Reward for Retief (42 page)

            "Just who," Magnan
put in urgently, "is this Herself to which you refer?"

            "Beats me," Sol
admitted. "But I do know she's the one behind the trouble here. Me and
Wiggly would of got along good, only she kept butting in."

            Retief probed gently, found
the flaccid, immaterial membrane that was Smeer's endocosm-exocosm interface.
He explored its surface, found the complex extrusion formed by the encapsulated
ego-gestalt of the captain; he shaped his probe and punctured the confining
membrane.

            "—and now all of a
sudden," the unconscious Smeer boomed out. "Hold on, I think I'm free
..." As Smeer spoke, Sol turned back toward Retief.

            "Careful,
Captain," Retief cautioned. "The membrane has kept you isolated from
entropy. That's what's kept you alive all these years. Easy, now. You need to
feel your way back into your own neurons."

            "It's ...
strange," Smeer's strained voice said. "Like if a fella was to try to
put on starched longjohns. It hurts my hair, but I can almost—" the voice
broke off and Smeer uttered a groan and his jaw fell slack, as did the
mind-form under Retief s touch.

            "Good lord,"
Magnan muttered. "I'm not sure I understand what's happening here. In
fact, I'm quite certain I don't."

            "Over that way,"
Gaby suggested; she had retreated a few feet when confronted by the worm-like
Smeer; now she advanced uncertainly. "Only shack around here's
yonder," she offered, pointing. "Sod dug-out," she explained.

            "Gaby—not our
rose-covered cottage!" Magnan blurted.

            "Sure not," Gaby
reassured him. "Other side o' the hill. More like hole in the
ground." She forged ahead.

            Retief was maintaining
contact with the intricately convoluted, but rapidly dwindling shape which represented
the captive mind of Captain Goldblatt. Still holding close rapport, he felt out
across the adjacent substrate which was the redoubtable mind-field of the super
Sardon known as Chief Smeer, who, or which retaliated with a desperate lunge of
mind-force which Retief struck down.

            "Be reasonable,
Chief," he urged, probing an attenuated area on the impalpable surface,
which winced at his touch.

            "Let go," Retief
urged the shaken entity. "We can probably work out an accommodation that
will give your paradigm ample room for expression, but if you kill a Galactic
hero, it will be war to the knife."

            Gaby had strolled ahead to
pick a bouquet of wildflowers from the masses growing inside the faint trail.
Suddenly she looked up, halted, and uttered a faint yelp! She shot Magnan an
appealing look and turned back toward him. As she did, a burly arm reached out
from the concealment of the brush and caught her slender wrist, jerking her
off-balance. As she fell, her captor thrust through the foliage to leer down at
her, a seven-foot heavyweight with the look of a pirate. He was showing
irregular teeth in a broad grin.

            "Hiya, Gabe," he
growled, as he glanced toward Retief and Magnan. "Who's the marks?"

            Before either Gaby or Magnan
could reply, the piratical fellow stooped to grab Gaby's ankle and drag her
toward him. She yelled and reached appealingly toward Magnan. He helped her up
and embraced her while the pirate glowered. Then, at a sound from beyond the
boulder which blocked the view of the trail, yet another unshaven oaf appeared.
He paused to ogle Gaby, then, leering, stepped into her path, tripping her.

            "Here, sir!"
Magnan objected gamely, stepping forward. "What—"

            "Here they are,
Boss!" the lout yelled over his shoulder, ignoring Magnan except to elbow
him aside. Retief caught the senior diplomat and steadied him on his feet, then
felled the intruder with a sweep of his arm, and helped the young woman to
rise. She spat at her fallen captor.

            "Wait'll I get you
alone, you piggy! Sneaking up on me like that, and dragging me like a
trash-bag!"

            Piggy got to his feet
heavily, rubbing the side of his head. "Geeze," he commented mildly,
looking resentfully at Retief, "I ain't even
seen
you."

            "Seize him at
once!" Smeer yelled, flapping his well-worn copy of the reward notice.
"That's none other than the notorious Retief! There's a price on his head!
Grab him before he gets away!"

            "No hurry," Retief
countered. "I'm not going anywhere. Neither are you," he added,
blocking off Piggy as he attempted to slide around the boulder.
"Relax," Retief advised him. "We're going to have a nice little
talk. Who's your boss, and what's he up to? What's the idea grabbing the young
lady?"

            " 'Lady,' hah?"
the crestfallen fellow snorted. Magnan leapt forward to confront him.

            "Mind your tone, my
man!" he commanded. "Now, apologize!"

            "Aw gee, I'm sorry,
Gabe," Piggy growled, peering past Magnan at the girl. "I never meant
nothing, just yakking, you know."

            "Skip it, Pig,"
Gaby dismissed the plaint and took Magnan's arm in a possessive clutch.
"C'mon, Honey," she urged. "Let's blow. We got a late date,
remember?"

            Magnan tried awkwardly to
disengage without appearing to do so. "Now, just be patient, dear,"
he urged Soothingly (702-w). Thus repulsed, she stumbled and fell, yet again.

            "I tole you before,
don't go using no 702 on me," she reminded him, looking up resentfully.
"Uh, it wasn't a 702 last time, OK," she amended. "But you know
what I mean. Just be natural—like me!" She attempted to rise, struggling
with her skirts, then relaxed and fell back, lay in his path, looking up at him
and blocking his way.

