Magnan whipped off his mauve cummerbund and thrust it into the gaping mouth. With a muffled grunt, the Hoogan lost his grip, fell, slammed into the heaped rubbish with a tremendous slam. The stokers fled, shouting. The lone priest flattened his face against the window, peering down into the gloom. With a quick movement, Retief gained the catwalk, stepped through the door. The priest whirled, gaped, leaped for a microphone-like device on the corner table. Retief eased the power pistol from his sarong, aimed it negligently at the priest.
“I wouldn’t make any announcements just yet,” he said. “The results aren’t all in.”
“Who are you?” The Hoogan sidled toward a corner cabinet.
“If that’s where you keep your prayer books, better let them lie for a while yet.”
“Loog here, berhabs you are unaware that I am His Voracity the Arjpishob Um-Moomy-Hooby, and I have gonnegtions—”
“Doubtless. And don’t try for the door; I have a confederate out there who’s noted for his ferocity.”
Magnan came through the door, panting. Um-Moomy-Hooby backed away.
“Whad—whad to you wand?”
“I understand the god is about to utter oracular statements, as the high point of the Wednesday services,” Retief said.
“Yez—I was jusd going over my sgribt. Now if you’ll eggsguze me—”
“It just happens that it’s the script we want to talk about. There are a couple of special announcements I’d like to see inserted—”
“Whad? Damper with holy sgribture?”
“Nothing like that; just a good word for a group of associates of ours and possibly a short commercial for the CDT—”
“Plasphemy! Herezy! Refishionism! Nefer will I pe a barty to zuch zagrileche!”
Retief clicked off the pistol’s safety catch.
“—Put, on the other hant, bossiply somethink gould pe arranched,” the Archbishop said hastily. “How much did you have in mind offering?”
“I wouldn’t think of attempting to bribe a man of the cloth,” Retief said smoothly. “You’re going to do this for the common welfare.”
“Jusd whad is it you hafe in mind?”
“The first item is the campaign you’ve been waging against the Spisms—”
“Ah, yez! And a wontervul jop our lats hafe peen toing, doo. Uk-Ruppa-Tooty willink, zoon we will zee them stambed oud endirely, and virtue driumvant!”
“The CDT takes a dim view of genocide, I’m afraid. Now, my thought was that we could agree on a reasonable division of spheres of influence—”
“A teal with the Bowers of Tarknezz? Are you oud of your mind?”
“Now, now,” Magnan put in, “a more co-operative attitude would do Your Voracity greater credit—”
“You zugchesd that the jurch should gombromize with zin?”
“Not exactly compromise,” Magnan said placatingly. “Just work out a sort of peaceful coexistence plan.”
“Nefer will I, as arjpishob, gome oud in vafor of dogetherness with Zatan’s Imps!”
“There, there, Your Voracity; if you’d just sit down across the table from them, you’d find these imps weren’t bad fellows at all . . .”
There was a soft sound from the door. Jackspurt, a jaunty, two-foot sphere of red bristles, appeared, waving his eye-stalks exultantly. A looming blue Spism peered over his shoulder.
“Nice going, Retief!” he called. “I see you caught one. Pitch him down after the other one, and let’s clear out of here. This little diversion will give us time to get clear before the smoke starts.”
“Jackspurt, do you suppose your fellows could do a fast job of shifting a few hoses around? You’ll have to block off the sewers and feed the smoke off in some other direction.”
“Say, that’s an idea!” Jackspurt agreed. “And I think I know just the direction.” He gave instructions to the big blue Spism, who hurried away.
The Archbishop had retreated to a corner, eyes goggling, his hands describing mystic passes in the air. More Spisms were crowding into the room now: tall blue ones, tiny darting green ones, sluggish purple varieties—all cocking their eye-stalks at the prelate.
“Help!” he croaked weakly. “The minions of the netherworlt are ubon me!”
Magnan drew out a chair from the table. “Just have a seat, Your Voracity,” he said soothingly. “Let’s just see if we can’t work out a modus vivendi suitable to all parties . . .”
“Gome to terms with the Enemy? Id will mean the ent of the jurch!”
“On the contrary, Your Voracity; if you ever succeeded in eliminating the opposition, you’d be out of a job. The problem is merely to arrange matters in a civilized fashion so that everyone’s interests are protected.”
“You may hafe somethink there,” Um-Moomy-Hooby seated himself gingerly. “Put the nevarious agtifities of these goplins musd pe kebt unter sdrigd gondrol—Babal gongrol, thad is.”
