Reward for Retief (46 page)

            "Ah, the Domes,"
Magnan echoed, nodding as if wisely. "Tell us about the Domes."

            "Tell ya nothing, wise
guy," the old fellow snapped. "Go away. Lemme be. Got no time for no
more damn fools."

            "You've seen other
damned fools here recently?" Magnan demanded hotly. "What
cheek!" he added, for the benefit of any member of the Galactic press
corps who might be within earshot.

            "One swab called
himself Colonel somebody, said he was a crack representative o' the Council, or
Consul, or Consel, never did figger out which one. He was a talker, but never
said nothing, only he was gonna get even. Pretty down on old Smeer, though.
Claimed Smeer owed him some."

            "Retief!" Magnan
exclaimed, clutching at the latter's arm. "That reminds me: some time ago
you said Smeer was Captain Goldblatt! I wondered at the time—but now it appears
the Captain is a Terran after all."

            "Well," Goldblatt
put in, "only in a way—I mean old Smeer
was
me in a way for a
time—I was using his nervous system, you see, to keep tabs on things. Tried to
get him into that Terry Embassy, to get some info on what them boys was up
to—but things land of went awry, you might say—he run into this Mr. Overbore,
and
he
wanted to talk deal, all right—only he thought Smeer was the
local Overlord or like that—feller was in a big hurry to sell out the
Terries—me included, even if he didn't know it—and get hisself set fer life—had
a idea I could put my Smeer's hands on the local treasury—I strung him along
some, greedy feller— that kind's easy to deal with, promise you anything—"

            "Mr. Overbore!"
Magnan yelped in belated indignation. "Why, I'd heard rumors but I could
scarce credit them! Sidney Overbore is a Counselor of Embassy of Terra, His
Excellency's most trusted advisor—and reliable rumor has it he's being groomed
for Ambassadorial rank in the near future! I can't credit the charge that he
deliberately set out to betray Terran interests."

            "You really
are
a
selfless sort of fellow, ain't ya, Benny?" Gaby cooed. "Wouldn't have
no interest in a cave full of cut emeralds and them red ones—rubies— and such?
No interest in the gold, neither, right?"

            "What gold?"
Magnan gobbled.

           
"You
know,"
Gaby stated off-handedly. "The gold under the mountain, that the dragon
guards."

            "Oh,
that
gold,"
Magnan mumbled. "Nonsense!" he added as his brain resumed partial
function.

            "What rubbish," he
expanded. "That's a silly fairytale! There's no dragon and no gold—and
even if there were, I don't see what connection this fantasy might have with
allegations of malfeasance in high places!"

            "Naw, you got it wrong,
feller," Sol put in. "No alligators, and anyway them crocs like the
low ground. This here's a regular fire-breathing dragon."

            "Eddie was babbling
about a dragon!" Magnan improvised. "And all the while it was only a
dozer!"

            "Relax, feller,"
Sol urged. "Old Dragon won't bother nobody less they go poking their snoot
in over the Domes, yonder."

            "What about these
Domes?" Magnan demanded. "What have they to do with alleged dragon of
yours?"

            "Tole you it ain't no
alligator," the oldster snapped. "Ain't
mine,
neither."

            'Tell us about the Domes,
Captain," Retief suggested gently.

            Sol looked keenly at him,
"Thought all you fellers knew about them Domes," he grunted.
"Where you been, stranger?"

            "In the last few hours,
just about everywhere," Retief told him.

            "Before that,"
Magnan put in sharply, "we'd only been around the Galaxy. Naive, you might
say. But to return to the Domes ..."

            "Nothing much to
'em," Sol stated dismissingly. "Kind of fade out when you get up
close. My idea," he went on, "is they're kind of an optical illusion,
generated by the multi-dimensional intersection of incompatible wave
functions."

            "Heavens," Magnan
purred sarcastically, "why didn't I think of that?"

            "Might be because you
ain't been marooned in a crazy house fer a couple years, talking to
yerself," Sol guessed. "After a time you get to seeing things."

            "As to that,"
Magnan started—

            "Was saying," the
old fellow went on, ignoring Magnan's interruption, "first you see things,
then you hear em, Pretty soon they're back-sassing you. Bad fer the nerves. All
I wanted was a nice quiet place where a feller could have a shot o' the good
stuff, and some plain, wholesome eats. Like a nice
gefeltefisch,
you
know, or
Boeuf Bourgignon,
maybe, and prolly a plate of
consomme au
Beurre Blanc
on the side."

            "Rather elegant tastes
you have, Captain," Magnan remarked. "Considering your chosen
profession as a Merchant Astronaut."

            "That some kind o'
crack, mister?" Sol demanded belligerently.

            "Why, I merely
meant—that is, I didn't mean," Magnan gobbled.

            "He was trying to say
it's hard to see where a deep-space sailor'd get to know about fancy eats and
such," Gaby clarified.

            "Always carried a good
liberry aboard," Sol growled. "Over ten thousand tapes—the Five
Hunnert Foot Shelf, you know—lots o' time to view about wave mechanics and
haute
cuisine
and that."

            "You've referred
several times, sir," Magnan said carefully, "to 'a couple of years';
are you unaware that just over two centuries have elapsed since Sardon's
discovery?"

