The Return of Retief (13 page)

            A
barely visible trail of vapor marked the path his stricken craft had followed
in its meteoric descent. The point of contact was clearly indicated by a column
of denser smoke.

            Nearby
was a patch of spiny growths resembling pink Christmas trees. Retief stood in
the sparse shade of the 'trees' and scanned the hazy pink horizon, dead flat
except for an occasional upthrust spine of unweathered rock.

            Retief
examined the fleshy leaves of the nearest tree, noting that its glossy,
leather-like surface was distinctly cool to the touch. As he fingered the leaf,
it seemed to quiver, then to twitch away from his touch. He tried another, with
the same result. Then he noticed that the other plants appeared to be more
closely clustered about him than they had been a moment before. He stepped
back, jostling a small tree close behind him. As he side-stepped it, he was
quite sure that it somehow leaned into his path, pressing against him more
insistently as he thrust harder against it.

            "Let's
be reasonable, Pushy," Retief said aloud. "You stand still and I'll
get out of your way."

            At
his next step, the tree to the right seemed to shift position to close off the
gap through which he had been about to step clear of the thicket. Retief set
his feet, grasped the nearest branch; which felt like a fleshy overlay on a
hard core, bent it back until a thin wail sounded from some indefinable point
amid the foliage. Holding the branch aside, he advanced a step, and paused
again to push aside two more stout limbs which he had not previously noticed,
barring his way.

            After
a moment's consideration, Retief turned and tried another direction, found it
as densely obstructed, as was every side. Now he felt a touch at his shoulder,
and a moment later the questing shoot which had brushed him whipped around his
neck, constricting.

            "Naughty,"
Retief said mildly as he forced his thumb under the pencil-thick tendril and
pried it away, unwound it, and tied it in a square-knot. At once, the flexible
growth went limp. Meanwhile, another strand had encircled his upper arm and another
his ankle, to be dealt with in the same way. Retief paused; the heat was appalling.

            "No
fair, O Motile One," a telepathically communicated voice said, without
audible sound.

            "You
introduce intolerable complexities into what should have been a simple and much-needed
ingestional process."

            "That's
the way we motile ones are," Retief responded. He took a knife from the
survival kit attached to his belt and tested the edge with his thumb. "I
suggest you boys keep your branches to yourselves," he added, "so
that it won't be necessary for me to demonstrate the principle of the cutting
edge."

            "You
threaten the Surviving One?" the mind-voice queried coldly. "Perhaps
it will be as well if we proceed at once to pre-digestion. Very well, fellows,
melt it down."

            At
once a fine spray of cool moisture enveloped the Terran. The fluid appeared to
be expelled in minute droplets from pores covering the surface of leaves and
stems alike. A drop trickled down Retief's upper lip, as the voice spoke again:

            "You,
O formerly Motile One, are now enveloped in a cloud of the most corrosive
substance in nature. Prepare to be dissolved."

            "That
wouldn't be H
₂
0, I suppose," Retief hazarded as his tongue
touched the droplet on his lip.

            "Precisely.
Our methods of preparing nourishment are unparalleled. We ourselves are of
course impervious to this caustic compound."

            "I
dare you to step up the volume," Retief said.

            The
swiftly evaporating mist had lowered the temperature to a bearable level, and
his heat-parched skin was eagerly absorbing the water, which was now trickling
down in an increased volume.

            "You
presume, O Motile One, to attempt to resist the corrosive action of the
universe's most potent solvent?"

            "Sure,"
Retief said. "I don't have time to be dissolved right now. If you boys are
hungry, I'm in a position to offer you a full cargo of gourmet delights, if it
isn't splashed all over the landscape, that is; or even if it is. I don't
suppose you'd object to having to collect it."

            "It
is well known to us, impertinent one, that all edible matter on this our world
has long since been consumed. We ourselves discovered and ingested the last
patch of nourishing lichen some centuries agone."

            "Good
news;" Retief told the silent voice. "It's lunchtime. The only
problem is that we're here, and lunch is a couple of miles away. By the way,
you can call me Retief."

            "Yes,"
Pushy agreed. "We are but now examining the phenomenon, Retief, and the
aroma of roasting protein is indeed most appetizing; we seem to recall having
sampled something similar, and arranging for a resupply with the obliging
mariner M'hu hu. We are of course not ungrateful to you, Retief, for descending
from emptiness to bring this gift. You may therefore crave a boon of us."

            "Well,
boonwise," Retief answered. "Let's start by giving up the idea of
eating me. Then we can work on the details."

            "When
you approached within our reflexive radius," Pushy replied, registering
surprise, "we assumed you were volunteering your person as an
aperetif.
Such an act of self-immolation evoked our deepest gratitude. Pity you
spoiled it by failing to dissolve."

            "Thoughtless
of me," Retief agreed. "Now, if you'll stop trying to fence me off,
I'll check the pod and see if its ground maneuvering gear is operable."

            At
once there was a stir, and a clear avenue appeared through the thick-clustered
growths, which now surrounded Retief in depth in all directions. He walked out
along the open lane into the blinding sunlight, much refreshed by his soaking,
the continuing evaporation of which served admirably to absorb the
circumambient heat which otherwise would have hard-boiled a man in three
minutes.

