Reward for Retief (16 page)

            "What—?" she
started, as Magnan stumbled into view.

            "Oh, there you
are!" he yelped, as one solving a mystery. "I just stepped out to
look around, and found I was lost; then I heard voices."

            "I know," Retief
told him. "Sit down, try one of these."

            "Oh, I do love club
sandwiches!" Magnan gushed, and sank down, breathing hard; he shied as he
noticed Nudine's inadequate towel, but accepted a sandwich and took a hearty
bite. "I was starving!" he said as he chewed. "Where ...?"

            "Jacinthe," Retief
said formally, "this is Mr. Magnan, First Secretary of the Terran Embassy
to Sardon."

            "Where's that at?"
the girl inquired. "Hi," she added. "You look hot, Mister. Why
don't you take off that old coat?"

            "Thank you,"
Magnan replied coldly, still standing aloof. "I shall retain
all
my
garments."

            "You gonna bathe off
with yer clothes on?" she persisted.

            "I have no intention,
Madame," Magnan told her, "of 'bathing off,' as you so curiously
phrase it."

            "What did Mister
say?" Jacinthe appealed to Retief.

            "He disapproves of your
informal attire," Retief explained.

            "Don't misunderstand
me, my dear," Magnan interpolated. "I'm no bluenose. I understand
that under primitive conditions, one necessarily relaxes the more restrictive
social taboos."

            Nudine frowned prettily at
Retief in puzzlement. "Why don't Mister talk like folks?" she asked.

            "Mr. Magnan bears a
great burden," Retief explained between bites. "He is charged with
maintaining the Image."

            "I don't see no
image," Nudine objected. "Yes," Retief agreed. "That's
precisely the problem." "I guess you fellers are both kinda
weird," Jacinthe commented. "Gorblorian chocolate pie OK fer
desert?" "Ideal," Retief conceded.

            "How about you,
Pop?" she queried Magnan, who, though still averting his eyes, seemed a
trifle calmer now. He nodded absently, and looked about as if noticing the
idyllic setting for the first time, and drew a deep breath.

            "That's it, Pop, loosen
up," his hostess encouraged. She spoke again to the bush:

            "Three blurb flops on a
biscuit," she commanded. Then, to Retief: "A bottle o' the good stuff
with that?" she offered. Retief nodded.

            "OK, Buzzy,"
Nudine amplified the order. "Nice cold Chateau d*Yquem with them
flops."

            "You call Gorblorian
chocolate pie *blurb flops'?" Magnan inquired distastefully.

            "What it looks like,
Pop," the girl affirmed.

            Magnan leaned back on one
elbow and fanned himself with one hand. "One can't help think of Manet's
Dejeuner
sur Uherbe"
he commented contentedly.

            "Rather set Paris on
her ear back in eighteen-seventy-something Old Style."

            "Except that Jacinthe
has a considerably better figure," Retief corrected.

            "To be sure,"
Magnan agreed, at last looking her over openly. "It's not so bad,
actually, if one simply thinks of it as an artless work of art, so to
speak."

            "Thanks a
lot,
Pop,"
Jacinthe put in coldly. "That musta been some bitch!"

            "Your language, my
dear!" Magnan gasped.

            "Let's leave my
language lay, Pop," she suggested just as the pie and wine arrived. Buzzy
showed Retief the label, then uncorked the flask and offered the cork to
Jacinthe to be sniffed, then poured the deep amber nectar into paper-thin
glasses.

            "Buzzy don't do the whole
number with letting the hostess sample it first," Nudine explained.
"Waste o' time. Our stuff is always good. After all, figgerin how we get
it, I guess it oughta be."

            "And just how
do
you
get a chateau-bottled wine here in this remote backwater?" Magnan asked.

            "Same way as we get the
rest o' the stuff," Jacinthe told him. "Old Worm," she added.

            "Oh," Magnan said,
as if enlightened. "But," he went on briskly, selecting one of the
three many-layered wedges of gooey brown dessert. "Urn, smells heavenly,"
he interrupted himself. "But we didn't come here to spend the time in idle
conversation. Par me," he concluded, swallowing. "Frightfully rude of
me to talk with my mou' full. I was trying to say we came as liberators, my
dear, but so far all we've done is accept your hospitality."

            "Anything wrong with my
hospertality, Pop?" Jacinthe challenged. "Have another slug of good
ole Wykwim."

            "That's
'Eekem',"
Magnan corrected as she filled his glass.

            "What I said," the
girl replied. "Good stuff; goes good with vaniller ice cream."

            "As I was about to
point out," Magnan put in, sounding pained, "our mission here is that
of emancipators, not gourmets. So perhaps we'd best just finish up our
blurb-flops, and be off about our business."

            "I got no business,"
Jacinthe corrected gently. "Anything I got somebody needs, I give 'em
some. Like the pie," she added.

            "And what was that
about worms?" Magnan queried belatedly.

            "Well, you know. And
its 'the Worm,' not worms'."

            "But indeed I do
not
know," Magnan corrected sharply. "If I knew, I should hardly
waste breath in requesting clarification."

            "Yer doin it again,
Mister," Nudine pointed out. "All I said was about old Worm gives us
the stuff."

