“Maybe you better come with us, Retief,” Steel-tooth said. “The post is a pretty fair fort if push comes to shove.”
“Don’t talk foolish, Lester,” Leon said. “Retief’s got a job to do here.”
“Yeah,” Steel-tooth said, “but when the job blows up in your face, remember Rum Jungle. We’ll need every man—and then it won’t be enough.”
Two
At the Terran Chancery in the Path of Many Sporting Agents, Retief stepped down from his perch and handed a strip of credit to his mount.
“Call on me any time, boss,” the Wumblum said. “I kind of like your style.” He nodded toward the irregularly surfaced Embassy complex, a cluster of standard Quopp-style buildings perched on the uneven ground, painted ocher, Indian red, and dusty aquamarine, perforated by irregularly shaped windows at random intervals. “First time I ever hauled a Terry,” the Wumblum went on in a confidential tone. “Between you and me, I heard you folks were a tight crowd with a credit and not much in the sporting line, if you know what I mean.”
“A base canard, Voom-Voom. A diplomat considers a day wasted if he isn’t playing at least three games at once.”
As Retief stepped through the main entry, incongruously aluminum-framed and glass-doored, First Secretary Magnan hurried up, a thin, harassed figure in the limp yellow seersucker shorts and dickey of subtropical undress kit.
“Retief,” he called. “Wherever have you been? The ambassador is furious! And Colonel Underknuckle’s been calling for you for an hour! I’ve been frantic!”
“Why? Can’t they be furious without me?”
“The sight of you seems to stimulate the condition, that I grant,” Magnan said witheringly. “Come along now. I’ve told the colonel you were probably out gathering material for the quarterly Sewage Report. I trust you’ll say nothing to dispel that impression.”
“I’ve been cementing relations with the Terran business community,” Retief explained as he accompanied the senior diplomat along the wide, tiled, office-lined corridor which had been installed to replace the warren of tiny, twisting passages and cubicles originally filling the interior of the structure.
“Hmmm. I’m not sure that was wise, in view of the present down-playing of Terran private enterprise here on Quopp. You know how Prime Minister Ikk frowns on that sort of thing.”
“Oh, prime minister, eh? Who gave him that title?”
“Why, he advised the ambassador that it was conferred early this morning by unanimous vote of the Council of Drones.” Retief followed Magnan into the lift; the doors closed with a soft whoosh! of compressed air. The car lurched, started heavily upward.
“Let’s see,” Retief mused. “That’s the dummy legislature he set up to satisfy the ambassador’s passion for democracy, isn’t it? It was fortunate he had seventy-three senile uncles handy to appoint; saved the bother of breaking in strangers.”
“Yours is a distorted view of the evolution of representational government here on Quopp,” Magnan said reprovingly. “Closer attention to your Daily Bulletin from the Bird’s Nest would go far toward homogenizing your thinking on the subject.”
“I thought that was something they did to milk.”
“The term refers to voluntary alignment of viewpoint toward a group-oriented polarity; a sort of linkage of moral horsepower for maximal thrust toward the objective.”
“I’m not sure that pasteurized thinking is rich enough in intellectual vitamins to satisfy my growing curiosity about just what Ikk is up to.”
“It should be apparent even to you, Retief,” Magnan said sharply, “that the Corps can hardly accredit a full Mission to a nonexistent planetary government. Ergo, such a ruling body must be formed—and who better qualified than the Voion to undertake the task?”
“You might have something there; their past history has given them a firm grounding in the basics of politics; but with the other tribes outnumbering them a hundred to one, it’s a little hard to see how they’re planning to impose planet-wide enlightenment on a race that’s as fond of anarchy as the Quoppina.”
“That, my dear Retief, is Ambassador Longspoon’s problem, not ours. It was his idea to groom the Voion for leadership; our task is merely to implement his policies.”
“And if in the process we saddle the other ninety-nine percent of the population with a dictatorship, that’s a mere detail.”
“Ah, I can see you’re beginning to get the picture. Now . . .” The elevator halted and Magnan led the way out, paused at the heavy door barring the public from the Chancery wing. “I hope you’ll restrain your unfortunate tendency to essay japes at the expense of decorum, Retief. Colonel Underknuckle is in no mood for facetiae.” He pushed through, nodded mechanically at the small, gray Voion female buffing her chelae at a small desk of polished blue wood at one side of the red-carpeted corridor. She clacked her palps indifferently, blew a large bubble of green spearmint, and popped it with lively report.
