Read Retief-Ambassador to Space Online
Authors: Keith Laumer
Retief-Ambassador to Space
CONTENTS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
End of
Retief-Ambassador to Space
1
As Retief paid off his canal barge and
stepped up on the jetty, Second Secretary Magnan pushed his way through the
throng at the wharf entrance to the Royal Enclosure, his narrow face flushed
with exertion. "There you are!" he cried as he spied his junior.
"I've been searching everywhere! Ambassador Pinchbottle will be
furious—"
"What's that on your head?"
Retief eyed a half-inflated bladder of a sour yellow color which lolled over
Magnan's left ear.
Magnan rolled an eye up at the
varicolored cluster which bobbed with each movement, draggled feathers wagging
and lengths of dirty string swaying, the entire assembly secured under his chin
by a stained pink ribbon.
"Why, that's my ceremonial
Rockamorra headdress; here ..." He fumbled in his violet afternoon formal
cutaway, brought out a bundle of puckered balloons and feathers, offered it.
"Here's one for you: you'd better slip into it at once. I'm afraid a
couple of the plumes are bent—"
"Where's the Ambassador?"
Retief interrupted. There's something I have to tell him—"
"There are a number of things
you'll be expected to tell him!" Magnan snapped. "Including why
you're half an hour late for the Credentials Ceremony!"
"Oh-oh; there he goes with the
staff, headed for the temple; excuse me, Mr. Magnan ..." Retief pushed off
through the crowd toward the wide doorless entry set in the high, blocky
structure at the end of the courtyard. A long-legged, short-bodied, neckless
local with immense flat feet, wearing an elaborate set of ruffles and holding a
pike waved him through. The Ambassador and his four staff members were grouped
in the gloom a few yards distant, before a gaudy backdrop of luminous plastic
in slime green, dyspepsia pink and cirrhotic yellow.
"... classic diplomatic
coup," Pinchbottle was saying. "I should like to see the looks on the
faces of our Groaci collegues when they learn we've stolen a march on
them!"
"Mr. Ambassador," Retief
started—
Pinchbottle spun, stared for an
instant at a point just above Retief's belt-buckle, then tilted his spherical
bald head back, gazed up at his junior.
"I've warned you about
pussyfooting, Retief!" he yelped. "When you're around me, stamp your
feet when you walk!"
"Mr. Ambassador, I'd like—"
The senior diplomat raised a small,
plump-fingered hand. "Spare me a catalogue of your likes and dislikes, Mr.
Retief! The ceremony is about to begin." He turned to include a wider
audience. "Gentlemen, I trust you all observed my handling of protocol
since our arrival here on Rockamorra this morning. Scarcely six hours, and
we're about to become the first diplomatic mission ever to be accredited to
this world! A world, I need not remind you, with a reputation for vigorous
commercial activity and unrelenting hostility to diplomats; and yet I—"
"Before this goes any farther, Mr.
Ambassador"— Retief cut in—"I think—"
"May I remind you, sir!"
Pinchbottle shrilled. "I
am
talking! About a subject of vast
importance, namely myself! Er, my contribution, that is, to diplomatic
history—"
A pair of robed Rockamorrans bustled
up waving elaborate candelabra which emitted clouds of pungent red and green
smoke; they struck poses before the Terrans, intoned resonant ritual phrases in
sonorous tones, then stepped back, One pointed a thin, multi-jointed digit at
Retief, made a sound like a saw blade dragged across a base-viol string.
"Where's your headdress,
Retief?" Pinchbottle hissed.
"I don't have one; what I wanted
to tell you—" "Get one! Instantly! And take your place in my
entourage!" the Ambassador screeched, moving off at the heels of the local
officials. Magnan, rushing up at that moment, waved the bladders excitedly.
"Don't bother inflating it, just get it on!" "Never mind
that," Retief said, "I won't be needing it."
"What do you mean? We all have to
wear them—" "Not me; I won't be taking part in the ceremony; and I
advise you to—"
"Crass insubordination!"
Magnan gasped, and rushed off in the Ambassador's wake, as large bouncers moved
in to bar the headdressless Retief from following.
It was a colorful ceremony, involving
a vigorous symbolic beating of the diplomats with real laths, immersion in a
pond which to judge from the expressions of the bathers when they surfaced, was
considerably chillier than the bracing morning air, and finishing off with a
brisk run around the compound— ten laps—during which the panting Terrans were
spurred to creditable efforts by quirtwielding native dignitaries loping along
behind them. Retief, observing the activities from a position among the curious
at the sidelines, won ten credits in local currency on the Chief of Mission
whose form he had correctly judged superior to that of his staff in the final
event.
Amid a tolling of deep-toned gongs,
the Rockamorran officials herded the wheezing Terrans together, read off a long
speech from a scroll; then a small local stepped forward bearing a six-foot
sword on a purple velvet cushion lettered MOTHER—a Terran import, Retief noted.
A tall Rockamorran in mauve and puce
vestments strode up, lifted the sword; the Ambassador backed a step, said,
"Look here, my good man—" and was prodded back into line. The
sword-handler solemnly hung a beaded baldric over the stout diplomat's
shoulderless frame and attached the scabbard to it.
The locals fell silent, staring at the
Terran Envoy expectantly.
"Magnan, you're protocol officer;
what am I supposed to do now?" the Ambassador muttered from the corner of
his mouth.
"Why, I'd suggest that Your
Excellency just sort of, ah, bow and then we all turn and leave, before they
think up any more tortures—"
"All right, men: all together,"
Pinchbottle whispered hoarsely. "About face—" Magnan yelped as the
two-yard-long cutlass connected solidly with his shin as the group turned; then
they strode away, the Ambassador in the lead, drawn up to his full five feet,
with the sword cutting a trail in the dust behind him. There was a happy mutter
from the locals, then a swelling shout of joy; eager hands clapped the Terrans
on the back, offered them sulphuretted dope sticks, proffered flasks of green
liquid as the ceremony broke up into mutual rejoicing.
Retief made his way through the press,
intercepted the Ambassador as he pushed through.
"Well, Retief!" the latter
barked. "Absented yourself from the proceedings, I noted! Having sulked in
your quarters during the voyage out, you now boycott official functions! I'll
see you in my office as soon as I've seen to the safekeeping of this handsome
ceremonial weapon I've been awarded—"
"That's what I wanted to tell
you, Mr. Ambassador; it's not ceremonial. You're expected to use it."
"What? Me use this?"
Pinchbottle smiled sourly. "I shall hang it on the wall as a symbol—"
"Possibly later, sir,"
Retief cut in. "Today you have a job to do with it."
"A job?"
"I think you misunderstood the
nature of the ceremony. The Rockamorrans don't know anything about diplomacy.
They thought you came here to help them—"
"As indeed we did,"
Pinchbottle snorted. "Now if you'll stand aside—"