            He
went back to the pod, which was perched awkwardly but intact on its sprung
jacks. He climbed in, and was pleased to find that the SURFACE GEAR—DE-PLOY
lever elicited a laborious but effective response, bringing the pod to a level
attitude. A light indicated TRACKS UNDER LOAD. The power-pack was at half
charge; on command, the capsule moved off jerkily in the correct direction. The
steering was stiff, but accurate, and after half an hour of bumpy progress,
Retief arrived at the smouldering heap of glue rubbish that had been
Cockroach
III.

           
He climbed out
into the smoky stink of incinerated glimp eggs to find the stand of pink
organisms clustered close beside him.

            "I
see you're pretty motile yourself, Pushy," Retief commented mentally.

            "We
decline to expend our waning energies in feckless perambulations," the
silent voice said. "We long ago made the decision to adopt the plant
kingdom's strategy of immobility, except, of course, in the event of emergency.
The present occasion so qualifies. It occurs to us." Pushy went on,
"that your mode of arrival, or that of your cargo carrier, could be
improved upon, maintenance-of-equipment-wise."

            "I
was having a little emergency of my own," Retief explained. "She
started coming apart when I hit atmosphere—thin as it was."

            "Perhaps,
after we have gleaned the nourishment from the debris, you would like us to
reassemble the craft, the design of which, though primitive, seems serviceable
enough."

            "Go
right ahead, fellows," Retief agreed. "But be careful with the power
core; it could be leaky."

            "We
had noted a high flux-density of rather short wavelength emanating from the
larger fragment—there," Pushy replied, extending a finger-like tendril to
point to what remained of the drive unit of
Cockroach III.

           
"I see you
fellows are ahead of me," Retief acknowledged. "By the way, is it
'fellows,' or just 'fellow'? Are you a crowd, or just one individual?"

            "We
are many-in-one," Pushy replied. "Of the teeming species that
formerly peopled this once-fair world I alone remain. We determined early in
our evolution that the linkage of the many relatively feeble organisms to
comprise one potent being, thus ending the inter-being and interspecies
rivalry, would enhance our ability to survive under increasingly hostile
conditions, as our atmosphere and hydrosphere dissipated into space, and our
surface minerals were removed by the Ree banditti."

            "That
sounds like a neat trick," Retief conceded. "But how do you manage
without food and water?"

            "From
time to time we receive a gift of organic matter from He Who is Powerful,
recently usually in the form of these same objectionable creatures who call
themselves 'Ree,' and who come here—or formerly did—to replenish their stores
of various minerals. When we approached them, in innocent curiosity, they
turned weapons upon us, from the destructive effects of which we are only now
recovering. Candidly, when you came to rest and emerged from your chrysalis, we
assumed at first that you, too, were of the odious Ree, and would attempt to
help yourself to the substance of this our world. When we saw that you offered
us no harm, we realized our error, and would have incorporated your ego-gestalt
into our own. But you dissuaded us, by your curious immunity to dissolution in
water, which dissolves all substances."

            "You
seem to have done an excellent job of surviving," Retief said.

            By
now, the pink conoids had encircled the smoking wreck and were busily extending
pseudo-podia to gather in the well-cooked masses of glimp egg. They were well
along with the task when, abruptly, Pushy spoke again.

            "Retief,
we note that a vessel of the insidious Ree is approaching, on a vector which
will bring it to rest at this precise point in fourteen minutes and three
seconds from ... now."

            "Thanks
for the warning," Retief replied. "Do you have any ideas?"

            "We
shall cope with the intruder in our usual fashion," Pushy replied coolly.
"We suggest that you re-enter your husk and withdraw to ten miles until we
have restored tranquility."

            "I'll
pull back a little way and keep an eye on the action," Retief said.
"Just in case this fellow has a new trick or two up his sleeve. Good
luck."

            With
that Retief climbed back into the pod, and trundled it off over the heat-baked
plain to a point of vantage atop a rocky ridge. Adjusting his DV scanner for
maximum gain, he watched as the tree-like pink organism disposed itself in a
loose ring around the crash site.

            Moments
later, the gunboat which had earlier fired on
Cockroach III
executed a
neat landing beside the blackened wreckage. At once, in accordance with SOP, it
fired the usual antipersonnel charges; the shrapnel
whoof!
ed
into
the fleshy pink growths, sending gouts of Pushy's substance spattering.

            The
ring closed in slightly but showed no other response. A hatch near the prow of
the blunt Ree fleetboat opened, and half a dozen squat Ree made their way to
ground, well ensconced in protective suits. They approached the wreckage
cautiously.

            Retief
tuned the pod's pickup to the Ree wavelength; the filters clarified the creaky
reception until he overheard:

            "—no
doubt the goblins got him, the damned fool."

            "Escape
pod's gone, Sergeant. Maybe ..."

            "Never
mind the maybes. Just check until you find the remains. And look out for tall
yellow cactuses."