The Return of Retief (25 page)

            The
Groaci made a vengeful swipe with a heavy knout, missing Retief's head by an
inch. Retief caught the weapon and wrenched it from the other's grasp. He broke
it in two and returned the handle-end to his assailant.

            "Be
nice, Whiff, and I won't tell anybody what happened. You can explain that you
broke it over my skull."

            "To
be sure, Terry. A consummation devoutly to be wished. Why are you skulking
here?"

            "Where's
Magnan?"

            "Where
you, too, will end up, vile miscreant— on the interrogation rack."

            Retief
lifted the business end of the knout. "We agreed, I think, that you and
Quilf have no further interest in my fate."

            The
two Groaci shrank aside and scuttled away.

            "Shall
we?" Retief inquired of the Yill and indicated the abandoned gate, now
swinging wide to reveal a cobbled court lined with stalls in which poorly
maintained Groaci ground-cars were parked.

            A
lone Groaci in a ribbed hip-cloak leaned casually against the wall by the dark,
dungeon archway, fingering a six-foot pike. He came to a slack-twisted position
of attention as Retief approached, covering the agitated twitching of his
eye-stalks by pretending to adjust his top-three-grader eye-shields.

            "What's
up, Retief?" he wheezed. "I guess it was you that spooked Private
Quilf."

            "Yes,
Sergeant. I caught his eye and gave him the nod. Obliging fellow."

            "Left
the gate open, too," the sergeant said. "Quilf is overdue for a few
hours on pots and pans, I guess. By the way, why are you violating the sacred
precincts of the Groacian Embassy?"

            "Just
dropped by to remind Mr. Magnan of a staff meeting. Which way?"

            "I'd
like to escort you, but I can't leave my post. I see that Yill no-good
F'Lin-lin, hanging around there."

            "What's
your name, Sergeant?" Retief asked.

            "Yish,"
the Groaci replied.

            "It
seems to me I remember you from somewhere," Retief said. "Squeem,
perhaps?"

            "I
was there when the dam let go," Yish conceded. "I lost my stamp
collection in the flood—and I've never been convinced you weren't behind the
collapse of our lovely new dam."

            "Several
hundred yards of it," Retief agreed.

            "To
have a personal score to settle, wise guy!"

            The
Groaci jabbed suddenly at Retief with his broad-headed pike. Retief moved
aside. The sharp point slid past him and nicked the door frame. Yish withdrew
it and jabbed again.

            "To
stand still, miscreant!" he hissed.

            The
point lodged firmly in the hard wood. Grasping for the shaft, Retief was
overpowered by the stench of prime Yill garbage as F'Lin-lin jumped forward and
jerked the point free.

            The
off-balance Groaci relinquished his hold on the pike and sat down suddenly.
F'Lin-lin reversed the weapon and aimed it at Yish's throat sac.

            "What
was that crack about a Yill no-good?" he growled.

            "To
disregard," panted the Groaci weakly. "To assure the generous Yill
the remark referred to somebody else."

            "Thanks,
F'Lin-lin," Retief said. "Keep him here, will you? And, Yish,"
he added to the Groacian, huddled in his crumpled hip-cloak, several
umbrella-like ribs of which were now hopelessly buckled, "stay quiet,
before you lose any more face than you have to."

            The
dungeon door was not barred. Retief opened it, walked noiselessly along a dim,
stone-flagged passageway, and came to a downward spiralling staircase. He heard
anguished cries from the lower region, and tiptoed down the stone stairs. As he
descended, the cries became clearer.

            "Nith,
you leather-brained rascal," Magnan was shouting. "I demand to see
the Ambassador at once!"

            Retief
cautiously stepped into the lower passageway and peered into the cell from
which the demand was echoing. He saw Magnan strapped to a conversation rack. A
leather-aproned executioner confronted him.

            "No
use being a sorehead about it, Ben," Nith was saying. "Actually, you
surprise me. I expected you, as one who has survived staking-out in the sulphur
pits of Yush, to stand up to a routine interview in more Spartan fashion."

            "It's
the indignity of the thing," Magnan explained in a sulky tone. "After
all, this wicker-work strait-jacket hardly allows a person to breathe."

            "Just
spill a few official secrets, Ben, and you'll be breathing in a trice. By the
way, what's a trice?"

            "It's
what you'll be in jail in, as soon as my chief learns of my situation."

            "Old
Freddy? Forget it, Ben. Now, how about starting with whatever you figured you'd
accomplish, snooping around here today."

            "I
was hardly 'snooping' as you so insolently put it, my dear Nith. I was
innocently waiting for Foreign Minister D'Ong, whom I wished to consult most
urgently."

            "Ah,
yes, the insidious D'Ong. We've had our eye-stalks zeroed in on that fellow for
some time. Not quite the standard bureaucrat."

            "Nonsense.
It's just that he whoofles easily."

