Diplomat at Arms (9 page)

“Yes, yes? How much?”

Magnan inhaled proudly. “Twenty. Million. Credits.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Magnificent! Good lord, Magnan, you’re a genius! This will
mean promotions all around. Why, the administrative load alone—”

“I can’t wait to make planetfall, Mr. Ambassador. I’m all
abubble with plans. I hope they manage to get the docking facilities back in
operation soon.”

“Help is on the way, my dear Magnan. I’m assured the
Environmental Control installations will be coming back in operation again
within a month or two.”

“My,
didn’t those ice-caps form quickly—and in the open sea.”

“Mere scum-ice. As my Counselor for Technical Affairs, you’ll
be in charge of the ice-breaking operation once we’re settled in. I imagine
you’ll want to spend considerable time in the field. I’ll be expecting a record
of how every credit is spent.”

“I’m more the executive type,” Magnan said. “Possibly
Retief—”

A desk speaker hummed. “Mr. Corasol’s lighter has arrived to
ferry Mr. Retief across to the Company ship . . .”

“Sorry you won’t be with us, Retief,” Sternwheeler said
heartily. He turned to Magnan. “Manager-General Corasol has extended Retief an
exequatur as Consul General to Las Palmas.”

Retief nodded. “Much as I’d like to be out in that open boat
with you, breaking ice, I’m afraid duty calls elsewhere.”

“Your own post? I’m not sure he’s experienced enough, Mr.
Ambassador. Now, I—”

“He was requested by name, Magnan. It seems the
Manager-General’s children took a fancy to him.”

“Eh? How curious. I never thought you were particularly
interested in infant care, Retief.”

“Perhaps I haven’t been, Mr. Magnan.” Retief draped his short
blue cape over his left arm and turned to the door. “But remember the
diplomat’s motto: be adaptable . . .”

“The
ancient defender of the principle of self-determination of peoples threw the
elite of its diplomatic shock troops into the fight when local tradition was
threatened at Elora. Holding himself aloof from internal bickering, Ambassador
Hidebinder dealt shrewdly with diverse elements of the power picture, to forge
a bright new page in Corps history . . .”

—Vol. VIII, Reel 7, 450 AE (AD 2951)

Retief
reined in the tall-shouldered urze-beast with a jangle of the hunting-bells
attached to the long-legged mount’s harness. The trail of the dirosaur led
straight ahead, into a dense thicket of iron-rod trees fifty feet distant, now
bent and twisted by the passing of the wounded monster. Far away, the hunting
horns of the main party sounded; Retief smiled. Prince Tavilan would employ a
choice selection of royal oaths when he learned that a mere diplomat had beaten
him to the quarry’s turn-at-bay . . . 

A
windy screech sounded from the depths of the thicket; Retief raised his
saddle-horn, blew an answering blast. There was a clanging of branches, a
scraping of armored hide on metallic bark. Retief dropped the horn to swing at
the pommel; with a pull of a lever, he cocked his cross-bow, sat his mount,
waiting. A tiny head, mostly jaws, armed with a foot-long spike below the
mouth, snaked out from the grove, hissing a ferocious warning. Retief’s
urze-beast stirred, tossed its head at the scent of the dirosaur. Trees
shuddered aside as the great carnivore forced its bulk between them, its
golden-yellow eyes fixed on the man. A clawed foreleg as big as a man’s body
set with rusty scales raked the ground, dragging the predator’s multi-ton bulk
into the clear. With a final clangorous flick of its log-like tail, the
dirosaur broke free, reared its head into striking position, and charged.
Retief raised the cross-bow, took aim—

The cross-bow bucked; Retief spurred aside; he had a
momentary glimpse of a two-foot shaft of polished steel protruding from the eye
socket of the monster as it blundered past, the long neck falling, to collapse
in a cloud of dust, lie twitching, then still.

It was five minutes before the hunt galloped into view,
Prince Tavilan’s black crested urze-beast in the lead. He slowed to a canter,
rode up beside the fallen dirosaur, sat looking down at the open-jawed head,
the yellow eyes, glazing in death.

