Retief Unbound (4 page)

"Has anyone at Headquarters
ever visited Adobe?"

"Of course not. They all hate
travel too. If there are no other questions, you'd best be on your way. The
mail run departs the dome in less than an hour."

"What's this native life form
like?" Retief asked, getting to his feet.

"When you get back," said
Passwyn, "you tell me."

The mail pilot, a leathery veteran
with quarter-inch whiskers, spat toward a stained corner of the compartment,
and leaned close to the screen.

"They's shootin' goin' on down
there," he said. "Them white puffs over the edge of the desert."

I'm supposed to be preventing the
war," said Retief. "It looks like I'm a little late."

The pilot's head snapped around.
"War?" he yelped. "Nobody told me they was a war goin' on on
'Dobe. If that's what that is, I'm gettin' out of here."

"Hold on," said Retief.
"I've got to get down. They won't shoot at you."

"They shore won't, sonny. I
ain't givin' 'em the chance." He reached for the console and started
punching keys. Retief reached out, catching his wrist.

"Maybe you didn't hear me. I
said I've got to get down."

The pilot plunged against the
restraint and swung a punch that Retief blocked casually. "Are you
nuts?" the pilot screeched. "They's plenty shootin' goin' on fer me
to see it fifty miles out."

"The mails must go through,
you know."

"I ain't no consarned postman.
If you're so dead set on gettin' killed—take the skiff. I’ll tell 'em to pick
up the remains next trip—if the shootin's over."

"You're a pal. I'll take your
offer."

The pilot jumped to the lifeboat
hatch and cycled it open. "Get in. We're closin' fast. Them birds might
take it into their heads to lob one this way."

Retief crawled into the narrow
cockpit of the skiff. The pilot ducked out of sight, came back, and handed
Retief a heavy old-fashioned power pistol. "Long as you're goin' in, might
as well take this."

"Thanks." Retief shoved
the pistol in his belt. "I hope you're wrong."

"I’ll see they pick you up
when the shootin's over—one way or another."

The hatch clanked shut; a moment
later there was a jar as the skiff dropped away, followed by heavy buffeting in
the backwash from the departing mail boat.' Retief watched the tiny screen, his
hands on the manual controls. He was dropping rapidly: forty miles, thirty-nine
. . .

At
five
miles Retie
^f
threw the
light skiff into maximum deceleration. Crushed back in the padded seat, he
watched the screen and corrected the course minutely. The planetary surface was
rushing up with frightening speed. Retief shook his head and kicked in the
emergency retro-drive. Points of light arced up from the planet face below. If
they were ordinary chemical warheads the skiffs meteor screens should handle
them. The screen on the instrument panel flashed brilliant white, then went
dark. The skiff leaped and flipped on its back; smoke filling the tiny
compartment. There was a series of shocks, a final bone-shaking concussion,
then stillness, broken by the ping of hot metal contracting.

Coughing, Retief disengaged himself
from the shock- webbing, groped underfoot for the hatch, and wrenched it open.
A wave of hot jungle air struck him. He lowered himself to a bed of shattered
foliage, got to his feet . . . and dropped flat as a bullet whined past his
ear.

He lay listening. Stealthy
movements were audible from the left. He inched his way forward and made the
shelter of a broad-boled dwarf tree. Somewhere a song lizard burbled. Whining
insects circled, scented alien life, and buzzed off. There was another rustle
of foliage from the underbrush five yards away. A bush quivered, then a low
bough dipped. Retief edged back around the trunk and eased down behind a fallen
log. A stocky man in a grimy leather shirt and shorts appeared, moving
cautiously, a pistol in his hand.

As he passed, Retief rose, leaped
the log, and tackled him. They went down together. The man gave one short yell,
then struggled in silence. Retief flipped him onto his back, raised a fist—

"Hey!" the settler
yelled. "You're as human as I am!"

"Maybe I'll look better after
a shave," said Retief. "What's the idea of shooting at me?"

