Retief and the PanGalactic Pageant of Pulchritude (9 page)

            "See
here," General Mub spoke up. "I'm going over and have a word with
that Groaci blunderer! Tryna get Great Glorb mixed up in his double-dealing
schemes! And then letting you Terries ace him outa position, too!" He
stamped off, still fuming.

            "Whatever
is the general talking about?" Ambassador Grossblunder demanded of the
circumambient air, before Magnan fell under his gaze again. "You, Ben, you
brought that fellow out here. What's he up to now?"

            "I'll
just hurry along and see," Magnan volunteered. He set off at a brisk trot,
Retief at his side. As they arrived at the long, low Groaci limousine with its
three-star flags, Mub was accosting the Groaci Planetary Rep.

            "What's
the big idea, General?" the Glorb demanded. "I just found out the
Terries are onto your Grand Plan for the Realization of Glorb Destiny and all!
Now what are you going to do?"

            Hish
turned as impressively as his five-foot stature and knobby knees above jeweled
greaves allowed, stared Mub in the eye. "To modulate your tone,
fellow," he hissed in the Groaci court dialect.

            "To
be aware whom you have the privilege to address? I am Chief Advisor to the
Glorb Council of Elders if not Betters. You would call
me
to
account?"

            "Damn
right," Mub replied spiritedly in his own guttural tongue. "You're
the one set me up for a Galactic General Court Martial, suckered me into
deploying a full division to hit the girlie show while a hundred cameras are
grinding. I musta been off my apple to listen to orders like them, even if the
Council
did
OK the caper!"

            "Quietly,
fellow," Hish cautioned, apparently unperturbed, except for the tell-tale
tinkle of one zircon eye-shield hitting the pavement in response to a violent
twitch of his oculars.

            "Mub
got to him that time," Magnan commented to Retief behind his hand.
"Up until now, I wasn't really sure that even the Groaci would embark on a
scheme so reprehensible as that outlined by Shinth."

            "Shinth?"
Hish echoed in an exasperated tone. "I've been attempting for an hour to
contact the scamp to move up M-minute by a quarter-hour. Where is the fellow,
drat him? Probably off basking in the limelight somewhere, while I carry on the
coolie-labor in his stead!"

            "Shinth
is confined in the den of a hungry glab-worm, General," Magnan offered.
"By now he may well have been ingested."

            "Terries!"
Hish spat the word like a mouthful of Furthuronian garg. "You think to
eavesdrop on high-level consultation between my esteemed colleague, General Mub
and myself, eh? To think again, Magnan. I've not forgotten your audicious
meddling in Groacian affairs of state on a number of previous occasions! To be
warned! And you, too, Retief—yes, I recognize you, sir! Which reminds me that
there's a handsome price on your head. Seize him, Mub!"

            "Naw,
you're all mixed up, General," Mub told the Groacian. "I got this
Retief tucked away in my Number Three confinement facility. He'll keep."

            "You've
blundered, you cretin!" Hish told the Glorb. "I tell you this fellow
is that same Retief who has so often meddled in Groacian affairs! Put him in
irons at once!"

            Mub
rasped at his hairless scalp with an un-trimmed fingernail. "Well, I
dunno, General. I know, there was a little mix-up about who was who, but we got
that all squared away—I think. Lessee, the Groaci are the ones with the five
eyes—hey! I just remembered
you
got about six eyes your ownself! So if
you're really a Groaci, then these here boys are really Terries, and the sucker
I got in the lock-up must be a Groaci like he said. Funny he told me he was
Retief at first."

            "Enough
of this yivshish!" Hish hissed.

            "Shh!"
Mub cautioned belatedly, noticing a number of nondescript Glorb stevedores
hovering nearby. But at the word "yivshish" they spun and disappeared
into the press. Mub lunged after them, but turned back, frustrated.

            "My
boys are trained to a fine edge," he half-moaned, half-boasted. "By
now, they got the word to their cell-chiefs, and in about ten seconds ..."
he broke off, went to tip-toe to look over the variegated crania of the
polyglot crowd to stare toward the distant hills.

