“They’re a good two hours ahead of me,” he said. “I have to make up some time—”
The Phip was back, buzzing around Retief’s head.
“Tief-tief,” the Phip hummed. “Nip-nip!”
“Sure, give the little stool pigeon a shot,” Nopl offered. “Whoopee! Life is just a bowl of snik-berries!”
“My pal, Tief-tief!” Ozzl slung one long, pulley-wheeled member across the lower portion of Retief’s back in comradely fashion. “You’re a shrewd dealer for a . . . a . . . whatever kind of Quoppina you are!”
Nopl took another pull at the flask. “Tief-tief, you should meet the crowd,” he shrilled cheerfully. “A swell bunch, am I right, Ozzl?”
“Such a swell bunch, I’m crying,” the Flink replied. “When I think what a swell bunch they are I wonder, what did I do to deserve it?”
“They’re a lousy crowd teetotaling small-timers, but so what?” Nopl caroled. “Tief-tief they should meet.”
“Sorry,” Retief said. “Some other time.”
Ozzl made a noise like a broken connecting rod, the Flink expression of suppressed merriment. “Guess again, Tief-tief,” he caroled, and waved a wheeled member in an all-encompassing gesture. “Meet the boys!”
Retief glanced upward. From behind every leafy branch and vine-shrouded shrub, a purple Quoppina materialized, a rope or net in hand, a few nocking arrows to small bows, one or two armed with long, flexible tridents.
“About time,” Nopl said and hiccuped. “I thought you boys would never show.”
* * *
Retief stood in the center of the patch of open, Jooplit sward beneath the big tree from which a hundred silent Flink hung like grotesque fruits. An overweight Flink with the wine-purple carapace of mature age tilted myopic oculars at him. “These two loafers I send out, they should check the traps and with a drinking buddy they come reeling back,” he commented bitterly.
“Who’s reeling? Am I reeling? Look at me,” Ozzl invited.
“What about the Stilter?” someone called. “He looks like prime stock—with a cheese sauce, maybe he should be served—”
“My pal, Tief-tief, nobody cuts up! First I’ll drop dead!”
“This I could arrange,” the oldster cut him off. “Now, if we slice up this Stilter, a snack for everybody he’ll make—”
“Stop right there,” Nopl shrilled. “A businessman like Tief-tief we couldn’t eat! Cannibalism, yet, it would be! Instead, we’ll truss him up and sell him—or maybe disassemble him for spares . . .”
Cries rang back and forth as the Flink discussed the various proposals.
“Such a head I’ve got,” Nopl groaned during a momentary lull. “I think I need another little snort.”
“That booze of yours works fast,” Retief commented. “You got through the buzz and into the hangover stage in record time.”
“Hung over or no, Ozzl and me will stick by you, Tief-tief. If they vote to sell you, I’ll put in a good word we should hold out for top price.”
“Marked down you’ll not be while I’m around,” Ozzl agreed.
The elderly Flink emitted a shrill cry for silence. “The pros and cons we’ve discussed,” they announced. “It looks like the cons have it.” A rustle ran through the Flink ranks. The encircling tribesmen moved in closer, shaking out nets and ropes as they maneuvered for favorable positions, Retief drew his sword, stepped back against the nearest tree trunk.
“Hey,” the oldster called. “What’s that sharp thing? It looks dangerous! Put it away like a nice piece of merchandise before somebody gets hurt.”
“It’s an old tribal custom among us Stilters that we make owning us as expensive as possible,” Retief explained. “Who’s going to be first to open an account?”
“It figures,” the elder said judiciously. “Price supports, yet.”
“Still, we try to be reasonable,” Retief amplified. “I doubt if I’ll disassemble more than a dozen Flink before you get a rope on me.”
“Six,” the Flink said flatly. “That’s my top offer.”
“I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to get together,” Retief said. “Maybe we’d better call off the whole deal.”
“He’s right,” someone stated. “Worth twelve Flink, including maybe me, he’s not.”
Retief started forward, swinging the sword loosely. “Just step back, gentlemen,” he suggested. “I have important business to transact, and no time to continue this delightful discussion—”
A noose whirled at him; he spun, slashed; the severed line dropped to the ground.
