Reward for Retief (9 page)

            "Retief!" Magnan
called feebly over the din from above. "I think I'm still alive!"

            "See if you can
move," Retief suggested, and gave him a hand up.

            "I seem to be quite
intact," Magnan reported. "By a miracle. It was quite unwarranted of
you, Retief, to manhandle me in that undignified fashion!"

            "Would you have
preferred to be pillar-handled?" Retief inquired, indicating the yelling
throng on the staircase, the bolder of which were beginning to descend
cautiously toward the isolated Terrans.

            "Nice going, sir,"
Bill congratulated Retief on his ploy. "Left them pillars
flatfooted."

            "All right, you
bums," Chief Smudge called to his troops. "This here one is that
Retief I told you about, and you seen what he done to my foof-nodes, so put the
arm on the miscreant without no more horsing around!" He backed away
hastily as Bill made a sudden move in his direction, but continued his
exhortations from beyond the iron grill, now propped up and hanging by one
hinge.

            "Don't let him get
away! No, not
that
one, the big one!" He broke off and humped away
as Bill reached through the bent latticework and grabbed at one of the alien's
short arms. Then the mob reached the Marine and pinned him, by sheer weight of
numbers, against the abused gate, which collapsed outward at last. Retief waded
into the writhing mass of pillars.

            "Retief!" Magnan
squeaked from the periphery of the aroused crowd. "They're running amok!
We have to
do
something!"

            "I'll try to keep 'em
busy, Mr. Magnan," Retief called between jabs at exposed yellow patches.
"You'd better take the private lift!"

            "What? Appropriate the
Ambassador's
personal
conveyance?" Magnan yelped, but he stepped
briskly into the waiting car, and the automatic doors slammed shut. Retief
continued hauling the limber-bodied aliens back and tossing them aside, until
he had cleared a path through to Bill, whom he assisted to his feet while the
frustrated rioters boiled around the two, gnashing their fangs in fury. Chief
Smudge reared up in time to receive a fist, full in his sense-organ cluster.

            "Nice shot, Bill,"
Retief commented. "You think we can get through these fellows to the main
drag?"

            "Can we not," Bill
replied, grinning through a smear of blood from his nose. "Lead on,
General, sir!"

5

           
"What?"
Ambassador Shortfall yelped, confronting Magnan, disheveled and gasping for
breath as he tottered from the suddenly-opened door of the private lift.
"Are
you
back here, Magnan?"

            "No indeed, Mr.
Ambassador," Magnan twittered daringly. "This is my astral
projection; you see, sir, I was savaged by the mob, and—" he broke off,
clutching at the arm of Major Tremblechin, who had hurried forward.
"They've got Retief!" Magnan gasped. "We went down under a
virtual avalanche of the ferocious creatures! When I last saw him, he was still
battling, gamely but hopelessly, against literally overwhelming odds! We have
to rescue him! Don't just dither, Fred!" he addressed the dithering
Military Attache. "Do something!"

            "Magnan!"
Shortfall barked. "I'm sure you're exaggerating! Tell Mr. Retief to report
to me here in the Chancery at once!"

            "But, sir," Magnan
wailed. "You don't understand!"

            "What, Ben Magnan,
I
,
'not understand'? You forget yourself, sir! You are addressing no mere mortal,
but your very own Chief of Mission, a Career Ambassador! Now do as I say
without further cavil!"

            "But," Magnan
objected Stubbornly (36-w). "I can't, sir! He's a captive of a mob led by
the Deputy Chief of Police, one Smudge!"

            "Don't try that feeble
36 on
me,
Ben!" Shortfall commanded. "As for Mr. Retief s
choice of companions, that's not my concern at the moment. Go to the police, as
you suggested, if you must, but get Retief!"

            "That's just what the
mob is yelling, sir," Magnan replied, retreating to the door, held open
for him by Herb Lunchwell, who was wearing a Smug Look (14-b).

            "Et tu, Fred?"
Magnan gasped.

            Behind him, Shortfall spoke
up: "If even this roiling throng can grasp my instructions, Ben, surely
you
do as well!"

            "But—but
they
want
to tear him to pieces, Mr. Ambassador," Magnan temporized.

            "As for myself,"
Shortfall commented quietly, "I have not yet decided on an appropriate
course of action regarding a junior officer of this Mission who has egregiously
ignored his Chief s instructions to disperse this nuisance. Especially as it was
he who set off the throng in the first place. Get him in here, and I shall
decide his fate, you may be sure."

            "But, sir, he, that is,
we
tried! There are hundreds of those armed maniacs, all inspired by a
fanatical hatred of Terries, inspired no doubt by Ambassador Flith's insidious
propaganda program. But he was overwhelmed, Retief, I mean, not Ambassador
Flith—"

            "Enough of these
baseless accusations against my very own colleague, the Groacian Chief of
Mission!" Shortfall boomed, as well as one can boom in a feeble tenor.

            "Gosh, sir," young
Marvin Lacklustre spoke up hesitantly. "A comradely feeling for a fellow
Ambassador is all very well, sir, but do you think it should outweigh your
loyalty to your fellow Terries and subordinates?"

            "Racism rears its ugly head,"
Shortfall intoned heavily. "Marvin, I'm surprised at you. I do hope you've
not at any time given utterance to these illiberal sentiments in the hearing of
others, perhaps less inclined than I to make allowance for youth and
inexperience."