            "Dust
clouds, Retief," Magnan pointed out. "Shinth was leveling with us,
for once. What in the world are we to do? Mub's troops are encircling—" he
turned to scan the horizon, seeing rising dust at every point.

            "Just
be calm, Mr. Magnan," Retief counseled. "I think you'll find the
situation well in hand."

            Now
the fringe of the crowd had begun to notice the stir all around the temporary
spaceport. After a moment, a lone armored personnel-carrier appeared from the
approaching roil of dust, racing directly for the huddle of alien craft parked
on the hot desert rock. A cry went up:

            "We're
under attack! Help!" An excited Varoonian mud-spider in the elaborate
straps and bangles of a senior mob-master rushed past, ululating his tribal
danger cry. But the approaching half-track, and a dozen others like it now
visible in line astern, were wheeling aside, slowing, then going into a huddle
as the crowd streamed away from their vicinity. One car backed abruptly and
came on more slowly, circling wide, then hanging a hard left to drive directly
toward the point where Retief and Magnan waited beside the limousine into which
Hish had retreated, muttering sibilantly of nest-fouling drones.

            At
a distance of fifty feet, the car executed a stylish slalom and slid to a halt
with its prow neatly socketed in the sizable dent it had made in the polished
flank of the Groacian VIP car. Inside, Hish could be heard to utter a sharp
shriek. Then a great pink-and-green pelted creature leapt easily from the
driver's seat of the armored vehicle and strolled over to touch noses with
Yong, speaking briefly to him in the yowling Vang language.

            "Captain
Rip here says they got the Glorb tied up tighter'n a belly-button tick,"
the Constable reported tersely. "What next, fellows?"

            "I
see no reason now that the pageant shouldn't continue as scheduled,"
Magnan suggested. "Thanks to you, Constable Yong. How thoughtful of you to
so neatly counter the Glorb-Groaci initiative."

            "It
was Retief's idea," Yong demurred modestly. "Oh," he went on
quietly, "is it OK if I call him by his name now?" He was eyeing Hish
suspiciously as that official emerged hesitantly from the air-conditioned
depths of his Bugatti
Royale
replica.

            "Have
to look out, Ben," Hish whispered. "That's one of those savage Vang
tribesfellows; I've heard all about them. Dangerous savages."

            As
Magnan opened his mouth to reply, a shrill whistling sound crossed the
threshold of audibility and rose to a piercing scream, as a sleek Groaci
battlecruiser flashed overhead, executing a showy slow roll.

            "To
be disastered!" Hish moaned, and sprang back inside his car to grab up his
command microphone. "To cancel Plan Jay-Blue at once," he keened.
"To report all is discovered! To withdraw outside planetary space and then
to disperse on normal routine patrol. To deny everything!"

            "Too
late, Hish," Magnan called into the dark interior of the car. "About
a hundred and fifty newshawks saw that with their own sensory organs. Better
rethink your strategy in a hurry."

            Hish
bounded out once more, his hip-cloak askew, to confront Magnan boldly.

            "To
have rethought my strategy well in advance, Ben," he whispered. "This
is a mere tactical setback. I have worked out a new angle—ah, evolved new
policies in consonance with the developing situation, that is, and I am
ordering the Groacian Goodwill Fleet to land at once, to restore order."

            The
PA system crackled and hissed across the now dust-wreathed arena.

            "As
you were, folks," a hearty voice boomed out. "Just a little aerial
display before we begin the main event—the Pan-Galactic Pageant of Pulchritude!
Let's return to our seats now, everybody— and let's give the judges a chance to
look over entry Number One, a dazzling beauty from Yazoo Twelve!"

            There
was a bustle as the judges, Yong included, pushed through the milling crowd to
the judges' stand.

            "They're
two-thirds Glorbs, Retief," Magnan pointed out redundantly as a dozen of
the squat autocthones pushed officiously to the forefront of the ranked judges.

            Magnan
turned at a tug at his sleeve, to see Jerry, the code-room clerk, at his elbow,
panting from a brisk dash.

            "Mr.
Ambassador wants to see you on the double, sir," he blurted and dashed
away.