“Hey! That’s expensive rope you’re cutting,” someone protested, hauling in the damaged lariat.
“Let him go,” another suggested. “My rope I ain’t risking.”
“What’s that?” the elder shrilled. “You want I should let valuable merchandise go stilting right out of sight?”
“Listen, Tief-tief,” Ozzl called. “There’s only the one trail, and it leads straight to the rock spire. Now, with us, you get sold for parts, so OK, there you are. But you climb up there and a Rhoon picks you up and flies off—I’m asking: Where are you?”
“Did you say Rhoon?” Retief inquired.
“On top of the rock spire they’re thick like Phips on a jelly flower. A chance you haven’t got!”
“Still, I think I’ll risk it,” Retief said. He moved toward the trail and two Flink rushed in, nets ready; he knocked them spinning, dodged two nets and a lasso, leaped for the dark tunnel of the trail and ran for it with a horde of Flink baying in hot pursuit.
* * *
Later, on a rocky slope a hundred yards above the tops of the thick jungle growth below, Retief pulled himself up onto a flat boulder, turned and looked down at the Flink tribe clustered below, staring up and shaking fists.
“Dirty pool, Tief-tief,” Ozzl yelled. “This kind terrain, our wheels ain’t meant for.”
“Thanks for escorting me this far,” Retief called. “I’ll find my way from here.”
“Sure.” The Flink waved a member at the steep escarpments rising above. “Just keep climbing. The Rhoon roost is only about a mile—straight up. If you don’t fall off and get killed, the Rhoon you’ll find after a while—or they’ll find you.” He clicked his antennae in the Gesture of Sentimental Farewell. “You were a good drinking buddy, Tief-tief. Hang loose.”
Retief scanned the slope above; he had a stiff climb ahead. He lifted off his helmet, pulled off the gauntlets, slung them by a thong to his belt. He shook his canteen; nearly empty. He took a last look at the valley and started up the almost vertical slope.
It was an hour after dawn when Retief reached a narrow ledge a thousand feet above the jungle valley below. The wind whistled here, unimpeded by Quoppian flora; in the distance, a pair of white flyers of medium size wheeled and dipped under the ominous sky of approaching First Eclipse, where the fire-edged disk of Joop rushed to its rendezvous with the glaring Quopp sun. Far above, a mere spec in the dark blue sky, a lone Rhoon circled the towering peak where the giant flyers nested.
Retief studied the rock face above; it was a smooth expanse of black slatelike stone rising sheer from the ledge. The route upward, it appeared, ended here.
One of the white aerialists was dropping lower, coming in to look over the intruder. Retief donned his headpiece, shifted his sword hilt to a convenient angle, waited for the visitor. He could hear the beat of its rotors now, see the pale coral markings along the underside of the body, the black legs folded against the chest region, the inquisitive oculars canted to look him over.
“What seek you here upon the wind slopes, groundling?” a thin voice called down to him, tattered by the gusty breeze. “There’s naught for your kind here but unforgiving rock spires and the deep, cold air.”
“They say the Rhoon have their nests up there,” Retief called.
“That do they—up a-high, where low clouds scrape their bellies and death blooms grow amid the moss as black as night.” The flying creature dropped closer; the slipstream from its ten-foot rotors battered at Retief, whirling dust into his face. He gripped the rock, braced his feet apart.
“Aiiii!” the flyer called. “If a zephyr from my passing can come nigh to spill you from your perch, how will you fare when some great lordling of the Rhoon comes like a cyclone to attend you here?”
“I’ll work on that one when I get to it,” Retief shouted over the tumult.
“If you’ve come to steal my eggs, you’ve picked a lonely death.”
“Is there any other kind?”
The flyer settled lower, reached out and gripped a buttress of rock with black talons; its rotors whined to a stop.
“Perhaps you’ve tired of life, chained to the world, and you’ve come here to launch yourself into one glorious taste of flight,” it hazarded.
“Just paying a social call,” Retief assured the creature. “But I seem to have run out of highway. You wouldn’t happen to know an easier route up?”
“A social call? I see you wish a braver death than a mere tumble to the rocks.”
“I’d like to sample the view from the top; I hear it’s very impressive.”