Retief! (68 page)

Retief threw a sharp glance at the clouds, got out a cigar and lit up, turned from the rail.

A tall, broad-shouldered man in a somber uniform stood by the catwalk mouth. He looked Retief over casually, then came across the close-woven deck, thrust out a large, well-tanned hand.

"My name's Klamper, Planetary Monitor Service. I guess you're the new man."

Retief nodded.

"Let me give you some advice: watch out for the natives. They're sly, tricky devils . . ." He paused. "You were talking to one just now. Don't let him lure you into going down into the native quarter. Nothing down there but natives and dark holes to fall into. A helluva place for a Terry. Knifings, poisonings—Nothing there worth climbing down thirty flights of wicker steps to look at."

Retief puffed at his dope-stick. The wind swirled the smoke away.

"Sounds interesting," he said. "I'll think it over."

"Plenty to do right up here in the consulate tower," Klamper said. "I guess you've seen the Tri-D tank—a twenty-footer—and the sublimation chamber—and there's a pretty good auto-banquet. And don't overlook the library. They've got a few dandy sense-tapes there; I confiscated them from a Joy-boat in a twelve-mile orbit off Callisto last year." The Constable got out a dope-stick, cocked an eye at Retief.

"What do you think of your Groaci boss, Consul-General Jack Dools?"

"I haven't seen much of him, he's been seasick ever since I got here."

"First time I ever ran into a Groaci in the CDT," Klamper said. "A naturalized Terry, I hear. Well, maybe he hasn't got all five eyes on an angle—but I'd say watch him." Klamper hitched up his gun belt. "Well, I'll be shoving off." He glanced at the stormy sky. "Looks like I've got a busy night ahead tonight . . ."

Retief stepped back into the office. A small, round man with pale hair and eyebrows looked up from the chair by Wimperton's desk.

"Oh," Wimperton blinked at Retief. "I thought you'd gone for the day . . ." He folded a sheaf of papers hurriedly, snapped a rubber band around them, turned and dropped them in the drawer of the filing cabinet. The round man hooked a small, glassy smile in position.

Wimperton rose. "Well, I'll be nipping along to dorm tower, I believe, before the wind gets any worse. This breeze is nothing to what we get sometimes. I'd suggest you take care crossing the catwalk, Mr. Retief. It can be dangerous. In a cross-wind, it sets up a steady ripple . . ." His limber hands demonstrated a steady ripple. "Other times it seems to float up and down." He eyed Retief. "I hope the motion isn't bothering you . . . ?"

"I like it," Retief said. "As a boy, I had a habit of eating candy bars—you know, the sticky kind—while standing on my head on a merry-go-round."

Wimperton's eyes stared fixedly at Retief. A fine sweat popped out on his forehead.

"Feels like it's building up, all right," Retief said genially. "Feel that one?"

A distant, thoughtful look crept over Wimperton's face.

"It's good and hot in here, too," Retief went on. "And there's that slight odor of fish, or octopus, or whatever it is . . ."

"Uh . . . I'd better see to the goldfish," Wimperton gasped. He rushed away.

Retief turned to the round-faced man. "How was your trip, Mr. Pird?"

"Ghastly," Pird piped. His voice sounded like a rubber doll. "I visited continents One and Two. Bare rock. No life higher than insects, but plenty of those. You know, it never rains on Poon. All five continents are deserts, and the heat—"

"I understood the Zoological Investigation and Liaison Council Headquarters had financed a couple of wildlife census stations over there," Retief said.

"To be sure, facilities were provided by ZILCH, but, unhappily, no volunteers have come forward to man them." Pird smiled sourly. "A pity; Consul-General Dools has expressed a passionate interest in wildlife." Pird grabbed at a paperweight as it slid across the desk-top. The walls creaked; wind shrilled, flapping the door hanging. The floor heaved, settled back. Pird swallowed, looking pale.

"I believe I'd best be going." He started toward the door.

"Hold it," Retief called. Pird jerked. His eyes blinked.

"Aren't you going to warn me about anything?"

Pird stared for a moment, then scurried off.

Alone, Retief stood with braced feet in the consular office, gloomy now in the eerie light of the stormy sunset. He crossed to the filing cabinet, took a small instrument from a leather case, went to work on the lock. After five minutes' work, the top drawer popped out half an inch.

