Diplomat at Arms (27 page)

            "To
see anything, Quilf?" a breathy Groaci called from beyond the gate.

            "Not
precisely to
see
anything, Whiff, but there's something rather curious
going on. It got completely dark all of a sudden, and—well, better give me a
hand. No! Not to try to drag me back. I have my eye fixed on something
interesting."

            At once
a second Groaci thrust out his head, all five eyes erect and alert. Retief
grabbed him by the neck and assisted him out. 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 snapped 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 desired. Why are you skulking
here?"

            "Where's
D'ong?" Retief inquired.

            "Closeted
with His Excellency, vile miscreant! Leave go of me before I get you had up
before one of them do-gooder committees that are always trying to uplift us
emergent types."

            "Keep
your ears clean, fellows," Retief said and released the pair, who at once
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 occupied by poorly
maintained Groaci ground-cars. A lone Groaci in a ribbed hip-cloak leaned
casually against the wall by a dark, doorless 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 inquired in his breathy voice. "I guess it was you
that spooked Private Quilf. What did you say to that 'apporth o' cor 'elp
me?"

            "Nothing
much, Sergeant. I just 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, what are you like violating the
sacred precincts of the Groacian Mission and all for?"

            "Just
dropped by to remind Mr. Magnan of Staff Meeting. Which way?"

            "I
got to hang around here, I guess. I see that Yill no-good, F'Lin-lin, hanging
around out there. He's their Embassy driver, but I don't trust the bugger.
That's how come I made him park on the street."

            "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," Retief agreed.

            "So
I have a personal score to settle—as well as my job to do, wise guy." The
Groaci jabbed suddenly at Retief with his broad-headed pike. Retief moved aside
sufficiently to let the sharp point slide past him and nick the door frame
behind him. Yish withdrew it, jabbed again. "To stand still, vile
miscreant!" he hissed halfheartedly as he missed again. This time the
point lodged firmly in the hard wood, forcing Yish to change grips and heave backward
in an effort to retrieve his weapon. Retief grasped the shaft with his left
hand and jerked it free, allowing Yish to stagger back. The off-balance Groaci
relinquished his grasp on the pike and sat down suddenly. Retief reversed the
weapon and prodded the fallen sergeant medium-gently.

            "On
your feet, Yish, before you lose any more face than you have to," he said
quietly. Yish got up, dusting his crumpled hip-cloak, several of the
umbrella-like ribs of which were now hopelessly buckled. Retief went past him
through the entry. Behind him Yish yelled frantically.

            "To
go after the cheeky rascal! Don't you see he's about to violate the sacrosanct
precincts of the chancery itself!"

            Retief
stepped behind the shelter of the archway and thrust the shaft of the pike out
across the opening a foot above ground level. The first Groaci through tripped
over it and fell sprawling. A moment later two more landed heavily on him.
Another five seconds, and half a dozen Groaci were disentangling themselves
from the heap. Yish advanced more cautiously, paused to look with disapproval
at his disordered command.

            "I
think you'd better schedule your boys for another thirteen weeks of
basic," Retief suggested, "with the emphasis on obstacle-course
work."

            "You
jape, vile Terry, but you'll rue the day you violated the Groacian
Embassy."

            "Don't
spoil your best move of the day, Yish. Your orders were to get me inside,
remember?"

            "To
be sure." Yish moved off, reshaping his chap-fallen recruits into a column
of ducks.

            Retief
looked across the court at the adjacent facade, blank but for an immense
iron-bound door, flanked by a polished brass plate lettered "Embassy of
the Groacian state" in long-tailed Groaci characters. Yish had succeeded
in lining up his troop in an irregular double column before the massive
entrance.

            "You're
doing fine, Yish, considering what you have to work with," Retief called.
"Now all you have to figure out is how to coax me inside."

            "Coax,
indeed, rash alien!" the sergeant responded. "To be sure, my chaps
carry traditional pikes, but doubtless you noticed they also carry blast-guns
of the latest Bogan design. To doubt even so crude a Soft One as yourself can
fail to recognize who wields the whip here—and who cringes on command. You'll
be herded inside at a word from me."

            Retief
strolled across to the great entry. "Doors locked?" he inquired in a
casual tone, and poked at the vast portal with a finger. It swung easily back,
revealing a gloomy and cavernous interior hall, dim-lit by tapers on tall
wrought-iron standards. Retief stepped inside, followed by a sudden yell from
Yish, who came hurrying after him. 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.

            "To
stop there, snooping alien!" Yish croaked, winded by his dash. "To
place you under arrest on the spot!"

            "For
what?"

            "Trespassing,
resisting arrest, invasion, violation of Groaci sovereignty—"

            "Hold
it—you make me sound like an enemy planet."

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

            "You
planned to herd me in here at gunpoint, or possibly pike-point," Retief
said. "And now you're all upset because I saved you the trouble?"

            "To
have a point there, Retief. Nonetheless, to hurry along now with—"

            "Where's
Mr. Magnan?"