"Lemme up—my name's Potter.
Sorry 'bout that. I figured it was a Flap-jack boat; looks just like 'em. I
took a shot when I saw something move; didn't know it was a Terrestrial. Who
are you? What you doin' here? We're pretty close to the edge of the oasis.
That's Flap-jack country over there." He waved a hand toward the north,
where the desert lay.

"I'm glad you're a poor shot.
Some of those missiles were too close for comfort." "Missiles, eh?
Must be Flap-jack artillery. We got nothin' like that."

"I heard there was a
full-fledged war brewing," said Retief. "I didn't expect—"

"Good!" Potter said.
"We figured a few of you boys from Ivory would be joining up when you
heard. You from Ivory?"

"Yes. I'm—"

"Hey, you must be Lemuel's
cousin. Good night! I pretty near made a bad mistake. Lemuel's a tough man to
explain anything to."

"I'm-"

"Keep your head down. These
damn Flap-jacks have got some wicked hand weapons. Come on . . ." He began
crawling through the brush. Retief followed. They crossed two hundred yards of
rough country before Potter got to his feet, took out a soggy bandanna, and
mopped his face.

"You move good for a city man.
I thought you folks on Ivory just sat under those domes and read dials. But I
guess bein' Lemuel's cousin—"

"As a matter of fact—"

"Have to get you some real
clothes, though. Those city duds don't stand up on 'Dobe."

Retief looked down at his charred,
torn, sweat-soaked powder-blue blazer and slacks, the informal uniform of a
Third Secretary and Vice-Consul in the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne.

"This outfit seemed pretty
rough-and-ready back home," he said. "But I guess leather has its
points."

"Let's get on back to camp.
Well just about make it by sundown. And look, don't say nothin' to Lemuel about
me thinkin' you were a Flap-jack."

"I won't; but—"

Potter was on his way, loping off
up a gentle slope. Retief pulled off the sodden blazer, dropped it over a bush,
added his string tie, and followed Potter.

"We're damn glad you're here,
mister," said a fat man with two revolvers belted across his paunch.
"We can use every man. We're in bad shape. We ran into the Flap-jacks
three months ago and we haven't made a smart move since. First, we thought they
were a native form we hadn't run into before. Fact is, one of the boys shot
one, think' it was fair game. I guess that was the start of it." He paused
to stir the fire.

"And then a bunch of 'em hit
Swazey's farm here. Killed two of his cattle, and pulled back," he said.

"We figure they thought the
cows were people," said Swazey. "They were out for revenge."

"How could anybody think a cow
was folks," another man put in. "They don't look nothin' like—"

"Don't be so dumb, Bert,"
said Swazey. "They'd never seen Terries before; they know better
now."

Bert chuckled. "Sure do. We
showed 'em the next time, didn't we, Potter? Got four—"

"They walked right up to my
place a couple days after the first time," Swazey said. "We were
ready for 'em. Peppered 'em good. They cut and run—"

"Flopped, you mean.
Ugliest-lookin' critters you ever saw. Look just like a old piece of dirty
blanket humpin' around."

"It's been goin' on this way
ever since. They raid and then we raid. But lately they've been bringin' some
big stuff into it. They've got some kind of pint-sized airships and automatic
rifles. We've lost four men now and a dozen more in the freezer, waiting for
the med ship. We can't afford it. The colony's got less than three hundred
able-bodied men."

"But we're hangin' onto our
farms," said Potter. "All these oases are old sea-beds—a mile deep,
solid topsoil. And there's a couple of hundred others we haven't touched yet.
The Flap-jacks won't get 'em while there's a man alive."

"The whole system needs the
food we can raise," Bert said. "These farms we're tryin' to start
won't be enough but they'll help."

"We been yellin' for help to
the CDT, over on Ivory," said Potter. "But you know these Embassy
stooges."

"We heard they were sendin'
some kind of bureaucrat in here to tell us to get out and give the oasis to the
Flapjacks," said Swazey. He tightened his mouth. "We're waitin' for
him. . .."

