Chapter One

 

1

 

            An hour later, Retief and Magnan had settled into their spartan quarters, and adjusted to the lack of anything resembling a bathroom, or even a chair.

 

            "We must remember to call it Zanny-du, like the indiginees,'' Magnan remarked, adjusting the lie of his Top Three Grader lapels. "Now, we'd best hurry along to Staff Meeting. His Ex no doubt has some choice bits of gossip—useful tips from the Classified Report—that is."

 

2

 

            It was a greenish dusk when the two newly-arrived diplomats emerged from the building via the irregularly-shaped pedestrian exit, pointed out earlier by their local guide/guard, to emerge on the city's main avenue. Main or otherwise, it was the only route to the lofty, shedding, wattle-and-daub structure across the way bearing the newly-installed brass plate lettered 'Embassy of Terra.'

 

            "B-but Retief—" Magnan stammered, eyeing their proposed route, a springy plank of goomwood some twenty-seven inches wide and three inches thick, "it's nothing but an oversized two-by-four!"

 

            "It's quite broad by local standards, sir," Retief reassured him, as he stepped out on the narrow bridge. It bounced alarmingly as the two Terrans proceeded along it, fifty feet above the ground, which was invisible in the black shadows below.

 

            "Great heavens, Retief!" Magnan blurted when he reached the intersection with Embassy Drive, an unplaned two-by-six. He froze in place, his arms windmilling, unable to advance the first step. "Why in the worlds," he demanded of an unheeding cosmos, "did Ambassador Shortfall select this Acrobat's nightmare as the address for his Mission? No mere human could be expected to cross this thing, without even a handrail." He peered anxiously down past his feet and shuddered. "At least the gnats aren't so bad here," he offered.

 

            "There wasn't much choice," Retief reminded his supervisor. "All the other main streets are narrower."

 

            "Doubtless all sorts of dreadful creatures lurk down in those lightless depths," Magnan told Retief. "What if one should lose one's footing and fall amongst them?"

 

            "Don't worry," Retief comforted his supervisor. "You'd no doubt be killed by the fall. But we only have this short stretch to cross to make it to Staff Meeting on time." He preceeded his chief out onto the final narrow stretch of timber, well-worn, presumably by the multiple feet of generations of Zanny-duers.

 

            "Wait!" Magnan called. "Don't leave me here!" As if goaded by the concept of being alone on the swaying foot-path, he took a hesitant step. "Look there, Retief!" he cried, pointing to the entry to the Embassy, below and to the left, just ahead, opening on a relatively broad ledge where a crowd of elongated locals had gathered, some armed, all shouting and shaking half a dozen fists each, while others busied themselves with prybars levering open the folding metal gate.

 

            "The Embassy is under attack!" Magnan yelled, in his excitement hurrying past Retief to the point opposite and above the wide doorway and its besieging mob, crowding onto the porch-like entry slab.

 

            "Here, now, you in the yellow headdress!" he shouted over the din, addressing a noisy fellow who seemed to be the prime agitator.

 

            Having thus captured the attention of the locals, Magnan retreated along the plank as the focus of the angry mob shifted instantly from the intransigent gate to himself. Rocks arced toward him, a few chipping wood near his feet.

 

            "Get Terry!" the cry went up. And "there's two of em!

 

            "Rush 'em!" the boss troublemaker commanded, and his minions obediently crept forward, first crowding, then crawling atop each other, forming a mound directly below the point where Magnan crouched, babbling.

 

            "Retief! Do something!" he yelped. "Remember, as Ambassador Straphanger so stirringly put it when the avalanche cut off the rescue party: 'Do something, even if it's the wrong thing!', an exhortation to the implementation of which his whole career bore witness! However, in this instance I feel you should improve upon His Excellency's example at least to the extent that you avoid availing yourself of his alternative!"

 

            "Good thinking, Mr. Magnan," Retief congratulated his supervisor. "Any ideas as to what might not be the wrong thing?"

 

            "Just get me inside, intact, instantly," Magnan specified. "And yourself, as well, of course, if you can manage it," he conceded generously.

 

            "Incisive instruction, indeed, Mr. Magnan," Retief commented. He backed off a few steps, then, taking a running start, jumped over the fringe of the mob to impact feet-first atop the heap of eager rioters on the porch; the mound promptly dissolved, its individual numbers making all possible haste to withdraw to a more statesmanlike distance from the rude tactics so unexpectedly employed by the foreign barbarian. Yellow-headdress bustled forward like a ten-foot inchworm completing his circuit.

 

            "Who," he demanded with an accent even worse than that of Chief Smeer and his swat team, "are you, fellow? And why? Can't you see that by your careless mode of perambulation, you've injured a number of public-spirited citizens, to say very little of busting up this traditional eating-pyramid formation!"

 

            "I noticed, Mr. Loudmouth," Retief conceded. " 'Retief is the handle. Par me if I don't offer to shake manipulatory members."

 

            "Come down at once, sir," Loudmouth yelled to the Terran standing atop half a dozen stunned rioters who were writhing feebly as they attempted to disentangle their elongated bodies each from the other.