            "Well,
I suppose one must bite on the bullet," the Counselor commented
philosophically as he began the trudge back to his moment of reckoning, as
armed Groaci scout-boats settled in all across the rocky plain.

            "What's
this, Ben?" Grossblunder yelled from a distance of twenty feet. "You
go across to exchange amenities with my esteemed colleague, Planetary Rep,
Lieutenant General Hish, and a moment later the Groaci fleet invades in force!
What in the world did you do to rouse his ire in such a dramatic fashion?"

            "It's
all a mistake, Mr. Ambassador," Magnan explained half-heartedly. "You
may have noticed the tanks that were bearing down on us in such a menacing
fashion—"

            "
'May have noticed', Magnan?" the Ambassador yelled. "Do you imagine
I'm deaf, blind, and otherwise sensorially deprived? The infernal machines came
within a hairsbreadth of running me down where I stood!"

            "Except
you were high-tailing it for the ship and devil take the hindmost," young
Marvin Lacklustre commented a trifle too loudly.

            "Ah,
I mean they stopped just as Your Excellency was reboarding the ship in order to
take effective counter-action," the boy amended with an ingratiating
smirk.

            "I
had just recalled, Marvin," his chief pointed out icily, "that Miss
Ripetree was alone and doubtless distraught at the sudden appearance of armed
vehicles bearing down in force from all directions. My place at that moment was
at her side, of course."

            "Spikking
Peaches," First Secretary Sitzfleisch put in, "where is she, anyways?
The show's about to begin."

            "I
was coming to that," Grossblunder pointed out cooly. "Now, Ben, tell
all of us about your neat solution to the problem of public immodest
display."

            "Oh,
sure, sir," Magnan blurted, "I was just thinking, well, here we are
on Glorb, so when in Rome, etc. OK?"

            "I
fear, Ben your meaning is much too cleverly concealed in that utterance. Better
put it a trifle more plainly."

            "Naked
Terries, male, female, or undecided, are devoid of significance to these
aliens, so what the heck! Tell her to get in the spirit of the occasion. After
all, surely she has nothing to be ashamed of?"

            "You
disappoint me, Ben," Grossblunder said in a hushed tone. "I had,
quite frankly, expected a more creative proposal from you. And it's not the
lustful opinion of those leering dotards on the judge's stand I am concerned
with. It is my own reluctance to see my little protégé exposed publicly which
occasions my distress." He paused to dab at an eye with a monogrammed
hanky.

            "Gosh,
sir, don't cry," Magnan urged. "I've got another idea." He
turned to Retief. "Can you get Gertie spruced up in a hurry?"

            "Gertie?"
Grossblunder echoed. "I don't know whence you evoked this substitute, this
shameless doxy willing to strut her stuff in the altogether, but it's
unthinkable! Imagine the image on telly screens across the Arm; myself—Career
Ambassador Elmer Grossblunder, with a naked wench clinging to my arm in the
full glare of sunlight? It's no good, fellows, I'm a ruined man. And
Peaches—"

            "Peaches
what?" a feminine voice called from the open entry port above. All eyes
turned to see the titian-haired beauty standing, naked as a Rhoon egg at the
top of the stair. "I've been listening to you clowns," Peaches went
on, "and I didn't come all this way out here to hide in my boudoir while
Terra loses to some oversized lobster from Hotcake or some downy caterpillar
from Ignatz Nine! I'm game; come on, Poochy, let's hit the runway!"

            Before
His Excellency could respond, a swirling cloud of dust blanketed the little
party of diplomats; when it settled, the ominous gray-blue bulk of a Groaci
cruiser bristling with guns was to be seen, still vibrating on its
landing-jacks from the violence of the pinpoint landing.

            "That's
Admiral Foosh's flagship!" Grossblunder croaked during a brief pause in
the paroxysm of coughing which had empurpled his squarish face. "All is
lost! We are presented with a
fait accompli]
Groac has stolen a march on
us! Retief! Do something! I've heard you're resourceful, but I hardly see what
you can pull out of your hat this time!"