage stab of a needlepoint, heard the rip and ker-pow! as his gasbag burst, impaled; then he slammed hard against a thigh-thick, glass-smooth branch, grabbed with both hands and both legs, and braked to a halt inches from an upthrust dagger of horny wood.

6

All around, life swarmed, humming, buzzing, chattering in a hundred oddly euphonious keys. There were fluffy, spherical bird-things in vivid colors; darting scaled runners like jeweled ferrets; swarms of tiny golden four-winged butterflies. Once something hooted, far away, and for a moment the chorus was stilled, to resume a moment later.

Looking down, Retief could see nothing but level after level of leafy branches, blotting out the swirling clouds two hundred feet below. The ground, he estimated, was a mile and a half farther—not what could be described as an easy climb. Still, it looked like the only way. He divested himself of the ruined altitude harness, picked a route and started down.

Retief had covered no more than fifty feet when a sudden flurry of motion caught his eye through the foliage. A moment later, a clump of leaves leaned aside, pushed by a gust of wind, to reveal a bulky, ghost-pale creature, its body covered with short white bristles, its head a flattened spheroid. Its multiple shiny black limbs threshed wildly against the restraint of a web of silky, scarlet threads, stretched between limbs in an intricate spiral pattern. A flat pouch, secured by a flat strap, bobbed against the trapped creature's side. The web, Retief saw, was constructed at the very tip of a pair of long boughs which leaned in a deep curve under the weight of the victim—and of something else.

Peering into the shadows, he saw a foot-long claw like a pair of oversized garden shears poised in the air two feet from the trapped being; then he noted that the claw was attached to an arm like a six-foot length of stainless-steel pipe, which was attached, in turn, to a body encased in silvery-blue armor-plate, almost invisible in the leafy gloom.

As Retief watched, the arm lunged, sheared through a cluster of awning-sized leaves, snipped off a tuft of stiff white hairs as the snared one made a desperate bound sideways. The aggressor, it appeared, had advanced as far along the fragile support as possible; but it was only a matter of time until the murderous pincer connected with its target.

Retief checked his pockets, produced a pocketknife with a two-inch blade, useful chiefly for cutting the tips from hand-rolled Jorgensen cigars. He used it to saw through a half-inch-thick vine drooping near him.. He coiled the rope over his shoulder and started back up.

7

From a branch far above, Retief peered down through the leafy shadows at the twelve-foot monstrosity clinging, head down, from a six-inch stem. The predator had stretched itself out to its utmost length in its effort to reach its victim trapped below.

Retief slid down to a crouch within touching distance of the monster's hind leg. He flipped out the lariat he had fashioned hastily from the length of pliable vine, passed its end under the massive ankle joint, whipped it quickly into a slip knot which would tighten under pressure. He tied the other end of the rope to a sturdy bole at his back, pulling it up just short of taut. Then he slid around the trunk and headed back for the scene of the action, paying out a second rope, the end of which was secured to a stout limb.

The trapped creature, huddled at the extreme extent of the rein given it by the binding strands of silk, saw Retief, gave a convulsive bound which triggered another snap of the giant claw hovering above.

"Stand pat," Retief called softly. "I'll try to distract his attention." He stepped out on a slender branch, which sagged but held. Holding the end of the rope in his free hand, he made his way to within ten feet of the web.

Above, the claw-creature, sensing movement nearby, poked out a gliterring eye at the end of a two-foot rod, studied Retief from a distance of five yards. Retief watched the claw, which hovered indecisevely, ready to strike in either direction.

A baseball-sized fruit was growing within easy reach. Retief plucked it, took aim, and pitched it at the monster's eye. It struck and burst, spattering the surrounding foliage with a sticky yellow goo and an odor of overripe melon. Quick as thought, the claw struck out at Retief as he jumped, gripping the vine, and swung in a graceful Tarzan-style arc across toward a handy landing platform thirty feet distant. The armored meat-eater, thwarted, lunged after him. There was a noisy rasping of metal-hard hooks against wood, a frantic shaking of branches; then the barrel-shaped body halted in mid-spring with a tremendous jerk as the rope lashed to its leg came up short. Retief, safely lodged in his new platform, caught a momentary glimpse of an open mouth lined with ranks of multi-pronged teeth; then, with a sharp zong! the rope supporting the monster parted. The apparition dropped away, smashing its way downward with a series of progressively fainter concussions until it was lost in the depths below.

