“Retief! Did you—I mean, surely you didn’t—” Straphanger choked.
“Well!” Magnan said indignantly. “I was lying right there—”
“Zearch him!” the Pope bellowed. Guards jumped forward; busy hands grabbed at Retief’s kilt-pockets, almost at once came upon the folded paper the Spism had dropped as it fled his room.
“Ah-hah!” the Pope pounced, opened the paper, read the message.
“A gonsbirazy!” he yelled. “Unter my fery nose! But the ironts on him!”
“I must protest!” Straphanger spoke up. “You can’t go about chaining up diplomats every time a little indiscretion is committed! Leave the matter to me, Your Arrogance; I’ll see that a sharp entry goes in his record—”
“The Kods will nod pe denied their tue!” Ai-Poppy-Googy roared. “Domorrow is the Krant Vestifal of Wentstay—”
“Tomorrow’s Thursday,” Magnan interjected.
“Domorrow is Wentstay! Totay is Wentstay! I herepy teclare a whole weeg of Wentstays, plast it! Now, as I was sayink—this Derran will bartizibade in the vestifal! Zuch is the Babal will! No more arkuments!”
“Oh, he’ll be taking part in a ceremony!” Straphanger said in a relieved tone. “Well, goodness, I suppose we can spare him long enough for that.” He offered a small diplomatic chuckle. “The Corps is always ready to promote worship in whatever form, of course—”
“The only dru Kots are the Hookan Kots, py the Kots!” the Pope boomed. “Any more of your Derran heresy, and I’ll referse my tisbenzation! Now dake thiz one to the demple and brebare him vor the rides of Wentstay! The resd of you will remain unter arresd, undil the will of the Kots is known!”
“Mr. Ambassador,” Magnan quavered, tugging at Straphanger’s arm. “Do you think we should allow them—”
“Merely letting His Arrogance save face,” Straphanger said in a confidential tone. He winked at Retief. “Don’t worry, my boy; good experience for you. You’ll get an inside view of the Hoogan religious concept at work.”
“But—but, what if they . . . I mean, boiling in oil is so permanent . . .” Magnan persisted.
“Quiet, Magnan! I’ll have no whiners in my organization!”
“Thanks for thinking of me, Mr. Magnan,” Retief said. “I still have my good luck charm.”
“Charm?” Magnan looked blank.
“Witchgraft?” the Pope boomed. “I zuzbegted as much!” He turned a large red eye on Straphanger.
“I’ll pe zeeing you at the zeremony! Ton’t pe lade!” He eyed Retief. “Are you goming beazevully?”
“In view of the number of guns aimed at me,” Retief said, “I sincerely hope so.”
* * *
The cell was narrow, dark, damp, and unfurnished except for a plain table with a bottle of bitter-smelling wine and a narrow bench on which Retief sat, his wrists chained together, listening to a muffled tapping which sounded faintly from beyond the walls. It had been going on now for twelve hours, he estimated—long enough for the Hoogans to have completed their preparations for the religious ceremonies in which he was to play a part.
The tapping abruptly changed tone, sounding louder, nearer. There was a light clatter, as of pebbles tossed on the floor. A moment later, there was a soft scraping sound, a rasping like fingernails on a blackboard; then silence.
“Retief, are you there?” a thin voice chirped through the pitch darkness.
“Sure, Jackspurt! Come on in and join the party. I’m glad to see you eluded the gendarmes.”
“Those slobs! Hah! But listen, Retief, I’ve got bad news . . .”
“Press on, Jackspurt; I’m listening.”
“This is Festival Day—and old Googy’s scheduled the big all-out push for today, to tie in with the mumbo-jumbo. The Hoogs have been building this king-size fumigator for months—stacking it full of rubbish, old rags, worn-out tires, and what not. At the height of the big ceremony, they set the stuff on fire, and start the smoke-pumps going. They got a system of pipes laid out leading into the burrows, see? There won’t be a safe spot for Spisms for miles around. Our boys will come stampeding out of their hideaways, some of which have been in the family for generations, and zowie! the Pope’s troops lower the boom! It’ll be the finish of Spisms!”
“That’s a heart-rending story, Jackspurt—or it would be, if I weren’t in such a heart-rending position myself at the moment—”
“Yeah, the Wednesday Rites. You scheduled for the matinee or the big evening spectacular?” Jackspurt broke off as clanking sounded from beyond the door.
“Holy Moses, Retief! Time’s up! They’re here! Listen, I was supposed to brief you in, like, but it took longer’n I figured tunneling through that wall, and then I got to yakking—”
A key scraped in the keyhole.
“Listen! Did you drink any of what’s in the bottle?”
“No.”