Retief pulled it open; it was empty. The second contained a dry sandwich and a small green flask of blended whiskey. In the bottom drawer were four dog-eared copies of
Saucy Stories
, a prospectus in full-dimensional color illustrating Playtime on Paradise, the Planet with a Past, glossy catalogs describing the latest in two-seater sport helis, and a fat document secured by a wide rubber band.

Retief extracted the latter, opened the stiff paper. It was an elaborately worded legal instrument. In the fifth paragraph, he read:

"
. . . whereas such body is otherwise uninhabited, unimproved and subject to no prior claim filed with the proper authorities as specified in paragraph 2A (3) d and;
 

Whereas claimant has duly established, by personal occupancy for a period of not less than six Standard Months, or by improvement to a value of . . .
"

Retief read on, then removed the elaborately engraved cover sheet of the document, folded the rest and fitted it into an inside pocket. Outside, the wind rose to a howling crescendo; the floor shuddered, the walls tilted precariously. Retief took a magazine from the drawer, fitted the document cover over it, folded it and snapped the red rubber band in place, then replaced it in the drawer and closed it. The lock seated with a snick. He left the consulate and crossed the swaying catwalk to the next tower.

Retief stood in the doorway of his room, smoking a cigar. Pird, just starting down the stairway, clucked. "Better hurry, sir. Everyone else has gone down. The wind is rising very rapidly."

"I'll be along," Retief looked down the empty corridor, undulating in the dim late-evening light, then went along to a curtain-hung doorway, stepped out onto a windswept balcony from which a swaying wicker catwalk launched itself in a dizzy span to the consulate tower, a hundred yards distant. A dim light winked on in the consular offices, moved above slowly. Retief watched for a moment, then turned up the collar of his windbreaker, stepped off into the dark tunnel of the wildly swinging passage. The gale buffeted at it with a ferocity that had increased even in the quarter-hour he had spent in the dorm tower. The sky had darkened to an ominous mauve, streaked with fiery crimson. Below, lights sparkled all across the lower levels.

Abruptly, the catwalk dropped three feet, came to a stop with its floor canted at a sharp angle. Retief steadied himself, then went on, climbing now. Ten feet ahead, the yellow and blue hanging at the end of the passage was visible. It moved. The slight figure of Consul Dools appeared for a moment, wrapped in a dark poncho, then whisked back out of view.

Retief made another two yards against the bucking of the sloping passage. He could hear a rasping now, a harsh sawing sound. A wedge of electric-purple sky appeared through the wicker roof ahead, widened . . .

With an abrupt crackling of breaking fibers, the end of the catwalk broke free and dropped like an express elevator. Retief locked his fingers in the twisted rattan and held on. The face of the tower flashed past; then the end of the catwalk whipped aside; Retief slid two feet, caught himself with his torso half out the open end. Air shrieked past his face. A foot from his eyes, the severed end of the supporting cable whipped in the wind—cut clean.

Retief looked down, saw the massed lights of the native section swooping up to meet him. A wall rushed close; Retief felt the whistle of air as he brushed it; then he was hurtling past low towers with lighted windows behind which alien faces gaped briefly. He swept low over a narrow street ablaze with colored lights, felt a shock as the catwalk brushed a building somewhere above; then the street was falling away below as the free-swinging catwalk cracked-the-whip, soaring upward, slowing now . . .

A wall loomed before him with a narrow balcony before lighted windows. For an instant, it seemed to hang before his face—and Retief lunged, kicked his legs free of the twisted wicker—and caught the heavy rattan guard rail. He hung on, groping with his feet, with the gale tearing at, shrieking in his ears . . .

Hands gripped him, hauling him up. He shook his head to clear it, felt a heavy hanging brush his face. Then he was standing on a yielding floor, blinking in the soft light of a primitive incandescent lamp, feeling the warmth and strange, spicy odor of an alien room.

A five-foot native stood before him, staring up anxiously with large protruding green eyes in a smooth, olive-colored face. A wide, almost human mouth opened, showing a flash of pink interior.

"Are you all right, buddy?" a strangely resonant voice inquired in the bubbly local tongue.

Retief felt of his jaw, moved his shoulders gingerly. "A little dazed by the speed with which the boys work, but otherwise fine," he replied.