            "Never been
discovered," Sol corrected curtly. "Been right here all along. Two
hunnert years, you say? Must be a little distortion along the temporal axis, I
guess. I ain't no two hunnert and sixty years of age."

            "I'm sure we can sort
that out later," Magnan brushed the objections aside. "Right now,
it's imperative I know more about your 'arrangement' with Counselor
Overbore."

-

            "Sucker never done what
he said," Sol carped. "Tried to cheat me. I fooled him, though."

            " 'When thieves fall
out'," Magnan muttered. "No wonder matters are in a state of chaos in
this potentially idyllic world."

            "Gonna pertend like I
never heard that," Sol informed the circumambient air, at the same moment
reaching out as if to snap off a whithered leaf from a flowering arbutus beside
him. Retief caught his wrist. Sol attempted to pull free, then began angrily:

            "You got no call to go
jerking me around, right on my own land," he said, with a considerable
volume of spit.

            "You're a liar,
Captain," Retief told him. "And a vindictive one at that." He
looked toward the neat cottage across the lawn. "Why are the windows
barred?" he asked, almost casually. As if in reply the glass in one of the
small, barred openings burst outward with an astonishingly loud
crash!

           
"Give you
an idea," Sol grunted. "What I got to contend with: got a crazy man
trapped in there. Busted out half my windows."

            "Tell us about
him," Magnan suggested, edging close to and partly behind Retief.

            "Thinks he's some kind
of king or like that," the old fellow stated contemptuously. "Trieda
take over here. Right here—on my own planet, which I found it first!"
Goldblatt paused to look indignant. "He's the one set up that rickety town
yonder," he continued, nodding in a vaguely easterly direction.
"Pretty soon the tramp traders started calling here."

            "Traitors?" Magnan
yelped. "Traitors to whom, may I ask?"

            "Naw," Sol
replied. " 'Traders.' Mostly ex-Navy swabbies got hold of a condemned
space-hull and cruise around, seeing what they can do the natives out of, and
selling the stuff to suckers someplace else. Space scum. Place is lousy with
'em now. Messed up my clean set-up, too. Can't get a nice plate o' chicken
soup, nor no bagels and lox, just all this fancy stuff. Almost got me liking
some of it. Them blurb-flops ain't half bad, I guess.

            "Set up some kinda
ancient ruins over Worm's cave, too," he went on. "Looks like a bank
or like that. Useta be a swell-looking place: purty neon arch and colored
pictures, a neat little fountain with red and yeller water coming out, and
spotlights all around. Looked swell at night, I'll tell you. Then he messed it
up: nothing there now but plain grass and some old trees and them plain white
pillars. Useta have some great items with Old Wiggly, not a bad sorta critter
fore he started tryna tell me what to do."

            "But he didn't give
up," Retief corrected. "In fact, your former pal has kept you penned
up here for the better part of a couple of centuries, while he amused himself
interfering with the stray Terrans who happened along."

            "Once you'd found and
registered this world," Magnan contributed, "it was off-listed and
then became a challenge to the curious, the drifters, the easy-fortune hunters
and the like, who've been seeking it out, and are never heard from again."
He assumed a solemn expression (741-w) and added: "Thus, Captain, your
irresponsibility in not fully reporting the unusual characteristics of your
'Other World' has caused a great deal of mischief, not the least being the
diversion of my colleague and myself from our duties for an extended
period."

            "You wanta go back to
that jack-built town?" Sol responded in a tone of skepticism, an
approximation of the classic 13, and a b, Magnan thought.

            "Your 13-b needs work,
Captain," he pointed out. "It's curious how you laymen assume that
you can deploy classic diplomatic subtleties, on the basis of a casual
observation of some junior clerk's technique, perhaps. The fine nuances are
lacking."

            " 'Junior clerk' nothing!"
Sol retorted. "I got that snooty look direct from a big shot name of Sid
Overbore, time he come snooping around here looking to double-cross me when I
was out. Only I wasn't out." He spat on the ground.

            "But as to your
question," Magnan resumed, "leaving aside for the moment the
unlikelihood that Counselor Overbore would have confided precious diplomatic
techniques to one of your stripe, I suppose the answer is yes: we
do
desire
to return to town."

            "Nothin easier,"
the captain told him, and turned and stamped off along the path toward the
cottage.

            "Here!" Magnan
called after him. "You offered to guide us back to civilization! You can't
just walk away...!"

            "Easy, Ben,"
Retief suggested, and started along the path, following the irascible captain.
Magnan fell in at the rear, still grumbling.

            Close to the rose-trellissed
front door, Sol looked back. "Maybe you better tell your side-kick to cut
the chatter," he told Retief. "Guy gets on my nerves." He used a
large, crudely-made key to open the door, and stepped inside.

            Magnan hurried past Retief
and without pausing, entered the dimly-lit interior. At once there was a meaty
smack!,
and sounds of struggle. Magnan staggered back to the entry, and grabbed at
Retief for support. "Heavens!" he gasped. "We were assaulted in
the dark!"

            "Wait here, Ben,"
Retief advised and stepped inside. In the inadequate light from a single
foliage-obscured window he saw the elderly captain trying furiously to close
with a tall, solidly-built man dressed in a gray polyon shipsuit of antique
cut, who held him at arm's length with a fist to the chest.