Reward for Retief (55 page)

            "No girlie-ranch?"
Shortfall insisted, "no '31 Isotta?"

            "By the way, Sid,"
Smeer interjected, "is it OK if the red and green corundum crystals and
the carbon ones and the element of atomic number 79 are cut and polished and
stored in lock-boxes, or did you want the fun of mining 'em yerself from that
patch of ground yer goodies-detector snowed you?"

            "Stored in a modest
vault will do nicely," Sid dismissed the matter. "No need to quote
the trifling details just now."

            "You mean about being
Emperor and having us build that palace and all," Smeer guessed.

            "Enough!" Prince
William spoke up suddenly. "If there's to be royalty, let it be the
restoration of the true anointed, to wit milord Prince Sobhain, King of
Fragonard and the Empire de Lys!"

            "To be sure, of course,
'prince,' did you say?" Shortfall gobbled, straightening his tie.
"Where precisely, is His Highness, and of course I didn't mean him when I
characterized the present company as riff-raff."

            "Tis well he wasn't
among those present and included in your insolence," William declared.
"Else, he'd have rapped your skull before I could restrain him. But to
proceed; I'm sure an escort of a squadron of Peace Enforcers to accompany His
Highness home would seem adequately to emphasize
Corps
backing of his
claim to the throne."

            "Jest a fruffle-picking
minute there, fellow," Chief Smeer put in. "I guess before you go
setting old Sid here up as Emperor of Sardon, us autochtones got a few words to
say!"

            "Reasonable
enough," Shortfall agreed. "But I was under the impression, Mr.
Minister, that it was you yourself who proposed the arrangement, which, though
at variance with orthodox
Corps
policy is not, I suppose, entirely out
of the question." Behind him, Miss Furkle rolled her eyes in expression of
dazed incredulity, but dutifully recorded the statement. Shortfall turned in
time to catch the tail-end of the expression. "Furkie!" he yelped.
"It hardly behooves the clerical staff to assay sophisticated diplomatics
such as that 987-y (Dazed Incredulity) not unmixed, unless I miss my guess with
a touch of 71-a (Don't Look at Me: I Wash My Hands of the Affair)! And turn off
that damned recorder."

            "Sure, Chief," she
agreed. "But are you really going to sit still fer Sid Overbore jumping
you three grades of rank. Remember, you'll have to present credentials to
him\
But whatever you say, chief. On yer knees, too, if I know Sid."

            "I heartily dislike the
appellation 'chief,' Furkie, as you doubtless are well aware," the chief
grumped. "As for bending the knee to Sid Overbore—" He turned in
desperation to Magnan. "What about it, Ben? Is there any technicality I
can air to weasel out of this one?"

            "Fraid not, Mr.
Ambassador," Magnan replied with a smarmy expression, edging closer to
Sid, who was still dusting the evidences of his foray into wilderness from his
frock coat.

            "Well," Shortfall
huffed. "Will no one rid me of this troublesome fellow?"

            "Thomas Becket and King
Henry," Magnan guessed. "Surely you don't mean me to assassinate
Chief Smeer? Or was it Sid you had in mind?"

           
don't trouble yourselves
,
the silent Voice
commanded, in a tone like Mount Rushmore.
the
matter is academic. chief smeer is, after all a pillar and as such a latecomer
to my native planet. the only party with whom a meaningful treaty can be joined
is myself.

           
"And who,
pray, are
you?"
Shortfall and several others demanded in ragged
unison.

           
ask retief
,
was the curt reply.

            All eyes turned to the
referenced diplomat.

            "Yes, yes,"
Shortfall stammered. "What do you know about this voice in the head,
fellow? I'd feared I was going bananas."

            "Tell them, Gaby,"
Retief urged the girl, who stepped forward and recited: "The pillars are
latecomers to the scene, Mr. Retief tole me, and Worm tole him," she
stated woodenly, "they have arrived only a few months before Captain
Goldblatt. Both were led and benignly instructed by the resident intellect, a
hive intelligence, comprising several hundred billion individuals, intricately
interconnected by telepathic linkages, analogously to the interconnections of
the hundred billion neurons of the human brain, only more so. This Mind
welcomed the pillars, a party of malcontents from some place called Kruntz, a
few lights out-Arm, and taught them how to manipulate the energies. Cap
Goldblatt came along and this Wiggly helped him out like he said, and pretty soon
Cap was busy revamping the landscape. Not bad, either; nice woods and all like
he read about but never saw. Then more Terries arrived, and everything got
messed up. But, Mind, or Voice, or Worm like we been calling it, is a
big-hearted fella, for a fella with no heart—and no body, really—"

            "Wait a minute!"
Magnan objected. "There was no native life-form here except for the
pillars!"

            "Just one, sir,"
Retief pointed out, brushing at a long gnat.

            "You mean ...?"
Magnan choked. Retief nodded. Gaby resumed: "It was just a lot of
free-flying neurons—"

            "Free-flying!"
Magnan exclaimed. "Those confounded gnats! Good lord! You mean all along
they've been supplying the energy that keeps this madhouse running?"

