Retief and the Rascals (32 page)

            "Am I to understand," Pokey Snail
demanded in a tone like the Wurm Glaciation, "that you intend to imply
that a Special Observer from Sector is unacquainted with the colorful
mores
of
the peoples falling within his interest cluster?"

            He turned gravely to Magnan. "The captain
has seen fit to place this officer under arrest," he recapitulated.
"Ana I see no reason to interfere. Where the heck is Stan with those
irons?"

            "Right here, sir," Blatski responded
as he arrived, puffing. He displayed a chrome-plated restraint, VIP, for the
use of. Cun't find the delocker," he reported. "Once on, they stay on
till we get the sucker back to Sector."

            "By the way, Ben," Snail remarked
"I've been thinking: a word in the ear of Grand Inquisitor Wim Dit at this
point might be advisable. He can assess the grounded fleets with port charges,
landing fees, debarkation licenses, usage tax, and a few other little surprises
I'll think up for him. Ten percent will go to the CDT Foundation's sinking fund
of course—"

            "But, sir!" Magnan protested.
"They wouldn't sit still for it! They'd defy Dit and probably open fire on
his mob! The mob would respond in kind, and—gosh, sir, I can hardly bear to
consider consequences!"

            "I read you five by five," Wim Dit's
gluey voice came from the G-to-S talker. "Good notion! Plus they been
piling up demurrage fer three days! I'll squeeze the suckers plenty!"

            "Oh, sir," Magnan wailed. "The
fat's in the fire for sure!"

            "Pity and all that," Pokey replied
coldly. "You heard me, Ben! Otherwise you wouldn't be whining in that
peculiarly irritating fashion. Do it! Get this Dit fellow on your talker again,
and confirm the order! Judging from the data from the scanner, that army, or
crowd or whatever he has with him is big enough (ten thousand, the analyzer
estimates) to make even half-a-dozen combat teams pay attention. Good job
they're not armed! Or perhaps they are by now: I noticed on the hot-line that a
shipment of handguns destined for the constabulary on Krako 8 was hijacked just
hours ago."

            "Disaster!" Magnan yelped.
"Pokey! Or, 'Sir!' I mean! Do you realize that once the Abominables have
access to weapons, they'll embark on a program of genocide, starting with
Objectionables, then their Special Enemies—the Insupportables—and the Viles
will come in to support the Insupportables—"

            "Contradiction in terms, Ben," Pokey
put in impatiently. "And by the way, it's most unprofessional of you to
refer to these deserving local groups by the unflattering epithets you've
employed!"

            "Oh, no, sir," Magnan whined,
"that's their real names—they're proud of being Execrables, or
Abominables, and so on!"

            "Excuses, Ben, excuses," Snail
intoned, jotting. "Let's get this show on the road, Magnan."

            "Oh, you already did, sir," Magnan
hastened to assure the senior official. "You see, we have this bad
talk
switch, and, heck, a fellow can't
keep a secret if he wanted to!"

            "That's cool, Ben," Pokey approved.
"My conscience is clear. Now, as soon as this General Wim—"

            "He's a civilian, sir," Magnan put in.
"Grand Inquisitor, actually."

            "As I was
attempting
to say, Mister
Magnan," Pokey resumed grandly. "When General Dit has completed the
collection of port fees, we'll set
Ruppy
down and confiscate and take!
Is that bad switch open?" he concluded.

        Magnan nodded eagerly.

            Don't look pleased, dammit, Ben! Pokey snapped.
"If they know the game plan, they might prove obstreperous. It will be
better to keep it low-key until the moment when we drop the mask and show them
the naked power of Terra!"

            "Sure, sir," Magnan replied, trying
the OFF
key hopefully. The idiot
light snowed ALL STATIONS COPYING. "Damn!" he exclaimed. "That
means Dit is going to come waltzing up to Sarge Thrash and demand his
exorbitant fees. Thrash will throw him out, and the mob will close in on the
heavily armed pirate crews just debarking, and Armageddon will result! What are
we to do?"

