Authors: Keith Laumer
“—pleasure to deal with realists like yourselves,” the
diplomat was saying. “Pity about the natives, of course, but as you pointed
out, a little discipline—”
Retief knocked two Groaci spinning, caught Barnshingle by the
arm, slopping his drink over the crimson cuff of his mess jacket.
“We’ve got to go—fast, Mr. Minister! Explanations later!”
Fiss hissed orders; two Groaci darted away and another rushed
in to be stiff-armed. Barnshingle choked, spluttered, jerked free. His face had
turned an unflattering shade of purple.
“What’s the meaning of this outburst—”
“Sorry, Mr. Minister . . .” Retief slammed a
clean right cross to the side of Barnshingle’s jaw, caught the diplomat as he
folded, stooped to hoist the weight to his shoulders, and ran for the door.
Suddenly, Groaci were everywhere. Two bounced aside from
Retief’s rush; another ducked, swung a power gun up, fired just as Fiss leaped
in and knocked his hand aside.
“To endanger the bloated one,” he hissed—and went over
backward as Retief slammed him aside. A helmeted Groaci Peace-keeper tackled
Retief from behind; he paused to kick him across the room, bowling over others.
A blaster bolt bubbled glass above his head. The air hissed with weak Groaci
shouts as Retief plunged down stairs. Behind him, there was a terrific crash;
over his shoulder he caught a glimpse of glass chips showering from the fallen
chandelier. He was at the bridge now. Barnshingle groaned and flapped his arms
feebly. Retief stepped onto the narrow span, felt it sway under his weight. He
took two steps, put a foot over the edge, teetered—
There was a crystalline tinkle, and a ten-foot spear of
canary-yellow glass fell past him. He caught his balance, took another step,
wobbled as the bridge quivered, leaped clear as the glass shattered into ten
thousand glittering shards that sparkled as they fell.
He went up stairs three at a time. A sudden lurch threw him
against the wall, where mosaiced glass figures depicted glass blowers at work.
A huge chunk of the scene fell backward, letting in a gust of cool night air.
Retief scrambled for footing, went up, felt a glass slab drop from underfoot
as he gained the terrace. Wind beat down from the heli, hovering a few yards
distant. The sparkling tower that had loomed nearby was gone. A sustained
crashing, as of nearby surf, drowned the whine of the heli’s turbos as it
darted in close.
Retief lowered Barnshingle, now pawing weakly and blinking
vague eyes, half lifted, half shoved him into the rear seat.
“Hurry, Mr. Retief! It’s going . . . !”
The noise was deafening now. Retief grasped a strut to pull himself up, and
suddenly he was hanging by one hand, his feet treading air. The heli surged,
lifting. He looked down. The tower was dropping away below, a cloud of
vari-colored glass splinters puffing out as the upper stories thundered down
into the depths. A slender sapphire spire, thrusting up almost alone now,
rippled like a dancer, then broke into three major fragments, dropped
gracefully from view. Retief hauled himself up, got a foot inside the heli,
pulled himself into the seat.
“Mr. Retief, you’re bleeding!” He put a hand up, felt slickness
across his cheek.
“A lot of splinters flying around. It was a little too
close—”
“Mr. Retief . . . !” Miss Braswell worked
frantically at the controls. “We’re losing altitude!”
There was a harsh droning noise. Retief looked back. A heavy
armored heli with Groaci markings was dropping toward them.
“Make for the bog!” Retief called over the racket.
There was a buzz, and garish light glared across the struts
above Retief’s head, bubbling paint.
“Hang on!” Miss Braswell shouted. “Evasive action!” The heli tilted.
Barnshingle yelled. The heli whipped up in the opposite direction, spun,
dropped like a stone, darted ahead. The futile buzzing of the Groaci’s blaster
rattled around the faltering vehicle.
“Can’t do much more of that,” Miss Braswell gasped. “Losing
altitude too fast—”
A vast, dark shadow flitted overhead.
“We’re sunk,” Miss Braswell squeaked. “Another one—
”
There was a flare of actinic blue from above and behind,
followed by a muffled clatter. Retief caught a glimpse of the Groaci heli, its
rotors vibrating wildly falling away behind them. Something huge and shadowy
swept toward them from the rear in a rising whistle of air.
