Chapter Five

 

            "How did Retief do that?" Sid whimpered as he flattened himself against the cold, wet rock surface at his back.

 

            "H-how do I know?" Underknuckle objected from his position flanking the almost completely obstructed exit-crevice.

 

            take it easy, gents, Junior's lesser voice seemed to creep stealthily into their excited awarenesses. old voice won't hurt you unless you get her a little riled, and then it'd just be an accident. stand fast and let her get it off her chest—

 

            i heard that, junior, the Big Voice cut short the lesser one. now, as for you, terries as I believe you call yourselves, what in tophet are you doing here in the first place?

 

            "Well," Fred spoke first. "Sid here, Counselor of Embassy Sidney Z. Overbore HI, FSO-1, I mean he came to me yesterday afternoon with this plan, see? He said where the Terry Mission was getting no place in pacifying the locals, because they were already too peaceful—didn't have a regular war going to speak of, just the constant dacoit activity. Plus the renegades, of course, were hazing the illegal Terries. Said if we could organize the action where the media could have something to get their teeth into, then we could step in and pacify the whole works, and take our places in the annals of diplomacy as the Great Pacifiers! So, naturally I leapt or leaped at the chance to bring the joys of halcyon peace to the poor overworked locals, and all. Terries, too. Members of TERRI were always reporting a colleague's disappearance, or worse. So I hadda clear duty to do something affirmative, like they say." 'annals of diplomacy; indeed, Junior cut in sharply.

 

            'annals of villiany' is closer to the mark!

 

            for once you're right, junior, the Big Voice thundered. but this is a matter for me to handle. watch closely and observe my technique, which, you will note, does not rely on brute force and superficial manipulation.

 

            as you desire, big shot, Junior agreed tamely. but I was hoping to see the fat one face-to-face with his secret yearnings ...!

 

            this is not an occasion for personal gratification, junior, the Big Voice rebuked sharply, indeed, that is the first LESSON to be learned. now observe!

 

            "I'm going mad," Fred Underknuckle said quietly in the thunderous silence which followed the Worm's pronouncement. "I just heard old General Faintlady chewing me out, just like in the old days at the Academy. Ah, those were the great days! We had some solid values then, like promotion and pay! Now it's all politics—like this dumb caper. Stir up a war so we can settle it, the man says, and make some underling the patsy. I better go make a clean breast of the whole thing to His Ex before it's too late."

 

            "You'll do nothing of the sort, Fred," Overbore barked. "Don't let a mere ventriloquist unman you, man. Remember the Fighting Underknuckles from whom you claim descent!"

 

            " 'Claim,' hell, Sid Overbore!" the colonel snapped. "I have a fully authenticated genealogy showing Field Marshall Lord Underknuckle was my paternal four-greats!"

 

            "I recall the career of His Lordship," Overbore replied. "Died manfully at Bellybutton, as I recall. Well, I have no intention of dying manfully, or any other way, just now. Instead, we shall proceed in a deliberate, calculated fashion to draw total success and vindication from the shambles of shameful defeat—a defeat which would have been due solely to your lack of soldierly qualities, my dear Colonel!"

 

            While the two senior Embassy officers were wrangling, Retief had examined the wall which blocked his way. The feeble available fight revealed an uneven fine of juncture along the left side. He took from his pocket a steel tool, useful for opening recalcitrant doors, and inserted it in the hairline crack. Something inside said 'click!' and a sliding panel moved aside to open a vertical aperture.

 

            hey, that's not cricket! Junior objected. Both Overbore and Underknuckle at once responded by objecting to the other's supposed accusation of foul play. Retief ignored the hubbub, and taking a two-handed grip, he forced the thin, tough slab aside, and stepped through into a somewhat larger cavern, with no sign of the heaped rubble where Magnan was trapped. Without delay, he started down the almost lightless passage. Behind him, Colonel Underknuckle uttered a yelp: "He's escaping! Do something!" Overbore's reply was inaudible. Retief went on, studying the water-worn walls as he went.

 

            you've taken me unaware, Junior complained. I had expected you to follow magnan into my hideaway—or to become jammed in the passage in the attempt! you've spoiled a most artistic plot!

 

            once again, the Big Voice rang silently, your inexperience has led you into folly. you may amuse yourself with the shallow beings in the outer cave.

 

            watt! Junior pled, I had a really neat plan going, and I can still bring it off, if you'd just leave me alone a few minutes.

 

            A side passage debouched to the left. Wan daylight shone from it.

 

            seize the intruder as soon as he ventures here, Junior ordered, somehow furtively.

 

            Retief flattened himself against the cave wall as two men in tight black clothing appeared from the dimness.

 

            " 'Grab the intruder when he pokes his nose in,' the Boss says," one of them sneered. "So how do we grab some sucker when nobody ain't poked his nose in, eh, Manny?"

 

            "Shut up, Boony," the other replied curtly. "He gotta be clost." He moved uncertainly past Retief. "Cain't see nothing in the dark," he muttered.

 

            "Wrong, Manny," Retief said, imitating the penetrating, though silent voice of Junior. " 'Nothing' is precisely what you can see in the dark."

 

            "OK, OK, I get it," Manny replied irritably.

 

            "Who you talking to, Man?" Boony wanted to know. "I didn't say nothing."

 

            " 'Nothing' is precisely what you did say, wise guy," Manny retorted. "I guess you ain't no smarter'n me, huh?"

 

            "Don't start nothing, wise guy," the slightly larger Boony advised.

 

            "Ill pass that one," Manny said. "Din't you hear old Boss, too?"

 

            "Boss ain't said nothing 'cept clobber some bum," Boony objected. He had paused directly before Retief; his unshaven jaw was a barely visible target in the gloom.

 

            "Hold that pose, Boony," Retief said, and as Boony reflexively jumped, he pole-axed him with a straight right. Manny scuttled over to peer down at the limp form of his partner.

 

            "What's got inta ya, Boony?" he demanded. "This here is serious business. Lay off the clowning!" He poked Boony's limp form with one booted toe. "Come on, Boonsy, get up, OK? We got a job to do." When there was no response, he squatted and began to shake the slack shoulder. From this point of vantage, he discerned a pair of feet planted immobile just beyond Boony's outflung arm. Manny rose quickly. "Oh-oh," he commented. "I was just going," he added in a conciliatory tone, and grabbed Boony's arm as if to lift him with a fireman's carry. "It's just my pal here, which he's having one of his spells," he babbled. "Soon's I get him back to the nutch ..."

 

            "Never mind that, Manny," Retief told the panicky fellow. "I'm not going to hurt you—yet. I need some information. Do you feel like supplying it?"

 

            "Sure, chief, you bet. Information? Heck, I'm a gold mine. I got information I ain't even used yet. Wanna know where old Boss keeps the booze?"

 

            "Not yet," Retief told him. "Start with what you're doing here."

 

            "Well, like we was saying, we come over to clobber some clown which he was like intruding in the Boss's private turf and all."

 

            "Why?" Retief pressed the man.

 

            "Cause them was our orders," Manny stated defensively.

 

            "Who gave the orders?" Retief insisted.

 

            "Well, Boss did who do ya think?" Manny replied as one Stating the Obvious (702-C).

 

            "Where'd you learn that 702?" was Retief's next question.

 

            "You mean the dopey look?" Manny inquired. "Picked that up from a old wino said he was a diplomat—but he couldn'ta been."

 

            "Why not?"

 

            "Never had no striped pants," Manny supplied bluntly. "Name of Ebbtide. Never had no pants at all. Said he was 'set upon* whatever that is, by brigands, whatever them are."

 

            "Very well," Retief said soothingly. "Who are you, Manny, and how did you get here?"

 

            'Tm Manny, like you said," Manny said in a puzzled tone. "And I walked over from Vegas. What's so funny about that?"

 

            "Vegas," Retief told him, "is a town on Terra, some forty-five hundred lights from here."

 

            "Naw, you got the wrong dope, pal," Manny cut in impatiently. "Vegas is just around the bend there, five minutes maybe, if you walk slow."

 

            "What does this Boss of yours look like?" Retief asked next.