            "That,
Terry, is a secret of the Groacian state. No more questions. This way."

            Yish
stepped off smartly toward one of the doors; Retief followed. The Groaci used a
large electrokey of archaic design, pushed back the door, revealing a narrow
flight of steps leading down into darkness. He flipped a wall switch and a
baleful red glare sprang up. "You're the host," Retief said.
"You lead the way."

            "The
way is quite obvious, nor is there any alternative, my Retief," Yish said.
He made an odd motion of several eyes, and a black-clad Groaci stepped from the
shadows behind the door, delicately fingering a foot-long stiletto.

            "Hired
muscle," Yish said. "My apologies, Retief, but that's the way it has
to be." The hit-man edged toward Retief, who stepped forward to meet him.
As the Groaci went into a menacing crouch, Retief caught him firmly by the
neck, upended him, producing a rain of coins and other small objects, shook him
once, and tossed him over the railing. It seemed a long time before a heavy
crump!
announced his arrival below. Retief picked up the knife his would-be
assassin had dropped. "Cheap goods," he commented. "If that's
hired muscle, I wonder what the free stuff is like."

            "Well,
you know how it is, Retief. You can't hardly get no good help these days."

            "I
heard that," a resentful voice wheezed from below. "Some loyalty. And
after I got a sprung gusset in the service of the state, and all."

            "Still,
he's tough," Retief conceded.

            "Well,
yes, Hiff knows how to take a fall. And now, if you'll just follow me, Retief
..." Yish started down the stone steps. Retief followed.

-

            "But
I demand to see the Ambassador at once!" Magnan repeated for the fifth
time, and for the fifth time Fith signaled to an underling to tighten the
straps securing the prisoner to the conversation rack.

            "No
use being a sorehead about it, Ben," Fith reminded the Terran.
"Actually you surprise me; I expected you, as one who has survived
staking-out in the sulpher pits of Yush, to stand up to a routine interview in
more spartan fashion."

            "It's
merely the indignity of the thing," Magnan explained in a rather 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 like sixty 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."

            "Your
chief? You mean old Froggie? Forget it, Ben. Now, how about starting with
whatever it was you and Retief figured you'd accomplish snooping around here
today?"

            "We
were hardly 'snooping,' as you so insolently put it, my dear Fith. Actually we
were innocently waiting for Foreign Minister D'ong, whom we understood was last
seen headed this way."

            "Ah,
yes, the insidious D'ong. I've had my eye on that fellow for some time.
Something not quite kosher about that chap."

            "Nonsense:
it's just that he whiffles easily."

            "You've
remained adamant under the torments of the toe-tickler and the Tantalizing
Tasties," Fith said, finishing off a package of smoked gribble grubs.
"And even endured half an hour of tape-recorded staff meeting—in an alien
tongue, yet. But you'll not so easily shrug off the up-coming technique: I have
three or four well-trained fellows here who'll take great pleasure in screening
a program of old Nelson Eddy movies. Thereafter, a broken man, you'll only be
too happy to sob out your trivial secrets. Why not save all that and speak up
like a good fellow?" He waved back a Groaci in G.I. eye-shields and a
plain O.D. hip-cloak, who had appeared at the entry wheeling a bulky
old-fashioned movie projector. "Don't think we'll be needing that,
Flish," he muttered.

            "Nelson
Eddy?" Magnan said in a voice that was almost a whimper. "Couldn't we
just start off with the Andrews Sisters to kind of warm up?"

            "No
use pleading for mercy, Ben. Though an affable fellow by nature, I'm as
implacable as a burb-lizard in performance of duty. But just now I must step
out a moment and see how your fellow-rascal, D'ong, is enjoying his
visit." Fith followed the drab technician from the chamber. Magnan sighed.

            "Come
back!" he cried abruptly just as Fith was about to pass from view. "I
understand your implied threat to poor, harmless D'ong. Rather than permit him
to be subjected to the torment, I'll—I'll tell you what you want to know."

            Fith
re-entered the chamber promptly. "Now don't let your imagination run amok,
Ben," he said soothingly. "I merely intended to divert him with a
couple of early Roy Rogers films." He shuddered involuntarily.

            "You'll
find the magic tea bag near the gate, jostled from my grasp by your
ruffians." Magnan blurted.

            Fith
waved all five eye-stalks in a vertiginous pattern. "Are you kidding, vile
Terry?" he inquired conversationally. "Magic tea bags, already."
He stepped outside for a word with his helper, then returned, rubbing his
anterior hands together.

            "Well,
Roy it is," he said with relish. "And Gene Autry's next. I might even
trot out Vera Hruba Ralston, if you prove troublesome."

            Magnan
moaned faintly, his eyes following every move as Fith and his aide set up the
projector and screen.

-

            At the
foot of the steps, Retief waited while Sergeant Yish assisted the injured
hit-man to his feet, netting a sharp rebuke as he tried to dust of his
employee's hopelessly sprung hip-cloak.