 

            "Done busted Roy's cranial plumes, too," the leader noted aggrievedly, just as Retief launched himself at him, slamming the excited fellow backward, sending the yellow headdress rolling in the gutter. Its owner turned back upon himself to scramble frantically after the badge of office, snatching it up, dripping gutter-goo just as one of his retreating underlings was about to trample it.

 

            Retief stepped over a laggard rioter which snapped green teeth an inch short of his ankle, and used his key to open the folding gate just wide enough to slip inside, slamming it on the elongated neck of Loudmouth, who, after a quick recovery, had thrust his upper end, bearing various sense organs, through the opening. The trapped alien yelled and whipped his orange-and-black bristled length against the frail-looking barrier.

 

            The gate bulged inward as the crowd, noting their chief s discomfiture, heaped themselves against it, and, incidentally, against their trapped leader, who redoubled his efforts as well as his vocalizations.

 

            Retief went across to the closed door to the Guard Room just as it burst outward, and a resentful-looking Marine Guard sergeant burst out, power pistol in hand.

 

            "Let me to 'em!" the excited lad yelled. "Oh, hi, Mr. Retief," he added, attempting to peer over Retief's shoulder. "Where are the crud-bums? Two of em come under the gate and conned me into the hut and slammed the door. Les and Dick are due here to relieve me any second, and if they woulda found me locked in—!" He left the rest to his hearer's imagination. As his eye fell on the first invaders just slithering under the bulging gate, he loosed off a burst of needles which chipped the hard, red, unpolished stone floor and sent the pillars scrambling back to the safety of numbers. Retief took the sergeant's arm gently and said, "No more shooting at this point in the negotiations, Bill. It's still early in the day. Let Mr. Magnan and me try the verbal approach."

 

            "Verbal, schmerbal," Bill responded carelessly, and attempted to throw off Retief s restraining grip.

 

            "Here, Mr. Retief," he said, surprised at his failure to shrug off the latter's seemingly casual hold. "You got a pretty good grip on you, for a civilian."

 

            "I wasn't always a civilian," Retief reminded him.

 

            "Yeah," Bill offered. "I seen you at the last Armed Forces Day shindig, all tricked out like a Batt;e Commander, medals and orders and all. Some kind a reservist on some backwater world, I heard."

 

            "Sergeant!" Magnan's strained voice cut in abruptly from the gate, through which he had at last struggled. "Our Mister Retief s rank is quite legitimate, I assure you; and as you know a Battle Commander outranks a Fleet Admiral-General. Commander Retief is General-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of his native world, Northroyal, on detached duty to the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne."

 

            "Oh, par me, General," Bill said more quietly, to Retief. "But are we just gonna stand here and let them savages cut us up for bait? Is that how they win wars out on Northroyal?"

 

            "Hardly, Bill," Retief soothed the excited non-com. "But I might point out that no war, in fact, exists here on Sardon."

 

            "And," Magnan put in, "it is precisely to the contravention of such an eventuality that our efforts are dedicated."

 

            Tm glad you made it inside, sir," Retief told Magnan.

 

            "While they were busy with the gate, I jumped down like you," Magnan explained. "Tight squeeze, and I had to step on the yellow headdress while that noisy fellow was wearing it. But then I can always point out that his head had no business being in a position to be stepped on.

 

            "I heard that, Terry!" Loudmouth yelled from his awkward position pinned in the gate. " 'A technical defense is the last refuge of the scoundrel,' just like your own CDT Handbook says!"

 

            "The wretch is too cheeky by half," Magnan huffed, "but still, let us not precipitate formal hostilities unduly."

 

            "There ain't nothing formal about a good hose-down with a particle gun," Bill objected. He made another, less casual attempt to free his arm, which Retief released, at the same moment plucking the potent handgun from the sergeant's grip. He checked the charge indicator and handed it back. "Don't fire until you see the yellow of their eyes," he advised. At that moment, Loudmouth, who had succeeded in forcing entry in advance of the main body, jittered to a stop before Retief.

 

            "Your name?" he demanded in his squeaky voice, which had been slightly bent by the gate.

 

            Magnan stepped forward. "I am Consul General Magnan," he advised the nosy local. "First Secretary of Embassy of Terra, and Budget and Fiscal Officer to the Terran Mission to Sardon," he elucidated. "May I inquire to what we are indebted for the honor of this delegation's informal visit?"

 

            "Sure, go ahead and inquire," the Sardoner agreed. "But don't wait around for an answer; I got nothing to say, except Terry Go Home'."

 

            "Your manner, sir," Magnan countered stiffly, "is hardly that which one expects from a representative of the government to which I am accredited, and which has issued to me an Exequatur confirming the acceptance of my credentials. Now do step aside and permit me, and my colleague, Mr. Retief, to proceed without further boisterousness."

 

            "Boysters will be boysters," the local dismissed Magnan's plea. "Retief, eh? I heard o' that one from Chief Smeer; hows come he's threatening I and my boys with that weapon?"

 

            "You err, sir," Magnan countered icily. "We are diplomats, and having disavowed the use of force, are of course unarmed."

 

            "Oh, yeah? Then I guess my name ain't Smudge, which I'm Chief of Metropolitan Police."

 

            "Curious," Magnan observed. "This morning at the post, we met one Chief Smeer who claimed chiefship of the same organization. However, not having the honor of your acquaintance, sir, or Chief," he amplified, "I can hardly be in a position to confirm your personal appelation."