 

            "Never seen the guy," Manny replied promptly. "Kinda weird sort of fella: sneaks up and whispers stuff in your ear, and ducks out before you can turn around. Guess he's kinda shy about anybody identifying him."

 

            "Why do you take orders from him?" Retief demanded.

 

            "I heard what happens to guys that don't cooperate," Manny admitted glumly. "Like Roy; nice quiet guy, too. Boss tole him to go collect stores from the hopper, and he was on a hot roll and he says to Boss, 'Fetch 'em yer own-self,' and he never rolled nothing but deuces all night. Fell over his own foot going out. Roy was a guy with a like curse on him from then on. Like me and Boony will prolly be when we don't bring you in.

 

            "Perish the thought," Retief reassured Manny. "As soon as Boony awakens, I'll be glad to accompany you back to Vegas."

 

            "Yeah?" Manny said wonderingly. "Put her there, pal!" He extended a callussed hand, and when Retief took it, he instantly attempted a hip throw which somehow went awry, so that it was Manny who hit the wet stone floor face-first.

 

            "Par me, pal," he said through bruised lips as he climbed to his feet. "Just what they call reflex," he explained lamely. "Guess I din't do it right."

 

            "Your technique could stand a bit of polishing," Retief told him. He glanced at Boony, who was now sitting up, groaning. "If you'll help Boony up, we can be off," he told Manny.

 

            "You mean—you don't hold no grudge?" Manny queried. "You're still game to go in wit' us, and ack like we taken you and all?"

 

            "Why not?" Retief replied easily, and watched as Manny dragged Boony to his feet, whispering urgently to his dazed partner.

 

            Then he came up to Retief and jabbed him roughly with a well-chewed forefinger. "I tole Boon you was a right guy," he stated. "Let's move the dogs," he ordered.

 

            Retief caught the thick wrist and squeezed. "Keep your pinkies to yourself, Manny," he advised the lout. At that point Boony staggered over and commented.

 

            "You two boys holding hands or what?"

 

            "What we're doing, Boon," Manny answered him, "we're holding our hp—like you oughta be doing."

 

            Before Boony could voice the resentment which was revealed in his snarling expression, Retief turned slightly to block him away from the object of his annoyance.

 

            "No time for personal gratification just now," he told the frustrated chap. "You were taking me to the boss, remember?"

 

            "Well, not egzackly to the boss," Manny hastened to clarify, as he tugged at the restraint; and Boony set off ahead, along the passage from which the two enforcers had first emerged. "Just where Boss said, is all," Manny completed his explication. "You gotta leggo my arm, pal, which I can't hardly walk backwards too good, OK?"

 

            Retief released the wrist, which Manny hugged to his chest like a mother bear recovering a straying cub, and massaged it gently.

 

            "It's prolly broke," he lamented. "Look at this here bump—it usta be way over here." He demonstrated the fancied displacement with the twin to the finger with which he had incurred the discomfort.

 

            "I was careful, Manny," Retief reassured him. "By tomorrow it will be as good as new—just keep it close to home in the meantime."

 

            "You bet I will, pal," Manny said. "I guess Manuel Lipschitz is a guy which he's a fast learner."

 

            Bright lights glared ahead. The passage made an abrupt right-hand turning and as the trio rounded it, the sounds of a nervously excited crowd abruptly blared.

 

            Boony paused at the entrance to a brilliantly lit casino; the formally attired throng, intent on their wagers, ignored the new arrivals. Here in the light Retief saw that both his escorts were neatly dressed in old-fashioned tuxedos. His own travel-worn, torn and stained early late-morning informal coverall was in stark contrast.

 

            "See?" Manny told Retief. "I tole you it was onny a few minutes walk and all."

 

            you needn't be embarrassed, Junior spoke up unexpectedly. if you'll turn to the alcove on your right, you'll find a more suitable costume.

 

            Manny and Boony turned as one to shush Retief.

 

            "Hold it down," Manny hissed. "We figger to make a like inobtrusive entry and all."

 

            "The costume I'm wearing," Retief replied to Junior subvocally, "is just right for what I have in mind."

 

            i do hope you intend no violence, Junior communicated. I abhor mayhem, you know.

 

            "Whatta ya mean, Violence'?" Manny demanded, backing away. "I thought we had a nice modus vivendi worked out here. Me, I'm a non-violent guy, and even old Boon here don't never do no violence unless he really gotta. Right, Boon?"

 

            "Sharrup," Boony replied curtly. "I gotta think!"

 

            "Geeze!" Manny turned to Retief miming awe. "He got-ta think, pal! Just think o' that!"

 

            "That does it, dum-dum," Boony snarled and rammed a short left into Manny's ribs. "I taken all yer crap I'm gonna take, see?" He fended off Manny, who had folded against him. Abruptly Manny lashed out, catching Boony a smart clip to the side of his lumpy head. Boony muttered a muffled yell and staggered backward through the archway, jostling a plump woman in a tight scarlet gown and clashing blue hair. As she recovered her balance, muttering, a powerfully-built man with smooth gray hair stepped forward truculently, but the overweight woman caught his arm and led him away, scolding as she went.

 

            "Nice joint, see, pal?" Manny remarked. "Class, see? No hassle even if old Boon had a few too many and goes knocking down the fat old dames. Come on, I guess the cover is broke anyways. Ill innerdooce youse around." He advanced into the deep-carpeted room, grabbing Boony by the elbow as he went past, and steering the dazed fellow alongside. Retief lit up a hyacinth dope-stick and followed. His attention was caught by a long board like an outsized billiard table, marked in an intricate pattern in red, yellow and white lines, with a black disc at the center.

 

            "Try your luck, chum?" a tall croupier type said ingratiatingly.

 

            "Where's the zoop tower?" Retief countered.

 

            "Oh, you'll find that over the other side, outside my turf," the croupier replied with a yawn.

 

            "Nix, pal," Manny objected, "you don't wanna mess with no zoop tower nor with no blim-blam rig neither. Them boys play for keeps."

 

            'That's fine," Retief reassured him. "When I win, I keep."

 

            "Yeah, but nobody don't never win over Slick," Manny stated with finality. "He ain't no dummy."

 

            "I assume you mean he is no dummy," Retief replied. "Nonetheless, I'd like to observe his technique."

 

            "Technique got nothing to do with it," Manny pointed out. "See, I never said 'ain't' that time."

 

            "You're a quick study, Manny," Retief conceded. "Have you ever tried studying?"

 

            "You mean like looking at books and like that?" Manny's hoarse voice expressed Amazement at a Totally Inappropriate Suggestion, a close approximation of the official 2731-a, or even a 'b,' Retief estimated.

 

            "You seem to have a natural flair for diplomatic subtleties," Retief complimented Manny, who very nearly dug in a toe and blushed, but stopped short of saying 'corn shuckins.'

 

            "Yes, books, and tapes, and maps and diagrams," Retief confirmed. "You might find it interesting to discover something about the universe you five in, and how it all came to be."

 

            "Don't need to, I awready know all that stuff," Manny dismissed the idea.

 

            "Then tell me, in a few well-chosen words," Retief proposed, as they paused beside a relatively quiet porp table, where a leather-vested Hoom gaulieter seemed to be in the process of breaking the bank.

 

            "Well," Manny replied, "you see, a long time ago, Zanny-Du here was just a ordinary little backwater world. Point eight-seven T, it was, whatever that means. Then this here life-form done arose and all, and it had a like yen to get plenty of eats and plenty of rest, onney there was too many meat-eating fellows bigger'n it around alia time, so it seems like it come up with this here tricky nervous system and all, where it could mess wit the other critters' brains, what they had of'em, to make 'em think they was getting a full meal, while the victim eased off inna underbrush and got clear. Old carnivores went away happy, and pretty soon they all died o' starvation, see?"

 

            "Fascinating," Retief encouraged the suddenly talkative fellow. "Where did you learn all this?"

 

            i told him, Junior's crisp Voice supplied. I simply had to talk to someone. you see, mr. retief, i'm not like these thugs; i'm thoughtful, indeed philosophically inclined. I confess that trait, while a source of pride, has caused me a great deal of difficulty in my lifetime, and i'm actually still quite a young fellow.

 

            junior, the Big Voice boomed out. I'VE warned you for the last time! now I'm forced to take action!

