“By all mean,” Longspoon said. “An excellent opportunity to make a few points; or rather, to implement our sincere and heartfelt sense of solidarity with the forces of popular aspiration.”
“Oh, well put, Mr. Ambassador,” Magnan gasped.
“It will be a gala affair,” Underknuckle said. “A fitting conclusion to the excitement of the week, as well as a tribute to General Tief-tief and his gallant warriors of the Federated Tribes.” He looked at Retief severely. “Tell ’em that; that’ll soften ’em up.”
“Remember now,” Retief said to the callers. “No fighting at tonight’s big social event. Colonel Underknuckle abhors violence.”
“OK, Tief-tief,” Jik-jik said. “By the way, we is heard they going to be some extra good stuff on board . . .” He worked his oculars in a Quoppian wink. “I hopes that ain’t no mere rumor.”
“I’ll personally spike the punch bowl,” Retief assured him. He turned to Underknuckle. “He wants to know if he should wear his medals.”
“By all means!” Underknuckle boomed. “Full dress, medals and orders! A real military occasion.” He gave Retief a cold eye. “As for yourself, sir—inasmuch as you’re under charges for AWOL, I suggest you consider yourself confined to quarters until further notice.”
* * *
Retief and Jik-jik stood together at the arched entrance to the mirror-floored grand ballroom aboard the CDT Armed Monitor Vessel Expedient, watching the brilliantly gowned and uniformed diplomats of a dozen worlds gathered under the chandeliers to celebrate the new independence of Quopp.
“Well, Tief-tief,” the Ween said. “Look like all the excitement over for a while. I going to miss it. Cutting greens not near as good exercise as snipping Voion down to size.” He sighed. “Us going to miss you, too, when you goes back to Stiltsville.”
“You’ll find that fighting in defense of peace will absorb all your spare energy, now that you’re civilized,” Retief reassured him.
“I is a great believer in peaceful settlements,” Jik-jik assured him. “Ain’t nobody as peaceful as a dead trouble-maker.”
“Just keep it within reason, or you’ll have the Terries on your neck. They tend to be spoilsports when it comes to good old-fashioned massacres.”
“Sound like a good tip; I’ll keep it in mind.” Jik-jik leaned close to Retief. “Beat me how that disguise of yours fool these Terries, even right up close. It ain’t that good.”
“Let me know if it starts to slip.”
Big Leon appeared, uncomfortable in a brand-new black dress coverall and white tie.
“Looks like old Longspoon learned something while that rope was around his neck,” he said. “Seems like maybe us traders are going to get a square deal now.”
“Most people are willing to give up their misconceptions,” Retief said. “Once they have them tattooed on their hide with a blunt instrument.”
“Yeah. Uh . . .” Leon looked at Jik-jik. “I guess I had a bunch of wrong ideas about you boys, too. You looked pretty good charging in out of the jungle yesterday.”
“You Terries done heap up a big stack of arguments yourselves. Maybe us ought to work out some kind of mutual insistence agreement.”
“Yeah—and while we’re at it, why don’t you boys come around the store sometime; I go a line of luminous neckties coming in that’ll tie knots in your oculars . . .”
General Hish caught Retief’s eye; he strolled over to join the small Groaci, now resplendent in formal kit including a gold fringe that dragged the floor and three honorary head-bladders, one with fig-leaf cluster.
“Really, Retief, I think you went a bit far when you banned Groaci shipping from an entire volume of space,” Hish whispered. “I fear I shall have to insist on a relaxation of that stricture, as well as certain other concessions in the field of, ah, minerals exploration.”
A waiter offered drinks; Hish accepted a clay pot of thick black brandy. Retief lifted a slender-stemmed glass of pale pink liqueur. “Don’t confuse your terminology, Hish,” Retief said. “I didn’t ban your arms-runners and smugglers; it was the wish of Tief-tief, remember?”
“Come, come,” Hish hissed. “Out of regard for a colleague, I refrained from advising your ambassador of the rather baroque role you played in the upsetting of his plans—but—”
“Tsk, tsk, Hish. I thought we’d settled this earlier.”
“That was before you overplayed your hand in presuming to dictate the terms of the Terran-Quoppina accord,” Hish said crisply. “I think now that, all things considered—”
“Ah, but have all things been considered?” Retief sampled his drink, eyed the Groaci.
