Retief-Ambassador to Space (25 page)

"Well, fancy meeting
you
here, Hubert." A slightly built, splendidly dressed Groaci strolled
forward, puffing at a dope stick held in silver tongs. "I regret to submit
you to the indignity of being trussed up like a gerp-fowl in plucking season,
but what can one expect when one commits aggravated trespass, eh?"

"Trespass? I'm here in good faith
as Terran envoy to Zoon!" Oldtrick sputtered. "See here, Ambassador
Shish, this is an outrage! I demand you order these bandits to release me and
my staff at once—"

"Field Marshal Shish, if you
please, Hubert," Shish whispered. "These are a duly constituted
constabulary.

If you annoy me, I may just order them
to exercise the full rigor of the law which you have so airily
disregarded!"

"What law? Your confounded
dacoits have assaulted peaceful diplomats in peaceful pursuit of their
duties!"

"Interplanetary law, my dear
sir," Shish hissed. "That section dealing with territorial claims to
uninhabited planets."

"But-but the Zooners inhabit
Zoon!"

"So? An exhaustive search of the
entire planetary surface by our Scouting Service failed to turn up any evidence
of intelligent habitation."

"Surface? But the Zooners don't
occupy the surface—"

"Exactly. Therefore we have
assumed ownership. Now, about reparations and damages in connection with your
release; I should think a million credits would be about right—paid directly to
me, of course, as Planetary Military Governor,
pro tem
..."

"A million?" Oldtrick
swallowed hard. "But ... but ... see here!" He fixed Shish with a
desperate eye. "What is it you fellows are after? This isn't the kind of
sandy, dry real estate you Groaci prefer—and the world has no known economic or
strategic value ..."

"Hmmm." Shish flicked his
dope stick butt aside. "No harm in telling you, I suppose. We intend to
gather a crop."

"Crop? There's nothing growing
here but blue grass and land coral!"

"Wrong again, Hubert. The crop
that interests us is this ..." He fingered the edge of his shaggy violet
cape. "A luxury fur, light, colorful, nonallergic ..." He lowered his
voice and leered with three eyes. "And with reportedly fabulous aphrodisiac
effects; and there are millions of credits worth of it, leaping about the
landscape below, free for the harvesting!"

"But—surely you jest, sir! Those
are—"

There was a sudden flurry as one of
the Terrans broke free and dashed for a cave. The Groaci constabulary gave
chase. Shish made an annoyed sound and hurried away to oversee the recapture.
Oldtrick, left momentarily alone, eyed the flying harness lying in a heap ten
yards from him. He took a deep breath, darted forward, snatched up a harness.
As he turned to sprint for cover, a breathy cry announced his discovery.
Desperately, the Chief of Mission struggled into his straps as he ran, twisted
the valve, fired his jato units, and shot into the air over the heads of a pair
of fleet-footed aliens who had been about to lay him by the heels. He passed
over Retiefs head at an altitude of twenty feet, driven smartly by the brisk
breeze. Retief ducked his head, hugged the shadows as Groaci feet pounded past
at close range, pursuing the fleeing Terr an. Retief saw half a dozen marksmen
taking aim at the airborne diplomat as the wind swept him out over the reefs
edge. Shots rang. There was a sharp report as a round pierced the gasbag. With
a despairing wail, the Ambassador sank swiftly out of sight.

Retief rolled to his feet, ran to the
pile of flight harnesses, grabbed up two, whirled and sprinted for the edge
over which Oldtrick had vanished. Two Groaci, turning to confront the new
menace descending on their rear, were bowled aside by Retiefs rush. Another sprang
to intercept him, bringing his gun around. Retief caught the barrel in full
stride, swung the gun with its owner still clinging desperately to it, slammed
the unfortunate alien into the faces of his astounded comrades. Shots split the
air past Retiefs ear, but without slowing, he charged to the brink and dived
over into seven thousand feet of open air.