 

            "Oh, well, OK, 'Deppity Chief Smudge'," the local amended.

 

            "Oh, he's Smudge, all right," Bill spoke up. "I seen the sucker before when we done the familiarization course."

 

            "In that connection, sir," Smudge spoke up briskly. "You're unner arrest; or what I'm tryna say, this Retief is unner arrest." He turned his gaze—an eye like a badly fried egg—toward Retief. "You gonna come quiet, or what?"

 

            "I must protest, Mr. Smudge!" Magnan yelped. "Mr. Retief enjoys diplomatic immunity! Especially right here in the Embassy lobby!"

 

            "Whatta I care what he enjoys? Myself I like a quiet dinner with a pal," Smudge rebuked Magnan. "All I know is I got orders to pick him up. So let's not get ourselfs no Interfering With a Officer in the Preformance of His Duty rap and all, OK?" He reached for Retief, who somehow wasn't quite there anymore, having stepped aside.

 

            "That won't be convenient, chief," Retief told the exasperated cop. "You can go now, and don't forget your subordinates."

 

            The cop uttered a yelp and charged, only to rebound from Retief s fist; he made another try, and somehow his face impacted Retief's knee. Behind him, the overstressed gate fell with a crash! and the entire mob was through and advancing at full charge, but at an abrupt Blap! from the direction of the little group of Terrans the main body changed direction and went pouring back out through the entry over the ruined gate and off along the ledge; from the two-by-fours crisscrossing the abyss, an indifferent populace hardly glanced up at them passing in full cry. Only Smudge and another laggard remained behind, still intent on reaching the Terrans.

 

            "OK, that's another felony rap, pal," Chief Smudge squeaked. "Killing my boys in the line o' duty!"

 

            "Whom are you addressing, sir?" Magnan demanded. "You appear to direct that ridiculous charge at me and my subordinate with a fine impartiality!"

 

            "Gee, thanks," Smudge replied. "I been working on the old impartiality in my spare time; glad it shows."

 

            "Actually, as you see, Chief," Magnan persisted, "I, myself am and have been unarmed."

 

            "Right!" Smudge agreed promptly. "That'd leave this Retief here as the felon, unless ya wanna count old Bill, which he's a nice-looking kid. He never slaughtered no cops."

 

            "I hardly think—" Magnan started, but was cut off by Smudge.

 

            "Yeah, I noticed," the chief concurred. "So I'll just put the cuffs on this crinimal here, and get going; you're cutting inta my alky break." He turned briskly to Retief, but instead encountered the hard hand of the Marine guard.

 

            "Don't go off half-cocked, Bub," Bill advised the local. "I done the shooting, which I aimed over their heads and din't kill no cops which that's a arrow I could correct. So you can leave Mr. Retief out of it. Fact is, he told me not to shoot, but when I seen fifty o' your hookbellies coming at us, I loosed one off And I still got the weapon ..." He patted the holstered power gun. "So don't tempt me."

 

            The chief abruptly became interested in adjusting his harness, which had been wrenched somewhat awry by the sergeant's grip.

 

            "Nobly spoken, Sergeant," Magnan commended the lad. "Now just hold the chief here whilst Mr. Retief and I repair to our offices to set in motion the wheels of process to restore a modicum of order to this developing chaos," Magnan ordered crisply, and set off toward the elevator bank, casting a haughty look on the discomfited Smudge as he passed.

 

            "Hey, don't go casting no haughty looks on me!" the cop objected. "And tell this here gorilla to aim that thing at his foot!"

 

            "That cut it," Bill commented, and grabbing the offensive fellow by one of his multiple arms, he swung him around and released him into the path of his own advancing minions, who carelessly knocked him down en passant.

 

            "You seen that!" Smudge squeaked, when he had regained half a dozen of his feet. "The Terry rent-a-cop laid hands on me; Hunk and Dopey seen it too; right, Dopey?"

 

            "I din't see nothing except you stepped on my favorite foot," Dopey replied resentfully, miming dire distress as he limped away.

 

            "That leaves you and me, Constable Hunk," Smudge told his lone remaining subordinate. "Now, you gonna put the cuffs on this here killer, or what?"

 

            "I don't see no dead bodies laying around, Chief," Hunk demurred. "Who'd the sucker kill, anyways?"

 

            "It hardly behooves you, Detective Hunk," Smudge objected, "to raise these fine technical distinctions at this here juncture."

 

            "What juncture?" the promotee demanded, looking around confusedly. "I don't see no juncture."

 

3

 

            In the conference room on the third floor of the Chancery, twelve senior Embassy Officers sat at the long table, listening to the shouting from the street, and awaiting the arrival of the Chief of Mission. Beyond the high, draped windows, the view was of deteriorated facades elaborately woven of twigs, vines and plastic gribble-grub bags, and linked by cables along which local pedestrians crept in their deliberate way; when two met, one simply swung to the underside of the narrow cable. The rickety structures were interspersed with tall, palmlike whicky trees overgrown with glowering goobloom vines, all silhouetted against a twilight sky of palest lavender in which hung the oversized crescent moon, nicknamed Loony by an irreverent code-clerk. The cries of the mob gathered in the gloaming had fallen into a chant:

 

            "Give us Retief!"

