Retief! (51 page)

"You, there! Where are you going?" He hummed in Voion tribal.

"Back where a fellow can dip a drinking organ in a short Hellrose and nibble a couple of sourballs without some flat-wheel flapping a mandible at him," Retief replied shortly. "One side, you, before I pry that badge off your chest to give to the grubs for a play-pretty."

The Voion retreated. "Tell the other hicks to stay clear of the city," he rasped. "Now get rolling before I run you in."

Retief thrust past him with a contemptuous snap of his left chela. The sun was almost down now, and few lamps had gone on in the shops to light the way. There were no other Quoppina in sight, only the sullen black of the Voion, many of them with the crude shell inlays and filed fangs of tribesmen. The port, Retief estimated, would be off to the right, where the last purplish gleam of sunset still showed above the building tops. He headed that way, one elbow touching the butt of the power gun.

Clustered polyarcs gleamed down from tall poles to reflect on the space-scarred hulls of half a dozen trade vessels as Retief came up to the sagging wire fence surrounding the port. More lights gleamed by the gate where four Voion were posted, twirling clubs.

"Which one of you blackwheels do I bribe to get in?" Retief called out in Tribal.

All four Voion spoke at once; then one waved an arm for silence. "I'm corporal of the guard here, rube," he buzzed. "What have you got in mind?"

"Well, now, what's the going price?" Retief sauntered casually to a position two yards from the open gate.

"You talking Village, or Terry credit?"

"Do I look like I'm hauling thirty or forty pounds of Rock around with me?" Retief inquired. "I just peddled a cargo of country booze down at the barracks. I've got enough Terry credit to hang the four of you with."

"Have you, now?" The quartet shifted positions to encircle Retief, a move which placed two of them farther from the gate than himself.

"You bet." He reached into the pouch slung at his hip, pulled out a tangle of plastic, gained another step toward the corporal, who canted his oculars at the cash.

"Here, catch." Retief tossed the credit. As the NCO reached to snare it, the other three Voion said "hey!" and converged on him. Retief stepped through the gate, slammed it, clicked the hanging padlock shut, leaving the four guards outside.

"Hold on there, you!" the corporal keened. "You can't go in there!"

"I figured you sharpies would hold out on me," Retief said. "Well, I'm in now. You can yell for the sergeant and turn the bundle over to him, or you can forget you saw me and work out a fair split. So long."

"Hey," one of the Voion said. "Look at the way that Stilter walks! Like a Terry, kind of . . ."

"Are you kidding?" the corporal inquired.

"Look, fellows, the way I see it, what's it to us if this yokel wants to sight-see . . . ?"

Retief moved off as the foursome settled down to quarreling over the loot, headed for the nearest of the five ships in sight, a battered thousand tonner with the purple and yellow comet insignia of the Four Planet Line. The few lounging locals in sight ignored him as he went to the rear access ladder, swung up and stepped inside. A startled Voion looked up from a litter of papers and clothes spilled from a locker, the door of which had been pried from its hinges. As the looter reached for a club lying on a table, Retief caught his outstretched arm, spun him around, planted a foot against his back, and launched him toward the open entry. The Voion emitted a thin screech as he shot through, yelped as he hit the pavement below with a splintering crash.

Retief swarmed up the ladder to the cargo deck, rode the one-man lift to the control compartment, cycled the other lock shut, then quickly checked gauges.

"Swell," he said softly. "Just enough fuel to stage a blazing reentry." He whirled to the lifeboat bay, cycled the hatch. Two tiny one-man shells rested in their slings. Retief wiped dust from the external inspection panel of the nearest, saw the dull red glow of panic lights indicating low accumulator charge, a leaky atmosphere seal, and over-aged fuel. He checked the second boat; its accumulators read full charge, though it, too, was leaking air and indicating a decayed fuel supply. Retief went back to the panel, flipped a key, glanced at the ground-view screens. Voion were closing in on the vessel from three sides; he recognized the evicted impulse shopper in the van, limping on an out-of-round wheel.

He went back to the Number Two lifeboat, popped the canopy, climbed inside, fitting himself into the cramped seat, taking care to settle his rotors and wing cases comfortably, then closed the hatch. He activated the warm-up switch; panel lights blinked on. The boat was flyable—maybe. Retief kicked in the eject lever and slammed back in the padded seat as the rocket blast hurled the tiny boat skyward.