8

The bristled Zoonite sagged heavily in the net, watching Retief with a row of shiny eyes like pink shirt buttons as he sawed through the strands of the web with his pocketknife. Freed, it dipped into its hip-pouch with a four-fingered hand encased in a glove ornamented with polished, inch-long talons, brought out a small cylinder which it raised to its middle eye.

"Hrikk," it said in a soft rasp. A mouth like Jack Pumpkinhead's gaped in an unreadable expression.

There was a bright flash which made a green afterimage dance on Retiefs retinas. The alien dropped the object back in the pouch, took out a second artifact resembling a footlong harmonica, which it adjusted on a loop around its neck. At once, it emitted a series of bleeps, toots and deep, resonant thrums, then looked at Retief in a way which seemed expectant.

"If I'm not mistaken, that's a Groaci electronic translator," Retief said. "Trade goods like the camera, I presume?"

"Correct," the device interpreted the small alien's rasping tones. "By George, it works!"

"The Groaci are second to none, when it comes to miniaturized electronics and real estate acquistion," Retief said.

"Real estate?" the Zoonite inquired with a rising inflection.

"Planetary surfaces," Retief explained.

"Oh, that. Yes, I'd heard they'd settled in down below. No doubt a pre-germination trauma's at the root of the matter. But, every being to his own form of self-destruction, as Zerd so succinctly put it before he dissolved himself in fuming nitric acid." The alien's button eyes roved over Retief. "Though I must say your own death wish takes a curious form."

"Oh?"

"Teasing a vine-jack for a starter," The Zoonite amplified. "That's dangerous, you know. The claw can snip through six inches of gilv as though it were a zoob-patty."

"Actually, I got the impression the thing was after you," Retief said.

"Oh, it was, it was. Almost got me, too. Hardly worth the effort. I'd make a disappointing meal." The Zoonite fingered its translator, the decorative claws clicking tinnily on the shiny plastic. "Am I to understand you came to my rescue intentionally?" it said.

Retief nodded.

"Whatever for?"

"On the theory that one intelligent being should keep another from being eaten alive, whenever he conveniently can."

"Hmmm. A curious concept. And now I suppose you expect me to reciprocate?"

"If it doesn't inconvenience you," Retief replied.

"But you look so, so edible ..." Without warning, one of the alien's ebon legs flashed out, talons spread, in a vicious kick. It was a fast stroke, but Retief was faster; shifting his weight slightly, he intercepted the other's shin with the edge of his shoe, eliciting a sharp report. The Zooner yelped, simultaneously lashed out, left-right, with a pair of arms, to meet painful interceptions as Retief struck upward at one, down at the other. In the next instant, a small hand gun was pressing into the alien's paunch-bristles.

"We Terries are handy at small manufacturing, too," Retief said easily. "This item is called a crater gun. You'll understand why when you've seen it fired."

"... but appearances can be so deceiving," the Zooner finished its interrupted sentence, wringing its numbed limbs.

"A natural mistake," Retief commiserated. "Still, I'm sure you wouldn't have found me any more nourishing than the vine-jack would have found you: incompatible body chemistry, you know."

"Yes. Well, in that case, I may as well be off." The Zooner backed a step.

"Before you go," Retief suggested, "there are some matters we might discuss to our mutual profit."

"Oh? What, for example?"

"The invasion of Zoon, for one. And ways and means of getting back down to Zoona Firma for another."

"You are a compulsive—and it's a highly channelized neurosis: a vine-jack or my humble self won't do; it has to be the hard way."

"I'm afraid your translator is out of adjustment," Retief said. "That doesn't seem to mean anything."

"I find your oblique approach a trifle puzzling, too," the alien confided. "I sense that you're trying to tell me something, but I can't for the life of me guess what it might be. Suppose we go along to my place for an aperitif, and possibly we can enlighten each other. By the way, I'm known as Qoj, the Ready Biter."

"I'm Retief, the Occasional Indulger," the Terran said. "Lead the way, Qoj, and I'll do my best to follow."

9

It was a breathtaking thirty-minute journey through the towering treetops. The alien progressed by long, curiously dream-like leaps from one precarious rest to another, while Retief made his way as rapidly as' possible along interlacing branches and bridges, of tangled vine, keenly aware of the bottomless chasm yawning below.

