Retief Unbound (26 page)

"Galloping
gastropods!" he hissed. "You nearly scared me out of my
epidermis!" He advanced another step to peer closely at Retief with three
large, watery eyes not unlike those concealed in the foliage above.

"Aren't you the
Terry I did the big favor for this afternoon?" he queried. "Frankly,
all you foreigners look alike to me."

"An accusation I
can't level against you, Ignarp," Retief said. "Didn't you have four
eyes and a purple hide this afternoon?"

"Yeah; I stopped
by my place for a shower and change." Ignarp gave his rattling sigh.
"I didn't know it was going to be such a rough evening. What are you doing
out in the streets? The rallying cry of the mob is 'Get Terry.' "

"It does seem the
incidence of violence is escalating since the peace talks have been under way.
Any idea why?"

"We got a few
ideas—but maybe it's not time to spill 'em." "Who's 'we'?"

"I guess it won't
hurt to tell you; I'm a member of an undercover organization known as the Goody
Redistribution Action Bunch. But why pump me? I'm just an average citizen,
trying to get along—"

"Don't kid me,
Ignarp. Conditions have changed since this afternoon. They got Magnan."

"Why, the lousy,
sneaky, double-crossing—"

"Don't take it so
hard; you can still earn a nice fee. Just tell me who hired you and why."

"Well—that sounds
like a gracious offer. But let's get out of sight. I've got the feeling unfriendly
eyes are upon us."

"After you,
Ignarp."

"Come on," he
said. "The Stake and Kidney's a discreet bistro, if not too clean. All the
regulars will be out rioting, so we'll have a modicum of privacy."

The local led the way
past the shuttered fronts of darkened shops to the heavy door, rapped a
complicated tattoo, shifting from one of his six large feet to another and
casting worried glances along the avenue until the door rattled and swung
inward with a lugubrious creak. An undersized cranium adorned with an odd
assortment of sensory organs poked out at belt level to look the callers up and
down.

"For Greep's sake,
Fudsot, let us in before the City Guard sees us," Ignarp hissed.
"This Terry's got diplomatic immunity, but those dupes of the power
structure would like nothing better than to rearrange my internal components
along more conventional lines."

Grumbling, the landlord
ushered them down three crooked steps into a long, low-ceilinged room smelling
of fried zintx patties and sour wine. He locked the door behind them, and
indicated a five-legged table in the corner.

"Too
conspicuous," Ignarp demurred. "How about the back room?"

"That'll run you
an extra five xots."

"Five xots? You're
as bad as the entrenched exploiters!"

"Except they'd
charge you ten—and then report you. Pay up or get out, you and your offworld
chum. It's all the same to me."

"OK. OK. The Bunch
will get around to you, you tool of the establishment!" Ignarp extracted a
small-mouthed purse from beneath his voluminous robes and handed over a triangular
coin of green plastic. Fudsot subjected it to close examination under what
seemed to be an olfactory organ before using a six-inch key to unlock the small
door at the back.

"It's all yours,
gents," he grunted. "For the next half hour, anyways. After that
it'll cost you another five xots."

"Bring us
wine," Ignarp ordered as he dusted off a three-legged stool.

"Sure. Four xots
for a quarter-zub o' the house brew. Six xots for bottled-in-bond. And I can
give you a special deal on some aged Pepsi; I happened to get aholt of a small
consignment through a special contact down south. Five xots the flask,
uncut."

"Smuggler,"
Ignarp snapped. "Profiteer! Robber! We'll take the Pepsi—in sealed
bottles, mind you!"

"Sure—whatta you
think I am, one o' these chiselers?"

Ignarp waited in
glowering silence until the landlord had delivered the refreshments and
withdrawn.

"That's what we're
up against," he said gloomily. "You'd think Fudsot would be a loyal
supporter of the movement— but no, he's out for the fast xot!"

"What's this
movement all about?" Retief asked.

"I should think it
was obvious," Ignarp said sharply. "Even a foreigner can see that the
entire planet's in the grip of an elite corps of self-serving
reactionaries!"

"Curious,"
Retief said, puffing a Chanel dope stick alight. "I had the impression
that anarchy was complete. In fact, that's why we Terries are here—"

"I know all about
your so-called Peace Commission, Retief. You Terries and those main-chance
Groaci are all spinning your wheels. Sure, we fight a lot—we have ever since
the dawn of recorded history, six years ago. And even before, if the old tribal
legends mean anything. And that's jake—except lately it's taken a nasty turn.
The old system of you break my back, I'll break yours, is falling apart!"

"Uh—huh."
Retief sampled his drink. "And where does your Bunch come into the
picture?"

"We've formed a
third force to combat the special privilege groups. Of course, we're just
getting started—only thirteen members at present—but we won't stop until the
gross inequities of the system have been corrected!"

"You intend to
divide up the wealth, an equal share for everyone?"

"You think we're
out of our brainpans? We'll keep a loot for ourselves, naturally!"

"That's your idea
of an equitable arrangement?" Retief inquired mildly.

"Of couse
not!" Ignarp looked puzzled. "It's just simple, old-fashioned greed,
the noblest of emotions."

"Sounds like a
highly realistic program," Retief said. "And what about the rest of
the population?"

"We're planning on
selling them into slavery, naturally. And say—maybe you Terries would like a
slice of the action!"

"What makes you
think so?"

"Well—aside from
the fact that the mob is out to get both of us—I've heard you Terries get your
jollies out of taking things away from the original owners and handing them
over to new management. I could never figure out why, but we members of GRAB
are perfectly willing to get in on the redistribution."

"That's a fair
assessment of our foreign-aid policy, Ignarp; but sometimes it's a little
difficult to determine who the deserving parties are."

