Retief and the Rascals (15 page)

            "Not yet," Retief countered.
"I've only laid you aside for destroying later, if necessary. Don't worry,
it won't be long, if the information you're going to give me is accurate, that
is."

            "To tell you nothing, vile Terry!" the
muffled voice yelled. "OK, a deal: I tell you at what moment we plan to
spring the Big Surprise, and you make it back ere before I asphyxiate!"

            "Get it right, Tish," Retief
admonished. The corporal bleated out the timetable. "I'll see you later,
Corporal," Retief said. "Unless you got something wrong, that
is."

            "Perhaps," Tish hissed, "I may
have erred in the timing of the sharpshooters. Actually, it will be just as the
Terran Ex extends the meretricious hand of amity to Counselor Shish! Sorry
about that."

            "Still wrong," Retief replied.
"Shish can't make it."

            "To outrage!" the canned alien hissed.
"To have gone too far this time, Retief! Yes, to know you, infamous
wrecker that you are!"

            "Gosh, I'm famous," Retief replied in
mock astonishment.

            "To stay your hand, rash Terry!" Tish
squeaked. "To rue this fell deed in a matter of seconds now!"

            "The ceremony doesn't start for half an
hour, Corporal. What's going to happen in a couple of seconds?" Retief
inquired. A faint sound came from overhead. "A major realignment of influence
here on this vile world, that's what!" Tish hissed. "Hark!"

            Retief had noted the near-supersonic whistling,
which had been growing in volume, heralding the approach of a covey of VIP
landing craft. Now the sound had risen to a clearly audible screech. He pounded
down the lid on the trash receptacle, muffling Tish's outraged yells, and drove
the Mercer around to the
freight-incoming
area, where he saw Shish's Stutz parked behind a row of crates, and the
Groaci Counselor in a huddle with a group of locals in soiled line-whites.

            Retief pulled the Mercer into the lee of yet
another sizable stack of heavy beelwood crates awaiting processing. He had just
noted the code BG-X
stenciled on
the sides, when Shish, trailed by two Bloorians twice his height, came
scuttling toward his position. When the Groaci appeared to be about to hurry
past, Retief spoke:

            " 'Seized contraband held in bond, awaiting
CDT disposition'," he interpreted the code. "What's it doing here,
stacked in the 'duty-free' area on a non-pact world, Shish?"

            The Groaci shied, losing a jeweled eye-shield as
his oculars snapped erect in reflexive readiness for fight-or-flight.

        "You!" he
hissed, deftly retrieving the bauble.

            "You got that one right, Shish,"
Retief confirmed. "What's going on here? What's your hurry? You didn't set
a track record getting here just to show Sam Swinepearl how zealous you are to
display Groac's solidarity with Terra in sponsoring the Goodies For
Undesirables program." He glanced upward where the incoming covey of
shuttlecraft was now naked-eye visible, coming in in a tight Omar formation.

            "Expecting guests?' Retief asked the
sputtering Groaci official.

            Shish attempted a leg-sweep, netting himself a
dent in his greave.

            "Doing your own legwork now, Shish?"
Retief queried. "No pun intended. That was Wim Dit and his top aides you
were huddling with. What big plan have you sold the poor suckers?"

            "It is you who create a pocket of depleted
molecular density into which atmospheric pressure forces ambient gases!"
Shish objected. "Your Terry figures of speech don't translate all that
well," the confused Groaci commented
en passant.
"In spite of
that, in a few moments now, to stand in awed admiration of my finesse! Sammy
Swinepearl will rue the day he excluded proud Groac from the published list of
honorary sponsors of GFU!" Shish paused, jut as Ben Magnan came up,
puffing.

            "That's preposterous, Shish!" Magnan
snapped. "Groac did all she could to force a measure through EGO to
prohibit the very program you now claim to co-sponsor!"

        "But we relented,
Ben, and cast our vote
for
GFU!"

            "That was, I presume, immediately after
you'd hatched the fell scheme you're hoping to implement here today!" Ben
snapped.