            "Here, my girl!"
Magnan rebuked her sharply. "It's hardly appropriate for one in your
position to be seen in such an undignified position—or to propose to serve as a
role-model to a Foreign Service Officer of Class Two of Terra! After all, I'm
number five man in the Embassy!" He hovered uncertainly over her.
"Here, get up!" he hissed. "You're making a spectacle of
yourself."

            "And what
is
my
position, Benny?" she cooed, holding the gaze of her large violet eyes
fixed on Magnan's small brown ones. "Now don't go making no obscene quips,
neither," she cautioned. "After all, I'm not prone to argue."

            Piggy snickered.
"That's some broad you taken up with there, Mister Big Shot," he
commented. Magnan stooped, picked up a jagged rock as big as his fist and
slammed it against the side of Piggy's head with a hearty
whack!
Piggy
recoiled and uttered a wail of pain.

            "Any more of your
cheek, and you'll receive more of the same," Magnan told the astonished
fellow. "Now, keep a civil tongue in your head, and explain
yourself."

            "Esplain
myself?"
Piggy echoed. "What am I supposed to be, some kinda metaphysician? On
a material plane," he added more mildly, noting the gleam in Magnan's
eyes, "you might say I'm a example of Homo Sapiens, the product of maybe
twenny million years o' primate evolution, as shaped by some pretty tough
experiences over a span o' maybe thirty-one hard years, which nobody ain't
never really give me no love. See? I'm a like innocent victim o' heredity and
avirament." As if incensed by this sudden realization, Piggy snarled and
reached for Magnan who retreated to the top of the adjacent boulder.

            "Or," Piggy
resumed, "you could say I'm the inevitable end-product arising from
proto-biochemical processes spontaneously initiated in the primordial
urschleim,
just like everybody else, even you, I guess."

            "Explain what you're
doing here—prior to your capture, that is," Magnan specified, testily, sliding
down from his perch.

            "Well," Piggy
responded, "I and the boys are scouting around looking for the Boss which
he kinda ducked outa sight, and we flush this here deviate running around in
his embroidered longjohns, and work him over pretty good before we notice he's
Boss, onney without his iron pants. Well, you can see that was a heavy downer
which the onney way a guy could square it was to catch the bum taken his
sheet-metal threads! So me and Horny and Pud come over this side and I seen you
first, so now I gotta get outa here and report back, otherwise we're back in
the soup."

            Concluding his speech, Piggy
reached for Magnan's thin arm. "Just come along nice, pal," he
suggested, "and maybe it won't go too bad wit you. After all, ya bested
old Boss in single combat, fair and square, right? He got no real beef—-"

            "Never mind that, my
man," Magnan objected sharply, digging in his heels. "Why do you
irrationally assume it was I who brast a spear on his lunch, rather than,
perhaps, some more physical type?" He avoided Retief s eye while edging
carefully into position to deliver a well-aimed kick to Piggy's crotch. On its
arrival the latter released him and fell back with a howl.

            "Ungentlemanly tactics,
one admits," Magnan said, not without satisfaction, as Piggy writhed at
his feet.

            "That's quite
appropriate, sir," Retief reassured him. "Piggy's an ungentleman."

            "To be sure,"
Magnan cooed. "Shall we go?" He offered an arm to the wide-eyed Gaby.

            Piggy had gotten to his feet
and stood by grimacing in pain. "I infer yer off yer philosophical
kick," he contributed. "Let's go. I can show you right where to find
Pud, and Horny, too. I owe them bums a favor or two."

            "I fail to grasp your
meaning," Magnan dismissed the offer. "Milady and I are bound on personal
affairs."

            "I bet," Piggy
snickered, then fell silent and ducked back as Magnan stooped to arm himself
with a suitable jagged rock. "I din't mean nothing," Pig protested,
and edged away. Once abreast the curve of the boulder, he turned and ran. Magnan
hesitated, and Gaby snatched the stone from his hand and threw it with such
accuracy that it impacted on the back of the fleeing man's head, knocking him
flat. On his hands and knees, Piggy turned a protesting look on Magnan.

            "No fair," he
wailed. "Clobbering a unarmed man, which he's tryna scout the route up
ahead."

            "Then scout!"
Magnan commanded. "Any signs of those rascals?" he queried as soon as
Piggy had poked his lumpy nose around a bend, then jumped back.

            "Cheese it!" he
warned. "Old Boss is coming this way! Looks maddern's usual, too!" He
shot a desperate look at Magnan, edging back, flat against the rock. "You
done a bad tilt, mister, when you done unhorsed old Boss."

            "It was him or
oneself," Magnan pointed out. "One can hardly be held culpable."

            "Who's this here
'One'?" Piggy demanded. "Two on One, hey? Or one on One, and One won;
but which one? That's a little joke, see? Anyways, Boss ain't laughing."
He looked around, ducked under the nearest shrub and out of sight. "Youse
better duck out, too, pals," he called.

            "Best we do as he
suggests, Gaby dear," Magnan said, and thrusting the young lady ahead,
eased into the cover of the dense foliage.

            "You scared o' this
bum?" Gaby inquired coldly.

            "Of course not!"
Magnan asserted. "I was merely responding to the Captain's well taken
point that we are in fact, trespassing." From his point of vantage he
peered out to see yet another burly fellow, clad in a grubby neck-to-toe
garment, come striding along, only to lurch abruptly and fall headlong,
uttering an oath of the coarsest kind as he did so.

            "The wretch!"
Magnan hissed to Gaby. "He uttered a curse that would make a longshoreman
blush, in your presence!"