Level at five thousand feet, Retief set a northeast course. As he looked back at the pattern of city lights below, a brilliant red light glowed, climbed upward from a point near the center of the town, burst in a shower of whirling pin-wheels of green, yellow, magenta. A second rocket went up, then three together, more, shedding a carnival glow over the clustered towers of the city. Retief punched a button on the tiny panel, twirled a dial.

" . . . laration of the establishment of a new era of Quopp-wide peace and plenty," a voice boomed from the radio, "under the benign and selfless leadership of His Omnivoracity, our glorious leader, Prime Minister Ikk! All loyal Quoppina are instructed to remain in their village or other place of residence until tax assessors, draft board officials, and members of the emergency requisition team have completed initial surveys. All citizens will be required to purchase a copy of
New Laws and Punishments
, for sale at all newsstands for a low, low nine ninety-eight, plus tax. Failure to possess a copy will be punishable by Salvage. And now, a word from our effulgent chief, the great liberator of Quopp, Prime Minister Ikk!"

There was a prolonged burst of shrill prerecorded applause that made Retief's eardrums itch, then the familiar tones of the Voion leader:

"Fellow Voion, and you other, shall I say, honorary Voion," he started. "Now that the planet is free, certain changes will be made; no longer will the unenlightened struggle on, following erroneous tribal customs! We Voion have figured out all the answers, and—"

Retief flicked off the radio, settled down for the eighty mile run ahead.

The lifeboat rocked abruptly, as though it had glanced off a giant, spongy pillow. Retief banked to the right, scanned the sky above. A wide, dark shape swooped quickly past; there was a sudden buffeting as the small craft pitched in the backwash of the thirty-foot rotors of a giant Rhoon. It swung in a wide circle, climbing, then pivoted sharply, stooped again, hurtling straight at him like a vast pouncing eagle. Retief slammed the controls full over, felt the lifeboat flip on its back, drop like a stone toward the jungle below. He rolled out, shot away at full thrust, at right angles to his previous course. Off to the right the Rhoon tilted up in a sharp turn, faint starlight gleaming from its spinning rotors, swelling enormously as it closed. Again Retief dove under it, pulled out to find it close on his port side, angling in across his bows. He gave the boat full throttle, shot under the Rhoon's yellow-green head, then pulled the nose up, climbing . . .

The skiff was sluggish under him, staggering; he reduced the angle of climb, saw the Rhoon dropping in from his port quarter. Again he dived, leveled out this time a scant thousand feet above the dark jungle below. A glance to the right showed the Rhoon banking in for another pass; its mighty rotors drove it effortlessly at twice the speed the skiff could manage on its outdated fuel. Retief saw its four ten-foot-long armored fighting members, its gaping jaws armed with saw-edged fangs that could devour any lesser Quoppina in two snaps. At the last moment, he rolled to the right, went over on his back, snapped out of the maneuver to whip off to the left, coming around sharply on the Rhoon's flank. With a jerk at the release handle, he jettisoned the canopy; it leaped clear with a dull boom, and a tornado of air whipped at Retief's face. He jerked the power gun clear of its holster, took aim, and as the Rhoon banked belatedly to the right, fired for the left rotor. Yellow light glared from the whipping blades as Retief held the beam full on the spinning hub; a spot glowed a dull red; then a puff of vapor whiffed up—and suddenly the air was filled with whining fragments, whistling past Retief's exposed head and ricocheting off the skiff's hull. Retief held the beam on target another five seconds, saw the Rhoon tilt almost vertically, vibrating wildly as the damaged rotor shook itself to pieces; something small and dark seemed to break from the Rhoon then, clung for a moment, dropped free. Then the great predator was on its back, a glimpse of gray belly plates and folded legs, then gone as the boat shot past. At that moment, a violent shock slammed Retief hard against the restraining harness. He grabbed the controls, fought to pull the boat up. A flat expanse of black wilderness swung up past the nose, rolled leisurely over the top, then slid down the left side . . .