"Simple enough:
Possession is prima facie evidence of moral leprosy; have-nots are pure in
heart by definition."

"But if we hand
the planet over to you fellows, then you'll be the haves—"

"That's different,"
Ignarp stated crisply. "Now, when can we expect the first consignment of
guns, tanks, bombers, zip guns, poisoned bodkins and the rest?"

"Well, there may
be a few administrative delays, Ignarp. Even a bureaucrat as dedicated to the
spread of enlightenment as Ambassador Pouncetrifle may have some difficulty
picturing a baker's dozen of malcontents as the authentic inheritors of the
mantle of planetary dictatorship."

"I had an idea you
might try to stall," Ignarp said accusingly. "Fortunately, we have a
telling ideological point in reserve." He leaned toward Retief
confidentially. "The situation," he stated solemnly, "has a very
nasty—are. you ready?—racial angle."

"Tell me about
it."

"You don't sound
very excited," Ignarp said in tones reflecting disappointment. "I
heard all a fellow had to do was mention the word and you Terries automatically
started writing checks."

"A mild
exaggeration. In any event, the syndrome hardly applies to Lumbaga. You fellows
don't have any races."

"Hey, what kind of
a crack is that?"

"I've
noticed," Retief said, "that the eyeballs and lower lips hopping
around in the underbrush don't look much different from the ones you and your
fellow citizens employ in your daily activities—"

"Now, hold it
right there, Retief! I don't like the turn the conversation's taking—"

"In fact,"
Retief went on unperturbed, "it seems that the higher forms of Lumbagan
life are all evolved from the lower forms by combination—"

"Don't come
preaching your godless evolutionary doctrines around here!" Ignarp
snapped.

"Don't worry, I'm
just making it up as I go along," Retief said soothingly. "If my
theory is correct, you, for example, represent the end product of a whole
series of combinations—"

"Let's not get
personal, Terry!"

"Just getting a
few facts straight, Ignarp, no offense intended. Tell me, how old are
you?"

"That's none of
your blasted business, Retief!"

"I thought you
wanted Terran backing in your scheme to take over the world."

"Yeah, that's
right, but—"

"Then it's my
business."

"Well ... I don't
know exactly," Ignarp muttered. "But the best theories give a figure
around a quarter of a million. That's average, of course. After all, by the
time you go back a couple of centuries, things get kind of vague." The
Lumbagan looked embarrassed, as attested by the purplish tinge mounting his
wattles.

"I think I
understand," Retief said. "When a Lumbagan has a bad heart or a
broken arm, he trades the injured member in on a new one. In time, he's
completely replaced. Is that it?"

"That covers most
of it," Ignarp said hastily. "Now, back to practical politics—"

"So in effect, a
Lumbagan never dies. The question is, how does he get started?"

"Gripes, Retief,
is nothing sacred to you foreigners?"

"My interest is
purely scientific, Ignarp."

"This racy conversation
gets me all stirred up," the local said. "However, I guess it's all
for the cause. You've got it right as it goes, but there's a few points you
missed. Like the fact that the Singletons—you know, the free-living eyeballs
and pituitary glands and the like—can only get together in bunches of up to
ten. An ear might team up with a tentacle for mutual security, you know, and
then later add on an esophagus—strictly by instinct, natch. Not all these teams
work out, of course. Evolutionary dead ends, you might say. They break up
again, no hard feelings, and maybe later the different parts join another
accretion. In the end, after a few million years, you get quite a large number
of working accretions swinging through the jungle or creeping around in the underbrush,
as happy as clams. So OK. A tenner Singleton can't add any more free units—but
what can happen is that two Singletons can link up to form a Dubb. Got
it?"

"I'm trying,
Ignarp. Pray continue."

"Right. Now,
that's not the end of the trail. Two well-established Dubbs can get together,
and make up a Trip. Now, a Trip's a pretty complicated life-form; most of 'em
don't work out, but with up to forty basic units to play around with, you can
come up with some pretty successful combos. But Trips are a lot rarer than
Dubbs, naturally."

"Naturally. And I
suppose two congenial Trips can join forces, to continue the process?"

"Right! And when
that happens, you get a Quad." Ignarp looked at Retief expectantly.

"And two Quads can
combine to make a still more complicated creature?"

"Huh? Where'd you
get an obscene idea like that!" Ignarp looked shocked, an effect achieved
by rotating his eyeballs rapidly. "A four-decker is the ultimate product
of evolution—a Lumbagan—like me!"

"I won't say it's
clear, Ignarp, but it's not quite as opaque as it was. But you still haven't
explained why you Further-onians spend so much time disassembling each other—or
just how you decide who's against whom."

"That's where the
racial angle comes in. Now it's perfectly natural and wholesome when everybody
is out to get everybody else; but when discrimination rears its ugly head—
that's different. And even that wouldn't bother me," Ignarp added,
"except I happen to be a member of the persecuted minority."

"A minority
usually implies at least two people with a few characteristics in common,"
Retief pointed out. "Since every Lumbagan is unique—"

"Except my
kind," Ignarp said gloomily. "Somehow, due to a component nobody's
isolated yet, we've got something nobody else has got."

"A
disability?"

"Heck, no, Retief!
They'd forgive us that! We're vastly superior, that's what gravels 'em! Just a
hint of our special skill, and the witch-hunt is on!"

"And just what is
this trait that gives you the advantage—"

"Aha! That's our
big secret! You see—"

There was a sudden
sound of disturbance in the outer room: a dull clatter, a yelp, a thump that
rattled the cups on the table. Something crashed against the door hard enough
to splinter wood.

"I might have
known," Ignarp cried, leaping up. "Sold out by the vested
interests!"

Retief came to his
feet, looking around the small, dim-lit room. The only visible opening was a
small ventilator grille.