"You speak Poon like a native, by Hoop!" the alien said. "Here, sit down. How about a drink of yiquil?" He indicated a low couch heaped with varicolored cushions, turned to a cupboard, wide webbed feet in bright yellow sandals gripping the swaying floor.

"You fell off a catwalk, eh?"

"Something like that," Retief accepted a deep two-handled porcelain jug, delicately shaped. He sniffed the drink, then sipped.

"My name's Url Yum. I'm a netter for Matwide Fooderies."

"I'm Retief. I'm with the Terran Consulate." He glanced around the room. "Handsome apartment you have here."

"Oh, it's all right—" There was a sharp whistle at the door.

"You feel like meeting a bunch of people? I guess they saw you fall, and they'll be crowding in now to take a look at you; we don't often see Terries here in town, you know."

"I'd rather not go on exhibit right now, Yum."

"Sure, I know how you feel. I had to go over to Dryport on business a few months back, and every other do-gooder wanted to have me in for tea and look me over."

The whistle sounded again at the door. Url Yum padded across to the closet, brought out a large satchel, pulled out bright-colored gear of plastic and metal.

"I was just about to go for a swim. Why don't you join me? You don't want to go back up tonight—in this wind. We can go down the back way. How about it?"

"A swim? In this weather?"

"The best time. Hunting's good; the small stuff shelters under the Mat, and the big stuff is in there hunting them—and we hunt the big stuff." He held up a polished spear-head.

"Look, Yum, I'm just a Terry; I can't hold my breath more than a minute or two."

"Neither can I. That's what the gear's for. You burn oxygen, same as we do, don't you?"

The whistle came again, more peremptory now. "Hey, Yum!" a voice called.

Retief finished his drink. "That yiquil's great stuff, Yum; it's already affecting my judgment. Let's go!"

They stood in a narrow way that wound between high walls hung with lights and signboards, studded with balconies from which pennants fluttered, crowded with brilliantly mantled and jeweled Pupoony, filled with the shriek of wind, the chatter of whistled conversation, and over all the polyphonic creaking of the city.

"I've heard of twisting roads," Retief called. "This is the first time I ever saw one that fit the description."

Yum put his mouth close to Retief's ear. "You know the whistle dialect?"

"I can understand it," Retief shouted back. "But I can't whistle it."

Yum motioned, led the way down a side alley to a sea-shell ornamented hanging, pushed into a low room with couches along one wall, open shelves on another. A portly Poon waddled forward.

"Oi, Yum! Oi, stranger."

"Oi," Yum said. "Gipp, this is Retief. We're going down. Can you fix him up with a spray job?"

"Lucky you came to my place, Yum. I happen to have a compound specially prepared for Terry requirements, a fresh batch, just concocted yesterday."

"Good. Retief, put your stuff over there . . ." Yum opened his satchel, took out equipment, laid it out on a low table. He selected a pair of goggles, handed them to Retief. "These are a little big, but I think they'll seat all right." He handed over a heavy cylinder the size and shape of a beer bottle, added other items.

"OK: propulsion, communication, lights, breathing apparatus, emergency gear. Now, after you strip and get your equipment buckled on, Gipp will fit you with water foils, and spray you in."

Retief donned the gear, watched with interest while the portly proprietor shaped a putty-like material to his feet, forming large fins which stiffened to a rubbery consistency, then brought out a portable apparatus with a tank, compressor, and hose with a wide nozzle.

"Give him a Striding Devil job, Gipp," Yum ordered.

Gipp hesitated, looking at Retief. "I suppose you've had a lot of experience . . . ?"

"He'll be all right," Yum put in. "He catches on fast, and he's got a good arm."

"Whatever you say, Yum—but you ought to warn him that a Death Angel will jump a Strider on sight."

"Sure—that way we don't have to go looking for 'em."

"Well, if you get one, remember I'm paying top sprud for stones."

"You'll get first crack."

Gipp started up the compressor, twiddled knobs, then directed a heavy spray of viscous, greenish fluid on Retief's chest, working it in a pattern that covered him to the knees, then shut down and set about changing hoses.

"What's this stuff for?" Retief inquired, studying the thick, soft layer hardening on his skin.

"Protective covering; it's tough as yuk skin. And it has an osmotic action; passes oxygen in, and CO
₂
out. The color disguises you so you don't scare off the game—and the finished job holds all your gear in place. It's a good insulation, too. That water's cold. It strips off easily when you come back in."