“Good! It’s doped! When I leave, dump it! You’ll have to pretend you can’t talk or the jig’s up! Put on a kind of zombie routine, see? Whatever they tell you—do it! If they get the idea you’re putting something over, it’s zkkk! for every Terry on Hoog! And remember! Keep your head down and your arms and legs tucked in—”
The lock turned with a rasp of rusty tumblers.
“Got to go! Good luck!” Jackspurt scrambled and was gone. Retief took a step, grabbed up the bottle, poured it down the three-inch hole through which his visitor had fled.
Light blazed as the heavy door swung inward. Three hooded Hoogan pikemen came into the cell, followed by a black-robed priest. Retief stood holding the empty bottle, his body concealing Jackspurt’s escape route.
“How to you veel, Derry?” the priest inquired, looking Retief over. He stepped in, thumbed Retief’s eyelid up, grunted, took the empty bottle from his hand.
“Goked to the eyeprows,” he stated.
“Are you zure?” a pikeman challenged. “I ton’d drust these voreigners.”
“Nadurally I’m zure; the hypervasgulations of the subraoccibital whatchamagallids is dypical; a glassic gase. Dake him alonk.”
Hemmed in by pikes, Retief followed along a torch-lit passage, up winding stone stairs, to emerge abruptly into blinding light and the susurrus of a multitude of voices, above which one rose like the boom of surf:
” . . . azzure you, my tear Ambassador Hipstinker, our brinzibal teity, Uk-Ruppa-Tooty, is nod only a hantzome degoration and a gonstand reminter to the bobulaze that the nexd tithe is tue—he also brotuzes oragular stadements rekularly efery Wentstay at one B.M. Of gourse, it is nod always kiven to us to undersdant whad he’s dalkink apout, bud the evvegd on the beasandry is most zaludory . . .”
Squinting against the sudden sunlight, Retief made out the resplendently-robed figure of the Pope, seated under a vast parasol on a massive throne of dark wood carved with designs of intertwined serpents, flanked on the left by the Terran Ambassador and on the right by a huddle of lesser diplomats, the group ringed in by stony-faced Hoogan guards with bared scimitars.
The priest who had accompanied Retief bowed unctuously before the Papal throne. “Your Arrokanze, the Zoon-to-pe-Elefated One is here,” he indicated Retief with a wave of the hand.
“Is he . . . ah . . . ?” Ai-Poppy-Googy looked inquiringly at the escort.
“A glassig gase of hypervasgulations of the thinkamapops,” a pikeman spoke up.
“Poil thad one in oil,” the Pope said, frowning. “He dalgs doo mudge.”
“You appear a bit peaked, Retief,” Straphanger commented. “I trust you slept well last night? Comfortable quarters and all that?”
Retief stared absently past the Ambassador’s left ear.
“Retief, the Ambassador’s addressing you,” Magnan said sharply.
“Brobably he’s losd in metitations,” Ai-Poppy-Googy said hastily. “On with the zeremony—”
“Perhaps he’s sick,” Magnan said. “Here, you’d better sit down—”
“Ah-ah,” Ai-Poppy-Googy held up a limber hand. “The mosd imbortand bortion of the zeremony yed remaints to pe zeleprated.”
“Ah, yes, of course,” Straphanger sat back. “I’d quite forgotten, Your Arrogance.” He glanced around. “We’ll have a magnificent view of the proceedings from here . . .”
At a prod from a Papal Guard, Retief turned—and found himself staring directly into the vast brass smile of the Hoogan idol.
* * ** * *
From Retief’s elevated viewpoint atop the two-hundred foot high ziggurat, the head of the god reared up another fifty feet, an immense stylized Hoogan face of polished yellow metal, the vast hand upraised beside it. The eyes were deep hollows at the back of which a sullen red glow gave an impression of malignant intelligence. The nose-holes, a yard each in diameter, drooled a thin trickle of smoke which coiled up past soot-streaked cheeks to dissipate in the clear air. The mouth which split the massive head gaped in a crocodile smile set with spade-shaped teeth with spaces between them, beyond which was visible a curve of polished esophagus agleam with leaping reflections from inner fires below.
Two lesser priests stepped forward to hang assorted ornaments on Retief’s shoulders and neck. Another took up a position before him, began intoning a repetitious chant. Somewhere, drums commenced a slow tattoo. A murmur passed over the crowd packing the slopes of the ziggurat and the plaza below. Standing at ease, apparently ignoring his surroundings, Retief noted a two-foot-wide trough cut in the stone platform at his feet, deepening and slanting down as it ran to the abrupt drop-off ten yards distant. An acolyte was busy pouring oil into the hollow and spreading it with swipes of his hands.