“Look, my boys got to make a living,” Jackspurt started.
“Zellink a vew love-botions, zerdainly,” the Archbishop said. “And the jurch is willink to zmile at a modest draffic in aphrodisiags, dope, and raze-drack tips. But beddling filthy menus to teen-agers, no! The zame goes vor sdealing withoud a licenze, and the zale of algoholic peferaches, with the eggzebtion of small amounts of broberly aged sduff for medicinal use py the glerchy, of gourse.”
“OK, I think we can go along with that,” Jackspurt said. “But you priests will have to lay off the propaganda from now on. I want to see Spisms getting better billing in church art.”
“Oh, I think you could work out something lovely in little winged Spisms with haloes,” Magnan suggested. “I think you owe it to them, Your Voracity, after all this discrimination in the past.”
“Tevils with winks?” Um-Moomy-Hooby groaned. “It will blay hop with our zympolisms—put I zubboze it can be tone.”
“And you’ll have to have guarantees that everything from two feet under the surface on down belongs to us,” Jackspurt added. “We’ll leave the surface to you, and throw in the atmosphere, just so you dedicate a few easements so we can come up and sight-see now and then.”
“Thad zeems egwidaple,” the Archbishop agreed. “Supchegd to vinal approfal py His Arrokanze, of gourze.”
“By the way,” Jackspurt asked casually, “who’s next in line for the Pope’s job if anything happens to Ai-Poppy-Googy?”
“Az it habbens, I am,” Um-Moomy-Hooby said. “Why?”
“Just asking,” Jackspurt said.
A loud thumping started up from the wide floor below.
“What’s that?” Magnan yelled.
“The pumps,” the Archbishop said. “A bity so many Spisms will tie, but it is manivesdly the will of Uk-Ruppa-Tooty . . .”
“I guess old Uk-Ruppa-Tooty had a last-minute change of heart,” Jackspurt said callously. “We shifted the pipes around to feed the fumes back up into the city plumbing system. I guess there’s black smoke pouring up out of every john in town by now.”
“Touble-grozzer!” the Archbishop leaped up, waving his arms. “The teal’s off—”
“Ah, ah, you promised, Your Voracity,” Magnan chided. “And besides, Mr. Retief still has the gun.”
“And now, if you’ll just pick up the microphone, Your Voracity,” Retief said. “I think we can initiate the era of good feeling without further delay. Just keep our role quiet, and take all the credit for yourself.”
* * *
“A pity about poor Ai-Poppy-Googy falling off the ziggurat when the smoke came boiling out of Uk-Ruppa-Tooty’s mouth,” Ambassador Straphanger said, forking another generous helping of Hoogan chow mein onto his plate. “Still, one must confess it was a dramatic end for a churchman of his stature, shooting down the slide and disappearing into the smoke as he did.”
“Yez, alrety the canonization papers are peing brepared,” His newly-installed Arrogance, Pope Um-Moomy-Hooby, shot a nervous glance at the Spism seated beside him. “He’ll pe the batron zaint of rehabilidated tevils, imps, and koplins.”
“A pity you missed all the excitement, Magnan,” Straphanger said, chewing. “And you, too, Retief. While you absented yourselves, the Hoogan philosophy underwent a veritable renaissance—helped along, I humbly assume, by my modest peace-making efforts.”
“Hah!” the Pope muttered under his breath.
“Frankly, what with all the smoke, I hadn’t expected the oracle’s pronouncement to be quite so lucid,” Straphanger went on, “to say nothing of its unprecedented generosity—”
“Chenerosity?” interrupted Um-Moomy-Hooby, his heavy features reflecting rapid mental recapitulation of his concessions.
“Why, yes, ceding all minerals rights to the formerly persecuted race here on Hoog—a charming gesture of conciliation.”
“Mineralts right? Whad mineralts?”
Jackspurt, splendid in the newly tailored tunic of Chief Representative for Spismodic Affairs to the Papal court, spoke up from his place along the table set up on the palace terrace.
“Oh, he’s just talking about the deposits of gold, silver, platinum, radium, and uranium, plus a few boulders of diamond, emerald, ruby, and so forth that are laying around below ground. The planet’s lousy with the stuff. We’ll use our easements to ferry it up to the surface where the freighters will pick it up, so we won’t put you Hoogs out at all.”
The Pope’s alligator-hide features purpled. “You—you knew apout these mineralts?” he choked.
“Why, didn’t His former Arrogance mention it to you? That was what brought the mission here; the routine minerals survey our technical people ran from space last year showed up the deposits—”