 

            "What's that they're yelling?" Major Tremblechin of the Military Attache's office inquired rhetorically, cupping his hand to his ear. "Retief? That's that rather insubordinate chap who made all the fass at the port, isn't it? What in the worlds would they want with him?"

 

            "Perhaps to assist in one of their colorful tar-and-feather, or, rather resin-and-leaf-litter ceremonies I read about," Art Proudflesh, the Cultural Attache suggested indifferently. "Still, I doubt hell cooperate. The crude fellow has no appreciation of cultural phenomena at all."

 

            The door banged open and the AE & MP entered, slammed an elaborately strapped and bulging briefcase down before his throne-like chair at the head of the table, and barked:

 

            "Gentlemen! In the name of interspecies amity I have endured insult, injury, ritual defilement and gross discourtesy with a Smile, Saintly (107-B), thereby impressing on these rascally locals the loving kindness and empathic understanding of noble Terra ..."

 

            As he paused to permit his audience fully to savor Terran loving kindness and empathy, Hy Felix, the Information Agency man spoke up predictably:

 

            "—and convinced 'em we're chicken."

 

            "We, Hy, are hardly, as you so crudely put it, 'chicken'," Shortfall reproved the impudent fellow, "indeed uncommon toughness of moral fiber is required to endure patiently, nay, cheerfully while one's inferiors arrogantly assume every prerogative of mastery, brush aside one's most cherished traditions, and impose the most demeaning of conditions as the price of accepting Terran largesse!"

 

            "Makes ya wonder why we don't put these crumbums in their place and get the heck out of here," Hy mused aloud.

 

            "It induces no such speculations in me, Hy," Shortfall snapped. "I am here to implement Terran policy, a policy which has traditionally been based on the hallowed principle of reverse inferiority."

 

            "Anyways," Hy grumped, "I never said we're chicken. I said you make 'em think we're chicken."

 

            "Patience, Hy," the Ambassador reminded his PR man, "is a virtue one has to home in diplomacy. We shall reap the rewards of virtue in due course. In the meantime—" he paused to exchange his residual 107 for a well-practised 921 (This Is It), about an m, Hy reckoned. Before he could speak, Colonel Underknuckle, the Military Attache, rose and cleared his throat portentously.

 

            "Let's get tough with these infernal caterpillars now!" he proposed crisply. "We got plenty small arms and ammo in the lockup; from these windows we can blanket the plaza ..."

 

            Shortfall cut off the intemperate officer: "Imagine if you will, the headlines:

 

            " 'Terry Embassy Attack on Convival Holiday Markers!' 'Vascular Fluids Flow in Street!' 'Invasion Under Cover of Diplomatic Immunity.' It would set Terran-Sardonic relations back to the Stone Age, early last week!"

 

            "Yeah," Hy agreed gloatingly, "I'll get a release off right now." He turned to the Military Attache. "What'll I say, Fred? 'Enemy Forces Routed by Bureaucrats' sound about right?"

 

            "Ahh," the colonel temporized. "Aside from the predictable outcry from the media, so vividly described by His Excellency, there would appear to be no flaw in the scheme from the military point of view."

 

            "Colonel!" Shortfall almost choked on the word. "Am I to understand that you support the notion of firing on these high-spirited civilians?"

 

            "I don't know from their spirits, Mr. Ambassador," Underknuckle replied gamely, "but they're out there yelling for a Terran diplomat, which I don't think they plan to hang no medal on him, and it looks like they decided to rush the Marines on the gate, so—well, you better start composing suitable letters of condolence to the next of kin—not that you'd get to mail 'em before they knock down the door here, and whack off our heads." He paused to unholster and check over his ceremonial sidearm. Holding it aimed carelessly in the direction of the door, he added: "I guess I can nail a couple of the blood-thirsty devils before they get me, or you, that is, Boss."

 

            "No one, Chet, is going to 'get' anyone!" Shortfall spat, then jumped as yet another chunk of rubble impacted on the table before him, leaving a nasty gash in the urethane finish. "We are, after all, gendemen," His Ex resumed firmly, "a diplomatic mission, not a commando; let us consider calmly—" he broke off with a yelp as a detonation rang the building like a cracked bell.

 

            "Colonel!" he moaned. "Do you actually think they'd ah, 'whack off our heads,' is, I believe, the unfortunate expression you employed ...?"

 

            "Might stake us out and pour sweet-tar on us and let fire-weevils clean the meat off our bones," the colonel suggested. "I read up on this place in a Usually Deplorable Source," he added.

 

            "That confounded Isolationist rag again, I suppose," Shortfall mourned. "See here, Chester," he continued. "I am not entertaining proposals for a theme for a blackout at the Benefit tonight! I am attempting dispassionately to assess the nature of any hazard with which we may be faced!"

 

            "Sure, I know all that stuff, Yer Ex," the colonel reassured his chief. "But how am I spose to know what these infernal savages are gonna do next?"

 

            "It is precisely your responsibility, Chet," Shortfall intoned heavily, "to keep your superiors, namely myself, informed well in advance as to the tactics the locals are most likely to employ!"

 

            "We ain't got no crystal ball nor nothing, Mr. Ambassador," Colonel Underknuckle reminded his Principal Officer. "But whatever they pull, it'll be what they think will lose us the most face. They'll try to make us look like a bunch of monkeys!"