 

            Retief noticed a flurry of activity across the room. People were retreating from the path of a short, stout man, who had dashed out through the door marked Private, slamming it behind him.

 

            Manny and Boony hurried to the scene of the excitement, and conferred with other dinner-jacketed thugs. Then one went to the slammed door and wrenched it open. At the instant slam! of a hardshot, Boony staggered back and fell across a crap table. Two of the others at once grappled with Manny, who had started toward the fallen man. Manny yelled, "Boony! How bad are you?"

 

            oh, dear, Junior's voice, sounding nervous, lamented. really did hope there wouldn't be need for violence. poor boony: I wonder if ...

 

            The man lying across the table flopped an arm as if groping for support, then sat up. He shook his head like a dog drying itself after a swim, then slid down off the table to his feet, one hand pressed to his chest. The other men recoiled, looking horrified.

 

            "I never figgered old Sol would do it," the risen man stated, still fingering his wound. "I thought we was pals, him and me. We been together a long time. Great guy, old Sol, in spite of what he done." Boony took a step toward the door, but halted at the same moment that Junior's voice cut sharply across Retief s awareness:

 

            nobody but nobody comes in here, understand? that means you, boony, and moxie and al, too. manny, you go get retief: he's the one with the shoulders across the room there. its old worm's fault, calling me junior! the upstart! got me mad ...

 

            Manny pushed his way through the crowd, which had stood silent and unmoving since the first stir by the Private door. Retief waited for him calmly.

 

            "Geeze, Mr. Retief." Manny offered as he came up hesitantly. "Guess Boss wants to see you. You going to come nice, or have I gotta blow the whistle?"

 

            "Whistles are bad for my nerves, Manny," Retief told him affably. "Let's go."

 

            The other henchmen of the mysterious Boss waited silently as Manny came up, elbowed his way through them, and halted by the door. His hand went out and hesitated, not touching the knob.

 

            Retief went past him and flung the door open. At the other side of the spacious room, a plump, nearly bald man sat behind a chromalloy desk clearly salvaged from a ship of the line. He grunted and waved Manny back, picked up a fat cigar from an ashtray chipped from a five-pound carbon crystal, drew on it thoughtfully while examining Retief from head to toe.

 

            you don't look like a muscler-in, Junior's voice rapped out shockingly loud.

 

            "Don't kid me, Captain," Retief dismissed the remark. "You know exactly who I am and why I'm here, and the sooner we get on with it the better."

 

            "You like my layout?" the Boss inquired in a mellow voice quite at variance with his rough-and-tough appearance.

 

            "I thought it was Manny's idea of Heaven," Retief replied.

 

            The Boss nodded. "Right, Mister; old Manny was responsible for the basic layout, but I added the refinements." He pressed a hidden button and with a soft humming, a fully equipped den-style bar deployed from the adjacent wall, complete with ice-bucket, booze and water dispensers and bowls of tasty snacks. "Have a drink, Retief," the Boss urged. "Lay off the rye, that's Manny's; it ain't up to my standard. The gin is tops. And how come you called me 'Captain' when you come in?"

 

            " 'Captain Goldblatt' would have been more precise," Retief said, and took the chair which had rolled into position before the desk. "Quite an enterprise you've undertaken here," Retief went on. "And it almost worked."

 

            "Whattaya mean, 'almost'?" the Boss demanded, a worried look abruptly on his fleshy features. "My name's 'O'Reilly'," he added. "Big Red O'Reilly, six-oh, two-twenny stripped, and still plenty tough."

 

            "Shanghaing a few Terry spacers was all right," Retief told him. "Nobody much noticed that for a while. But when you started meddling with the Terran Embassy you went a little too far."

 

            "What, that bunch of stuffed shirts?" the Boss jeered. "I got them dopes where I want 'em: right here." He opened and closed his right hand. "Take that phoney Sid Overbore: thinks he's little Jesus, or maybe little Moses I should say. All I hadda do was take him on a little mindtrip, and he caved in like a hull full of shipworms!"

 

            "Naughty," Retief reproved. "Do you have a blackboard?"

 

            "Why—" Boss started, then pressed another button. At once a panel slid back to reveal a dull green chalkboard.

 

            "Now," Retief directed, "you're going to write T will not play with the head of the Counselor of Embassy of Terra,' fifty times."

 

            "I dunno know how you spell that 'Counselor'," Boss objected, "and there ain't room to do fifty. Maybe twenty-five." He rose and picked up the chalk and started in briskly. After he had managed to spell 'Counselor' three different ways, Retief called him off. "Start telling me things, Captain," he ordered the shaky Boss.

 

            "How do you plan to make me?" the Boss demanded truculently. "This is my turf, Mister! I been here a while, and I don't need any gang of bureaucrats coming along, telling me what to do! What's your beef, anyway? You've had it pretty nice, mostly, I'd say."

 

            "just do as you're told," Retief cut off the objection, miming the Voice.

 

            Boss looked shaken; he stepped back, keeping his eyes on Retief. "All right," he almost yelled. "I see I made a few miscalculations; just take it easy and we can work something out!"

 

            "all you need to work out," Retief contradicted, "is where to start. i'd suggest the beginning."

 

            "Like I said," Boss temporized, "that's been a while. I dunno how long; I don't keep in touch with Outside. But I guess a few years. Started losing my hair, till I put an end to all that."

 

            "you're making me impatient, junior," Retief told the shaken man.

 

            sure, but this hit me pretty sudden, the familiar silent Voice objected. I got to have time to adjust to altered circumstances. whadd aya mean, 'junior'? i'm still number one. gimme a break!

 

            "the same kind of break you gave mr. magnan?" Retief demanded.

 

            hey, ben's ok. just got him locked in a holding cell, is all: to keep him outa my hair. boy, was he full of plans! I trieda tell him but he wouldn't listen! anyway, I was just going to let him out!

 

            "Pass that for now," Retief said aloud. "I'll see about the formal charges later. Just get him in here, clean, well-fed, healthy, and right now."

 

            as I said, that was precisely my intention, Came the silent reply, cant blame me.- he could have spoiled everything.

 

            Boss went to an inconspicuous door marked Supplies and opened it. In the semi-darkness, Retief saw Magnan, standing on an upended shoe-rack, his head and shoulders out of sight as he struggled to climb higher through an open hinged panel in the ceiling of the cramped space.

 

            "Retief!" Magnan's muffled voice cried into the space above. "Only a little more! I can see light! Just catch my hand and give me a little boost!"

 

            "Relax, sir," Retief said behind him; Magnan started, lost his footing and fell to the floor with complicated thumpling. He struggled to his feet at once, peering out into what must have seemed to him the brilliant glow of the well-lit office.

 

            "Don't come up behind me like that!" he wailed. "I was almost through, now I've got to start it all again!"

 

            "Never mind, Mr. Magnan," Retief soothed. He gave his distraught senior a hand out. Magnan saw Boss and shied.

 

            "Retief!" he yelped. "Look out! Behind you!"

 

            "That's the fellow they call Boss," Retief replied unperturbed. "Actually he's Line Captain Sol Z. Goldblatt, presumed lost in space but actually quite well, as you see.

 

            "B-but that was over a century ago!" Magnan objected, sidling so as to keep Retief between himself and the object of his glassy stare. "Anyway, there's a monster loose with green and yellow scales, and the biggest fangs I ever saw! Look out! It's about to leap at you! I barely escaped into the closet, before ...!" He leapt for the door to the storeroom, but Retief intercepted him.

 

            "Be calm, Ben," he advised the struggling First Secretary: then, to Boss, again miming the Big Voice:

 

            "stop fooling, junior!"

 

            "Help, Big Voice!" Magnan screeched. "Make it go away!"

 

            Retief restrained the panicky senior diplomat and turned to Boss. "No more tricks, Captain," he instructed the stocky man, who nodded eagerly.

 

            "I don't get it," Boss complained. "I got the feeling there for a minute that you were Worm. But that can't be, because I happen to know you Embassy Johnnies only been here on Zanny a week, and old Worm has been here longer'n me! So how about it, feller? What goes on?"

 

            "You were just telling me, remember," Retief countered. "Go back to where you were losing your hair."

