The Return of Retief (11 page)

            Retief
got a fingertip grip on a plank and ripped it free. Now he could see into a
featureless gray cell, lit by a ragged hole in one wall through which wan
Prutian sunlight streamed. Half a dozen assorted Terrans—men, women and one
thumb-sucking five-year old—sat in dejected attitudes on the littered floor.
All looked up as one at the
scritch!
of the torn-away plank. The child
eyed him solemnly for a moment, then removed his thumb from his mouth, wiped it
carefully on his grubby chemise, and uttered a wail. His mother caught him up,
casting a reproachful glance toward Retief.

            "Holy
Moses," a youngish fellow in faded bib overalls said and came to his feet.
"Who're you, feller? And how'd you get in the cross-shaft system?"

            "The
elevator stopped and I heard you yelling," Retief told him. "I get
the idea you'd rather be elsewhere."

            "Too
right," a small man with a villainous two-weeks' growth of black whiskers
volunteered.

            An
elderly man wearing a once-elegant but now badly torn and stained suit got
creakily to his feet.

            "We're
hostages," the latter said. "Seems the Ree big shot, this fellow who
calls himself Slive, has an idea we're worth money, or at least territorial
concessions. Damn fool. What does the CDT care what happens to us?"

            "Actually,"
Retief told him, "We'd heard something about you folks: that's why I'm
here, in a way. Are you all the hostages they have?"

            "You
could have plumb swaggled me," the oldster conceded. "I reckoned we
were good for a life stretch. I'm Governor Anderson of Peabody's Plantation,
out on Hardtack. Was, anyway, until those confounded Rees landed one morning
whilst I was on my south forty, and rounded up what folks they could find.

            "This,"
he added, indicating the small be-whiskered man, "is my boy Lester, and
his wife, Lulu, and little Roy. Other feller's Buster, my hired hand. There's
more, from some other settlement, I guess. Just got a glimpse of them whilst we
was unloading. About two dozen altogether, I reckon. Who're you? How come
you're in that cross-shaft? They boarded it over the first day we was here,
about a month ago, or maybe a week ..." The old fellow paused to study a
pattern of scratches on the nacreous wall beside him. "Yep, thirty-two
days today."

            Retief
tossed aside two more of the slats barring his egress, and dropped down into
the cramped and smelly room. The furnishings, he noted, consisted of two
battered mattresses laid on the floor, half a dozen pots, some rugs of dubious
origin and a scattering of papers, one of which, face-up, read AN INVITATION TO
ALL SQUATTERS TO ACCEPT LIBERATION BY VICTORIOUS REE ARMIES. THIS MEANS YOU.

            "I
take it you'd like to get out of here," Retief said to the ex-governor.

            "Oh,
it ain't so bad," Buster, the hired hand, contributed, "only no
telly."

            "Lord
yes, sir," daughter-in-law Lulu put in fervently. "Roy needs better
eats and more of 'em. Can't hardly yell good a-tall."

            "What
you got in mind, Mister?" son Lester demanded eagerly, coming to his feet.
He was clad in a grayish sack-like garment. His exposed hide, dark with lack of
bathing facilities, was marked with angry red flea-bites, at which he scratched
absently, awaiting a reply.

            "For
the moment," Retief told him, "just sit tight and stay alert. Break
off the banging and chanting, but the next time they feed you, eat all you can,
because you may be missing a few meals."

            "Won't
mind that," the hired hand said. "They feed worserner'n the Navy: I
was in fer a couple weeks," he amplified. "Reserves. But they told us
they run outa funds, whatever funds are, and they up and disbanded us. Too bad,
too, jest a month afore the Rees showed up. We were expecting a couple Terry
battlewagons would come along and run the worms off, but they never."

            "Back
at GHQ," Retief said, "the top officials aren't really sure there's a
war on, so they've been a bit slow to respond. Maybe we can speed things up a
little."

            "Whatever
you say, Mister," Lester blurted. "But we can't do much a-setting
here."

            "True,"
Retief conceded. "Just be ready to go. Don't try to follow me; that duct
is a dead end. And remember: try not to start any riots."

            Retief
retraced his route to the elevator, this time operating the emergency switch on
top of the car, and resumed his slow progress upward. At last the rickety cage
clanked to a halt, meticulously leveled itself, and the doors
whoosh!
ed
open. Retief stepped out into a corridor garishly carpeted in chartreuse
and puce and went along to a forbidding set of double doors at the end of the
passage. A cocoa mat lettered STAY AWAY lay before them.

            Retief
tapped lightly and heard a breathy reply from inside. He tried the door;
locked. He twisted harder and something broke with a sharp
tink!
and the
door swung in. Across the wide room, a Groaci wearing the jeweled eye-shields
of a top-three-grader glanced at him.

            "To
explain the meaning of this outrage!" he hissed.

            "It
means that Terry diplomats with appointments aren't cooling their heels in the
corridor this year, Mr. Consul," Retief interpreted. "I need to see
the Ree Intimidator Slive, and I'm informed you're prepared to offer your good
offices in arranging the meeting."

            Consul
Snith canted three eyestalks at an angle indicative of gracious condescension
and rose to his full four-foot-eight. "To have no time to devote to such
trifles," he hissed, after a brief glance at the embossed card Retief had
handed him. "Only a Second Secretary and Consul, eh?" he whispered,
"Not even a Counsellor."