            "Cynicism ill-befits you, Ben!" Shish
snorted. "And as for 'hope', no need for it, Ben!" he went on
triumphantly.

            "Look there!" he pointed to the
descending assault-craft. "One thousand of hand-picked Groacian Rangers!
And the Interplanetary Brigade as well! What gambit can you offer, haughty
Terrans, in riposte to my deft ploy?"

            "Only a thousand?" Retief queried
disparagingly. "Heck, I called out a whole squad of Terry Marines."

            "You
didn't!"
Shish gasped.
"What miscreant leaked the top GUTS plan to you? I shall personally see
him staked out!"

            "Those sulfur pits are going to be pretty
crowded, Shish," Retief interrupted. "You, and young Flinsh, and
Corporal Sish, and a lot of others all provided pieces of the puzzle."

           
"I?"
Shish screeched. "You
suggest that a Groacian Counselor of Embassy would thus sabotage his own
precious plan? Ridiculous!"

            "You led us through your Embassy,"
Magnan pointed out, "when we could scarce fail to note the numerous
evidences of preparation for war and revolution; you fled when you could, and
then led us to this precise spot, just as—" His voice was drowned in the
bellow of braking-rockets as the arriving boats settled in amid whirling gales
of stinging dust particles a hundred yards from the spectators.

            "Drat!" Shish spat as he stamped off
to collar the pilot of the last vessel, which had landed almost atop the stolen
Stutz, covering it with dust. "Hy will be furious!" Shish hissed
through the dying roar of jets.

            "Retief!" Magnan squealed, batting
futilely at the dust obscuring the view of the debarking troops, no two of the
same species, who hustled down the gangways to form up smartly on the ramp.

            "When the Department agreed to sponsor new
uniforms for the Interplanetary Brigade," he blurted, "it was with
the clear understanding their participation would be solely in the role of
honor guard! What treachery is this, bursting in on the ceremony
prematurely?"

            A lone Groaci wearing a particularly ornate
helmet with a great flaring rim reminiscent of the headgear worn by Roman
gladiators scurried around to face the first rank.

            "General Hish!" Magnan muttered.
"I thought the scamp was confined at hard paperwork for life on one of the
penal planetoids, after the fiasco at Slunch!"

            "Hah!" Shish jeered, returning to trot
alongside Magnan as he approached the heavily armed detachment of ill-assorted
troops. "A squad of these savvy Interplanetary Brigade irregulars
trepanned the General from durance vile—"

            "Please," Magnan objected. "You
know how I hate clichés, Shish.
Do
speak more creatively!"

            "Bother creativity!" Shish rejoined.
"To have expended the fruits of my genius on the present coup, one which
will yet ring resoundingly in the annals of interplanetary one-upmanship! Grind
your teeth, Ben, in frustration, as you see your own puny efforts negated by a
superior diplomatic intellect!"

            I don't see anything very diplomatic about a
bunch of assault troops!" Magnan dismissed the taunt.

           
"Au contraire,
Ben!" Shish
hissed. "The select body you so callously refer to as 'assault troops'
are, as you well know, an honor guard, fully authorized by solemn
interplanetary accord. They have been drawn from the armed forces of one
hundred worlds, carefully selected for the honor by a committee of noble
Groacian bureaucrats, qualifying on the basis of virture alone to so
participate in this gesture of multiplanetary solidarity! Observe! Even now
these paragons are falling in to ass in review before Sam Swinepearl and
Ambassador Shinth, and, but for your pernicious interference, myself!"

            "You people conned Secretary
Headfeather!" Magnan charged in a tone of Deep Shock (738-m).

            "Don't waste that rather inept 738 on
me,
Ben Magnan!" Shish snapped. "About an n, wasn't it? You were as
aware as anyone of the deliberation of Headfeather's Interplanetary Tribunal
for the Curtailment of Hostilities!" He offered an elaborately ribboned
and sealed document.

