“Just so you don’t try to fly,” Sopp said to Retief. “It’s a wonder to me how some of these life-forms get around, with nothing but chemical energy to draw on. I’ve tucked a few Terry food bars in the hip pouch to help keep you running.”
Creaking slightly, Retief stepped to the nearest window, a roughly hexagonal panel of rippled amber glass, backed by a closed shutter of dark wood. His reflection, distorted by the uneven surface, was startling: curving plates of deep maroon metallo-chitin had been snipped, warped, then neatly welded to form a suit of smoothly articulated armor which covered him from neck to toe. Over his hands, Sopp had fitted a pair of massive red snipping claws salvaged from a Grunk, operable from within by a system of conveniently arranged levers, while a dummy abdominal section from a defunct Clute, sprayed to match the over-all color scheme, disguised the short Terran torso. A handsome set of vestigial pink wing cases edged in a contrasting shade of purplish black lent a pleasant accent to the shoulder region that went far to camouflage their width. The headpiece, taken from a prime specimen of the Voion tribe, sprayed a metallic red-orange and fitted with a crest of pink-dyed Jarweel plumes, fitted lightly over Retief’s face, a hinged section closing down to clamp in place behind.
“Of course, those big, long, thick legs are a bit odd,” Sopp said. “But with the rotating members adapted for rotor use, naturally the anterior arms have to fill in as landing gear. There’s a few tribes that have gone in for stilting around, and developed them into something quite useful.”
“Sure,” Ibbl agreed. “Look at the Terries: no wheels, but they manage OK. I tell you, he looks like a natural! Outside of a few unreconstructed Voion trying to flog him a set of gold inlays or some snappy photos of the tribal ovumracks, nobody’ll give him a second look.”
“Gentlemen,” Retief said, “you’ve produced a miracle. It’s even comfortable. All it needs now is a service test.”
“Where will you go? Ikk’s got the whole town sewed up tight as a carapace in molting season.”
“I’ll head for the Terry Embassy. It’s not far.”
Sopp looked doubtful. “Farther than you think, maybe.” He turned to a wall display, selected a two-foot broadsword fashioned from the iridescent wing case of a Blang. “Better take this. It may come in handy to, shall we say, cut your way through the undergrowth.”
The long twilight of Quopp was staining the sky in vivid colors now; through a chink in the shutter, Retief saw lights glowing against the shadows blanketing the hushed street where the Voion waited, silent. Up high, the carved facades still caught the light, gleaming in soft pastels against the neon-bright sky.
“I think it’s time to go,” he said. “While I still have light enough to see where I’m going.”
“You want to be careful, Terry.” Ibbl was scanning the street from the other window. “Those Voion are in a nasty mood. They’re waiting for something. You can feel it in the air.”
“I’m subject to moods myself,” Retief said. “At the moment I think I could spot them high, low, and jack and still win it in a walkaway.” He took a final turn up and down the room, testing the action of the suit’s joints; he checked the location of the power pistol with his elbow; it was tucked inconspicuously behind the flare of a lateral hip flange, accessible for a fast draw.
“Thanks again, fellows. If our side wins, the brandies are on me.”
“Good luck, Terry. If your side wins, remember me when it’s time to let the contract to junk out the police force.”
“You’ll be first on the list.” Retief worked the lever that clacked his anterior mandibles in the gesture of Reluctant Departure on Press of Urgent Business and stepped out into the street.
* * *
It was a brisk fifteen minutes walk to the Path of Many Sporting Agents, every yard of the way impeded by Voion who stared, gave ground reluctantly. Retief came in sight of the Embassy complex, saw Voion clustered before the main doors in a solid mass. He forced his way closer, eliciting complaints from jostled sightseers. Behind the wide glass panels, the darting shapes of Dinks were working busily; a steady stream of Voion were coming and going, with much shrilling of commands and waggling of signals. There were no Terrans in evidence.
Retief pushed into a narrow shop entry across the street from the scene of the activity, scanned the upper Embassy windows. There were lights on there, and once or twice a shape moved behind the colored glass panes.
There was a distant, thudding clatter. Retief looked up, saw the vast shape of an immense flying Rhoon soar on its wide rotors across the strip of sky between buildings, followed a moment later by a second. Then a tiny heli appeared, bilious yellow-green in color, flitting low above the Chancery Tower. As Retief watched, a head appeared over the cockpit rim—the merest glimpse of stalked eyes, a pale throat bladder—
“That one’s no Voion, nor no Terry, either,” a reedy voice said at Retief’s elbow. He looked around to see an aged Kloob, distinguished by a metallic vermilion abdomen and small, almost atrophied wheels.
“Whoever he was, he seems to be on good terms with the Rhoon,” Retief said.
“Never saw that before,” the Kloob said. “There’s unnatural things going on in the world these days: Rhoon flying over town. Like they was patrolling, like.”
“I don’t see any of the Terry diplomats around,” Retief said. “What’s been going on here?”
“Ha! What hasn’t been going on? First the smoke and the big bang; then the Voion cops swarming all over . . .” The Kloob clacked his ventral plates with a rippling noise indicating total lack of approval. “Things are coming to a pretty pass when a bunch of Voion trash can take over the Terry Embassy and make it stick.”
“So it’s like that, eh?” Retief said. “What happened to the Terries?”
“Dunno. I’m taking a short siesta and I wake up and all I can see is cops. Too bad, too. The Terries were good customers. I hate to see ’em go.”
“Maybe they’ll be back,” Retief said. “They’ve still got a few tricks left.”
“Maybe—but I doubt it,” the Kloob said glumly. “Ikk’s got ’em buffaloed. The rest of us Quoppina better head for the tall grass.”
“Not a bad idea. I wonder where I could pick up a map.”
“You mean one of those diagrams showing where places are? I’ve heard of ’em—but I could never quite figure out what they were for. I mean, after all, a fellow knows where he is, right? And he knows where he wants to go . . .”
“That’s one of the areas in which we Stilters are a little backward,” Retief said. “We seldom know where we are, to say nothing of where we’re going. The place I’m looking for is somewhere to the northeast—that way.” He pointed.
“More that way.” The Kloob indicated a direction three degrees to the right of Retief’s approximation. “Straight ahead. You can’t miss it. That where your tribe hangs out? Never saw one like you before.”
“There’s a group of my tribesfellows in trouble out there,” Retief said. “About eighty miles from here.”
“Hm. That’s a good four days on a fast Blint if the trails are in shape.”
“How does the port look?”
“Guards on every gate. The Voion don’t want any of us traveling, looks like.”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to argue that point with them.”
The Kloob looked dubiously at Retief. “Well, I can guess who’ll win the argument—but good luck to you anyway, Stilter.”
Retief pushed through the loosely milling crowd for half a block before one of the stick-twirling Planetary Police thrust out an arm to halt him.
“You, there! Where are you going?” He hummed in Voion tribal.
“Back where a fellow can dip a drinking organ in a short Hellrose and nibble a couple of sourballs without some flat-wheel flapping a mandible at him,” Retief replied shortly. “One side, you, before I pry that badge off your chest to give to the grubs for a play-pretty.”
The Voion retreated. “Tell the other hicks to stay clear of the city,” he rasped. “Now get rolling before I run you in.”
Retief thrust past him with a contemptuous snap of his left chela. The sun was almost down now, and few lamps had gone on in the shops to light the way. There were no other Quoppina in sight, only the sullen black of the Voion, many of them with the crude shell inlays and filed fangs of tribesmen. The port, Retief estimated, would be off to the right, where the last purplish gleam of sunset still showed above the building tops. He headed that way, one elbow touching the butt of the power gun.