The uprushing wind shrieked past
Retiefs ears like a typhoon. Gripping one of the two harnesses in his teeth, he
pulled the other on as one would don a vest, buckled the straps. He looked
down, squinting against the rush of air. The Ambassador, falling free now with
his burst balloon fluttering at his back, was twenty feet below. Retief tucked
his arms close, kicked his heels up to assume a diver's attitude. The distance
between the two men lessened. The rock face flashed past, dangerously close.
Retiefs hand brushed Old-trick's foot. The Ambassador twisted convulsively to
roll a wild eye at Retief, suspended above him in the hurtling airstream.
Retief caught the senior diplomat's arm, shoved the spare harness into his
hand. A moment later Oldtrick had shed his ruined gasbag and shrugged into the
replacement with a twist of the petcock, he inflated his balloon and at once
slowed, falling behind Retief, who opened his own valve, fell the sudden tug of
the harness. A moment later, he was floating lightly a hundred feet below the
Ambassador.

"Quick thinking, my boy ..."
Oldtrick's voice came family. "As soon as I'm back aboard the transport, I
shall summon a heavy PE Unit to deal with those ruffians! We'll thwart their
inhuman scheme to massacre helpless infant Zooners, thus endearing ourselves to
their elders!" He was close now, dropping as Retief rose. "You'd
better come along with me," he said sharply as they passed, ten feet
apart. "I'll want your corroborative statements, and—"

"Sorry, Mr. Ambassador,"
Retief said. "I seem to have gotten hold of a heavy-duty unit. it wants to
go up, and the valve appears to be stuck."

"Come back," Oldtrick
shouted as he dropped away below the younger man. "I insist that you
accompany me ..."

"I'm afraid it's out of my hands
now, sir," Retief called. "I suggest you stay out of sight of any
colonist who may have settled in down below. I have an idea they'll be a little
trigger happy when they discover their police force is stranded on the reef;
and a dangling diplomat will make a tempting target."

The southwest breeze bore Retief along
at a brisk twenty-mile-per-hour clip. He twisted the buoyancy control lever
both ways, to no avail. The landscape dwindled away below him, a vast spread of
soft aquamarine hills. From this height, immense herds of creatures were
visible, ranging in color from pale blue to deep grapejuice. They appeared,
Retief noted, to be converging on a point not far from the base of the coral
reef, where a number of black dots might have been small structures. Then the
view was obscured, first by whipping streamers of fog, then by a dense, wet
mist which enveloped him like a cool Turkish bath.

For ten minutes he swirled blindly
upward; then watery sunshine penetrated, lighting the vapor to a golden glow; a
moment later he burst through into brilliance. A deep blue sky arched above the
blinding white cloud-plain. Squinting against the glare, he saw a misty shape
of pale green projecting above the clouds at a distance he estimated at five
miles. Using steering jets, he headed for it.

Fifteen minutes later, he was close
enough to make out thick, glossy yellow columns, supporting masses of
chartreuse foliage. Closer, the verdure resolved into clusters of leaves the
size of tablecloths, among which gaudy blossoms shone scarlet and pink. In the
leafy depths, the sun striking down from zenith was filtered to a deep,
green-gold gloom. Retief maneuvered toward a sturdy-looking branch, only at the
last moment saw the yard-long thorns concealed in the shadow of the spreading
leaves. He ducked, twisted aside from the savage stab of a needlepoint, heard
the rip and
ker-pow!
as his gasbag burst, impaled; then he slammed hard
against a thigh-thick, glass-smooth branch, grabbed with both hands and both
legs, and braked to a halt inches from an upthrust dagger of horny wood.

All around, life swarmed, humming,
buzzing, chattering in a hundred oddly euphonious keys. There were fluffy,
spherical bird-things in vivid colors; darting scaled runners like jeweled
ferrets; swarms of tiny golden four-winged butterflies. Once something hooted,
far away, and for a moment the chorus was stilled, to resume a moment later.

Looking down, Retief could see nothing
but level after level of leafy branches, blotting out the swirling clouds two
hundred feet below. The ground, he estimated, was a mile and a half farther—not
what could be described as an easy climb. Still, it looked like the only way. He
divested himself of the ruined altitude harness, picked a route and started
down.

