The Return of Retief (26 page)

            "That,
Retief, is a secret of the Groaci state. No more questions. To descend to the
dungeons."

            "I'd
rather not. I just came from there."

            Fith
made an odd motion of several eyes. A black-clad Groaci stepped from the
shadows behind the portal, delicately fingering a long stiletto.

            "Hired
muscle," Fith said. "My apologies, Retief, but that's the way it has
to be." The hit-man edged toward Retief, who stepped forward to meet him.
As the Groaci went into a menacing crouch, Retief caught him firmly by the
neck, up-ended him, producing a rain of coins and other small objects, shook
him once, and tossed him down the staircase. He tumbled with increasing
momentum, but it seemed a long time before a heavy
crump!
announced his
arrival below.

            Retief
picked up the knife his would-be assassin had dropped. "Cheap goods,"
he commented. "If that's hired muscle, I wonder what the free stuff is
like."

            "Well,
you know how it is, Retief. You can't hardly get good help these days."

            "I
heard that," a resentful voice wheezed from below. "Some loyalty. And
after I got a sprung gusset in the service of the state."

            "Still,
he's tough," Retief conceded.

            "Well,
yes. Hiff knows how to take a fall. And now, if you'll just follow me,
Retief—"

            "I'll
follow you to Ambassador Shiss. Keep in mind that I have an easy-access blast
pistol in my pocket."

            "Shucks,
Retief, you don't think I'd try to pull a swifty, do you?" Fith scurried
ahead, across the vast hall. He stopped before a bank of unlighted,
gray-painted elevator doors. In the adjacent wall was another, elaborately
decorated in scarlet and gold.

            "Let's
take that one," Retief suggested.

            "Perish,
forbid!" Fith exclaimed. "That one's for the exclusive use of His
Excellency."

            "He
won't mind if we go up in it, as long as we don't meet him coming down."

            "True.
But one never knows. On the other hand, he never comes to the main hall from
the Chancery Tower. So I suppose we're safe."

            They
rode up uneventfully. Mirrors on two walls reflected the tall, powerfully built
Terran dressed in a late mid-afternoon sub-informal coverall with the CDT crest
on the pocket, and beside him the spindle-legged Groaci in the drab hip-cloak
and dun eye-shields.

            The
third wall was occupied by an array of control buttons of many colors and
shapes beneath a placard reading:

            PERIL!
ONLY ONE CONTROL SWITCH IS NOT BOOBY-TRAPPED. THE OFFICER OF THE DAY HAS THE
CODE. THE SAFE BUTTON WILL OPEN THE DOORS AT THE CHANCERY LEVEL. ALL OTHERS
WILL DETONATE AN EXPLOSIVE CHARGE. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. SIGNED: THE
AMBASSADOR.

            The
car stopped. A faint humming sound was audible.

            "Seen
the Officer of the Day lately?" Retief inquired.

            "To
have trapped you neatly, impetuous Soft One!" Fith hissed. "To be no
way out for you now. As for myself, I expire with enthusiasm. My only regret is
that I can only experience self-immolation once in line of duty. So to get on
with it."

            "Very
dramatic," Retief said, "but pretty silly. Just get busy and open up,
Fith. No one will ever know that you skipped your big chance to do your closing
number."

            "Wild
Goroonian Glump-beasts could not wring the secret from me, vile Terry!"

            "Why
would they try?" Retief wondered aloud. "I'll bet a valuable
collector's item against a plain set of Taiwan-made eye-shields you'll be
eating lunch in half an hour with your appetite intact."

            "Never,
crass violater of hallowed Groacian tradition!" Fith shifted position,
folded his arms, and leaned back against the wall.

            At
once colored lights flashed, buzzers buzzed, beepers beeped, and a faint odor
of Celestial Queen incense was wafted on the air. The elevator doors slid
smoothly open.

            "Drat!
I blew it!" Fith said casually, moving away from the treacherous control
panel.

            "Sure
you did. It was the thought of lunch that confused you," Retief said
soothingly. "Anybody could have made the same mistake. You can go play in
the sand now, Fith. If I need you I'll call."

            "You're
a regular guy, Retief," Fith said, in his fluent Terran. He wedged himself
into a corner of the car in an attempt to disappear.

            The
room on which the doors opened was a spacious chamber with wide windows
overlooking the Embassy fungus gardens. The walls were panelled in pale yellow
blinwood, and hung with richly brocaded tapestries that Retief recognized as of
Fufian manufacture.

            At
the far side of the room, behind a wide desk inlaid in violet-dyed tump
leather, sat Ambassador Shiss. He was unusually scrawny even by Groacian
standards, but richly arrayed in a pink velvet tunic of Terran cut adorned with
scarlet aiguillettes, purple shoulder-boards with Major General insignia and
gold Austrian knots. His platinum eye-shields were jewel-encrusted.

            "What's
this?" he barked in perfect Terran. "Fith, I see you skulking there
in my personal VIP lift. What's the meaning of conducting this interloper into
the Presence—and unannounced at that?"

            "Why,
hi there, sir," Fith chirped. "I hope you don't mind our popping in.
Under the circumstances one had no time to phone ahead for an
appointment."

