Reward for Retief (17 page)

            "Not very far,"
Magnan sniffed. "He was here, introducing a discordant note into our
idyll, but a moment since."

            Bill sat down and started in
on the sandwiches. After a brief conference with Big, Nudine had ordered more,
plus a hearty stew for the leader of the Cloud-Cuckoo Club, which he devoured
single-mindedly, along with an oversized mug of the poteen.

            "Plenty good eats, Miss
Jacinthe," he acknowledged. "Booze ain't bad, too." He belched
comfortably in confirmation of his remark. "Near as good as the
Club."

            "Now, Sergeant,"
Magnan addressed the young Marine seriously. "You say the men we saw
crowding against the fence declined to be emancipated?"

            "Naw, nothin' like
that," Bill protested. "They just didn't wanna excape."

            "Old Bimbo and his bunch,"
Nudine put in. "Them boys is pretty dumb, but not
that
dumb.
Outside, who'd they have to give a bad time to? Not to say nothing about eats
and nookie and all."

            "You
are
coarse,
Miss," Magnan reprimanded. "And mind your towel; it's slipping
again."

            "Here, I'll help
you," Bill volunteered, stepping forward, to be blocked off by Magnan, who
nearly fell down, attempting to avert his eyes. Meanwhile, Big had finished off
the sandwiches and pie, and was downing the fine dessert wine from the neck.
Magnan noticed and uttered a squawk of protest.

            "Sounds like you orter
join up with the boys over the other side, Pop," Jacinthe commented.
"If the big fellers got a little thirst on him, let him drink: What it's
made for."

            "To be sipped,
yes," Magnan corrected. "Not gulped like beer."

            "Well, OK, if it
worries ya, Mr. Magnan," Big conceded gracefully. "But whatta ya
think we oughta do about Eddie and the rest o' them trouble-makers?" He
waved absently at the persistent gnats.

            "Do?" Magnan
echoed as if amazed (7-v). "I fail to see that it is our responsibility to
do
anything, so long as they congregate at the exit and limit their
activities to hooting at newcomers." As they wrangled, Retief rose and
inspected the immense tree spreading above them.

            "How's about
this,
dumbum?"
a coarse voice demanded as at the same instant, half a dozen large, ungroomed
men leapt from the branches overhead; one felled Magnan, another rebounded from
a hearty haymaker delivered by Bill, and a third ruffian seized Nudine.

            "Help!" Magnan
cried, picking himself up and looking around wildly. "Where's
Retief?" he demanded. Big was busy picking up the new arrivals one by one
and tossing them out of sight behind the blossoming azaleas. When one kicked
him in the solar plexus, he carried him to the pond and threw him well out from
shore, where he floundered and uttered choking cries.

            "Looks like the sucker
can't swim," Big commented indifferently, at the same time taking a firm
grip on the nape of the neck of the rawboned fellow who was fully occupied with
retaining his grasp on Jacinthe. Big kicked him hard, once, and cast him toward
his drowning associate.

            "Better rescue old
Bimbo fore he drownds," he suggested to the latter, as he handed Nudine's
towel to her with a courtly bow. "Sorry about that, Miss Nudine," he
said. "Skunks ain't got no manners at all."

            Magnan was on his feet,
backed against a thick-boled tree by a hulking gorilloid in a faded
Three-Planet Line uniform.

            "You'll rue the day,
fellow!" Magnan predicted as he ducked under a swipe of his tormentor's
oak-root like arm.

            "Sure, Junior,"
the ex-Merchant spac'n agreed, showing square, widely-spaced, black-spotted
teeth in a grimace which caused Magnan to yelp and try again, only to rebound
from the arm which had moved surprisingly quickly for a member so formidably
muscled. Big, noting Magnan's distress, took the ape-man from behind in a
strangle-hold. The space'n twisted his head to give the big fellow a puzzled
look.

            "I don't think I had
the pleasure, pal," he grunted, and reaching around, thrust out a
callussed hand. "Tiny Tim's the handle," he said. "I didn't
catch yers."

            "Me, too," Big
grunted. "Small Henry's what you can call me, Tiny." He released his
grip. "Sorry about that."

            "By the way,"
Small went on, addressing Magnan, who was now peeking around Tiny.
"Whereat's old Retief? He don't wanna miss all the fun." Suddenly
Tiny uttered an
oof.,
leapt forward, off-balance, nearly knocking Small
Henry down. Retief dropped down from a low bough from which he had delivered
the kick which had interrupted Tiny's concentration on Magnan, and greeted the
latter. "When I heard them sneaking up through the trees," he told
the older man, "I thought it would be a good idea to go up to meet them. I
was delayed by the need to immobilize a couple of fellows I ran into."

            "At least you arrived
before this Pithecantropus Erectus actually did his worst," Magnan
acknowledged breathlessly. "Now, see here, fellow," he addressed
Tiny, who had regained his balance and was dusting his hands and looking
ominously at Retief.

            "You orta look where
yer goin, feller," the gang-leader advised the diplomat. "You could
get in trouble swinging down outa a tree without looking first."

            "Oh, I looked,"
Retief corrected him. "I didn't see anything much."

            "I guess I'm big enough
to see," Tiny protested. "Six-eight in my sock feet and not a ounts
o' fat on me!"

            "I saw
you"
Retief
amplified. "I just didn't see anything
important."