“That’s another barrel of royal vintage I owe you, Retief,”
he said. “If I ever see the palace cellars again.” He was a tall, wide,
sandy-haired man with a turned-up sunburned-nose. His leather forest garb was
well worn; there were cockleburrs in the snow-tiger facings of his royal Eloran
blue cape. The cross-bow slung across his back was his only weapon.

“We’re wasting time hunting game,” a rider at the prince’s
side said. “There’s a plentiful supply of cross-bow bolts at the lodge; I
propose we ride down to Elora City and distribute them among the good Prime
Minister’s Greenbacks—point first.”

“The King still has hopes the CDT will revise its policy,”
Tavilan glanced at Retief. “If the triple-damned embargo were lifted, Minister
Prouch and his talk of a regency would evaporate faster than the royal treasury
has under his control.”

“Oh, it’s not an Embargo, Your Highness,” Retief said. “I
believe Ambassador Hidebinder refers to it as a unilateral shift in emphasis
balance-of-trade-wise to a more group-oriented—”

“What it adds up to is the Royal Eloran Navy grounded, while
traitors plot in the palace and Dangredi’s pirates raid shipping at the edge of
Eloran atmosphere!” Tavilan smacked a fist into his palm. “I’ve got the finest
corps of naval-combat commanders in the Eastern Arm, forty-five battle-ready
ships of the line—and, thanks to CDT policy, no fuel! So much for my
co-operation with your Ambassador, Retief!”

“Didn’t he explain that, Your Highness? If you had the Big
Picture, it would all make sense. Of course, I’m a Small Picture man myself, so
I’m afraid I can’t be of much help.”

“It’s not your doing, Retief. But ten million Elorans are
about to have a dictatorship clamped on them because I lack a few
megaton/seconds of firepower . . .”

“Your great-grandfather’s mistake was in being a romantic. If
he’d named his planet Drab Conformity, set up a committee of bureaucrats to run
it and used the forest to supply paper mills instead of hunting in them, you’d
be the apple of the collective CDT eye today.”

“The old man led a hard life; when he found Elora it was a
wilderness. He made his fortune—and then arranged matters here to suit
himself—and we Elorans still like parties!”

Retief glanced at the sun. “Speaking of which, I’d better be
starting back; the Grande Balle d’Elore is tonight and Mr. Magnan will be upset
if I’m not there to help him hover nervously for at least an hour before the
Ambassador comes down.”

“Retief, you’re not riding back to the
city . . . ?” Count Arrol looked up from cutting out the
dirosaur’s chin-horn. He stood. “I told you what my man reported. Your
sympathies are too well-known to suit Prouch. Tonight, at the ball—”

“I don’t think the worthy Prime Minister will go that far.
He’s dependent on the good will of the CDT—and diplomat-killing is bad
publicity.”

“The Palace Guard is still loyal,” Tavilan said. “And
remember the lad, Aric; you can trust him with any mission within his strength.
He’s working in the palace as a mess-servant.” He laughed bitterly. “Think of
us as you dance with the fair ladies of the court, Retief. If you see my
father, tell him that my Invincibles and I will continue to skulk here in the
Deep Forest as he commands—but we long for action.”

“I’ll get word to you, Tavilan,” Retief said. “My conspiratorial
instinct tells me that there’ll be action enough for everybody before sunrise
tomorrow.”

In
the Grand Ballroom at the Palace of Elora, Retief cast an eye over the chattering
elite of the court, the gorgeously gowned and uniformed couples, the glum
representatives of the People’s Party, the gaudily uniformed diplomats from
Yill, Fust, Flamme, and half a hundred other worlds. A cluster of spider-lean
Groaci whispered together near a potted man-eating plant, one leaf of which
quivered tentatively, seemed to sniff the aliens, withdrew hastily. Retief
plucked a glass from a wide silver tray offered by a bright-eyed mess-boy in a
brocaded bolero jacket and a cloth-of-gold turban, who glanced quickly around
the crowded ballroom, then stepped close to whisper:

“Mr. Retief—the rascals are forcing the lock on your room!”

Retief passed the glass under his nose, sipped.

“Exactly which rascals do you mean, Aric?” he murmured.
“We’ve got about four sets to choose from.”