The trip ended at a hundred-foot spherical space where the growth had been cleared back to create a shady, green-lit cavern. Bowers and leafy balconies were nestled around its periphery; tiny, fragile-looking terraces, hung suspended under the shelter of sprays of giant fronds. There were several dozen Zooners in sight, some lounging on the platforms or perched in stem-mounted chairs which swayed dizzyingly to the light breeze; others sailed gracefully from one roost to another, while a few hung by one or more limbs from festooning vines, apparently sleeping.

"I'll introduce you around," the Zooner said. "Otherwise the fellows will be taking experimental cracks at you and getting themselves hurt. I'm against that, because an injured Zooner is inclined to be disagreeable company." He flipped a switch on the translator and emitted a sharp cry. Zooner heads turned. Qoj spieled off a short speech, waved a hand at Retief, who inclined his head courteously. The locals eyed the Terran incuriously, went back to their previous activities. Qoj indicated a tiny table mounted atop a ten-foot rod, around which three small seats were arranged, similarly positioned. Retief scaled the support, took up his seat like a flagpole sitter. Qoj settled in opposite him, the stem quivering and swaying under his weight. He whistled shrilly, and a black-spotted gray creature came sailing in a broad leap, took orders, bounded away, returned in a moment with aromatic flagons.

"Ah," Qoj leaned back comfortably with two pairs * of legs crossed. "Nothing like a little bottled Nirvana, eh?" He lifted his flask and poured the contents in past a row of pronged teeth rivaling those of the vine-jack,

"Quite an interesting place you have here." Retief unobtrusively sniffed his drink, sampled it. The fluid evaporated instantly on his tongue, leaving a fruity aroma.

"It's well enough, I suppose," Qoj assented, "under the circumstances."

"What circumstances are those?"

"Not enough to eat. Too many predators—like that fellow you dispatched. Cramped environment—no place to go. And of course, cut off as we are from raw materials, no hope for technological advancement. Let's face it, Retief: we're up the tree without a paddle."

Retief watched a bulky Zooner sail past in one of the feather-light leaps characteristic of the creatures.

"Speaking of technology," he said. "How do you manage that trick?"

"What trick?"

"You must weigh three hundred pounds—but when [ you want to, you float like a dandelion seed."

"Oh, that. Just an inherent knack, I guess you'd call it. Even our spore-pods have it; otherwise, they'd smash when they hit the ground."

"Organic antigravity," Retief said admiringly. "Or perhaps teleportation would be a better name."

"The gland responds to mental impulses" Qoj said.

"Fortunately, our young have no mentality to speak of, so they're grounded. Otherwise, I suppose we'd never have a moment's peace."

"He tossed another shot down his throat, lounging back in his chair as it swayed past Retief, rebounded to swing in the opposite direction, while Retiefs perch waved in a gentle counterpoint, a motion which tended to cross the eyes and bring a light sweat to the forehead.

"I wondered why there were no little ones gamboling about your doorstep," Retief said.

"Doorstep?" Qoj jerked upright and stared in alarm toward the shaded entrance to his bower. "Great slaving jaws, Retief, don't give me a slart like that! The lttle monsters are down on the surface where they belong!"

"Unattended?"

Qoj shuddered. "I suppose we really ought to be doing something about them, but frankly—it's too dangerous."

Retief raised an eyebrow in polite inquiry.

"Why, the little fiends would strip the very crust off the planet if they weren't able to assuage their voracity by eating each other."

"So that's why you don't occupy the surface."

"Um. If our ancestors hadn't taken to the trees, we'd be extinct by now—devoured by our own offspring."

"And I suppose your apparent indifference to the arrival of the Groaci is based on the same reasoning."

"Feeding season's about to begin," Qoj said offhandedly. "Those fellows won't last a day. Not much juice in them, though—at least not in the one I met—"

"That would be the previous owner of the camera and the translator?"

"Correct. Interesting chap. He was buzzing about in an odd little contrivance with whirling vanes on top, and ran afoul a loop of siring vine. My, wasn't he full of plans ..." The Zooner sipped his flask, musing.

"The Groaci, individually, don't look like much, I'll agree," Retief said. "But they have a rather potent subnuclear arsenal at their command. And it appears they're about to launch a general offensive against your young!"