 

            "Oh; well, after I got things kind of shaped up here— cleaned out Boony's alley and all; I figured, why shave? So I done away with my whiskers, and itching—never did like to itch much—and fat, too." He patted his firm belly. "I got like padding, but I ain't fat."

 

            "Good thinking," Retief congratulated him. "But maybe you'd better go a little farther back."

 

            "Uh, to Before—I see what you mean," Boss acceeded readily. "Well, I was conning my command—old Tiglath-Pileser III, in to a cold turkey approach on this here uncharted planet—which I registered her with GPS, called her Goldblatt's Other World, seeing's I already registered the first Goldblatt's—but in the log I named her Zanny-du, after a book or something I heard about— that was after I survived the clobber-in—I can't call it a landing—and found the ice-caves." Boss paused to catch his breath.

 

            "Damn Worm was responsible," he said in a less enthusiastic tone "—contacted me a Luna out, made me see a Class One installation where there was nothing but jungle and gnats; even gave me bogus contact numbers from Approach Control. Some wise guy, that Worm. Well, it took me a couple days in the automed to get it together, and another couple to cut my way outa Command Deck—I'll tell youse, them bulkheads was folded up like a deck chair—anyways, I looked around, and found out I'd discovered me a .999 Terry world. Not a bad place at all, except fer them damn gnats. Ain't as bad lately. I was kind of lonely, at first. My crew got clear in the lifeboats and took me a year to find most of the boys. A few are still MIA. So, I found this nice little joint with a neon sign and all and I went in, and—"

 

            "One moment," Magnan interrupted curdy. "You mean to tell us that, while wandering through an uninhabited jungle on an unknown world far off the spaceways, you came upon a commercial establishment, there among the hang-a-man trees?"

 

            "Sure," Boss confirmed promptly. "I guess I seen what I seen."

 

            Magnan turned to Retief. "Are we to listen solemnly to this ruffian's outrageous lies?"

 

            "Remember the Cloud Cuckoo Club," Retief cautioned his colleague. "And Nudine, and the rather good service back in the ice-cave. We've seen stranger things than a neon sign."

 

            "To be sure," Magnan conceded distastefully. "And in any case what's this nonsense about Captain Goldblatt? It's well-known the captain died heroically over a century ago, as I said. What I want to know is what's he done with Gaby?"

 

            "Don't know no Gabby," Boss grunted. "Had a Lippy around here a while back, but old Worm got him or something," he added indifferently.

 

            Magnan caught Retief s arm. "Make him tell, Jim! I know he's kidnapped her, just as he did me! Poor child, alone and frightened half to death stuffed in some closet or worse."

 

            "Why, Benny," Gaby's melodious voice spoke up from the outer door. "You really do care!" She came quickly across to Magnan, took his hand and patted it. "I'm all right," she reassured her patron. "Old Boss here tried to give me a hard time, but I know him too well for that! Last time I got him pissed off, he stuck me in that hot dog stand out in the park—but that worked out all right, too, Benny: you came along and here I am!"

 

            Magnan gazed wonderingly at her. She was dressed now in a gown of metallic wine-red and had a fresh gardenia in her hair. He squeezed her hand. "Now that I know you're all right, I can deal with this scoundrel," he told her, and turned to face Boss.

 

            "You may as well get on with your fantasy," he ordered. "Just what did you find when you went inside this neon-lit commercial enterprise you'd have us believe in?"

 

            "I don't care if youse believe in it or not," Boss muttered. "This here feller ast me to tell it, so I was doing like he said, that's all—only there's something funny going on here: I hadda idea old Worm poked his snout in ..." He looked at Retief with sudden crafty suspicion. "But that was you, fooling around with my dome, right?"

 

            "dont bother your pretty head," Retief commanded.

 

            Boss jumped. "There!" he yelped. "You done it again! Old Worm won't like it when he finds out you been impersonating him!"

 

            Magnan looked at Retief in puzzlement. "What's he talking about, Jim?" he demanded. "How in the world would a Terran diplomat imitate this fabulous Worm?" He hugged Gaby as he spoke. She responded with a radiant smile, then freed herself and said, "I got to get back on the tables, Benny. See you." She kissed his forehead and was gone. Magnan's "Gaby! Wait!" came too late.

 

2

 

            "IT'S not hard," the words which Magnan recognized as Retief s formed silently in his awareness, "IT'S just a form of furfling, which you recall dear old d'ong taught us. holding it to a tight person-to-person beam is the only difficult part."

 

            "Oh," Magnan nodded wisely. "Furfling, eh? I'd almost forgotten those silly tricks. But at the moment, hadn't we better be getting on with it?" He looked expectantly at Boss.

 

            "Well, OK," the latter responded, "so inside, this place turned out to be a billiards room, which I'm pretty good with a stick, so pretty soon I'm the new owner. This fella had it before, name of Vince, trieda hustle me, the schmuck. I never missed a shot." Boss paused reminiscently.

 

            "Well, after I found out how good I was, I thought about it and seen there was a little sort of trick to it: hadda make a pitcher in my head, like, of that ball dropping, and then sort of push. So I got this idea: why not try it on somethin^, else besides the spheres, eh? So I was remembering about this holoplay I seen once, where the Boss had this really class office back o' the club, with these red carpets and chrome-plated steps and all, so I went inna back room—and there it was! Am I dumbfounded! I check the built-in-bar, and it's stocked with the best: genuine Cordon Bleu and Old Smoky bourbon, and Bridgit Terry's potheen, and Bluebeard's rum, and Marlowe rye, and Scotch that was made by the Tuatha de Danaan and a hunnert years in the keg, and a cooler fulla real aged Pepsi—the works! I and my boys had it made! Then one day when I'm onna phone to the Coast, this strange voice cuts in and yells at me to lay off the seventh order stuff, which I'm stretching the space/time/Vug continuum pretty thin, it says. Well, I got to admit I was a pretty cocky guy, with my three Bendeys in the garage out back, and seventy-two suits in the closet, all cut by a angel and all; used to giving the orders, not taking 'em, so I up and says back to old Worm—cause that's who it was, see—which I hadn't heard from him in a long time—rascal growed since then—anyways, I says, 'you stick to your turf and leave me handle my own business!' " Boss shook his head and looked at the toes of his well-shined shoes. "So all of a sudden two mugs which I never seen 'em before come busting in here and try to get heavy with me. ME! The Boss, and they're tryna tell me to lay off—started talking all that hot jazz about—what'd they call it ...? 'Bolixing up the seventh order harmonics' or like that! I tole 'em I don't play no harmonica, nor no Jew's harp neither—and the onney order I caller in was for a medium pepperoni pizza, hold the anchovies! Them bums was nuts!"

 

            "Yes, yes," Magnan prompted. " 'Seventh order harmonics'—it's all beginning to make sense. Pray continue."

 

            "Well, I taken and thrown 'em out, and just then old Worm—anyways a little later I found out it was Worm— done that trick again of getting at me from inside: have a care, it says. you've caused me a triple node-ache ever since you popped up on my psychonic interface! It always talks funny like that. But I tipped wise and started watching close how it done it, and I seen right off it was doing like when I push, onny it give it a little twist-like, and I tried it my ownself, back at Worm, and I says, You stick to your turf, Junior, and I'll stick to mine, OK? Now I ast you," Boss peered anxiously at Magnan, "that's fair enough, right? But old Worm still tries to gimme a hard time and all of a sudden it gives a little extra twist-twist, and my red Wiltons are gone and I'm standing on bare concrete! The nerve o' the bum! So natcherly, I use the same trick and put it back, and then it fades out to a dirty pink, and I make it deep purple and then all of a sudden old Worm folds his hand; I'll never forget it:

 

            i perceive that I dissipate my ultra-ordinal energies, he says, at an excessive rate, your curious mind, though untrained—"hah!" Boss interrupted himself— "And me with a Trade High School diploma!" is possessed of quite extra-ordinary latencies. I shall accordingly ignore you for now, and deal with the problem later. meantime, I shall temporarily concede to you the volume of space/ttme/vug you now contaminate, therein to act in the capacity of my lieutenant. I assign to you an appropriate designation: junior, have a care, junior, it tells me, and since then I had no more problems—until the Embassy big shot comes along and start sticking his nose in, which he's likely to get it stuffed fulla lint yet!" Boss swept his visitors with a defiant stare and fell silent.