 

            "While I see no point in casting unwarranted opprobium on innocent simians, Chester," Shortfall objected withja somewhat mournful 610-d (Looka Me, I'm liberal!) expression. "It is apparent that the unruly element among our hosts would indeed desire to discredit Terra, no doubt at the instigation of an irresponsible foreign power, in hope of influencing the devision of spheres of influence at the upcoming Summit over on Lumbaga."

 

            "Everybody knows the Groaci got the fix in with the Sardonic Foreign Ministry," Chet riposted.

 

            "Your sullen attitude, Chet, ill befits a field-grade officer dreaming of stars on his shoulder-tabs," Shortfall reminded his military advisor. "I suggest you turn your attention to the devising of a viable strategy to oppose precisely the Groaci strategy you cite."

 

            "Sure," Nat Sitzfleisch of the Econ Section spoke up as One Who'd Been Awaiting an Opportunity to Weigh in on the Side of Enlightened Policy. "Sure, what we gotta do, we gotta get the fix in our own selfs."

 

            "Nat," Shortfall said, almost kindly, "while it is self-apparent that the wisdom of Terran counsel should receive due consideration by the Sardonic Council—"

 

            "Hold it!" Herb Lunchwell, Nat's second-in-command cut in. "That 'Terran counsel' and 'Sardonic Council' mixes me up. And right here in the Embassy ya got your Consular Officers, and your Counselor of Embassy, and now this local Council, and I don't see why the Corps don't come up with some new terminology, which it won't rely so heavily on homonyms!"

 

            "The personal lives of our personnel, Herb, are no concern of the Corps," Shortfall rebuked the portly Second Secretary and Consul. "You will doubtless recall the landmark Kablitzki decision back in '86 which established that a policy of openness and official disinterest in such unfortunate matters would disarm in advance any supposed vulnerability to pressures to which deviant personnel might otherwise be subject. You were saying ...?"

 

            "We could call 'em 'Advisor of Embassy,' instead of 'Counselor of Embassy,' for openers," Herb proposed. "And how about changing 'Consul' to, say, 'Liaison'? I'm just noodling, mind you. And this here local Council; we could call it the Cabinet. Then maybe a fella'd know what he's talking about. And I didn't say nothing about no deviants."

 

            "What I'm saying about," Shortfall said waspishly, "is the dire necessity for affirmative action on the part of this Mission, preferably prior to our demise at the hands of the unruly local element!"

 

            "Too bad the unruly local element is the de jure government," Ted Whaffle, the Political Officer, put in glumly.

 

            "And the de facto gubment, too," Hy Felix reminded him promptly. "So we can't hardly lodge no official protest with them babies."

 

            "This Mission, Ted, does, as you suggest, face more than usual difficulties," Shortfall conceded. "I assume," he went on in a tone of Deep Synthetic Interest (12-w), "that you will now extend your remarks to include your proposed solution to the contretemps."

 

            "As to that," spoke up young Marvin Lacklustre, the Assistant Consular Officer, "it appears judging from the complaints lodged even prior to our arrival, with my office by the local Terran Entrepreneurs, Realtors, and Retailers Institute, that the local Ministry of Stuff expects to extract license fees, taxes, insurance, and protection, amounting to some hundred and fifty percent of gross transactions. It's highway robbery. They seem to imagine that terri has access to unlimited funds, of which they demand their exhorbitant cut. Shocking! A combination in restraint of trade of the most arrant stripe!"

 

            "Pity Taft-Hartly's writ doesn't run here in Tip Space, Marvin," Shortfall murmured sympathetically. "I suggest you huddle with Herb Lunchwell to devise a viable strategy to counter this unrealistic policy."

 

            "But, sir," Marvin protested. "I did\ And still they're intransigent to a degree!"

 

            "Sorry His Ex cut you off when you were going good, Marv," his immediate supervisor murmured consolingly as the lad resumed his seat.

 

            "What I don't see," the irrepressible Hy Felix interjected, "is how TERM got the local chapter which there ain't never been no Terries allowed in here."

 

            "As you so cogently point out, Marvin, it's shocking," Shortfall intoned stonily, ignoring Felix's jibe. "Still, something must be done, and you're just the fellow within whose job description such action falls. Such are the burdens of the diplomat," he pursued his thesis with a resonate delivery suggesting that massed mediamen were recording each sonorous syllable, "selflessly saving mankind, and terri, too, on many a far-flung world!"

 

            A spattering of spontaneous applause broke out, cut short, but not unkindly, at a gesture from the Great Man.

 

            "Fellows," he almost whined, in an overly abrupt return to normal Staff Meeting tones, "if we could just find out what the devil it is these brigands want, we'd have made an important advance, BTCWYA (*Brightening The Corner Where You Are—a hallowed Corps principle) wise! So— thinking-caps, gentlemen! I want to see half a dozen constructive proposals on my desk by tea-time. Dismissed ... yes, what is it, Magnan?" he concluded as the slender Budget-and-Fiscal man burst into the room, signalling for attention like a distressed schoolboy with an urgent Number Two.

 

            "Why, Mr. Ambassador," Magnan responded in his thin voice, "why don't we just send someone out to ask them—since the Minister refuses to respond on the hot-line?"