            "Don't try to bring ITCH into this!"
Magnan demanded. "That ineffectual panel of failed Cultural Attaches! You
can't escape responsibility for this atrocity by attempting to implicate
retired Terry bureaucrats motivated only by the highest principles! I'm sure
they had no idea they were giving sanction to armed invasion when they
generously agreed to sponsor a purely symbolic multinational force to
participate in the proceedings!" All present looked up as a line-cart
braked to a halt beside them, and Ambassador Shinth stepped down.

            "The dotards had done well to read the fine
print before they appended their signatures," Shish riposted, before
turning to greet his chief; then he turned back to Magnan. "Listen to this
roll call of distinguished signatories, Ben!" Shish unfolded the
impressive charter and read aloud:

            "'AE and MP Herky Thunderstruck, CDT-CM
(ret).

        " 'Deputy
Undersecretary Ajax Spraddle.

            " 'Former Special Envoy Samson P.
Longspoon', et cetera, et cetera."

            "All superannuated retirees in advanced
senility!" Magnan dismissed the cheeky Groaci's pitch, as he nodded with
his chin. "All trotted out by you Groaci for a last brief moment in the
limelight! A moment which will live in infamy alongside that in which FDR
committed Terran youth to war and death in order to save Communism from
Hitler's tender mercies!"

            As the diplomats chatted, the honor guard had
formed up in a column of ducks, left-faced, and presented a bewildering array
of arms, ranging from a compound bow in the hands of a squat dirt-miner from
Goblinrock to a triple-lens Daser-gun gripped by a professional wrestler type
dragooned from Goldblatt's World. Their uniforms were as varied as their
armaments and faces, which included a number of nearly pure-strain Terran
types, a whole range of sub-human Goods, and a lone barely-humanoid Geek with a
greenish hide, his inconspicuous yellow antlers barely projecting above his
unkempt olive-green Afro.

            General Hish whispered a command to his wrist,
and a burly Furthuronian master sergeant stepped forward and bawled what
sounded like "Smeer!" to the roughly-aligned soldiers. They hung
their heads and, eyes-righted, shuffled their feet and dress-right-dressed into
a precise rank.

            " 'Kay," the sergeant barked.
"Now lessee some snap here!" He proceeded to put the troop through a
highly-modified Queen Anne drill. As each man tossed his weapon, spinning high,
caught it, and snapped to present arms, the NCO turned to Hish and came to the
salute.

            "Two!" Hish rasped. The saluting arms
came down with a
crack!
of hand against pants-seam.

            "At ease! Smoke if you got em!" the
non-com ordered, and the ill-assorted but well-drilled troops went into a
relaxed crouch, each with one hand near his slung arm.

            "Now what?" Magnan yipped. "It's
clear these picked thugs of yours are ready to commit any bestiality you may
choose to order. But—Mr. Ambassador, you wouldn't ...?"

            "So now it's 'Mr. Ambassador', eh,
Ben?" Shish whispered. "What happened to 'Mr. Ambluster', and 'miscreant,'
and so on? Lost some of your arrogance, have you? Face it, Ben, you've been
outfoxed by your superior at the game! My troops, duly authorized—" he
slapped the charter against one of his palms—"perfectly legally, ready, as
you suggest, to implement Groaci policy in any fashion I may select—so just
what are you going to do about it?" He broke oft to speak to the general,
who barked at the sergeant, after which the lead squad went directly to the
nearest stack of crates, unlimbered crowbars, and began ripping slats from the
containers, exposing a layer of heavily cosmolened brown paper which the
sergeant promptly tore aside to reveal closely packed power rifles, dully
glinting in the late sun. A moment later, each of the honor guardsmen had two
or more of the potent small arms in hand briskly, on command, fell in,
about-faced, and rejoined their platoon, handing out the guns to one and all.
After the third case was emptied, every man had at least two weapons, including
one or more of the rifles, at right-shoulder-arms.

            "They're only awaiting the order for the
massacre to begin!" Magnan wailed. "What can be done, Jim?"

            "Let's find out," Retief suggested. He
strolled over to General Hish.

        "Highly disciplined
fellows," he complimented the officer. "Tell them to present
arms." Hish relayed the command to the sergeant.