 

            "Do you imagine, sir," Magnan demanded sternly, "that you can easily intimidate duly accredited officers of a Terran diplomatic mission?"

 

            "Old Worm don't mess around," Boss commented. "It'll flame ya where ya stand without scorching the carpet, which it don't like no wise guys tryna hassle its very own lootenant already!"

 

            "Well, I didn't mean, I mean, I only meant—" Magnan explained.

 

            "Mr. Magnan is too polite to say it," Retief interjected. "But as for myself, I flunked Hypocrisy at the Institute. You used to be one hell of an astrogator, Captain, but you're a damn poor liar."

 

            Boss arranged what he thought was a dumbfounded expression on his round face, an effort which caused his bushy eyebrows nearly to merge with his hairline. He pointed a stubby forefinger at his chest. "You calling me a liar, or what?" he growled.

 

            "You got that one right," Retief confirmed. "You picked up a few tricks, all right," he went on, "but not by studying the Worm's sub-vocalisms; the fact is, you're holding a hostage—the real Junior. Worm's talented offspring, no doubt. That's why Worm hasn't redistributed your component atoms as a fine dust on the cave floor."

 

            "Retief!" Magnan objected. "What possible grounds could you have for that remarkable accusation? Here in the center of Mr. Boss's stronghold, we're dependent on his good will, don't you realize that? Why antagonize him?"

 

            "I guess it's because I land of liked Junior," Retief told his immediate supervisor. "I think the captain here took advantage of his good will and inexperience to sucker him. That about right, Captain?"

 

            that IS precisely cor—the unmistakable tones of the Big Voice boomed out, abruptly cut off.

 

            "See?" Boss crowed. "Even old Worm ain't saying nothing against me! Now I guess I had about enough o' you two wise guys!" He started defiantly past Retief, who put out a foot and deftly jerked it back. Boss hit the red carpet face-first and looked up with an expression like a spoiled infant gauging the most effective microsecond to utter a wail.

 

            "It can't," Retief told the fallen Boss patiently, "while you have Junior. Let's get back to your story."

 

            "Me? I got no Junior!" Boss started as he climbed to his feet. "Let's see you prove anything!"

 

            "That neon sign you found in the woods," Magnan said, "it didn't by any chance read 'Cloud Cuckoo Club,' did it?"

 

            "Naw," Boss made a brushing-away gesture, "nothin like that." He paused as if listening intently. "Well, maybe," he amended, then, "OK, OK, I get it!" He put his hands over his ears and looked resentfully at Retief. "Anyways, I went in, and after I gave this sharpie a few lessons in cuemanship—"

 

            "Cuemanship, or prestidigitation?" Retief asked, as if idly.

 

            "You tryna say I cheated the sucker?" Boss demanded hotly, and mimed Wrath Held in Restraint (732), a weak -c, Magnan estimated.

 

            "Look here, Mr. Boss," Magnan spoke up in the reasonable tone of a lynch mob victim suggesting that his captors quit kidding around now, and join him in a drink. "You must remember that my colleague and I are after all, men of words, not deeds, and I'm sure Mr. Retief meant no disrespect."

 

            "Save that for yer memoirs. Jest in case you five to write 'em," Boss suggested curtly. "I clipped that Vince pretty fair and square, almost—anyways, it was all going to waste—them fellers never knowed what they had—I seen it and I taken it without hardly no bloodshed! After, the Worm come and faked-up the town around the club. And I ain't giving it up—not after nigh two hunnert year! I guess the Statute o' Limitations done run out some time ago. So just you boys beat it back to yer boss and tell him Goldblatt's Other World is shipshape and bristle-fashion, and don't need no outsiders coming along to start messing things up!" As Boss concluded his outburst, his jaw dropped, his eyes widened, and he slapped his own jaw with a sharp report.

 

            Magnan drew a deep breath to begin his assurances that all would be as Boss decreed, but Retief caught his arm.

 

            "Don't fold our hand yet, sir," he urged, then paused as a sensation like a hot needle in his brain jabbed once and was gone. "Did you feel that?" he asked Magnan. "A sort of probe, not quite in the audible range."

 

            Magnan jerked his arm away from contact. "Do let me be!" he yelped. "It's not you, Retief! It's something else—it's poking me in the head!" He put both hands over his ears and screwed his eyes shut. "It's not quite ..."he muttered between clenched teeth. "No! Stop that!" he yelled. Behind him, Boss had sunk to his knees and was shaking his head as if dazed.

 

            "I'll do it!" he roared. "I tole ya I'd do it, and I'm gonna do it!" His eye fell on Magnan and he leaped at the slender diplomat and seized him in a bear hug, eliciting a sharp yelp and a lack in the shin from Magnan. As the two struggled, Retief became aware of a second curious hot-wire sensation behind his eyes. Vision blurred; the floor turned soft under his feet. Waves of hot and cold struck him like palpable blows. Now skyrockets were spewing fire in his mind.

 

            I'm sorry to cause you discomfort, the giant carved-from-granite words loomed in the foreground, the tight beam was my only hope; I prayed your mind could accommodate it. so far, so good. your companions are momentarily non compos mentis, but they'll soon be all right, except perhaps for some residual loss of the real/ unreal discriminatory faculty. now to matters of import:

 

            With an effort, Retief focused his attention on the giant stone words: Voice, it appeared, was concentrating its phenomenal mind-to-mind faculty on a 'private-line' linkage. He gathered his forces, and, using his own imitation of the alien being's Voice,' interjected:

 

            "tone down the gain. you're knocking my consciousness off-line."

 

            sorry, came the prompt reply, now at a comfortable level. frankly, I need your help. this boss person has disrupted my paradigm. I have tried to accommodate his interference into my own halcyon gestalt, but the incompatibility runs too deep. I sense in you a kindred spirit—a link, I hope, between my world-view and that of your unfortunate but undoubtedly potent kind. will you join me, experimentally, just for a moment?

 

            "You'll have to show me how," Retief said aloud.

 

            don't mumble, please, was the prompt response. but you are willing to make the attempt, I gather. now just lower that barrier there ... an impalpable pointer indicated a ghostly structure deep in Retief s subconscious. He made an effort of will and felt the wall dissolve. At once, Worm's Voice came in more intimately, now in a small concise elite typeface rather than megalithic form.

 

            the only way to reject this intrusion into my primary postulate is to find common ground between him and yourself, none existing linking me with his deepest fantasies, which are of violence and vainglory, concepts wildly alien to my own peaceful aspirations, the Voice expatiated, hmm, i'll have to rummage a bit ...

 

            Retief was aware of a disturbing sensation somewhere behind his memory; bright flashes winked and faded, then steadied. He looked down, saw the sturdy legs of a ten-year old, his feet in polished boots with jeweled spurs. His hand went to his side, found the hilt of the chrome-plated saber that hung there. He drew it, snapped down the chin-strap of his helmet, and started along the tiled street in the deep twilight. High facades in a classic style lined the avenue, and at the end a great edifice towered. Retief felt his heart beat fester. He was seeing the ruined city of Northroyal—as it once was.

 

            No one moved in the silent street, but light glowed in a window here and there, and the portico of one radiant edifice blazed with lights. It was the Hall of the Fallen in Battle, Retief realized, from pictures he had seen of the ruins, yet here it was, pristine.

 

            not quite, a Voice spoke up suddenly and bewilderingly. Retief's thoughts roiled; he felt vaguely that he should recognize the silent voice, but the thought was elusive; it slipped away and he caught half-glimpsed impressions of cold, deep darkness, a table laden with exotic food, a red carpet and a man—almost but not quite familiar. As he watched, a whole side of the portico ahead went dark. He heard faint sounds, followed by a sharp smack! and another element of the glowing design disappeared. He hurried toward the sounds. A man appeared—no, he realized, a boy, slightly older than himself, a stocky lad with a truculent swagger. The boy advanced to the lighted archway above the grand stairs, then paused and raised his hand. The arch went black. The boy laughed raucously and executed a clumsy parody of the Grande Pavane, the ancient stately dance of Northroyal.