Aric grinned. “A couple of the Groaci Ambassador’s boys,” he
whispered. “The ones he usually uses for high-class back-alley work.”

Retief nodded. “That would be Yilith and Sith, formerly of
the Groaci Secret Police. Things must be coming to a head. It’s not like old
Lhiss to take such direct action.” He finished the drink in his hand, put the
empty glass on a black marble table.

“Come on, Aric. Ditch that tray and let’s take a walk.”

In the broad mirror-hung corridor, Retief turned to the
right.

“But, Mr. Retief,” Aric said. “Your apartment’s in the other
direction . . .”

“They won’t find anything there, Aric—and it would be
embarrassing for all concerned if I caught them red-handed. So while they’re
occupied, I’ll just take this opportunity to search their rooms.”

At the top of the wide spiral staircase that led from the
public areas of the palace to the living quarters assigned to foreign
diplomatic missions, Retief paused.

“You wait here, Aric.” He went along the corridor to the
third door, a simple white-painted panel edged with a tiny carved floral
design. He tried the large gold doorknob, then took a slender instrument from
an inner pocket of his silver-epauletted tangerine mess jacket and delicately
probed the lock. The bolt snicked back. He eased the door open, glanced around,
then stepped back out and beckoned Aric to him.

“How’d you get it open, Mr. Retief?”

“Locks are a hobby of mine. Patrol the corridor, and if you
see anybody, cough. If it’s one of my Groaci colleagues, have a regular
paroxysm. I won’t be long.”

Inside the room, Retief made a fast check of the desk, the
dresser drawers, the undersides of furniture. He slapped sofa cushions, prodded
mattresses for telltale cracklings, then opened the closet door. Through the
wall, faint voices were audible, scratchy with the quality of narrow-range
amplification. He stooped, plucked a tiny earphone from a miniature wall
bracket. Ambassador Lhiss, it appeared, was not immune from eavesdropping by
his own staff.

Retief put the ’phone to his ear.

“ . . . agreed, then,” Ambassador
Hidebinder’s voice was saying. “Seventy-two hours from now, and not a moment
before.”

“Just see that you keep your end of the bargain,” a thin
Groaci voice lisped. “This would be a poor time for
treachery . . .”

“I want it clearly understood that our man will be treated in
a reasonably civilized fashion, and quietly released to us when the affair is
completed.”

“I suggest you avoid over-complicating the arrangements with
last minute conditions,” the Groaci voice said.

“You’ve done very well in this affair,” Hidebinder came back.
“Your profits on the armaments alone—”

“As I recall, it was you who proposed the scheme; it is you
who wish to place homeless Soetti rabble on Elora, not we . . .”

Retief listened for another five minutes before he snapped
the phone back in its bracket, stepped quickly to the door; in the hall, Aric
came to meet him.

“Find anything, Mr. Retief?”

“Too much . . .” Retief took a pen from his
pocket, jotted a note.

“See that this gets to Prince Tavilan at the lodge; tell him
to get the Invincibles ready, but to do nothing until I get word to him—no
matter what.”

“Sure, Mr. Retief, but—”

“Let’s go, Aric. And remember: you’re more help to me outside
than inside . . .”

“I don’t follow you, Mr. Retief . . .” Aric
trotted at his side. “Outside what . . . ?”

“We’ll know in a few minutes; but wherever I wind up, watch
for a signal . . .”

From the head of the Grand Staircase, Retief saw the glint of
light on steel. Two men in the dull black and green of the People’s Volunteers
stood in the corridor.

“Hey, Mr. Retief,” Aric whispered. “What are Greenbacks doing
in the palace . . . ?”

“Simple, Aric. They’re standing guard over my door.”

“Maybe somebody caught those Groaci trying to break in . . .”

“Drop back behind me, Aric—and remember what I
said . . .”

Retief walked up to his door, took out an old-fashioned
mechanical key, inserted it in the lock. One of the two armed soldiers stepped
up, made a threatening motion with his rifle butt.

“Nobody goes in there, you,” he growled. He was a broad-faced
blonde, a descendant of the transported felons who had served as contract labor
on Elora a century earlier.