The Return of Retief (14 page)
The
Ree troopers climbed over the cooling wreckage, poking and rummaging.
"Not
here, Sergeant," someone said. "Probably burnt up, if the goblins
din't get him, like you said."
"All
I said was 'probably' soldier!" the noncommissioned officer in charge
corrected. "Keep looking."
After
half an hour of this fruitless endeavor, the Ree returned to the scant shade
under the stern of their vessel, formed up in a column of twos, unlimbered heat
weapons, and deployed within the gradually closing ring of pink trees.
Retief
at once maneuvered the pod in the shelter of the ridge to the point closest to
the wreck, then emerged at full speed and drove directly toward the Ree
gunboat, parked only a few yards beyond the remains of
Cockroach III.
The Ree troops
broke formation and sprinted for their boat, all but two who Retief saw were
ensnared by outreaching tendrils of Pushy-stuff.
He
came careening in a cloud of dust, skidded between wreck and boat, sending the
last of the Ree who had been waiting to board flying for shelter behind
whatever rocks they could find. Only then did a few random shots ricochet
harmlessly from the pod's hull.
"We
express our thanks, Retief," Pushy's insubstantial voice came clearly to
Retief. "In another moment, the noxious invaders might have done us a
mischief. Though we find the substance of those few we harvested most
refreshing."
It
seemed to Retief that the voice strengthened even as it spoke. He halted and
brought the pod around in a curve to rest beside the clustered pink growth,
from which cables now extended to the gunboat, probing around its closed
hatches.
"Alas,"
the mind-voice came again. "We find this material proof against our
solvents and our strength alike."
"Wait
a minute," Retief suggested. "Maybe I can open that sardine can for
you."
As
he stepped down from the pod, he saw the boat's aft battery rotate jerkily and
come to rest aimed dead at the pod. He hurried over to the main entry hatch,
which, as he had expected, had been retrofitted with an economy-model Bogan
electrolock. A quick and simple adjustment to the key to
Cockroach III
adapted
it to fit—and the hatch cycled open.
At
once, a wrist-thick pink rootlet jostled him and started inside the airlock.
Retief caught it, wrenched the tough member to one side, where it felt its way blindly
along the undercurve of the Ree hull.
"I'd
almost forgotten why I call you 'Pushy,' Pushy," Retief told the organism,
which was now, he observed, in the process of modifying its external form to
that of a cluster of pale blue puff-balls, their feathery spines waving gently,
like underwater fronds.
The
member which had attempted to enter the airlock was now returning as a wiry,
dark-blue filament. Retief caught it and tied it to a stanchion in a loose
slip-knot.
"That
substance change is a neat trick, Pushy," Retief commented. "No
wonder the Ree started believing in goblins."
"Why
do you seek to spoil our sport, Retief?" the voice said sulkily,
"Once you rendered valuable assistance, yet now you seek to obstruct our
just vengeance."
"You've
had a good meal," Retief pointed out.
"You
don't need this snack. Let's negotiate, instead."
"To
what end?" Pushy demanded. "Release my probe at once, and there'll be
an end to these scoundrels!"
"There'll
just be more scoundrels coming along to even the score," Retief pointed
out. "These fellows are taking over the Arm, or they will if I let them.
This is a good opportunity to correct their thinking."
"Very
well," Pushy acceded reluctantly. "But I was envisioning the pleasure
of ingesting their nutrients, slowly."
"I'll
make it a part of the deal that they keep you supplied with glimp eggs,"
Retief offered. "I'm pretty sure they'll be in a mood to deal
generously."
With
that, he entered the dim-lit, kippered herring smelling air-lock and used the
standard-model talker to demand audience with the captain, who identified
himself as Bliff. He informed the officer that he had come to offer a
possibility of survival.
"I'll
blow you off the face of this Blurb-forsaken rock!" Captain Bliff replied
heatedly.
"Don't,"
Retief cautioned. "It would spoil this nice beginning. Now let's talk
terms."
"You
wish to surrender?" Bliff queried hopefully.
"Don't
let's waste time with jokes," Retief replied sternly. "If you'll lift
off, report to HQ that Goblinrock is worse than ever, and arrange for a monthly
shipment of glimp eggs and otherwise stay 10 A.U.'s away, I'll do what I can to
see that you're not dissolved in digestive juices at your post."
"Sounds
horrible." Bliff commented. "At my post, you say? Strange, these
goblins—masters of disguise—I was told they were long, skinny purple fellows,
and my non-coms swore they were prickly yellow things. Seems we were both
wrong."
"That,
Captain, is the understatement of the year," Retief told him.
"I
suggest you accept, Pushy," Retief advised the compound being upon his
return from inside the Ree boat. "It's the best deal you'll get. Captain
Bliff was forced to land here because of a breakdown in his converter circuits.
He landed beside the wreck because it was the only sign of life he saw. He was
on the lookout for big yellow sausages, which it seems is the shape you were
using the last time a Ree got away from here alive."