 

            Retief ran forward, heard himself shout in the uncertain tenor of a pre-teener: "Stop that, you!"

 

            The capering boy halted and looked around, a surprised expression on his blunt features. "Who're you, dummy?" he called derisively, and concluded his insulting parody by bowing from the waist. Retief climbed up the wide steps to him, and the vandal fixed his eyes on the drawn sword and mimed astonishment. "Would you cut down an unarmed man?" he yelped in pretended terror. Instead of replying, Retief sheathed the weapon and the other lad at once produced an eighteen-inch truncheon from his ragged sleeve. He made a tentative pass at Retief, who grabbed the club, jerked it from the others hand and threw it clattering down the white marble steps. The older boy backed off, then turned and ran off between the looming, half-lit columns. Retief went around to the right side, where the running boy reappeared a moment later; he skidded to a halt as he saw Retief.

 

            "What do you care about this old dump?" the boy demanded, circling warily in an attempt to maneuver Retief into a position with his back to the steep drop-off at the end of the column row. "I know you," he stated defiantly. "You're one o' them kids from the Old School. Whatta you know?" As Retief said nothing, the boy's derisive tone became more confident.

 

            "I heard youse boys are all sissies," he sneered. "Well, I'm Mean Soup, and I do as I like." He fumbled at his belt and produced the energy weapon with which he had shot out the lights. Retief kicked it from his hand, and Soup jumped to recover it, but Retief tripped him down the steps. At the boy's yell, two other teenagers appeared; they were slightly older than Soup, and dressed, like him, in tattered cast-offs. Retief put his back to the wall, watching both of them as they fanned out, one left, one to the right. But immediately, two more ragamuffins emerged from the shadows of the columns, then more, until Retief was ringed in by a dozen unkempt louts, each of them carrying an object Retief recognized as an antique unit battle honor pried from the walls of the temple. The tallest of them swaggered forward and stepped ten feet from Retief and assumed a dai-ako-nichi stance.

 

            "We're the Trashers, jerk," he announced. "I'm Dude, the War Chief. You looking for trouble?" He advanced a step, then leapt, aiming a lack at Retief s head. Retief knocked the extended leg aside, stepped in, and kicked Dude's other foot from beneath him. The nearly adult Trasher's head struck the marble paving-slab with a bonk! and enough force to scramble his eyes out of focus. He made pawing motions, then relaxed and lay supine. No one else moved. Soup had crept back up the steps. He got to his feet and yelled at the others:

 

            "Are you bums Trashers, or choir-boys?"

 

            "Put everything back," Retief ordered. Soup turned on him with a yell, nearly fell down the steps again, and said:

 

            "Just who are you, creep, all dressed up like Mama's little soldier-boy? Get that fancy suit," he called over his shoulder. "Let's see how that gold braid and them fancy buttons look on us!" He edged closer, as if casually, and Retief knocked him back down the steps. This time the boy got up and loped away up the empty street.

 

            "Well, how about it, Trashers?" one gang-member spoke in the lengthening silence. "Are we going to watch how this kid cleans up on Trashers one at a time, or do we teach him some respect, or what?" No one moved or replied. Retief pointed at a husky lout of about eighteen, who was holding an enameled Badge of Merit engraved with the name of a famous Brigade.

 

            "You first," Retief ordered. "Put it back." The boy dropped the heavy casting with a brazen clang! which echoed among the columns. At Retief s level look, he stooped and recovered the centuries-old relic.

 

            "Dura thing's heavy," he complained. "I din't want it anyways." He turned and went back inside the Hall. The others muttered and closed ranks. Retief looked at another boy, this one with the three-hundred-year-old rhodium-plated helmet of a Battle Officer of grade five perched incongruously on his unkempt mane of bushy hair.

 

            "You, too," Retief ordered. The boy backed a step as if to blend into the crowd.

 

            "Whatsa matter with you?" he demanded. "What's wrong with having some fun? Who are you, anyway?"

 

            "He's some big shot's kid," another volunteered. "Look at the fancy outfit. He's dressed up like the Prince Imperial."

 

            "Got him a toy sword, too," commented another, a well-grown boy with a few straggly whiskers. He brought out from behind him a sheathed cavalry saber dating back to the days of Rhoxus I. He drew the blade and threw the sheath aside.

 

            "I rated Master Swordsman in my YMNA class," he stated, and advanced a step. "You want to try me, kid?" Without awaiting a response he crouched slightly and executed a dorchoi leap which put him within three feet of Retief, his extended saber having passed between Retief s arm and chest. His grin disappeared when he realized he had come to rest with the needlepoint of Retief s saber prodding his throat.

 

            "Put it back," Retief said quietly.

 

            "I was going to," the boy muttered as he leaned back, away from the sword-point. The whole gang followed him back in between the columns.

 

            you see now how feckless these heroics were, and are, the disembodied voice put in gently. now to more important matters. As the voice ceased, the darkling sky dimmed into instant deep twilight, then full darkness. For a moment the glow from the remaining lights above the classic architrave illuminated the steps; then it, too, winked out, leaving Retief in darkness. Something stirred close by.

 

            "Retief, where are you?" Magnan's worried voice spoke up near at hand. Retief blinked, concentrated on gathering his awareness, saw dim light on a red carpet and polished woodwork. Magnan stood dithering before him in the gloom, and across the room Boss was crouched against the wall, whimpering:

 

            "... like I was scared of," he babbled. "I done went nuts! Can't stand bein' crazy!" He got to his feet and looked around as if seeing the luxurious office for the first time. "Who are youse guys!" he demanded as his eye fell on Retief and Magnan.

 

            "N-nobody, Mr. Boss," Magnan hastened to assure him. "That is, I'm just B and O officer, and this is, ah, Retief; he handles the semi-annual requisition and that sort of thing. We were just going." He tugged at Retief s sleeve and edged toward the door.

 

            "Nobody, huh?" the Boss echoed. "That does it! Now I'm having a conversation with guys which there ain't nobody here." He clutched his head with both plump, be-ringed hands and sank into a chair.

 

            "Just a minute, sir," Retief demurred. "Before we go, hadn't we better find out where we've been?"

 

            "Been?" Magnan cried, as if Astonished at an Unwarranted Leap in Logic, third class (1291-3-a). "Why, we've been right here in this dismal cave, where else?"

 

            "A cave with red Aga-Khagan carpets?" Retief queried. "And why were you locked in the closet?"

 

            "Why, as to that," Magnan temporized, "I was simply wedged in among the rocks there ..." His voice trailed off as he glanced toward the still open door of the tiny chamber in which he and been confined. "Oh, dear, Jim," he muttered. "We'd best hurry back to the Embassy and lie down; I'm having one of my dizzy spells."

 

            "I've never heard that you had dizzy spells, Ben," Retief commented.

 

            "This is the first one," Magnan snapped. "You know, like 'the first annual golf tourney' and so on; candidly, Jim, I've felt rather off my feed ever since we first saw that Cuckoo Club. It's as though the whole planet is out of alignment with the entropic vector; especially Vug-wise."

 

            "And so it is, Ben," Retief agreed. "Something to do with the problyon flux, according to Boss."

 

            "Then perhaps I'm not going dotty," Magnan groaned. "And I still haven't actually rescued poor Gaby from this den of vice."

 

            Retief strolled across to Boss, who was still holding his head and moaning softly.

 

            "Where's the lady?" Retief asked quietly.

 

            Boss looked up, miming indignation. "What dame's that?" he yelped. "I keep no dames in my office! Got a couple out on the floor to hustle the marks, but I don't hardly never see 'em."

 

            "I'm interested in one named Gaby," Retief told him. "She was here just a moment ago."

 

            "Oh, her," Boss groaned. "Tryda make friends with her once—a long time ago—and she like rebuffed my kindly overtures and I hadda exile the broad. Run her off and tole her not to never come around no more. Don't know how she got in here. Whatta you know about old Gaby, anyways?"

 

            "She left here only a moment ago," Magnan supplied, having come up beside Retief. "Before that, she was helping me extricate myself, then I heard her scream—and now where is she?"