            Magnan stared at her with a
bewildered expression. "Some local god?" he managed.

            "Nothin like
that," Nudine dismissed the suggestion.

            The halcyon mood was abruptly
shattered by a yell as of mortal agony, or insane rage, or both, followed at
once by the crash of something—or someone—bursting through the rhododendrons.

            "Awright, let's shape
up here," Looie growled, for it was indeed he.

            "Good Lord,"
Magnan moaned. "At first glance it looked like Mr. Segundo; and it is
indeed he."

            "You mean it's 'him,' I
guess," Nudine corrected. "Hi, Looie," she continued. "What's
biting your ass this time?"

            "Same as before,"
Segundo snarled. "Tole ya I can't stand seeing anybody having a good time.
That's what you call 'morals.' So you better beat it before I get mad.
Arrghhh!"

            Magnan rose defensively;
Segundo knocked him aside and advanced on the girl. As he reached for her
towel, Retief knocked him down, then hauled him half-upright by one arm and
pitched him back in the direction from which he had come.

            "You can re-escape
now," Retief told him, ignoring the surly fellow's roars.

            "Changed my mind,"
Looie said in a normal tone. "You done spoiled it fer me, you and that
Mister Magnan. No offense to you, Nudie."

            "Plenty of offense to
me, Lou," she returned spiritedly. "When you come busting in on me
and my friends, Jim and Pop here, I get offended. Now, since Jimmy says you can
go, I guess maybe you better, less you want to go fer a dip with yer pockets
full o' rocks." She picked up one of the latter and pegged it at the
now-whimpering Looie and turned away, recovering her towel with a quick grab as
it almost fell. This time she draped it over the other shoulder.

            "You know you ain't
allowed in this part, Lou," she reminded the crestfallen intruder.
"Thought you was planning a big escape."

            "No fun," Lou
grunted. "Damn pillars never done nothing to stop me."

            More trampling feet heralded
the arrival of another large man who blundered to a stop before Nudine and
after a quick glance, bowed from the waist. "Par me all to hell, honey, if
I busted in on yer ablutions and all," he said formally. "Seen smoke
yonder," he added, pointing vaguely.

            "Why, it's Mister
Big," Magnan remarked brightly. "And where, pray, is young
Bill?"

            "Oh, he's horsing
around with some comedians thought they knew something about martial arts. Be
here in a minute, I reckon. Hi, Retief." Big Henry looked around.
"Right purty spot," he commented. "Oh, you been having
blurb-turds on a flapjack," he exclaimed as he noted the leftovers of the
meal. "Some nice-looking wine, too. Got any more?"

            Retief introduced Henry to
Jacinthe, who promptly ordered lunch for him, and for the not-yet-arrived Bill
as well. Retief had escorted the grambling Looie off along the path, passing
Bill on the way in.

            "Good riddance to
that
feller," Big commented to Magnan. "Name's Dirty Eddie; come in
the Club once, and tried to start trouble. I hadda run him off."

            "Precisely,"
Magnan agreed. "Except he told
us
his name was Mr. Segundo. The
ruffian burst in upon us here, and would have created a scene had I not spoken
sharply to him. Do sit down, sergeant," he added as Bill arrived.

            "Usually takes more'n
talk to get rid o' old Eddie," Big observed, nodding to Retief as he
returned.

            "Well, Retief
did
fell
the scamp," Magnan conceded. "But I had already let him know he was
unwelcome."

           
"That
don't
bother Eddie none," Big pointed out. "Wonder what's burning
yonder?" Nudine looked worriedly where he pointed to a smudge of smoke
above the trees.

            "Say, Mr. Retief,"
Bill spoke up, "what kinda place is this? Over the other side, the gate
was wide open. We come in, and hadda sock our way through a gang o' crudbums
didn't wanna excape. We told 'em, 'OK you're free; we come to liberate youse!*
And they trieda jump us. Big hadda lay some slobs out cold, and I gave a couple
of 'em some lessons in counter-punching. All talking at once, sounded like
we
was the enemy. Funny kinda place. And now here's you and Mr. Magnan having
brunch on the grass just like that old painting I seen once, only the lady here
ain't fat. What's there, yonder?" He switched subjects abruptly, pointing
toward the cluster of golden domes visible above the foliage downstream.

            "What we were just
wondering, my boy," Magnan supplied.

            "Them's—" Big
started.

            "Don't ast,"
Nudine advised.

            "Don't matter to
me," Bill dismissed the topic. "But who are these here Terries think
they're so tough?"

            "I think you just
happened to run into the local over-privileged element," Retief told the
lad. "Having used up or smashed everything they could find, and refusing
to do anything useful, and at the same time making trouble for everyone they
met, they're naturally dissatisfied with the social order, but instead of
leaving quietly they prefer to stay on and bitch about injustice. It's a lot
like every other place, as well as I can judge from what Looie told me."

            "Oh, I heard plenty
about that Looie," Bill replied. "One o' them boys jumped us said
somebody name Looie, or maybe the one they call Eddie, trieda set hisself up as
boss and got hisself beat up some and he taken off."