 

            "Never could pronounce that 'bitch-wa'," Hy muttered. "You surprise me, Ben," Shortfall told his underling in the tone of One Whom Nothing can Surprise (717-d). "Candidly, I had never given you high marks in the 'Suicidal Tendencies' column under 'Devotion to Duty' on the ER's."

 

            "Changed his tune," Hy remarked barely sub-audibly, to Herb Sitzfleisch. "A minute ago they were 'high-spirited merry-makers.' Now he's talking suicide."

 

            Shortfall ignored the not quite sub-audible after all remark with the elan of the seasoned diplomat. "Just how, Ben," His Ex bored on, "do you propose both to secure the relevant information and to relay it here to me prior to your demise at the tentacles of these Terricidal maniacs?"

 

            "Whom? I, sir?" Magnan said, his voice tending to crack on the personal pronoun.

 

            "Whomever else, Ben?" Shortfall boomed, "when it was you who volunteered. Yes," he went on gravely, "yours is the honor, Ben, and you will find Terra not ungrateful."

 

            "In that case," Retief spoke up, coming up behind Magnan, "I guess we'd better get going, Mr. Magnan."

 

            "Yes, yes, that's all right," Shortfall snapped. "As Ben's immediate subordinate, it's fitting that you should go along to hold his coat. And by the way, I note that both of you gentlemen are late, by a full—" he broke off to consult an antique pocket-watch the size of a hockey puck "—five minutes!"

 

4

 

            Back outside, in the red-carpeted corridor, Magnan mopped his forehead with a small, blackish tissue with the embossed arms of the Fustian embassy, leaving patches of purplish-dark dye on his face. He cast the tissues from him as he noticed the stain on his fingers. "Drat!" he commented. "I forgot Ambassador Whonk likes to keep always at hand the aroma and pigmentation of his native mud!"

 

            "Just what did you have in mind, Mr. Magnan?" Retief asked his immediate supervisor.

 

            "What I had in mind?" Magnan echoed in a tone of Deep Astonishment at an Unwarranted Assumption (246-z). " 'What did His Excellency Ambassador and Minister Plenipotentiary Theophilus Clyde Shortfall have in mind?' I assume you mean."

 

            "A fine technical distinction," Retief pointed out. "But since it was indeed yourself, sir, who spoke up at the precise moment when His Ex was desperate for a patsy—or perhaps 'dedicated public servant' is the more dignified term—surely you had anticipated that anything you said would be seized upon to provide an Ambassadorial out."

 

            "Doubtless," Magnan mused contritely, "I was imprudent. But it was good of you, Retief, to come along on what will doubtless be my final mission in the service of Terra."

 

            "Just following orders," Retief pointed out. "So I can claim no credit. Meanwhile, we'd better work out some tactics, strategy being out of the question."

 

            "I recall a somewhat irrational, but pertinent motto attributed to an admittedly obscure Venetian general of the Fifteenth Century," Magnan offered hesitantly: " 'When in doubt, attack!' "

 

            "What happened to this general?" Retief asked. "I don't remember hearing of him."

 

            "He died young," Magnan admitted.

 

            "It appears the question is academic," Retief notified the skittish Budget and Fiscal Officer, as they turned to see a swarm of armed locals boiling up from the ceremonial main staircase, improvised weapons gripped in an improbable number of hard, purplish-gray fists, which they shook aloft in a manner universally recognizable as other then cordial. Above them, hand-made placards bobbed, crudely lettered in Standard: get terry and sardon for the sardonic. As well as one hastily chalked card demanding: hand over retief!

 

            "Great Heavens, Retief!" Magnan blurted. "The cheeky fellows intend to violate the Chancery itself! I'd best notify his Ex at once—" He broke off and ducked as a rusty iron spear wrenched from the fence outside came hurtling toward him, to crash noisily on the terrazo behind him. Retief caught the next one, reversed it, and swung it in a whistling arc which sent out one bold agitator reeling back among his associates, who paused in their heading advance to gather round him curiously.

 

            "Not friendly clobber local citizen," one called in his squeaky voice. "Violate ancient Sardonic code of hospitality!"

 

            "Be off with you, sir," Magnan returned briskly, "before I report you to the authorities!" He ducked a well-aimed spitoon.

 

            "Rots o' ruck, Terry!" came the reply. "We are the authorities! Anyways, Chief Smudge is, which this Retief gave him a sore foof-organ where he can't be up here to arrest youse his ownself! Now hold still so I can get my placement right this time!" The spokesman pegged a medium-sized rock which Retief returned sharply, wielding his iron spear like a Louisville Slugger. The noisy mob split to allow the missile to pass through, to impact at last against the rump of a fleeing comrade, who yelled and accelerated his pace. At the top of the staircase, Retief grabbed Magnan and draped him over the ornate bannister which ran up the center of the broad steps, down which he slid, straight through the throng. Then Retief shouldered his spear and took a position astride the handrail, to slide quickly down to the lobby, where Magnan lay in a heap after his abrupt descent, surrounded by the throng, through which Retief had cut a swath in his arrival. Chief Smudge sulked near the ruined gate. Bill stood by, keeping an eye on him.

 

            "Retief!" Magnan called feebly over the din from above. "I think I'm still alive!"