“Get set,” Retief called. He brought up the blaster he had
taken from Oo-Plif, steadied his hand against the heli—
The shadow dropped close; the running lights of the heli
gleamed on thirty-foot canopies of translucent tracery spread wide above a
seven-foot body. Oo-Plif’s gaily painted face beamed down at them. He floated
on spread wings, arms and legs folded close.
“Ah, Retief-Tic! Punch in thorax hasten metamorphosis. Got
clear of chrysalis just in time!”
“Oo-Plif!” Retief yelled. “What are you doing here?”
“Follow to warn you, dear buddy! Not want you meet gods with
crowd of Five-eyes! Now on to bog for festivities!”
Below, the torch-lit surface of the swamp rushed up. Miss
Braswell braked, threw herself into Retief’s arms as the battered heli struck
with a massive splatter at the edge of the mud. Painted Yalcan faces bobbed all
around.
“Welcome, strangers!” voices called. “Just in time for fun!”
*
* *
Barnshingle was groaning, holding his head.
“What
am I doing here, hip-deep in mud?” he demanded. “Where’s Magnan? What happened
to that fellow Fiss?”
“Mr. Magnan is coming now,” Miss Braswell said. “You bumped
your head.”
“Bumped my head? I seem to recall . . .”
Someone floundered up, gasping and waving skinny, mud-caked
arms.
“Mr. Minister! These primitives dragged me bodily from the
street—”
“I thought you were going to stay inside the Legation,”
Retief said.
“I was merely conducting a negotiation,” Magnan huffed. “What
are you doing here, Retief—and Miss Braswell!”
“What were you negotiating for, a private apartment just
below the Ambassadorial penthouse?” she snapped.
“Miss Braswell! Kindly bend your knees! You’re exposing yourself!”
“I’ve got a quarter-inch layer of black mud on; that’s more
than I wear to the office!”
“Here, what’s this?” Barnshingle exclaimed. “What’s happened
to my clothes? I’m stark naked!”
“Why, it’s a sort of symbolic shedding of the chrysalis, as I
understand it, sir,” Magnan babbled. “One must go along with native religious
observances, of course—”
“Gee, Mr. Retief,” Miss Braswell murmured. “It’s sort of sexy
at that, isn’t it?”
“Wha-whatever’s happened?” Barnshingle burst out. “Where’s
the city gone?” He stared across at the glowing heap that marked the site of
the fallen towers.
“It seems to have—ah—been offered to the local deities,”
Magnan said. “It seems to be the custom.”
“And all those nasty little bug-eyes with it,” Miss Braswell
put in.
“Really, Miss Braswell! I must ask you to avoid the use of
racial epithets!”
“It’s really too bad about the towers; they were awfully
pretty.”
Oo-Plif, perched like a vast moth on a nearby tree-fern,
spoke up. “Is OK; re-use glass; make plenty bowl and pot from fragments.”
“But, what about all those Groaci mixed in with the
pieces?”
“Impurities make dandy colors,” Oo-Plif assured her.
“My jaw,” Barnshingle grated. “How did I fall and hit my
jaw?”
“Retief-Tic arrive in nick of time to snatch you from
sacrificial pile. Probably bump chin in process.”
“What in the world were you doing there, Mr. Minister?”
Magnan gasped. “You might have been killed.”
“Why, ah, I was trepanned there by the Groaci—quite against
my will, of course.
They . . . ah . . . had some fantastic
proposal to make. I was just on the point of daring them to do their worst,
when you appeared, Retief. After that, my recollection grows a bit hazy.”
“These head-blows often have retroactive effects,” Retief
said. “I’ll wager you don’t recall a thing that was said from the time they
picked you off the mountain.
“It’s even possible that Oo-Plif has forgotten some of the
things he overheard—about penthouses and gilt edge stocks,” Retief went on.
“Maybe it was the excitement generated by your announcement that Yalc will be
getting some large shipments of fine grey silica sand from Groac suitable for
glass-making, courtesy of the CDT.”