"I
recall," the blue puffballs replied. "We were so busy mopping up the
tasty morsels packed into the hold—it was a troopship— that we failed to notice
one unit making a sneaky getaway in a lifeboat. Pity."
"Maybe
not," Retief demurred. "The loss of a fully loaded troop carrier made
an impression on Ree HQ. They put Goblinrock off limits. But now, by repairing
this gunboat and sending it off safe and sound, you'll have a steady supply of
food and no more harassment."
"I
concede the proposal has its advantages," Pushy concurred. "I suppose
we may as well contain ourselves in patience until the first load of goodies
arrives—and after that, perhaps well reconsider."
"Don't,"
Retief advised firmly. "They can stand off and bombard you from space
easily enough, but if you're providing a repair and refit station, they'll hold
off."
"Very
well," the puffball agreed. "Just get that hatch open again and we'll
set things to rights in there."
Retief
opened the hatch an inch, and the blue tendril entered after a final caution
from Retief not to snack between meals, to reemerge half a minute later.
"Simple
enough," the silent voice reported. "Merely a matter of matching
resultance in the boomer circuits." At that moment, the mended gunboat
emitted a soft buzzing and lifted off, reoriented itself and sped away.
"OK,"
the now-blue organism said, with a crisp change of subject, "perhaps we'd
best see to the reconstruction of your own somewhat cryptic vessel. Tell me,
Retief, is it correct for its components to be deployed over three quarters of
an acre, or was it formerly more tightly organized?"
"It
was all in one piece," Retief explained. "Except for a certain amount
of wear and tear."
"We
shall examine the components, and deduce their original configuration as best
we can," Pushy said briskly.
Retief
watched as the blue entity sent out a multitude of wiry shoots to quest over
the wreckage, apparently unaffected by the heat still radiating therefrom. At a
number of points, small subassemblies began to accrete as the busy tendrils
brought in scattered fragments to the center of activity. Then a curved section
of hull began to grow, and the tendrils, working with such frantic speed that
they seemed mere blurs, hurried to transfer everything inside the space thus
enclosed. Before Retief's eyes the familiar lines of the elderly craft took
form, while all but a few of the tendrils worked on, inside. Those on the
outside busied themselves burnishing the tarnished brightwork, at Retief's
request omitting the restoration of the old pattern of scars, while removing
the dents and space-dust scratches.
"Let's
change the name to
Phoenix,"
Retief suggested as the restorers were
groping at the prow, preparing to renew the fragments of the former name.
Retief wrote the new name in the dust for Pushy to scan, after which it was
deftly painted on in bold script.
After
an hour, Pushy withdrew the array of tendrils and reported the task completed.
Retief investigated, found the interior spanking new, smelling of fresh paint,
new insulation, and oiled tump leather, with which the command chair had been
reupholstered.
"Fine
job," he told the organism. "Remember now, don't eat the crew when
the first delivery arrives. And thanks for everything."
"Farewell,
Motile One," Pushy replied. "It seems a pity you could not have
arrived here a few million years earlier, thus obviating a great deal of lost
effort."
"I
was busy evolving," Retief explained. "But no regrets: you've done a
nice job of evolving yourselves into a life-form every power in the Galaxy will
be eager to befriend."
"Retief,"
Pushy's thought came hesitantly.
"Will
you come back someday? We've found your visit most stimulating."
"I
shall," Retief assured the curious being. "Now stand back; this is an
old-fashioned ion drive, and it could singe even you."
-
The
reconstituted
Phoenix
functioned as sweetly as she looked, lifting on
command and taking up course for the tenth planet of the Barter System,
Goldblatt's World, where His Ree Excellency Slive had installed his field HQ
and where the time for Retief's appointment was now only hours away.
It
was an uneventful transit, even the swarming Ree gunboats keeping well clear,
until a hail came from a Ree dreadnaught which hove majestically into view and
took up station at fifty miles on a parallel course.
"Imperial
Ree flagship, Admiral Glun commanding, calling side-boat
Phoenix"
the
communicater announced abruptly. "We have the honor to escort the Terran
diplomatic Mission to port."
Retief
acknowledged, and instructed the autopilot to lock to the Ree vessel and comply
with its landing instructions.
An
hour later, normal protocols thrust aside brusquely by the imperious Admiral,
Retief was docked at a convenient slip adjacent to the Port Authority HQ. He
descended under the watchful optical organs of a squad of Ree Rangers,
conferred briefly with the maintenance personnel who reported to him, and
accepted a lift in a plushed-up line cart to the office of the Port Commander.
The
imposing building into which Retief was ushered by a punctiliously correct Ree
captain and a squad of soldiers in battle dress was, it seemed, almost solid,
with long, tunnel-like, mother-of-pearl-lined corridors lined with tiny
cubicles, with businesslike armed sentries posted between doors. He was curtly
directed into one of these.