            "You mean," Marvin
came back promptly, "that it's OK for you to sacrifice one of your own
officers just to keep the peace with your kiki-stone-fingering buddy, Flith!"

            " 'Ambassador Flith' if
you please, Marvin!" Shortfall corrected the lad. "Protocol, my boy,
is not so lightly to be tossed aside, not in
my
presence!"

            "Maybe the kid got a
point at that, Mr. A," Hy put in, sounding mournful.

            "Enough, Mr.
Felix!" Shortfall barked. "Get Mr. Retief up here to report at once,
I say! There'll be no more discussion of the matter! He was already in trouble
before daring to challenge my personal policies!"

            "Nobody's discussing
that
matter," Hy muttered. "What we're discussing is, if it's cool to
throw Retief to the dogs just so you can stay buddy-buddy with these local
maniacs and that five-eyed little sneak, Flith."

            "I warned Marvin about
proper diplomatic usage, Hy," Shortfall stated bleakly, "as well as
implied racism. Now
you
are so injudicious as to speak up to compound
both indiscretions." He paused to jot a note on a leather-bound pad.
"Perhaps, Hy," he went on, purringly, "you'd be happier after
all, back at the city desk of the
Canny Poultrymeris Weekly,
or whatever
sheet it was you formerly graced with your journalistic efforts."

            "Too bad you got
nothing to say about that," Hy retorted. "I get my instructions
direct from the Agency; the Department's got nothing to say about it. I call
'em like I see 'em, Mr. Ambassadore!"

            "Freedom of the press
is not at issue here, Hy," Shortfall corrected the dour newsman. "And
one calls them
as
one sees them, not 'like,' Hy," he added in a
More Kindly Tone, (13-r) and jotted again. "I've spoken to you before,
Hy," he went on, "about your usage 'Ambassadors.' As I jovially
commented on a former occasion, I am not an avenue of ingress and egress. The
word is Ambassador!"

            "Yeah," Hy
rejoined spiritedly. "But I seen a old historical filmclip showing about
olden times and all, and a big shot name of Ronnie Reagan said 'Ambassadore'
just like me!"

            "I recall the personage
you mention, Hy," Shortfall conceded. "He constantly outraged his
foes by taking actions which tended to serve his own nation's interests, rather
than those of his avowed enemies, the Blues, or Greens, or something. Hardly
the diplomatic way; poor choice as an exemplar, Hy."

            "Reds," Felix
supplied.

            "I said about Blues or
Greens or like that," Shortfall reminded the stubborn Information Agency
rep. "And that's the same as if I said 'Reds,' right, Art?" He turned
to the Cultural Attache for confirmation. "But it is the insubordination,
verging on open revolt, of Mr. Retief which is under discussion here!"

            "Ha!" Hy Felix
interjected. "Retief ain't even here! How could—"

            "You see?"
Shortfall cut off the irreverent Agency man. "After I distinctly ordered him
to report to me at once—and he's not even here!"

            "So the guy's a couple
minutes late fer Staff Meeting," Hy persisted. "That ain't hardly a
hanging offense."

            "I said nothing of
hanging,
yet!"
Shortfall caviled. "Still, when one considers
that Retief s desertion was in the face of an angry mob menacing this Mission,
it could well be regarded as a capital offense."

            "Geeze," Hy
sighed. "Next you'll be offering a reward, dead or alive."

            "Preferably
alive," Shortfall told the sarcastic fellow. "As for the reward, I
think one hundred guck would be about right, eh, Nat?" He turned to his
Econ Chief for confirmation.

            "Well, sir," Art
spoke up sagely, if belatedly, "there ^re perhaps those who would hold
that while references to the azure and vert tinctures are not the precise
equivalent of the gules, it is undoubtedly a fact that Your Excellency was on
the right track." This time it was Hy who jotted.

            "That 'ghouls',
Art," he called to the Culture man, "that's the same as 'red,' ain't
it?"

            "That is precisely my
point, Hyman," Art replied, and busied himself stuffing a Yalcan clay
pipe.

            "You're
not
thinking
of lighting that thing, I trust, Arthur," Shortfall said in the tone of
one Reluctantly Mentioning the Unmentionable (3-z).

            Art stuck the pipe back in
the tobacco pouch and returned it to the bulging pocket of his Harris tweed
hacking jacket.

            "How do you like
that?" he inquired
sotto voce
of an unheeding universe, "after
I back him up and all, he won't even let a fellow have a little pick-up."

            "Rick," Shortfall
spoke abruptly to his Admin Officer, pretending not to have overheard Art's
plaint, "better get some flyers run off, offering a reward for the return
of Mr. Retief, alive and in one piece."

            Rick Uptight nodded and
jotted a note. "You
did
say 'dead or alive,' right, Chief?" he
inquired disinterestedly.

            "Naw, Ricky,"
Felix spoke up, "that was me: I was ribbing his Ex."

            " 'Dead or Alive',"
Rick mumbled, jotting again.

            "Then why din't you
just say 'Red'?" Hy demanded out of context, of Art Proudflesh.
"Always tryna ritz us common people, eh, Art?"

            "A knowledge of
heraldic blazoning terminology is a part of the education of any gentleman,
Hyman," Art rejected the accusation.

            "So now yer saying I
ain't a genulman," Hy complained. "Ha! Next you'll be throwing me to
the dogs—or pillars—like you done Jimmy Retief!"