"Meanwhile we got
reinforcements comin' up. We put out the word back home; we all got relatives
on Ivory and Verde—"

"Shut up, you damn fool!"
a deep voice grated.

"Lemuel!" Potter said.
"Nobody else could sneak up on us like that—"

"If I'd a been a Flap-jack,
I'd of et you alive," the newcomer said, moving into the ring of the
fire. He was a tall, broad-faced man in grimy leather. He eyed Retief.

"Who's that?"

"What do ya mean?" Potter
spoke in the silence. "He's your cousin."

"He ain't no cousin of
mine," Lemuel said. He stepped to Retief.

"Who you spyin' for,
stranger?" he rasped.

Retief got to his feet. "I
think I should explain—"

A short-nosed automatic appeared in
Lemuel's hand, a clashing note against his fringed buckskins.

"Skip the talk. I know a fink
when I see one."

"Just for a change, I'd like
to finish a sentence," Retief said. "And I suggest you put your
courage back in your pocket before it bites you."

"You talk too damned fancy to
suit me."

"You're wrong. I talk to suit
me. Now, for the last time: put it away."

Lemuel stared at Retief. "You
givin' me orders . . . ?"

Retief's left fist shot out and
smacked Lemuel's face dead center. The raw-boned settler stumbled back, blood
starting from his nose. The pistol fired into the dirt as he dropped it. He
caught himself, jumped for Retief . . . and met a straight right that snapped
him onto his back—out cold.

"Wow!" said Potter.
"The stranger took
Lem ... in
two punches
..."

"One," said Swazey.
"That first one was just a love tap."

Bert froze. "Quiet,
boys," he whispered. In the sudden silence a night lizard called. Retief
strained, heard nothing. He narrowed his eyes, peering past the fire.

With a swift lunge he seized up the
bucket of drinking water, dashed it over the fire, and threw himself flat. He
heard the others hit the dirt a split second after him.

"You move fast for a city
man," breathed Swazey beside him. "You see pretty good too. We'll
split and take 'em from two sides. You and Bert from the left, me and Potter
from the right."

"No," said Retief.
"You wait here. I'm going out alone."

"What's the idea . . . ?"

"Later. Sit tight and keep
your eyes open." Retief took a bearing on a treetop faintly visible
against the sky and started forward.

Five minutes' cautious progress brought
Retief to a slight rise of ground. With infinite caution he raised himself and
risked a glance over an outcropping of rock. The stunted trees ended just
ahead. Beyond, he could make out the dim contour of rolling desert: Flap-jack
country. He got to his feet, clambered over the stone, still hot after a day of
tropical heat, and moved forward twenty yards. Around him he saw nothing but
drifted sand, palely visible in the starlight, and the occasional shadow of
jutting shale slabs. Behind him the jungle was still. He sat down on the
ground to wait.

It was ten minutes before a
movement caught his eye; something had separated itself from a dark mass of
stone, and glided across a few yards of open ground to another shelter. Retief
watched. Minutes passed. The shape moved again, slipped into a shadow ten feet
distant. Retief felt the butt of the power pistol with his elbow. His guess had
better be right. . . .

There was a sudden rasp, like
leather against concrete, and a flurry of sand as the Flap-jack charged. Retief
rolled aside, then lunged, throwing his weight on the flopping Flap-jack—a
yard square, three inches thick at the center, and all muscle. The ray-like
creature heaved up, curled backward, its edge rippling, to stand on the
flattened rim of its encircling sphincter. It scrabbled with its prehensile
fringe-tentacles for a grip on Retief's shoulders. Retief wrapped his arms
around the creature and struggled to his feet. The thing was heavy, a hundred
pounds at least; fighting as it was, it seemed more like five hundred.

The Flap-jack reversed its tactics,
becoming limp. Retief grabbed and felt a thumb slip into an orifice.

The creature went wild. Retief hung
on, dug the thumb in deeper.