“Your departure from the role of diplomat to lead the rebel forces was a trifling breech of protocol compared with deluding your chief of Mission in his own sanctum sanctorum,” Hish pointed out. “Still, if you arrange matters to permit a few teams of Groaci prospectors to pan a little gravel in the interior, perhaps I’ll forget to mention the matter.”
“I think you’d better suppress any impulses you may have in the direction of overly candid disclosures,” Retief advised. “At least until after the Board of Inquiry into the matter of the downed yacht. The investigation is being pressed rather vigorously by His Imperial Majesty, Ronare the Ninth of Lily; it was his yacht, you know—”
“A great pity—but I fail to see what—”
“It was just luck that the missile that hit the vessel failed to detonate and was found, nearly intact, wedged in among what was left of the stern tubes—”
“Retief! Have you . . . ?”
“The shell is in the hands of the Federated Tribes. They can’t read Groaci, so they have no way of knowing who supplied it. Still, now that the evidence has been deposited in a safe place—”
“Blackmail?” Hish whispered urgently. “And after I risked my existence to get you into Ikk’s office—”
“The famous Groaci instinct for backing a winner was operating that day,” Retief said. “Now, I believe we agreed that nothing was to be gained by mentioning the unfortunate error that caused Groaci guns to be substituted for Terran propaganda—”
“If you expose me, I’ll inform the Galaxy of your dastardly role in the affair,” the Groaci hissed.
“I confess I might find that personally embarrassing,” Retief said. “But my report will place all Groac in a very dim light—”
“Not so loud!” Hish warned, looking around.
” . . . but we still haven’t discussed the moral implications of your scheme to import from Quopp large volumes of parts for your justly famed transistorized Tri-D sets, mechanical egg timers, and electronic pleasure-center stimulators—”
“But Quopp manufactures no such components,” Hish said weakly.
“Now, we both know better than that, don’t we?” Retief reproved gently. “The Voion were to handle the harvesting, disassemble and sort the victims, and deliver them to the port, and you were to pay them off in armaments. What the Voion didn’t know was that the entire scheme was merely a cover-up for something else.”
“My dear Retief, you’ve gotten a touch of the sun,” Hish whispered. “You’re raving . . .”
“Once comfortably established, it would have been a simple matter to dispense with your Voion helpers and proceed to the real business at hand; turning the whole planet into a breeding ground for a number of rather rare species of Quoppina inhabiting the central regions of the Deep Jungle.”
“What a perfectly fantastic allegation,” Hish said breathlessly. “Why on Quopp would we Groaci go in for breeding aliens?”
“Every creature on the planet—and every plant, for that matter—assimilates metal into its makeup. Most of the varieties in this region use iron, copper, antimony, arsenic, and so on. It just happens that there are a number of little-known tribes inhabiting the Deep Jungle on the other side of the planet who sequester silver, gold, uranium, platinum, and traces of a few other useful materials.”
“Really? Why, who would have thought it . . .”
“You might have,” Retief said bluntly. “Inasmuch as I discovered specimens in your luggage.”
“You searched my luggage?” Hish’s jeweled eye-shields almost fell off.
“Certainly; you carelessly left it aboard the heli you used to pay your call at my camp just before I was forced to blow up the Voion officer’s field mess.”
“I claim diplomatic immunity!” Hish croaked. “I demand the right to consult a lawyer—”
“Don’t panic; I haven’t confided these matters in anyone yet; I thought you might want an opportunity to smooth things over in a quieter way.”
“But, my dear Retief, of course, any little thing I can do—”
“Here,” a loud Terran voice said behind Retief. “I thought I confined you to your quarters, sir!” Retief turned. The portly figure of Colonel Underknuckle confronted him, the broad mud-colored lapels of his full-dress uniform sagging over his hollow chest, his shoulder boards drooping under the weight of gold braid. “You’ll leave this vessel at once and . . . and . . .” His jaw sagged back against a cushion of fat, exposing inexpensive GI plates. His eyes goggled at Retief’s bronze-black uniform, the dragon rampant insignia of a battle commander worked in gold thread on the collar, the short cape of dark velvet, silver-lined, the rows of medals, orders, jeweled starbursts . . .