 

            "See if you can move," Retief suggested, and gave him a hand up.

 

            "I seem to be quite intact," Magnan reported. "By a miracle. It was quite unwarranted of you, Retief, to manhandle me in that undignified fashion!"

 

            "Would you have preferred to be pillar-handled?" Retief inquired, indicating the yelling throng on the staircase, the bolder of which were beginning to descend cautiously toward the isolated Terrans.

 

            "Nice going, sir," Bill congratulated Retief on his ploy. "Left them pillars flatfooted."

 

            "All right, you bums," Chief Smudge called to his troops. "This here one is that Retief I told you about, and you seen what he done to my foof-nodes, so put the arm on the miscreant without no more horsing around!" He backed away hastily as Bill made a sudden move in his direction, but continued his exhortations from beyond the iron grill, now propped up and hanging by one hinge.

 

            "Don't let him get away! No, not that one, the big one!" He broke off and humped away as Bill reached through the bent latticework and grabbed at one of the alien's short arms. Then the mob reached the Marine and pinned him, by sheer weight of numbers, against the abused gate, which collapsed outward at last. Retief waded into the writhing mass of pillars.

 

            "Retief!" Magnan squeaked from the periphery of the aroused crowd. "They're running amok! We have to do something!"

 

            "I'll try to keep 'em busy, Mr. Magnan," Retief called between jabs at exposed yellow patches. "You'd better take the private lift!"

 

            "What? Appropriate the Ambassador's personal conveyance?" Magnan yelped, but he stepped briskly into the waiting car, and the automatic doors slammed shut. Retief continued hauling the limber-bodied aliens back and tossing them aside, until he had cleared a path through to Bill, whom he assisted to his feet while the frustrated rioters boiled around the two, gnashing their fangs in fury. Chief Smudge reared up in time to receive a fist, full in his sense-organ cluster.

 

            "Nice shot, Bill," Retief commented. "You think we can get through these fellows to the main drag?"

 

            "Can we not," Bill replied, grinning through a smear of blood from his nose. "Lead on, General, sir!"

 

5

 

            "What?" Ambassador Shortfall yelped, confronting Magnan, disheveled and gasping for breath as he tottered from the suddenly-opened door of the private lift. "Are you back here, Magnan?"

 

            "No indeed, Mr. Ambassador," Magnan twittered daringly. "This is my astral projection; you see, sir, I was savaged by the mob, and—" he broke off, clutching at the arm of Major Tremblechin, who had hurried forward. "They've got Retief!" Magnan gasped. "We went down under a virtual avalanche of the ferocious creatures! When I last saw him, he was still battling, gamely but hopelessly, against literally overwhelming odds! We have to rescue him! Don't just dither, Fred!" he addressed the dithering Military Attache. "Do something!"

 

            "Magnan!" Shortfall barked. "I'm sure you're exaggerating! Tell Mr. Retief to report to me here in the Chancery at once!"

 

            "But, sir," Magnan wailed. "You don't understand!"

 

            "What, Ben Magnan, I, 'not understand'? You forget yourself, sir! You are addressing no mere mortal, but your very own Chief of Mission, a Career Ambassador! Now do as I say without further cavil!"

 

            "But," Magnan objected Stubbornly (36-w). "I can't, sir! He's a captive of a mob led by the Deputy Chief of Police, one Smudge!"

 

            "Don't try that feeble 36 on me, Ben!" Shortfall commanded. "As for Mr. Retief s choice of companions, that's not my concern at the moment. Go to the police, as you suggested, if you must, but get Retief!"

 

            "That's just what the mob is yelling, sir," Magnan replied, retreating to the door, held open for him by Herb Lunchwell, who was wearing a Smug Look (14-b).

 

            "Et tu, Fred?" Magnan gasped.

 

            Behind him, Shortfall spoke up: "If even this roiling throng can grasp my instructions, Ben, surely you do as well!"

 

            "But—but they want to tear him to pieces, Mr. Ambassador," Magnan temporized.

 

            "As for myself," Shortfall commented quietly, "I have not yet decided on an appropriate course of action regarding a junior officer of this Mission who has egregiously ignored his Chief s instructions to disperse this nuisance. Especially as it was he who set off the throng in the first place. Get him in here, and I shall decide his fate, you may be sure."

 

            "But, sir, he, that is, we tried! There are hundreds of those armed maniacs, all inspired by a fanatical hatred of Terries, inspired no doubt by Ambassador Flith's insidious propaganda program. But he was overwhelmed, Retief, I mean, not Ambassador Flith—"

 

            "Enough of these baseless accusations against my very own colleague, the Groacian Chief of Mission!" Shortfall boomed, as well as one can boom in a feeble tenor.

 

            "Gosh, sir," young Marvin Lacklustre spoke up hesitantly. "A comradely feeling for a fellow Ambassador is all very well, sir, but do you think it should outweigh your loyalty to your fellow Terries and subordinates?"

 

            "Racism rears its ugly head," Shortfall intoned heavily. "Marvin, I'm surprised at you. I do hope you've not at any time given utterance to these illiberal sentiments in the hearing of others, perhaps less inclined than I to make allowance for youth and inexperience."