“Announcement?” Barnshingle gulped.
“The one you’re going to make tomorrow,” Retief suggested
gently.
“Oh . . . that one,” the Minister said
weakly.
“Time to go along now to next phase of celebration,” Oo-Plif
called from his perch.
“How jolly,” Magnan said. “Come along, Mr. Minister—
”
“Not you, Magnan-Tic, and Barnshingle Tic-Tic,” Oo-Plif said.
“Mating rite no place for elderly drones. You scheduled for cozy roost in
thorn-tree as ceremonial penitence for follies of youth.”
“What about us?” Miss Braswell asked breathlessly.
“Oh, time for you to get in on youthful follies, so have
something to repent later!”
“You said . . . mating rite. Does that
mean . . . ?”
“Voom Festival merely provide time, place, and member of
opposite gender,” Oo-Plif said. “Rest up to you . . .”
“Patiently
toiling in humble consulates on many a remote world, Junior Corps officers, ever-mindful
of the welfare of emergent non-Terrestrial peoples, labored on in their
unending quest to bring the fruits of modern technology to supplement native
arts and crafts, enriching their halcyon days with the awareness of the
profound effect their efforts might have on entire populations. The examples
set by such dedicated public servants as Vice-consuls Pird and Wimperton stand
as an inspiration to us all . . .”
—Vol. VII, Reel 21, 487 AE (AD2948)
Consul-General
Magnan clutched his baggy chartreuse velvet beret against the blast of air from
the rotor of the waiting heli, beckoned Retief closer.
“I’ll be candid with you, Retief,” he said from the side of
his mouth. “I’m not at all happy about leaving you here as deputy chief under a
Groaci superior; the combination of unpredictable elements is an open
invitation to disaster.”
“I’ve never known disaster to wait for an invitation, where
our Groaci colleagues were concerned,” Retief commented.
“Naturalizing
a Groaci was irregular enough in itself—” Magnan went on. “Tendering him an
appointment in the Corps smacks of folly.”
“Don’t underestimate the boys at headquarters,” Retief said
cheerfully. “Maybe this is just the first step in a shrewd scheme to take over
Groac.”
“Nonsense! No one at HQ would want to go on record as
favoring such a policy . . .” Magnan looked thoughtful.
“Besides, what does Groac have that we need?”
“Their cast-iron gall would be a valuable acquisition—but I’m
afraid that’s the sort of intangible that will elude the wiliest diplomacy.”
Magnan pursed his lips. “Take care, Retief: if anything goes
awry, I’ll hold you fully responsible.” The senior diplomat turned to the other
staff members waiting nearby on the tower-top helipad, moved among them shaking
hands, then scrambled into the heli; it lifted, beat it way eastward against a
backdrop of vermilion-bellied clouds in a sky of luminous violet. Behind
Retief, the voice of Vice-Consul Wimperton rose to a shrill bark.
“No want um basket! No need um beads! Want um heavy metal,
you blooming idiot!”
Retief turned. A short-legged, long-torsoed local draped in a
stiff lime-green garment stood round-shouldered before the Commercial Attaché
dwarfed under a load of fancifully woven and beaded baskets.
“No want um?” the Poon inquired in a voice that seemed to
thrum in his chest. “Plenty too cheap—”
“No bloody want um! How many times do I have to tell you, you
bug-eyed—”
A curtain twitched aside from a narrow doorway; a
spindle-legged Groaci in Bermuda shorts, argyle socks and a puce and magenta
aloha shirt peered out.
“Mr. Wimperton,” he said faintly, “I must request that you
refrain from abusing the locals so loudly; I have a splitting
headache . . .”
The deck lifted, creaking, sank back gently. The Groaci put a
hand against his midriff and clutched the doorframe.
“My, that was a dandy,” Wimperton said. “Felt like my stomach
came right up and bumped my chin!”
“I’m
sure we’re all aware of the motion, Mr. Wimperton—all too
aware . . .”
“Say, you don’t look at all well, Mr. Consul-General,”
Wimperton said solicitously. “It’s this constant rocking, up and down, to and
fro; you can never tell which way the tower will lean next—”