Retief had covered no more than fifty
feet when a sudden flurry of motion caught his eye through the foliage. A
moment later, a clump of leaves leaned aside, pushed by a gust of wind, to
reveal a bulky, ghost-pale creature, its body covered with short white
bristles, its head a flattened spheroid. Its multiple shiny black limbs
threshed wildly against the restraint of a web of silky, scarlet threads,
stretched between limbs in an intricate spiral pattern. A flat pouch, secured
by a flat strap, bobbed against the trapped creature's side. The web, Retief
saw, was constructed at the very tip of a pair of long boughs which leaned in a
deep curve under the weight of the victim—and of something else.

Peering into the shadows, he saw a
foot-long claw like a pair of oversized garden shears poised in the air two
feet from the trapped being; then he noted that the claw was attached to an arm
like a six-foot length of stainless-steel pipe, which was attached, in turn, to
a body encased in silvery-blue armor-plate, almost invisible in the leafy
gloom.

As Retief watched, the arm lunged,
sheared through a cluster of awning-sized leaves, snipped off a tuft of stiff
white hairs as the snared one made a desperate bound sideways. The aggressor,
it appeared, had advanced as far along the fragile support as possible; but it
was only a matter of time until the murderous pincer connected with its target.

Retief checked his pockets, produced a
pocketknife with a two-inch blade, useful chiefly for cutting the tips from
hand-rolled Jorgensen cigars. He used it to saw through a half-inch-thick vine
drooping near him.. He coiled the rope over his shoulder and started back up.

From a branch far above, Retief peered
down through the leafy shadows at the twelve-foot monstrosity clinging, head
down, from a six-inch stem. The predator had stretched itself out to its utmost
length in its effort to reach its victim trapped below.

Retief slid down to a crouch within
touching distance of the monster's hind leg. He flipped out the lariat he had
fashioned hastily from the length of pliable vine, passed its end under the
massive ankle joint, whipped it quickly into a slip knot which would tighten
under pressure. He tied the other end of the rope to a sturdy bole at his back,
pulling it up just short of taut. Then he slid around the trunk and headed back
for the scene of the action, paying out a second rope, the end of which was
secured to a stout limb.

The trapped creature, huddled at the
extreme extent of the rein given it by the binding strands of silk, saw Retief,
gave a convulsive bound which triggered another snap of the giant claw hovering
above.

"Stand pat," Retief called
softly. "I'll try to distract his attention." He stepped out on a
slender branch, which sagged but held. Holding the end of the rope in his free
hand, he made his way to within ten feet of the web.

Above, the claw-creature, sensing
movement nearby, poked out a gliterring eye at the end of a two-foot rod,
studied Retief from a distance of five yards. Retief watched the claw, which
hovered indecisevely, ready to strike in either direction.

A baseball-sized fruit was growing
within easy reach. Retief plucked it, took aim, and pitched it at the monster's
eye. It struck and burst, spattering the surrounding foliage with a sticky
yellow goo and an odor of overripe melon. Quick as thought, the claw struck out
at Retief as he jumped, gripping the vine, and swung in a graceful Tarzan-style
arc across toward a handy landing platform thirty feet distant. The armored
meat-eater, thwarted, lunged after him. There was a noisy rasping of metal-hard
hooks against wood, a frantic shaking of branches; then the barrel-shaped body
halted in mid-spring with a tremendous jerk as the rope lashed to its leg came
up short. Retief, safely lodged in his new platform, caught a momentary glimpse
of an open mouth lined with ranks of multi-pronged teeth; then, with a sharp
zong!
the rope supporting the monster parted. The apparition dropped away, smashing
its way downward with a series of progressively fainter concussions until it
was lost in the depths below.

The bristled Zoonite sagged heavily in
the net, watching Retief with a row of shiny eyes like pink shirt buttons as he
sawed through the strands of the web with his pocketknife. Freed, it dipped
into its hip-pouch with a four-fingered hand encased in a glove ornamented with
polished, inch-long talons, brought out a small cylinder which it raised to its
middle eye.

"Hrikk,"
it said in a soft rasp. A mouth like
Jack Pumpkinhead's gaped in an unreadable expression.