           
"Well,"
Tiny grunted. "I guess I can overlook it this here time, you bein new and
all—"

            "But I think I've
spotted an ounce of fat after all," Retief interrupted. He took a step
toward the subhuman giant and slammed a hard right to his gut. Tiny yelled and
folded forward, as if bowing from the waist. Retief straightened him up with an
uppercut that snapped the flat skull back and glazed the small dark-brown eyes.
Magnan bustled forward and gave the gasping man-mountain a sharp poke with his
forefinger. Tiny fell backward like a felled Sequoia.

            "Nice going, Mr. Magnan!"
Small cried, while the remaining aggressors muttered and eased around Magnan
and out of sight into the shrubbery.

            "Retief helped,"
Magnan said modestly. "But I must revise my former opinion. This Bunch
must be dealt with. Spoiled the sandwiches, too," he added mournfully,
surveying the remains of the
alfresco
repast, now trampled in the grass.
Through a gap broken in the bank of flowering arbutus, he caught a glimpse of
something white. "Why," he exclaimed, "I see a glimpse of
something white! I wonder ..." Without completing his period, he stepped
past the ruins of the shrubs broken off by the hastily retreating gang, emerged
into a patch of smooth-cut lawn, sun-lit amid the towering trees. At its center
in a puddle lay the broken fragments of what had been a small, exquisite marble
fountain, from which water was still oozing.

            "The vandals!"
Magnan yelped and went forward to attempt to restore the snow-white sculpture
to an upright position. "It's no use," he moaned, realizing that both
pedestal and basin were broken in two. "How
could
they?" he
lamented. "This is a genuine Frumpert, from his early classic revival
period, or I miss my guess!" He sank down on a white-painted bench beside
the tiled walk which bisected the once jewel-like clearing.

            Retief came up behind him,
along the path of patterned, green, white and gold tiles, and paused to examine
a small bright-metal ring set in a glossy green ceramic rectangle. He stooped,
inserted a finger and lifted. The tile hinged upward, exposing a cavity, dimly
lit by a glare patch. "This is strange, Ben," he commented.

            "Oh, dear, Jim,"
Jacinthe's voice spoke close behind causing Magnan to jump back. "You
really mustn't, you know," the girl chided. "Only the Emergency Crew
are allowed to touch the Connection."

            "For heaven's sake,
girl," Magnan snapped, "don't creep up on me like that! 'Not
allowed,' eh? Then perhaps you can tell me who it is who's 'allowed' to smash
fountains and tread on my sandwich!" He stepped up beside Retief to gaze
into the hollow exposed by the lifting of the fid and at the intricate
apparatus inside. "Why," he exclaimed, "that looks like—and
these tiles, Jim: they're definitely the type made from lava on Io; how in the
worlds would they have gotten here?" He turned back to Nudine.

            "I've asked you, Miss;
who vandalized this charming spot? Even those confounded midges don't seem as
persistent here!"

            "That was Tiny and his
bunch, call 'em the Spoilsports," she returned spiritedly. "They
don't pay no mind to the rules. Crew'll get to 'em by and by, I reckon."

            "Sit down, Miss,"
Magnan invited sternly. "Now I think it's time you explained matters here:
Retief and I, and Big and Bill as well, came here at risk of life and limb to
liberate the Terrans reported under restraint here. We find a sort of public
park with the gate guarded by ruffians who will allow no one in, rather than
out. We find anarchy and immodesty if not immorality; waste, disorder, civil
disturbance and vandalism; and now you presume to order me to ignore a most
interesting find, in the name of some unspecified 'Rules,' administered,
presumably, by the equally mysterious 'emergency crew.' Who make up this
'crew,' and where may I examine the rules?" He ducked to avoid a cloud of
dancing gnats. "But for these pesky mites," he griped, "this
would be an idyllic spot."

            "I can tell you the
rules, Pop, if you act real nice," the girl informed him. "The Crew,
well they're busy right now—"

            " 'Busy,' you
say—" Magnan cut in savagely. "While Bimbo roams free and Tiny destroys
our luncht If the latter fails to qualify as an emergency, though expeditiously
dealt with by my people and myself—I fail to imagine what does!"

            "Sure it does,"
Nudine agreed. "Qualify, I mean," she amplified. "Well, problem
is, we got Bimbo wrecking the Temple up north end, and asetting fires in the
Grove. Gotta stop the slob before he upsets old Worm any more'n what he already
done."

            "Then why, may I ask,
are we sitting here jawing?" Magnan demanded. "And you're nattering
of worms again, while disaster stalks us all, undeterred." He rose and
started past Small, who had just poked his head into the clearing.

            "Hold hard, Mister
Magnan," the big fellow said, catching his arm. Magnan attempted to shake
the grip loose.

            "Let me go, Big,"
he snapped. "Didn't you hear?"

            "Sure did," Small
replied calmly. "We seen more smoke and Bill went off to have a look-see;
I stuck around to look for you and Nudie. We gotta keep calm and wait
here."

            "But—but—I
found—!" Magnan blurted, and turned to point. "There's a
state-of-the-art nexus-box installed just there! It's surely significant, if
one only knew the significance! We must investigate!" He started back
toward the concealed apparatus.

            "Seems like I heard
about them there neck-us boxes," Small commented. "Something about
Relativity and all, ain't they? Or like that," he amended, in the interest
of the precision demanded by the high-tech subject.

            Retief said, "I'd
better check on that smoke," and left the clearing. Jacinthe rose to bar
Magnan's way, her towel over her left shoulder now.

            "I tole you, Pop,
against the rules!" she stated with surprising firmness. "Small, you
better reason with Pop; don't want him messing up now."

            "By what authority,
Miss Jacinthe," Magnan demanded, "do you presume to order me about,
in full knowledge of my diplomatic status here on Sardon?"