            "Enough, Ben,"
Shortfall ordained gravely. "At least we have a clear record there; not
one of the little dacoits have we swatted, goaded almost to desperation as we
were." As he spoke, the last few attendant gnats drifted away.

           
sorry about that
,
Voice offered contritely,
didn't mean to be a pest. but of course I had
to keep tabs on just what all you foreigners were up to. now that I see not all
of you—or even most of you are of the stripe of sidoverbore and bimbo and his
ilk. now, captainsolgoldblatt is a reasonable fellow, and i'm sure he and I could
conclude a modus vivendi, which benmagnan, a decent chap, could embody in a
formal agreement. so let it be done.

           
"Just
arrange for a layman dead two centuries to negotiate on behalf of Terra, you
suggest—" Shortfall started, halting abruptly as the old spaceman known to
the other Terrans as Sol pushed forward.

            "Not by a damn sight
I'm not dead!" he declared vehemently. "Sure, I'll work out a deal
with old Worm. Told you he wasn't a bad fellow," he told Magnan, who was
dithering, uncertain whether to offer the old fellow a chair, or summon the
Marine guard.

            "Y-you mean ...?"
he stuttered, "you're
really
the fabled Captain Goldblatt? Heavens,
what an honor, sir!" He urged the old fellow to a chair, while Shortfall
righted his hip-o-matic and settled himself in it, assuming his Benign (1-c)
expression.

            "As you were saying,
sir?" he prompted. "Just sketch in the broad outline, and I'll have
my staff fill in the details." He turned reluctantly to face the
irrascible Sol. "Captain Goldblatt," he managed, "you'll be
hailed as a living monument to the great deep of exploration! It's as if Christopher
Columbus showed up alive and well in Cuba! You'll be hailed as a planetary
hero!"

            "Hero, schmero,"
Sol returned disdainfully. "I just want to get back to my retirement
cottage, and see to the garden."

4

           
Half an hour
later, with an impressive document indicted, signed, sealed with scarlet ribbon
and a blob of CDT-issue wax, His Excellency turned his attention to Magnan and
Retief, still standing by after the rest had been dismissed, except for Gaby,
who lingered behind Magnan.

            "In your case,
Ben," Shortfall pontificated, "your very ineffectiveness redounds to
your exoneration. You could have had nothing to do with this mess, from which
I've so adroitly extricated us. You, Retief, are another matter: beginning with
your unwarranted assault on my welcoming committee, you've repeatedly violated
hallowed
Corps
policy by Doing Something where clearly, Creative
Inaction was called for. I've been pondering an appropriate just and
dispassionate response for Mother Terra to place in the record. I've found it,
not, I admit without some hints from our new friend, Voice, and this is
it." He fixed Retief with a steely, or possibly pot-metal gaze, and told
the erring junior officer that Terra had decided that permanent assignment to
his curious world as Consul-General would be in order. "You've made this
mare's nest, Mr. Retief," he declared. "Now you lie in it!" He
gave Retief a challenging look. Retief nodded casually. "Now you, Ben, I
think it would be as well if I assigned you as a Special Supervising Consul
just to more or less keep an eye on things. Dismissed."

5

               
Gaby attempted
to sit in Shortfall's lap. "Why you're a sweetie after all!" she
burbled. Then she hurried to Magnan. "Now that you're going to stay on,
Benny, we can do something about loose-nating a nice ten-room house in
Scarsdale, with a heated pool and a Olympic size tennis court, and a private
bowling alley. It won't be much, but I'll make it home for ya!"

            After a round of
hand-shaking in the hall, Captain Goldblatt set off to see to his herbaceous borders,
and Retief went alone along the empty corridor and out into the sunshine of the
noisy street, hung with banners, alive with an eager crowd of Fragonards;
looked eagerly along the street where a lead dire-beast had just appeared,
brilliantly caparisoned. Retief s eyes went to a narrow window in an
unremarkable facade across the way; something stirred behind the half-drawn
shade, and light glinted from polished metal. He started determinedly across
toward the inconspicuous door.

The End

* * * * * *

"THERE'S
NOTHING

HERE TO SCARE A
MARINE ..."

            "Get it out, get it
out! No! I'm not going!" Magnan yelped. Then he fell to his knees and
looked up at Retief in desperation. Behind him, Red was doggedly trying to
creep uphill.

            "Feller's gotta do what
a feller's gotta do," he explained.

            Magnan scrambled up beside
Retief. "Hurry!" he urged. "We have to do as it says! Otherwise
..."

            "Mr. Retief," Bill
blurted, "don't you hear it too?"

            "I didn't hear anything
to scare a Marine, Bill."

            "Yes, Mother, I'm
coming," Magnan added in a conversational tone. "Coming
Sergeant?"

Alone now, Retief was scanning the crest
of the slope above when the Voice spoke quite clearly, impinging not on his
ears but thrusting in among his thoughts.

            ...
there's a good fellow! I was beginning to think you'd never lower that
impressive shield of yours! now, if you'll just come along with the others, I want
to explain certain matters to you before disaster overtakes us all ...

            Retief heard a sound from
ahead, and turned quickly to see a carpet of wriggling foot-long creatures with
large glowing eyes advancing toward him in an undulating wave; then a silent
impact behind his eyes, and blackness closed in.

KEITH LAUMER

REWARD FOR

RETIEF