            "Grotian
semantics will not save you," Nith warned, finishing off a package of
smoked gribble-grubs. "You've remained adamant under the torments of the
toe-tickler and the Tantalizing Tasties, and even endured a half hour of
tape-recorded staff meetings—in an alien tongue, yet.

            "But
you'll not so easily shrug off the upcoming torture. In the very next cell is a
cinema projector, a screen, and a full program of old Nelson Eddy movies.
Thereafter, a broken man, you'll be only too happy to sob out your
secrets."

            "Oh,
not Nelson Eddy!" Magnan cried. "Spare me that!"

            "Nelson
Eddy
and
the Andrews Sisters," said Nith remorselessly.

            He
turned to open an inner door. Retief poised to spring to Magnan's aid—then
froze as Nith swung back to confront Magnan.

            "The
projector and the screen are gone. Vile Terry, who has been here?"

            "Why,
only yourself," said Magnan. "You went into that room after you first
tied me up."

            "Hm,
so I did, making sure the Roy Rogers movies were in stock," Nith said.
"The disappearances are a mystery. I must discuss them with Shiss."

            He
started for the stairs. Retief hid in an adjacent cell until he was gone. When
the Groaci's footsteps had faded away, Retief entered the torture chamber.

            "Retief!"
cried Magnan. "Save me! To be forced to view a Roy Rogers movie is a fate
worse than death!"

            Retief
examined the harness restraining Magnan, then jerked the straps loose. The
wicker-work fell away. Magnan stepped down from the conversation rack with a
sigh of relief.

            "Let's
get out of here while the getting's good," he said. "Two merit points
are not commensurate with the danger of the job."

            "We
can't leave before we've seen Minister D'Ong," Retief objected.
"D'Ong may also be in danger."

            "But
he
did
have an appointment with Ambassador Shiss, you know. And I'm
sure," Magnan said nervously, "that it's very bad protocol to conduct
unauthorized searches of other embassies. I feel strongly that we must report
to Smallfrog before taking any action."

            "I
certainly won't keep you from reporting," Retief said. "Go up the
stairs and follow the passageway to the outer door. A Yill named F'Lin-lin is
rendering Sergeant Yish a spent force."

            "Aren't
you coming, too?"

            "No.
I'll look around down here for a stairway to the main part of the
embassy."

            "Now,
Retief," Magnan said severely, "as your immediate supervisor, I must
caution you to do nothing rash."

            "Actually,
Mr. Magnan, I haven't yet thought up anything rash to do."

            "Excellent.
Perhaps you're learning restraint at last."

            "I
guess it had to happen. But why should we be any more restrained than we have
to? After an hour in a Groaci conversation frame, I should think you'd like
being unrestrained."

            "Ah,
yes. To be sure, Retief. Nith stepped a bit over the line restraint-wise in
trussing a Terran First Secretary and Consul in that fashion. Still, he merely
hinted at the other torments he had planned. He stopped short of screening
them."

            "So,
inasmuch as you have Nith's dossier well in hand, it seems logical for me to
tackle his boss."

            "Umm.
I trust you employ the term 'tackle' figuratively."

            "I
don't expect to have too much trouble with the old boy. After all, he's a
career bureaucrat, too."

            "Retief,
need I caution you not to rely on any fellow-feeling from that sneaky,
five-eyed little devil?"

            "Nope."

            "I
thought not. Just employ standard diplomatic techniques. Shiss is enough of an
old campaigner to yield gracefully to a proper approach."

            "I
assume from that you'd be against my braiding his eyes together, or pinching
his air bladder shut."

            "Correct.
Go in there like a true bureaucrat, Retief. Let him know we've got the dirt on
him, though, of course, we wouldn't dream of giving it to the media—as long as
he confides in us his object in a Grotian treaty."

            Leaving
these words of advice, Magnan hurried up the stairs.

            Retief
continued along the low-ceilinged passage, past barred cell doors and what
looked like large fish bones heaped on the stone-slab floors, among rusted
chains. Ahead a dim light burned, illuminating a wider staircase. He followed
it upwards to a vast portal. He poked at it with a finger. It swung easily
back, revealing a gloomy and cavernous hall, dim-lit by tapers on tall
wrought-iron standards.

            A
narrow spiral stair led upward at the far side of the great hall. Aside from a
number of impervious-looking doors set in deep recesses, the surrounding walls
were featureless stone.

            As
Retief paused at the top of the staircase, peering beyond the portal, a door
opened along the hall. Five familiar eye-stalks bent in his direction.

            "To
stop there, snooping Retief!" Fith croaked, dashing toward him. "To
arrest you on the spot." "For what?"

            "Trespassing,
invasion, violation of Groaci sovereignty—"

            "Hold
it, Fith. You make me sound like an enemy planet."

            "To
rue the day you intruded here, Terry evil-doer!"

            "Where's
Foreign Minister D'Ong?"