 

            "Must be a different Gaby," Boss said indifferently. "Onney dame around here today is a dice-girl they call 'the Glutton.' She come in to get a new supply of dominoes, tole her I was busy and she left in one o' them huffs—into the John, there." He indicated a discreet door adjacent to the storage closet. "Must still be in there; I locked it, and it got no winder nor no back door. Take a look."

 

            "But," Magnan objected, "one can hardly invade the 'Ladies'; do summon a female employee."

 

            "I tole you, no dames is allowed in my office!" Boss growled.

 

            "Except La Goulue (that's 'glutton' in French)," Magnan snapped back.

 

            "I never ast for no Frog lessons," Boss grumped. "OK, I guess you ain't going to let up until I check." He strode to the door, and pushed the latch button savagely; the door swung inward and Gaby stepped into the room. She saw Magnan immediately and rushed across to hurl herself at him. Magnan patted her on the back, and over her shapely shoulder eyed Retief wildly.

 

            "Really, my child," he rebuked the now-tearful girl, "such a display in public is likely to give rise to rumors as to our relationship!" He managed to disengage himself, and holding her at arm's length, looked uncertainly at her.

 

            "What relationship?" she demanded. "You don't like me ..." The words dissolved into a wail.

 

            "See here, my girl," Magnan started sternly.

 

            "Wrong play, Mr. Magnan," Retief put in. "This is where you kiss her. Go ahead, I won't look."

 

            "It's not a matter of looking," Magnan objected, then, addressing the tearful woman: "Where have you been, dear? This boss person said he locked you in the Ladies!"

 

            "I wasn't in no ladies," Gaby dismissed the idea. "What I was, I was lost in the Gray Place—and it's his doing!" She stabbed an accusatory finger in Boss's direction. "He's a bad 'un," she concluded. "What you going to do with him, Benny?"

 

            "Why, just now I'm going to use him to get us out of this den of iniquity," Magnan stated, in the tone of an adman presenting a promotional campaign to a demanding client.

 

            "Before we go," Retief put in, "we need to find the real Junior."

 

            "I suggest you forget that silly idea, Retief," Magnan said loftily. He offered an arm to Gaby, who took it tenderly in both hands. "Oh, Ben, you're so masterful," she breathed.

 

            "If you insist," Magnan acknowledged, then to Retief: "Just how do you plan to negotiate our escape route through this bewildering maze of now-you-see-it-now-you-don'ts?"

 

            you find it all quite simple, once you have redefined your prime postulates, the Big Voice boomed out.

 

            "I suppose that has to do with the Vuggish aspects of the contretemps," Magnan commented dubiously.

 

            what else? was the curt reply. Magnan looked pleadingly at Retief, trying to avoid Gaby's appealing look.

 

            "That wasn't me," Retief assured his supervisor.

 

            "T-then ..." Magnan stammered. "Then, it's listening! It can help us!"

 

            unfortunately, Big Voice replied, so long as the tricky captain holds in thrall my sole genetic legatee, I can do nothing.

 

            "But that's impossible!" Magnan objected. "Voice is virtually omnipotent! How could this mere tramp skipper exercise any restraint over him?"

 

            my junior is but young. as for his 'omnipotence, he is at best a journeyman trickster; and this goldblatt entity is capable of a guile beyond the expectations even of a sophisticated being. free junior to receive his legacy and you will find me not ungrateful. fail, and I shall be forced to unleash destructive forces of the eiGhth order to accomplish the chore myself. this galaxy would find that regrettable. act promptly, before junior's latencies are forever curtailed. this is the critical stage of his evolution, and to start anew now with another eater less bountifully endowed would likely constitute an enterprise extending beyond my scope, vugwise.

 

            "Retief," Magnan whimpered, tugging at his subordinate's sleeve. "What are we to do? Clearly, we need to do it at once, but one might as well call on us to levitate as to take effective action anent this contretemps. Did it say 'Eighth order'? Gracious, I'm beside myself. Although one could whaffle, I suppose. But to what end?"

 

            "Is everybody around here going nuts, or what?" Gaby demanded, giving Magnan's arm a proprietary yank. "A minute ago you were ready to conquer the world for me; now you're crying the blues!"

 

            "Really, my dear, you must excuse me," Magnan babbled. "I'm quite at sea, with all these disembodied voices, and Retief s burlesque of them, and that closet I seem to have thought was a pile of rocks, and you, and—and ..." He trailed off.

 

            "And me?" Gaby echoed, looking discouraged. "What have I got to do with you losing your grip?"

 

            "Why, when I first saw you—" Magnan attempted, but gave it up.

 

            "Never mind sorting it out now, Mr. Magnan," Retief suggested. "We can do that when we've cleared things up a little better."

 

            "But, Retief!" Magnan objected. "Perhaps you aren't aware of it, but our very own Counselor of Embassy, in connivance with Fred Underknuckle, the sneak, are involved, with Chief Smeer, in a diabolical plot to implicate the Mission in actual warmongering, to say nothing of eliminating you and me—and quite possibly Gaby and Nudine and Small as well—because we Know Too Much!"

 

            "I already had a run-in with that Underknuckle character," Boss spoke up aggrievedly. "He come in here with some kind of self-appointed local flatfoot, tryna raid the joint, he says, but I know a muscler-in when I hafta deck him with his own bodyguard!"

 

            "Yes, yes, Mr. Boss," Magnan dismissed the remark, "but you mustn't judge all diplomats by a single backslider! Most of us are dedicated public servants of the highest character! It is your clear duty to assist us in restoring a modicum of order to this chaotic situation. You may begin by divulging the wherabouts of the real Junior—and while you're about it, you may as well describe precisely how you managed to establish supremacy over an apprentice superbeing, and be brisk about it!"

 

            "Well," Boss started, more calmly, "what I seen, when this here Junior first stuck his oar in—I seen right away he didn't have it all together, like old Worm; he was pretty clumsy with his psychojuntures and all—and I bet the kid never hadda handle a incipient vortex on the Vug level in his whole life! So that makes it easy for me to slip him a fast one—con him into dipping down below the alpha and get hisself all bolixed up in that mess down there—so I take over the kid's prime directive before he knows what hit him, and from there on, he was my property—hadda follow my lead or lose his grip and spin out along the Vug coordinate—and you know what that means?"

 

            "I do?" Magnan replied dazedly. "It sounds most underhanded, Mr. Boss."

 

            "Oh, you can call me 'Captain'," Goldblatt suggested. "That Boss stuff is OK for the rubes and flatlanders, but you and me got to like conduct our negotiation on a little higher plane and all."

 

            "What negotiation was that, Captain?" Magnan wondered aloud.

 

            that was a most illuminating disclosure, captain, the Big Voice spoke up. IT gives me precisely the angle of impingement I require to extricate junior from involuntary servitude. I am indeed grateful to you, benmagnan, for teasing the facts out into the open by your clever simulation of idiocy. neatly done!

 

            "Well!" Magnan said huffily, but Retief caught his eye. "I suggest you pass on that one, sir," he said. "After all, it was intended as a compliment."

 

            Magnan seemed to be about to pursue the point, but instead he winced, and blurted. "Easy! Easy! Look here, Big Voice, or Worm or whatever you call yourself— that's an actionable invasion of privacy—one more like that and you could get me disoriented along the Vug axis!" He turned to Retief. "I've been considering our situation; consider: we perceive the time axis as a substrate, in constant uniform motion; space is the static substrate against which we ourselves have some limited power of locomotion. Now, the Vug axis is itself, like time, in motion, and confers independent motion upon matter—ergo: if I should find myself divorced from the natural one: one relationship therewith, I'd likely find myself flying off along either the spatial or the temporal axis, or perhaps both! Since you seem to enjoy a certain influence with Worm, do tell it to stop meddling with my tertiary postulate!"

 

            i will respect your wishes in this matter, benmagnan, came the prompt response, but of course I have no intention of allowing the destiny of the sole custodian of my genetic heritage to be aborted by the captainsolgoldblatt entity. will you, jimretIef, join once more with me in an effort to pry loose the afore-said entity's illicit grip upon poor junior's psyche?

 

            "Sure," Retief replied. "But this time let's stay away from the daydreams."

 

            as you wish; still the charade did uncover, peripherally, one or two of your conceptual foundations.

