The Return of Retief

            The
landscape was one of endless ice under a vast, black sky. Great towering
blue-green cliffs alternated with tumbled fields of immense, ragged-edged
pristine white slabs heaved up and shattered by the inexorable advance of the
glacial masses sliding relentlessly down from the naked heights exposed here
and there as remorseless gravity stripped them of their compacted snow mantles.
Harsh winds swept dust-sized ice-particles up into swirling clouds and abrasive
streamers which scoured the exposed ice and deposited graceful drifts in the
lee of every obstruction, a fluffy, floury layer which concealed crevasses and
obscured the underlying ice forms.

            The
faint, yellowish light of the minor main sequence star known as Icebox shed a
wan, late-afternoon glow over the scene, casting deep blue shadows and striking
golden highlights from ridges and peaks, evoking dull glints from flat
surfaces, making the ice-clouds glow as if from fires raging within them, a
brilliant display against the black sky, wherein less than a dozen stars were
visible, though the Arm was a dusty glow arching from horizon to horizon; and
near it, three of the eight inner worlds of the Icebox system hung like
polished marbles, being, like Icebox, ice-worlds with high albedos.

            In
the inadequate shelter of a long, meandering strike fault in the county-wide
slab which had once been a minor sea until frozen solid and at last heaved from
its basin by the encroaching glacier, there could be seen the single intrusive
element in the otherwise pristine wilderness; a one-man environment-bubble,
anchored in place by cables attached to bedrock deep below the ice-surface, and
already, after only seventy-two hours, sunk a foot deep in the ice. Inside the
polarized dome sat a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing the pale-blue-and-gold
class three coverall prescribed by the
Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne
for
diplomatic personnel serving on pre-nuclear worlds, informal occasions, for
wear on. His name was Retief, CDTO-5, Second Secretary and Consul, detached
duty. He sat before a field-model surveillance screen, watching the unsteady
approach of a small craft which the IFF circuity had identified as an assault
boat of the Ree Expeditionary Force, hesitantly inbound on a contact course. So
the reports pouring in from outpost worlds here in Tip Space were at least
partly true: the Arm was being probed, as the Deep-Think teams back at Sector
had determined, by an explosively breeding race known as the Ree, perhaps from
the Western Arm.

            The
alien craft approached swiftly, dropped from view half a mile distant into a
hollow among the towering ice-peaks, an impact crater from an ancient
meteorite, which Retief had explored on his first day at the isolated outpost.
The small plain at its center was suitably level, well sheltered from surprise
attack, unlike the bubble exposed on the ice-plain. Retief switched on the
recorder and proceeded with his hourly formal report:

            "Monitor
station twenty-three, Icebox Nine, hour severity-two, Retief: a hundred tonner
ID'd as a Ree Class Two unit made a non-sked approach, perhaps in distress, and
is now on surface. So far, no overt action. Hold for copy of incoming on Ree
frequency."

            Retief
tuned the all-bands receiver, its ACTIVE light blinking furiously, thinned out
the star-static, and heard an irascible voice say in curiously-accented Terran:

            "Ho,
we see bubble you hid in plain sight. This trick don't work on me. You come out
now."

            "Hold!"
Retief dictated into the recorder. "I'm picking up static on the attack
band; looks like a leak-over from a build-up on an old-fashioned pulse
cannon—"

            A
deafening blast rocked the bubble, enveloped it in a blinding flash which faded
to reveal a whirling cloud of ice particles churning beyond the tough,
transparent membrane. The concussion had opened a long crack across the clear
dome, and warm air was rushing out, to turn at once to a jet of white ice
crystals. As the roar of churning ice subsided, Retief heard the Ree voice,
speaking in the same impatient tone, as if nothing had happened.

            "I
figgered out if I blow you up first, you can't carry but no fell designs
against us. Only I found out the steering gadget on my command here don't work.
This is a distress signal, and you gotta come over and give us a hand, or maybe
I'll get mad and shoot you again. If you're still alive, that is. If not,
disregard. Now hurry up, because I get tired holding down this HOLD button on
our automatic attack gear."

            Retief
checked the recorder; the idiot lights indicated all systems go ... He resumed
his report, "Did you catch that amazing sample of Ree logic? Are there any
more at home like him? We now suspend this broadcast, for investigative
purposes. Stay tuned, folks!"

            He
switched the recorder to SEND and transmitted the report in a .01 picosecond
squirt to Sector, then donned the weather suit which had been fitted to him at
the supply station where the bubble had been prepared. He checked to be sure
the aftermarket energy gun was in place on his hip, its flow-rate indicator
showing full gain. Unlike the otherwise similar detached model weapon limited
to a self-contained .1 kilo-ton/second energy slug, this one drew on the suit's
3 k/s power pack.

            Retief
cycled the airlock and jumped down into the relentless buffeting of the full
gale which was a Spring day on Icebox Nine. On foot, he made his way toward the
pass, like a knife-cut through the rim of ice which concealed the alien vessel.
His head was still ringing from the concussion so close to his shelter, which
now lay canted at a steep angle in the crater formed by the near-miss, but
aside from the crack apparently undamaged.

            His
suit's power assist system made it barely possible to walk on the slippery and
uneven surface against the gusty wind, upslope. He reached the crest of the
trail cut long ago by a final outflow of liquid nitrogen, paused in the deep
blue shadow, and saw below the squat, stepped-on looking vessel, its polished
hull bright with colored inlays against the black ice. Around it, stubby
figures in day-glo suits moved apparently aimlessly, then abruptly formed up in
ragged ranks, right-faced, and set off purposefully directly toward the pass.
Retief watched them for a moment, then, setting the dispersion adjustment on
his heat-gun at its narrowest aperture, he carefully melted a deep incision in
the ice-wall beside him, studied the resultant pattern of stress-cracks and
fracture planes, then climbed atop a fallen ice-block to make another deep,
flat cut, which converged toward, but did not quite meet the first.