"So? Maybe they'll clear the little nuisances out.' Then we can descend to the ground and start living like gentlebeings."

"What about the future of the race?"

"That for the future of the race," Qoj made a complicated gesture with obscure biological implications. "We're only concerned about ourselves."

"Still," Retief countered, "you were young once—"

"If you're going to be crude," the Zooner said with inebriated dignity, "you may leave me."

"Sure," Retief said. "But before I go, would you mind describing these little fellows?"

"In shape, they're not unlike us adults; they come in all sizes, from this"—Qoj held two taloned fingers an inch apart—"to this." He indicated a yard and a half. "And of course, the baby fur. Ghastly blue fuzz a foot long."

"You did say ... blue?"

"Blue."

Retief nodded thoughtfully. "You know, Qoj, I think we have the basis for a cooperative undertaking after all. If you'll give me another five minutes of your time, I'll explain what I have in mind ..."

10

Flanked by Qoj and another Zooner named Ornx the Eager Eater, Retief dropped down through the cloud layer, propelled by a softly hissing steering jet salvaged from his punctured lift harness.

"That's it, dead ahead," he pointed to the towering coral reef, pale rose-colored in the distance.

"Wheee!" Qoj squealed with delight as he pulled up abreast of Retief with a shrill whistling of his borrowed jet. "Capital idea, Retief, these little squirt-bottles! You know, I never dreamed flying could be such fun! Always lived in dread of getting out of reach of a branch and just drifting aimlessly until one of the boys or some other predator got me. With these, a whole new dimension opens up! I can already detect a lessening of sibling rivalry drives and inverted Oedipus syndromes!"

"Don't let your released tensions go to your head, Qoj," Retief cautioned. "The Groaci may still take a little managing. You hang back while I go in to check the lie of the land."

Minutes later, Retief swept in above the convoluted surface of the coral peak. No Groaci were to be seen, but half a dozen Terrans were wandering aimlessly about their lofty prison. They ran forward with glad cries as Retief landed.

"Good show, my boy!" Colonel Smartfinger pumped his hand. "I knew you wouldn't leave us stranded here! Those rascally Groaci commandeered our harnesses—"

"But—where are the reinforcements?" the Political Officer demanded, staring around. "Where's the lighter? Where's His Excellency? Who are these creatures?" He eyed the Zooners, circling for a landing. "Where have you been, Retief?" He broke off, staring. "And where's your harness?"

"I'll tell you later," Retief motioned the diplomats toward the deflated Groaci gasbag now draped limply across the rocks. "There's no time to dally, I'm afraid. All aboard."

"But—its punctured!" Smartfinger protested. "It won't fly, man!"

"It will when our new allies finish," Retief reassured the colonel.

The Zooners were already busy, bustling about the ersatz cloud, stuffing fistfuls of seed-pods inside. A corner of the big bag stirred lazily, lifted to flap gently in the breeze. One side curled upward, tugging gently.

"You know what to do," Retief called to Qoj. "Don't waste any time following me down." He jumped into the air, thumbed the jet control wide open, and headed for the next stop at flank speed.

11

Two thirds of the way down the sheer wall of the coral reef, a small figure caught Retief s eye, perched disconsolately in a crevice in the rock. He swung closer, saw the spindly shanks and five-eyed visage of a Groaci, his once-splendid raiment in tatters.

"Well, Field Marshal Shish," he called. "What's the matter, conditions down below not to your liking?"

"Ambasador Shish, if you please," the castaway hissed in sorrowful Groaci. "To leave me in solitude, Soft One; to have suffered enough."

"Not nearly enough," Retief contradicted. "However, all is not yet lost. I take it your valiant troops have encountered some sort of difficulty below?"

"The spawn of the pits fell upon us while I was in my bath!" the Groaci whispered, speaking Terran now. "They snapped up a dozen of my chaps before I could spring from the tub of hot sand in which I had been luxuriating! I was fortunate to escape with my life! And then your shoddy Terran-made harness failed and dropped me here. Alack! Gone are the dreams of a procuratorship . ' '

"Maybe not." Retief maneuvered in close, held out a hand. "I'll give you a piggyback, and explain how matters stand. Maybe you can still salvage something from the wreckage."

Shish canted his eye-stalks. "Piggyback? Are you insane, Retief? Why, there's nothing holding you up! How can it hold two of us up?"

