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 varicolored 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 and
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,
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 metamorphis. 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 to meet gods in lousy company like 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 Reliefs 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?"
"Wha—whatever's
happened?" Barnshingle burst out. "Where's the shrine gone?" He
stared across at the glowing heap that marked the site of the fallen towers.
"It
seems to have—all—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 okay. 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 that
perilous mountain."
"Don't
remember? Why, I have perfect recall—"
"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 Yale will be getting some large
shipments of fine gray 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 very 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 rites no
place for elderly drones. You scheduled for cosy roost in thorn-tree as
ceremonial penitence for follies of youth."
"What
about us?" Miss Braswell asked breathlessly.
"Oh,
time for you to get busy 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-Pliff said. "Rest up to you!"
-
CONSUL-GENERAL
MAGNAN clutched his baggy chartreuse velvet beret against the blast of air from
the rotor of the waiting heli and 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 and beat its way eastward against a backdrop
of vermillion-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 urn 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 Attache, dwarfed under a load of
fancifully beaded baskets.
"No
want um?" the Poon enquired in a voice that seemed to thrum in his chest.
"Plenty too cheap—"
"Nobody
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, and sank gently back. The Groaci put a hand against his
midriff and clutched the doorframe. His name was Dools. He was new in his
post—as well as in his citizenship.
"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," Dools
whispered.
"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."
"Yes,
yes, a penetrating observation, Mr. Wimperton." The Consul-General tilted
two eye-stalks toward Retief. "If you'd step inside a moment, Mr.
Retief?" He held the curtain aside, let it drop behind Retief.
Late
sunlight filtering through the open-work walls of the Consulate splashed a
checkered pattern across colorful rugs of kelp fiber, low couches, desks and
chairs of woven wicker work. Consul-General Dools looked at Retief nervously.
"Mr.
Retief," he said in his faint voice. "Now that our previous chief,
Mr. Magnan, has departed, I, of course, find myself in charge." He paused
while the floor lifted and sank; his eye-stalks waved sickeningly.