 

            "You mean," Marvin came back promptly, "that it's OK for you to sacrifice one of your own officers just to keep the peace with your kiki-stone-fingering buddy, Flith!"

 

            " 'Ambassador Flith' if you please, Marvin!" Shortfall corrected the lad. "Protocol, my boy, is not so lightly to be tossed aside, not in my presence!"

 

            "Maybe the kid got a point at that, Mr. A," Hy put in, sounding mournful.

 

            "Enough, Mr. Felix!" Shortfall barked. "Get Mr. Retief up here to report at once, I say! There'll be no more discussion of the matter! He was already in trouble before daring to challenge my personal policies!"

 

            "Nobody's discussing that matter," Hy muttered. "What we're discussing is, if it's cool to throw Retief to the dogs just so you can stay buddy-buddy with these local maniacs and that five-eyed little sneak, Flith."

 

            "I warned Marvin about proper diplomatic usage, Hy," Shortfall stated bleakly, "as well as implied racism. Now you are so injudicious as to speak up to compound both indiscretions." He paused to jot a note on a leather-bound pad. "Perhaps, Hy," he went on, purringly, "you'd be happier after all, back at the city desk of the Canny Poultrymeris Weekly, or whatever sheet it was you formerly graced with your journalistic efforts."

 

            "Too bad you got nothing to say about that," Hy retorted. "I get my instructions direct from the Agency; the Department's got nothing to say about it. I call 'em like I see 'em, Mr. Ambassadore!"

 

            "Freedom of the press is not at issue here, Hy," Shortfall corrected the dour newsman. "And one calls them as one sees them, not 'like,' Hy," he added in a More Kindly Tone, (13-r) and jotted again. "I've spoken to you before, Hy," he went on, "about your usage 'Ambassadors.' As I jovially commented on a former occasion, I am not an avenue of ingress and egress. The word is Ambassador!"

 

            "Yeah," Hy rejoined spiritedly. "But I seen a old historical filmclip showing about olden times and all, and a big shot name of Ronnie Reagan said 'Ambassadore' just like me!"

 

            "I recall the personage you mention, Hy," Shortfall conceded. "He constantly outraged his foes by taking actions which tended to serve his own nation's interests, rather than those of his avowed enemies, the Blues, or Greens, or something. Hardly the diplomatic way; poor choice as an exemplar, Hy."

 

            "Reds," Felix supplied.

 

            "I said about Blues or Greens or like that," Shortfall reminded the stubborn Information Agency rep. "And that's the same as if I said 'Reds,' right, Art?" He turned to the Cultural Attache for confirmation. "But it is the insubordination, verging on open revolt, of Mr. Retief which is under discussion here!"

 

            "Ha!" Hy Felix interjected. "Retief ain't even here! How could—"

 

            "You see?" Shortfall cut off the irreverent Agency man. "After I distinctly ordered him to report to me at once—and he's not even here!"

 

            "So the guy's a couple minutes late fer Staff Meeting," Hy persisted. "That ain't hardly a hanging offense."

 

            "I said nothing of hanging, yet!" Shortfall caviled. "Still, when one considers that Retief s desertion was in the face of an angry mob menacing this Mission, it could well be regarded as a capital offense."

 

            "Geeze," Hy sighed. "Next you'll be offering a reward, dead or alive."

 

            "Preferably alive," Shortfall told the sarcastic fellow. "As for the reward, I think one hundred guck would be about right, eh, Nat?" He turned to his Econ Chief for confirmation.

 

            "Well, sir," Art spoke up sagely, if belatedly, "there ^re perhaps those who would hold that while references to the azure and vert tinctures are not the precise equivalent of the gules, it is undoubtedly a fact that Your Excellency was on the right track." This time it was Hy who jotted.

 

            "That 'ghouls', Art," he called to the Culture man, "that's the same as 'red,' ain't it?"

 

            "That is precisely my point, Hyman," Art replied, and busied himself stuffing a Yalcan clay pipe.

 

            "You're not thinking of lighting that thing, I trust, Arthur," Shortfall said in the tone of one Reluctantly Mentioning the Unmentionable (3-z).

 

            Art stuck the pipe back in the tobacco pouch and returned it to the bulging pocket of his Harris tweed hacking jacket.

 

            "How do you like that?" he inquired sotto voce of an unheeding universe, "after I back him up and all, he won't even let a fellow have a little pick-up."

 

            "Rick," Shortfall spoke abruptly to his Admin Officer, pretending not to have overheard Art's plaint, "better get some flyers run off, offering a reward for the return of Mr. Retief, alive and in one piece."

 

            Rick Uptight nodded and jotted a note. "You did say 'dead or alive,' right, Chief?" he inquired disinterestedly.

 

            "Naw, Ricky," Felix spoke up, "that was me: I was ribbing his Ex."

 

            " 'Dead or Alive'," Rick mumbled, jotting again.

 

            "Then why din't you just say 'Red'?" Hy demanded out of context, of Art Proudflesh. "Always tryna ritz us common people, eh, Art?"

 

            "A knowledge of heraldic blazoning terminology is a part of the education of any gentleman, Hyman," Art rejected the accusation.

 

            "So now yer saying I ain't a genulman," Hy complained. "Ha! Next you'll be throwing me to the dogs—or pillars—like you done Jimmy Retief!"