The controls bit into the air then; fighting vertigo, Retief hauled the boat out of the spin. The motor barked once, twice, snarled unevenly for a moment, then died. The ship bucked, wanting to fall off on its port stub-wing. A glance showed torn metal, a dark stain of leaking coolant. The skiff was no more than a hundred feet above tree level now; ahead a tall spike-palm loomed. Retief banked to the right, felt the boat drop under him. He caught a momentary glimpse of the immense wreckage of the Rhoon strewn across half an acre of bushy treetops; then he was crashing through yielding foliage, the boat slamming left, then right, then upended, tumbling, dropping to a final splintering crash of metalwood, a terrific impact that filled the tiny cockpit with whirling fireworks even brighter than the ones over the city, before they faded into a darkness filled with distant gongs . . .

Something sharp poked Retief in the side, a vigorous jab that bruised even through the leather strip that joined the dorsal and ventral plates of his costume. He made an effort, sat up, reached to investigate the extent of the skull fracture, felt the metallic clang as his claw touched the painted Voion headpiece. The tough armor, it seemed, had its uses. He pushed the helmet into alignment, looked around at a torch-lit clearing among the boles of great trees, and a ring of three-foot blue-green Quoppina, members, he saw, of the Ween tribe, all eyeing him with faintly luminous oculars, their saber-like fighting claws ready, their scarlet biting apparatus cleared for action.

"Hoo. Meat-fall-from-sky moving around," a tiny, penetrating voice keened in heavily accented Tribal. "Us better slice it up quick, before it get clean away."

Retief got to his feet, felt for the gun with his elbow. It was gone—lost in the crash. One midget meat-eater, bolder than the rest, edged closer, gave a tentative snap of his immense white-edge claw. Retief worked levers, clacked back at him.

"Stand back, little fellow," he said. "Don't you recognize a supernatural apparition when you see one?" He moved to put his back to a tree.

"What you mean, big boy?" one of the natives demanded. "What that big word mean?"

"It means it's bad medicine to cook a stranger," Retief translated.

"Hmm, that mean we is got to eat you raw. How is you, tough?"

Retief drew the short sword. "Tough enough to give you a bellyache, I'd estimate."

"Hey, what kind of Quopp is you, anyway?" someone inquired. "I ain't never see one like you before."

"I'm a diplomat," Retief explained. "We mostly lie up during the day and come out at night to drink."

"A Dipple-mac. Hmmm. Ain't never heard of that tribe before, is you, Jik-jik?"

"Can't say as I is. Must come from over the mountain."

"How you get here, Meat-from-sky?" somebody called. "You ain't got the wingspan for no flying."

"In that." Retief nodded toward the smashed shell of the skiff.

"What that?" one native inquired. Another prodded the machine with a small wheel, adapted for rough jungle trails. "Whatever it is, it dead." He looked at Retief. "You friend no help to you now, big boy. You is all alone."

"You a long way out of your territory, Stilter," another said. "Ain't never see one like you before. What you doing here in Ween country?"

"I'm just passing through," Retief said. "I'm looking for a party of Terrans that wandered off-course. I don't suppose you've seen them?"

"I heard of them whatchacallums—Terrans. They twelve feet high and made out of jelly, I hears; and they takes their wheels off at night and leaves 'em outside."

"That's the group. Any sign of them in these parts?"

"Nope," the Ween crossed their rear oculars, indicating negation.

"In that case, if you'll stand aside, I'll breeze on my way and let you get back to whatever you were doing when I dropped in."

"What we was doing, we was starving, Meat-from-sky. Your timing good."

"Jik-jik, you all the time talking to something to eat," someone said from the ranks. "What you all say to a nice barbecue sauce on this meal, with greens on the side?"

There was a sudden flurry of sound from the near distance, punctuated by shrill cries.

"Get your feather-picking members off me, you ignorant clodhoppers!" a thin Voion voice screeched. "I'm a member of the Planetary Armed Forces! There's a big reward—" the speech cut off in mid-sentence; threshing sounds followed. Moments later, three Ween pushed into the clearing, hauling the limp figure of a bright-polished member of the Planetary Police. He groaned as they dropped him; one of his wheels, badly warped, whirled lopsidedly.

"Hoo, this evening shaping up," someone said. The Voion was lying on his back, waving all four arms feebly.

"You can't do this to me," the captive tweeted. "In the name of the Wo—" The Ween standing closest to the fallen policeman brought his immense claw around and with a sound like a pistol shot nipped off the newcomer's head with a single snap.