            "Don't ask me for substantive guidance in
the performance of your duly assigned mission, Magnan!" Snail snapped.
"I am here solely in the role of Official Observer!"

            "But it was you that thought up this
diabolical plan and then spilled the beans to not only Wim Dit and his army,
but to Switchback and Buck Promo and the rest, as well!" Magnan wailed.

            "Critical," Pokey noted in his pad,
then scratched it out and replaced it with "Stubborn. Rejects Corps
policy: hesitates to perform duties! Openly accuses superior of criminal
incompetence." He snapped the book shut. "I guess that's that,"
he commented. "Well, Ben, it was an interesting career while you had it,
eh?" He neglected to offer to shake hands before he strode from the Power
Deck.

            "Jim, did you hear that?" Magnan
quavered. "He spoke of my career in the past tense! But surely, even as
slimy a little rat as Pokey Snail wouldn't deliberately stir up a hornet's nest
and then—"

            " 'Slimy little rat', did you say,
Ben?" Pokey's voice sounded from the intercom. "Yes, I heard that. I
had merely withdrawn a few feet to pray and contemplate before finalizing my
report," he went on contentedly. "Hadn't quite decided whether to
credit you with bringing in some much-needed revenue to the Fund, or lay this
whole sorry Gorm Festival business squarely at your doorstep; your unguarded
remark helped me decide. You really ought to get that switch fixed Ben.
Ta."

            Half an hour later, Magnan sat glumly
contemplating the Z-screen, which snowed him the six grounded fleets arranged
in circle-the-wagons style, and the immense mob deployed from the city
enveloping
them.
Already the bright flashes of small arms were twinkling
along the interface. The hijacked weapons had arrived, it was evident.

            "Stop!" Magnan yelled. "All
personnel, local and out-of-town, cease hostilities at once!" His command
was ignored.

            "We'll have to act fast, Stan,"
Captain Muldoon remarked, "if we're going to put a stop to that
Donnybrook."

            "Right, sir," Blatski replied eagerly.
"I'll get on to Hoon in Power Section and tell him to take a heading on
Altair and go to full gain, pronto!"

            "What, flee the scene of action?"
Muldoon roared. "No, by Godfrey! I'm taking her down! Stan, let's see you
explain to Nav Section that I want this vessel to put down on that ridge on
which both sides are converging so as to command the entire battlefield!"

            "Oh, Jim," Magnan gasped. "If he
puts
Ruppy
down, he'll lose the advantage of maneuverability. Every gun
in all the grounded fleets will be laid on that ridge, and I can see Dit's
skirmishers already infiltrating along the south slope. He'll be in the middle
of the most violent confrontation it's ever been my misfortune to
observe!"

            "It occurs to me, Mister," Blatski
remarked, "that your job right now, as diplomatic observers, is to use the
lifeboat to withdraw a few miles into space and record the action."

            "Good notion," Magnan gobbled.
"But don't you think running away—"

            "Not running away," Muldoon corrected.
"Just moving back to optimum observational range. You'd better get
moving."

            "Consider that an order, Ben!" Snail's
voice rasped from the squawkbox on the bulkhead. "In the performance of
my
duties, I will observe from here."

            When Pokey fell silent, Muldoon gave the appropriate
commands, and
Ruppy
started her majestic descent into the center of the
battle raging below.

            "Jim," Magnan gasped. "Pokey
doesn't know what he's doing! He's used to destroying the opposition by an
equivocal hint, or an inconclusive report; he has no experience of the
persuasiveness of actual gunfire!"

            "The irregulars aren't likely to do
Ruppy
much harm," Retief pointed out. "They're accustomed to dealing
with territorial levies as badly equipped as
they
are."

            "Wim Dit—he'll be massacred!" Magnan
groaned. "Those poor chaps are accustomed to fist-shaking and
garbage-throwing! Even with handguns, up against Promo's firepower they haven't
a chance!"

            "Never mind," Retief soothed.
"Pokey Snail doesn't know how to make use of what he's got."