            "Skip
it, Private Fith. You'd better hang up your jock when you report in for confinement
to quarters. Your career is at an end." The irate Ambassador turned a pair
of eyes on Retief, keeping three on Fith. "Now, as for you, Retief—"
he began. "Wait a minute," he interrupted himself, "where's
Magnan?"

            "My
colleague was detained on a cultural exchange with headsman Nith," Retief
said.

            "Is
that damn fool playing with his Roy Rogers films again? He was up here a few
minutes ago, asking about a missing projector. But no matter—I didn't summon
you here to blather about trivia."

            "That's
right, Your Excellency."

            "Eh?
What's right?"

            "You
didn't summon me here," Retief said.

            "And
you'll have a heck of a time leaving without an invitation. To you this
gracious structure may appear no more than an ordinary masterpiece of Groacian
institutional architecture, but beneath its homey exterior lies the framework
of a Groaci Number Nine fortress, of the type we normally use on these crude,
outpost worlds."

            "Consider
me deeply impressed," Retief said. "Where's Foreign Minister
D'Ong?"

            "Your
insolence would be insupportable, if I did not feel a need to talk to a
fellow-diplomat about D'Ong. You may be seated, Retief. And as for you,
Fith," the Ambassador added, swivelling an eye-stalk to the cowering
figure in the elevator, "kindly remove yourself to the sub-dungeon."

            The
elevators doors slid shut.

            Retief
pulled out the deep easy chair beside the desk and seated himself. He lit up a
dope-stick and puffed smoke at the Groaci, causing the latter to snap his
nostrils shut after a single snort of irritation.

            "You
know I hate those stinky dope-sticks," Shiss said in a thin voice,
"Which is doubtless why you lit it. But I'm determined not to let you
distract me by these petty tactics."

            "Let's
get back to D'Ong," Retief suggested. "And this is a top-quality
Groaci Hoob-flavored stick I'm smoking."

            "Um.
Let us place our fingering pieces on the table. Naturally I recognize that
Terra, like Groac, must interest itself in Grote. Freddy gave a lunch for D'Ong
this afternoon. Did D'Ong leave at the time prescribed by protocol?"

            "He
left, at any rate," Retief said. "We don't hustle Foreign Ministers
into our Embassy and lock them away."

            "Neither
do the Groaci—at least," Shiss added, with a brief thrashing of
eye-stalks, "not Foreign Ministers we hope to persuade into treaty
relationships. True, we hurried D'Ong away from Magnan's perfidious attempt to
intercept him. True, we installed D'Ong in a High Security room—luxuriously
furnished—in which he could stay until he made his decision. But he won't
decide! He's just staying!"

            "Doesn't
sound like Minister D'Ong," Retief said. "He's very sensitive to the
feelings of others, and punctual to a fault."

            "Strange.
I fear, like all inferior life-forms, a category which includes all
non-Groaci—and, between us, quite a number of the Groaci—D'Ong is not to be
trusted in matters of great import."

            "I
can't accept that, Your Excellency, without proof," said Retief.

            "Proof!"
Ambassador Shiss rose, with a great jingling and creaking and rustling of his
attire. "Come. I'll show you."

            He
led Retief across the room to a bar. To the left was a panel apparently
identical to that in the elevator. Shiss pressed a button. The entire bar, with
its mirrored back wall, slid aside.

            Retief
was looking into a softly lit room, garishly paneled in deeply carved and
gilded wood, and carpeted with a high-pile rug in puce and magenta, with mauve
curlicues.

            D'Ong,
seeming rather plain in his green satin and silver braid, sat in an overstuffed
chair, his eyes fixed on a small screen on which Roy Rogers' face grimaced
while the soundtrack moaned of love on the range.

            "Come
in, Retief," D'Ong called absently. "You here, too, Shiss? Nagging me
again for a decision, I suppose."

            The
Ambassador's eye-stalks waved wildly at the film. "The missing projector!
How did it get here? Nith must be tanked to the oculars on switz-juice!"
Shiss hurried off.

            Retief,
careful not to break the beam from the projector, circled to stand beside
D'Ong. "Mr. Minister," he said, "the cavalry has arrived. Are
you ready to go?"

            "Goodness,
no, Retief. Sit down—and don't brush those dope-stick ashes onto the carpet.
We're just getting to the good part, where Roy mounts his wench and rides off
into the wasteland."'

            "I
think you've got Trigger and Dale confused," Retief said, sinking into a
nearby chair and stubbing the dope-stick out in a Ming bowl.

            "I
confess I pay little attention to names, but how I admire the
savoir faire
of
the cowpersons, who, in times of strife, think first of love. Always they and
their faithful mates couple joyously as they dash off across the plains, hero
and villain alike. Silly of me to be so sentimental, I know, but nostalgia is
such sweet sadness. How it reminds me of my honeymoon with CTunt, so long
ago."

            "Understandable,
of course."

            "One
would have to know dear C'lunt to empathize fully. He's such a darling."

           
"He?
Then you're female?"

            "You're
surprised?"

            "No,
not really," Retief said, after a moment of thought. "I might have
guessed that your charm and sensitivity are feminine. It was stupid of me to
confuse you with a male."