"Take it or leave it, Mr. Ambassador," Retief said. "I have a tight schedule."

"I'll take it." Shish gingerly swung his scrawny frame out and scrambled to a perch on Retief s back, four of his eyes sphinctered tight shut. "But if I hadn't already been contemplating suicide, nothing would have coaxed me to it!"

12

Five minutes later, Retief heard a hail; he dropped down, settled onto a narrow ledge beside the slight figure of Ambassador Oldtrick. The senior diplomat had lost his natty beret, and there was a scratch on his cheek. His flight harness, its gasbag flat, hung on a point of the rock behind him.

"What's this?" he blurted. "Who's captured whom? Retief, are you—did he ..."

"Everything's fine, Your Excellency," Retief said soothingly. "I'll just leave His Groacian Excellency here with you. I've had a little talk with him, and he has something he wants to tell you. The staff will be along in a moment."

"But—you can't—" Oldtrick broke off as a dark shadow flitted across the rock. "Duck! It's that confounded cloud back again!"

"It's all right," Retief called as he launched himself into space. "It's on our side now."

13

At the long table in the main dining room aboard the heavy Corps transport which had been called in to assist in the repatriation of the Groaci Youth Scouts marooned on Zoon after the local fauna had devoured their ship, encampment, equipment, and supplies, Magnan nudged Retief.

"Rather a surprising about-face on the part of Ambassador Shish," he muttered. "When that fake cloud dumped us off on the rock ledge with him, I feared the worst."

"I think he'd had a spiritual experience down below that made him see the light," Retief suggested.

"Quite an equitable division of spheres of influence the Ambassadors agreed on," Magnan went on. "The Groaci seem quite pleased with the idea of erecting blastproof barriers to restrain those ferocious little eaters to one half the planet, and acting as herdsmen over them, in return for the privilege of collecting their hair after moulting season."

"I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't sneak out a few pelts beforehand," Colonel Smartfinger leaned to contribute. "Still, the Zooners don't seem to mind, eh, Ornx?" He cocked an eye at his neighbor.

"No problem," the Zooner said airily. "We're glad
to wink at a few little violations in return for free access to our own real estate."

There was a sharp dinging as Ambassador Oldtrick tapped his glass with a fork and rose.

"Gentlemen—gentlebeings, I should say—" he smirked at the Groaci and Zooners seated along the board. "It's my pleasure to announce the signing of the Terran-Zoon accord, under the terms of which we've been ceded all rights in the coral reef of our choice on which to place our chancery, well out of reach of those nasty little—that is, the untutored—I mean, er, playfully inclined ..." he quailed under the combined glares of a dozen rows of pink eyes.

"If he brings those abominations into the conversation again, I'm walking out," Qoj said loudly.

"So we're going to be relegated to the top of that dreadful skyscraper?" Magnan groaned. "I suppose we'll all be commuting by patent gasbag—"

"Ah!" Oldtrick brightened, glad of a change of subject. "I couldn't help overhearing your remark, Magnan. And I'm pleased to announce that I have just this afternoon developed a startling new improvement to my flight harness. Observe!" All eyes were on the Ambassador as he rose gently into the air, hung, beaming down from a height of six feet.

"I should mention that I had some assistance from Mr. Retief in, ah, working out some of the technicalities," he murmured as the Terrans crowded around, competing for the privilege of offering their congratulations.

"Heavens! And he's not even wearing a balloon!" Magnan gasped as he rose to join the press. "How do you suppose he does it?"

"Easy," Qoj grunted. "He's got a pocketful of prime-quality Zooner spore-pods."

Beside him, Ambassador Shish gave an annoyed hiss. "Somehow, I can't escape the conviction that we Groaci have been had again—." He rose and stalked from the room.

"Hmph," Magnan sniffed, "he got what he wanted, didn't he?"

"True," Retief said. "But it's some people's ill luck to always want the wrong thing."

End of Retief-Ambassador to Space

V1.2: Compilation of short stories from other collections to make an “as published Ambassador to Space. These stories were all reprints at the time the book was published. No changes to the text were made.

V1.1: Proofed and forced into shape with TOC as well (rubl)

Note1: THE FOREST IN THE SKY goes from chapter 2 to 4, checked with dead-tree version

V1.0: Scanned by Aristotle.

Table of Contents

RETIEF: Ambassador to Space

GIANT KILLER

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