“Impertinence!” Magnan sniffed under his breath. “A few months ago the baggage was an apprentice slop-drudge in a local inn of most unsavory repute; now, after we’ve trained her and given her that expensive set of chrome inlays, a derisive pop of the gum is considered adequate greeting for her benefactors.”
“That’s the trouble with uplifting the masses; they get to believing it themselves.”
Magnan stopped at an austere slab door marked MILITARY ATTACHE, fitted an expression on his narrow features appropriate for greeting a Grade Seven employee, pushed through into deep-carpeted silence.
“Ah, there, Hernia, I believe Colonel Underknuckle wished to see Mr. Retief . . .”
The fat woman behind the desk patted a coil of mummified hair with a hand like a glove full of lard, showed Magnan a simper suitable for a first secretary, thumbed a button on a console before her. A chime sounded beyond the half-open door.
“Yes, confound it, what is it this time!” a voice like splitting canvas snarled from the desk speaker. “What in the name of perdition’s become of Magnan? If he’s not here in five minutes, send along that memo to the ambassador I keep handy—”
“It is I,” Magnan said stiffly. “And—”
“Don’t use grammar on me, Magnan!” the attaché shouted. “Come in here at once! There’s been another communication from that benighted vessel! The saucy minx at the controls insists she’s bringing her in, clearance or no clearance. And where the devil’s that fellow, Retief?”
“I have him right here, Colonel . . .” As his callers entered the room, Underknuckle, a lean, high-shouldered man with bushy white hair, hollow, purplish cheeks, and a lumpy, clay-colored nose, his immaculately tailored midafternoon semiformal uniform awry, spun in his hip-u-matic contour chair, causing the power-swivel mechanism to whine in protest. He glared at Retief.
“So there you are at last! What’s the meaning of this, sir? Is it possible that you’re unaware of the new restrictions on tourism here on Quopp?” The colonel lowered his voice. “Schemes are all about us, gentlemen. We’ll have to look sharp to our fences to keep our powder dry!”
“But just one little shipload of ladies—and in difficulty at that—” Magnan began.
“Orders are orders!” Underknuckle hit the desk with his fist, winced, slung his fingers as though drying them.
“Let me assure you, when Ambassador Longspoon imposed entry quotas on sightseers, there was an excellent reason for it!” He barked through a grimace of pain.
“Gracious, yes, Colonel,” Magnan chirped. “We all know Prime Minister Ikk doesn’t like Terries.”
“Ikk’s likes and dislikes have nothing to do with it! It was the ambassador’s decision!”
“Of course, Colonel. What I meant was, you don’t like Terries—”
“Don’t like Terrans? Why, I’m a Terran myself, you idiot!”
“I didn’t mean to give the wrong impression, I’m sure, Fred,” Magnan said breathlessly. “Personally, I love Terries—”
“Not these Terries!” Underknuckle snatched up a paper and waved it. “A boatload of females! Giddy, irresponsible, women! Idlers—or worse! Parasites! And no visas, mind you! And the ringleader, Mr. Retief”—the colonel thrust a mobile lower lip at him—”is demanding to speak to you, sir! By name!”
“Retief!” Magnan turned on him. “What can you be thinking of, importing luxury goods—”
“It’s clear enough what he’s thinking of,” Underknuckle snapped. “And I needn’t point out that such thoughts are hardly in consonance with tight military security!”
Magnan assumed a troubled-but-determined expression. “Did the young lady give a name?”
“Harrumph! Indeed she did. `Tell him it’s Fifi,’ she said—as though the military attaché were a common messenger boy!”
“Heavens—such cheek!” Magnan sniffed.
“The name itself conjures up images of rhinestone-clad doxies,” Underknuckle snorted. “I confess it’s difficult to understand how a diplomat has occasion to make the acquaintance of persons of such stripe!”
“Oh, I’m sure Mr. Retief can fix you up, Fred,” Magnan volunteered. “He seems to have a knack—”
“I do not wish to be fixed up!” Underknuckle roared. “I wish to make it clear to these junketing trollops that they will not be permitted to make planetfall here! Now, if you, Mr. Retief, will be so kind as to report to the Message Center and so inform your, ah, petite amie—”