            "True,
Mr. Consul," Retief acknowledged. "Still I
would
have been a
Counsellor, if anybody had gotten around to promoting me."

            "Of
course," Snith agreed. "And at the same time, I myself would now be
an Undersecretary by the same reasoning, thus maintaining the disparity in
rank. But enough of this yivshish. I suppose I can deal with you, just this
once. After all, all I'm going to do is refuse to help you."

            "Since
your Mission has the only hot-line to Ree HQ in the Tip," Retief
countered, "it wouldn't take a moment to get through to the
Intimidator."

            "But
that I refuse to do," Snith hissed.

            "So
I guess I'll have to do it myself," Retief replied, coming around the
twelve-foot platinum desk, Chief of Mission, for the use of.

            The
Groaci lunged for a drawer in time to encounter Retief's hand, which closed on
his skinny tentacle and lifted him from his Terry-made hip-o-matic power swivel
chair, a gift of Ambassador Fullthrust on the occasion of the signing of the
latest in a series of treaties of Eternal Chumship, none of which had been
effective in diminishing the traditional rivalry between the Galactic
super-powers.

            Snith
delivered a breathy tirade in which the repetitive "vile Terry" and
"iniquitous Soft One" soon became tiresome.

            Retief
dropped the senior diplomat into his own solid gold wastebasket, abruptly
ending the stream of threats of dire retribution.

            The
traditional red-enameled tight-beam personal screen built into the desk uttered
a harsh buzz when Retief flipped the URGENT key.

            At
once, an unctuous voice said, in flawless Groaci: "Tor wait whilst one
notifies the Second Assistant Great One to notify the First-AGO to intimate to
the Great One himself that some lesser being is understandably desirous of
holding converse with his Loftiness."

            "To
put some snap into it," Retief replied in Groaci over the tight-beam,
without heat.

            Snith
redoubled his threshing among the waste paper and keened: "To walk softly,
Retief! To not arouse the ire of the insidious Ree against selfless Groacian
bureaucrats!"

            "Don't
worry, Mr. Consul," Retief soothed his host. "I'm only talking to the
janitor."

            "To
have heard that crack," the hot line said harshly. "Maybe you
five-eyed suckers don't know us building supers got a union, which we could
shut down custodial services to you boys any time. Your wastebasket would get
pretty full, if the sweeper corps didn't show up at dark to rub old Pennzoil on
the desk-tops to give 'em that nice shine, which you old-timers know enough not
to put your elbows onna desk till about after lunch."

            "A
telling point!" Snith hissed from his cramped position in the disposal
bin. "To apologize at once, Retief, lest this miscreant implement his
threat!"

            "To
be in a slight hurry," Retief said into the talker in unaccented Groaci,
"To have to talk to Slive right now."

            There
was a crackle of static from the beam, an echo of secretarial huffings, and a
new voice cut in, speaking Groaci with a heavy Ree accent.

            "This
is His Loftiness speaking. "What've you got, Snith? I was just revising my
surprise—ha-ha—plans for receiving a delegation of Terries."

            "To
rejoice in the intelligence, Loftiness," Retief returned, mimicking Groaci
eagerness. "To yearn to revel in the details."

            "Sure,
why not?" Slive replied comfortably. "You little five-eyed sticky-fingers
are just as neutral against the Terries as us Ree. So here's the plot: We got a
couple dozen Terry hostages; you know, like the ones you're keeping for
me," Slive continued, "picked 'em up pretending they were simple
farmers and colonists out on some end-of-the-line worlds they call Moosejaw,
and Hardtack and a couple others. Since they weren't in uniform, we've got a
right to shoot 'em as spies, of course."

            "To
be sure," Retief agreed. "What did they spy on?"

            "Well,
of course us Ree've got nothing to hide," Slive replied. "But still
some of them might've got a glimpse of some of the peaceful missile
installations we've been installing on a few small bodies in monitored space
and all. Could get talk started, as if us Ree would do anything as lousy as
infiltrating inviolate Treaty Territory."

            "Small
minds
do
tend to misinterpret these matters," Retief agreed
cheerfully. "Anything else?"

            "They
could've got an idea there's something fishy about our new out-tourist
program," Slive conceded. "We've been encouraging solid Ree citizens
with impeccable security records to get culturally enriched by traveling around
in what the Terries call Tip Space, learning all about the quaint native arts
of basket-weaving and electronic surveillance, and early-warning sites, and
folk-dancing—all that culture stuff, you know."

            "Good
thinking, Intimidator," Retief replied crisply. "To tell me more
about the doubtless clever surprise you have in store for the delegation of
vile Terry meddlers you're expecting."

            "Well,
this is pretty good, Snith, old boy," Slive replied. "I've got a
couple schemes, but I about decided on just a simple defenestration. My offices
are on the ninety-third floor, you know."

            "To
first disarm them if they should so far violate diplomatic usage as to attempt
to smuggle weapons into the conference room, of course," Retief guessed.
"Then to extort humiliating terms of peace, and once signatures are in
hand, to dispose of them. Superb!"

            "You
get the sketch," Slive agreed. "But this is top security dope. My
Chief of Security'll go into a premature moult if he knew I was talking about
it, even on this tight line to my pal Snith."