            "But, Retief," Magnan moaned,
"its utter failure! When we arrived, the local factions were hostile, but
impotent. Now, goaded by Pokey's arbitrary taxation, they're armed and
confronted with overwhelming invading forces! And both groups are implacably
hostile to
Ruppy,
thanks to the incautious remarks of Chief Inspector
Snail! When they clash, it will be too late to salvage anything!" He
stared in horror at the screen as the forces arrayed near the ridge settled
into position to command the approach of the descending
Corruptible.
At
Retief's suggestion he tore himself away, and the two civilians went to the
adjacent boat deck and strapped into a fast shore dinghy.

       "What shall we
do?" Magnan whined. Nothing, yet, Ben,  Retief replied.

            "But they'll be face to face in a
moment!" Magnan protested, studying the small screen, where the two gangs
were closing fast.

            They made a fast descent through scattered puffs
of ack-ack, and came to ground in a small park a few blocks from the Embassy.
In the purple twilight, the city seemed curiously still, the streets deserted,
except for a few Irish-washerwoman types left over from Ladies' Day.

            "They're all away at the war," Magnan
commented gloomily. "We'll have to find Gad Buy or something. Actually Bam
Slang would be better: Gad's only a chief of one hundred. But where are we to
find Slang?" he challenged his own proposal.

            "As Minister of Internal Chaos,"
Retief pointed out, "he may be out of a job now that the city's
quiet."

            "But there's a full-scale war going on just
outside the city limits!" Magnan protested. "Still, I suppose the
scamp is holed up, waiting to see which way it goes, eh?"

            "Maybe Gad Buy and his Cub Scouts would be
the best idea," Retief suggested. "His group wouldn't be
involved."

            "Capital notion," Magnan agreed.
"Let's see, we might find him at the Ministry of Stuff, arranging an issue
of camping gear to the lads."

            "Nothing there but ruins," Retief
pointed out as they came abreast of the site of the Ministry. A lone figure was
poking morosely in the rubble.

            "Oh, look!" Magnan cried.
"There's a lone figure poking morosely in the rubble!

            "Oh, sir," he caroled as he came up to
the tall cadaverous local, then, to Retief: "Why, it's Mr. Buy, just as
we'd hoped!"

            "So what's it to you?" Gad growled,
backing away. "It was you Terries started alla trouble inna first place!
We was having a nice, orderly riot until you fellers came along wit' yer big
giveaways! Got ever'body upset! Now look!" Gad motioned morosely at the
rubble all around. "What you want from
me?"

           
"Nothing," Magnan hastened to
assure the suspicious fellow. "Nothing except, ah, perhaps a trifle of
assistance in defusing the present situation before it's too late."

            " 'Too late'?" Gad echoed. "
'Defuse'? You must be nuts, Mister. The city's been bombed to rubble, the like
populace has fled, and six enemy fleets are invading sacred Bloorian soil, just
outside the city limits, and Wim Dit's lawless gangs are advancing to the
attack—on both sides, mind you—and you babble of 'defusing the
sitooation!'"

            "It's true," Magnan's voice was
intermittently audible through Gad's tirade, "that the situation has
gotten a trifle out of hand, pacification-wise. But," he added slyly, "there
are still the GFU awards to be made as soon as calm prevails."

            "Well," Buy temporized, "I did
kinda have a idear I might be up fer the Yout' Prize: my work wit the Scouts
and all, you know."

            "It is precisely your Cub Pack on which I
wish to confer the honor of assisting in the negotiations!" Magnan cried.

            "That one went over my head," Buy
complained. "You expect a bunch o' kids to rake yer fat outa the fire, is
that it? Which the poor little guys ain't got a chanct up against Brag Cab, not
to say something about Buck Promo and that Colonel Switchback miscreant he's
chasing. And then there's that Cee Dee of Eff bunch, and ..."

            "I do not propose," Magnan stated
coldly, "to pit the lads in actual combat against those conscienceless
rogues, but merely to allow them to participate in a jolly charade, to confuse
and thus confute the warring factions."