 

            This time, the tiled avenue was thronged with people, a crowd gathering, for what seemed to be some public event. Over the babble of excited voices, the blare of the ancient long trumpets echoed; then the crowd parted to reveal a pair of mountainous beasts brilliantly caprisoned, whose long, recurved tusks were tipped with deep red core-jewels as big as tennis balls. In a houdah atop one of the tandem dire-beasts, there sat a man, broad and deep of shoulder and chest, clad in the Imperial green. As he raised a hand in friendly hail to the population, a bolt of white fire lanced out from a narrow black-fronted building to his right, to detonate in a blinding flash which left the dire-beast a tottering ruin of torn flesh and gouting gore, while the castle and its occupants had disappeared completely. The cry that went up from the horrified crowd was like the death-scream of a monster hill-devil. The other dire-beast tottered and collapsed, blood-splashed but apparently unhurt. Retief, quite involuntarily, leapt forward, pushed through the press of people, some struggling toward the scene of carnage, some wildly fleeing. Even as he heard himself scream the word, 'father!', a big man in the silver and green of the Guard caught his arm and pulled him aside.

 

            "Nothing you can do, Jimmy," he said as he lifted the boy. "But there is that which I must do."

 

            "No!" the boy Retief yelled and sought to grab the big man's hand. "I command you, Captain Count William!"

 

            The big man smiled uncertainly. "As you desire, Milord."

 

            "My name's 'Jame!" he shouted. "Let's go!" let it go, retief entity, a gigantic, disembodied voice boomed from the sky. link easily with me and we will prevail! now let us extend awareness. and perhaps ...

 

            Instead of complying, the boy turned and ran into the shadowed interior of the temple. He stopped in the lee of a column of soap-smooth stone. On the glistening white marble block lay a small gold coin. Retief picked it up absently and stood listening. There was only silence. He started on, and at once the great, strange, silent voice boomed out, somehow more distant now. there you are! hold still! why do you seek to elude me? come, join with me and together we shall soon discover what we seek. come, now, just gently, no need for impulsive actions. do cooperate.

 

            Retief probed the darkness and encountered a maze of intangible barriers, like a series of nets guiding him in that direction. He turned and faced the opposite way.

 

            A dim light sprang up, all around the periphery of the long rectangular platform surrounded by the columns. Cool air flowed across his face, bearing the scent of night-blooming flowers and perfumed smoke. Retief took a tentative step toward the shrine-like structure at the center of the uncluttered floor. It was a small rectangle of cut stone, and before it a fire smouldered on a brazier.

 

            where are you, now? The Voice demanded. I had you plotted to the deminit and now again you slip away. this is not to be tolerated in an ally! show yourself loyal to our covenant! heed me and follow my guidance without fail! your intransigence could trigger a disaster! be prudent. the forces involved are beyond calculation. now! the Voice commanded.

 

            go forward to the stone of hrolfr, and—

 

            "What's inside there?" Retief asked the circumambient gloom, indicating the shrine.

 

            eh? that IS not your concern! the Voice reprimanded sharply, follow my instructions, no more, no less.

 

            the forces we seek to manipulate will be in alignment—and a mis-touch could collapse the paradigm— At that point, Retief closed his mind to the insistent Voice. At once he was aware of Boss's garish office and Magnan's nervous presence. "Very well," he addressed Voice patiently. "So far, you've communicated to me, very poignantly, that something of value is threatened. Very well, I'm willing to help save it; so no more charades."

 

            as you wIll, the Voice agreed grumpily, directly to the nexus, then.

 

            As the silent Voice trailed off, Retief felt himself catapulted into a whirling chaos of flashing lights, erratic pressures and cacophonous sound. At the center of the maelstrom, a vivid blue-white glare was the sole constant within his perception. He moved toward it against impalpable pressures. Magnan clung to his arm with both hands. Retief saw it come into focus as a glowing crystal as big as a baseball, multi-faceted, glittering. As Magnan whimpered behind him, Retief gripped the doorknob, turned it, and stepped into a small, drably furnished room where a young child, perhaps eight years old, thin, dirty-faced and clad in rags, crouched in a corner. Magnan crowded in behind Retief. A big, swarthy man in need of a shave sat with crossed arms as big as pork hocks on a sagging wooden box labelled PRODUCE OF BEGONIA. At sight of Retief, the boy exclaimed and started to his feet, then at a snarl from the swarthy man, fell back silently.

 

            "Got a sick kid here," the man grunted in a surprisingly mellow baritone. "Can't do nothing with the little devil; seems like he's went kinda off in the head. Tried everything; hit him, starved him, chained him fer awhile—but no, he's got these big ideas. They call me George the Stick." He rose, hitched up his belt and waited.

 

            Magnan swallowed audibly. "Ah, I am Mr. Magnan of the Embassy," he croaked. He indicated his companion. "This is Retief, my, ah, assistant. Please pardon the intrusion; it was noisy out there."

 

            "Cheese!" George burst out, his eye roving past Retief and Magnan as if in expectation of a crowd at their heels. "There's what you call a Class One Discordancy going on out there and the guy waltzes through and says it was noisy! You must be quite a man! I don't know your angle, chum, but I'm on your side, you bet!"

 

            "Relax, Vince," Retief suggested. "We're not here to choose up sides. Just answer a few questions, if you don't mind."

 

            "And if I da mind," Vince came back in a defeated tone, "I guess you ast 'em anyways, right? How'd you know I'm Vince Scumelli?"

 

            "Just a lucky guess," Retief told him. "Captain Goldblatt mentioned you."

 

            Vince tapped his temple with a blunt forefinger. "That nut-case send you?" he barked. "What more's he want?" Then he slumped on his broccoli box.

 

            "Just a minute," Magnan put in sharply. "First this fellow said his name was George; now it's Vince." He glanced sharply at Retief. "How can we trust a man who's unsure of his own name?"

 

            "I ain't unsure o' my name," the swarthy man contradicted in a surly tone. "Name's Vince Scumelli, just like yer partner said. What I said was they call me George the Stick, which I'm pretty good with a cue, see? Least I was until this Goldblatt come along. Come in one night, looking like that Robin's son, Caruso. Said his vessel done clobbered in, and big-hearted me, I let the bum in and he asts fer a game, so next thing I know, he's the new owner, and I'm shoved inna back room. That was maybe a couple weeks ago, and I been locked in here ever since, then yesterday the door opens and they shove this kid in here. Natcherly, I ast him what gives, but he ain't talking." Vince paused to grab at an imaginary fly in front of his face. "I'm ready to talk deal," he concluded gloomily. "Onney just lemme outa here."

 

            "He's insane," Magnan commented without emphasis. "It's been well over two centuries since the Captain's disappearance."

 

            "We were talking to him ten minutes ago," Retief reminded him.

 

            Magnan shook his head impatiently. "I suppose there's no sense seeking logic in this irrational paradigm," he instructed himself firmly.

 

            logic is firmly grounded on the vug axis, the Voice put in. it is quite independent of the space and time dimensions. once the vuggish orientation of the paradigm has been altered—and I warned him!—no logic can be expected.

 

            "I awready said I'll deal," Vince reminded his guests' back. "You don't need to go doing no ventriloquist tricks."

 

            At that point the door opened and Captain Goldblatt/ Boss staggered into the room. He slapped his forehead and recoiled at the sight of Retief. "You, again!" he lamented. "Whattaya want outa me?"

 

            "The truth," Magnan responded promptly. "At first you said you'd been here for two centuries—a palpable absurdity; then you said two weeks. That, Mr. Boss, is quite inconsistent, as I'm sure you'll agree."

 

            "Two hunnert year, two weeks, whassa difference?" Boss challenged. "You try sitting in a cell a while, you'll find out there ain't no time-posts to tell you how far you come. Ain't even got a watch."

 

            "Why is this boy here?" Magnan demanded relentlessly.

 

            "Vince already tole you, they shove the kid onto me one day to make me miserabler'n what I already am. Kid's nuts; acts like he thinks I'm his valet or like that. How about it, kid?" He turned to the lad, who had gone to the vacated box and was sitting, looking calmly at Boss.

 

            "You feel better now?" Boss suggested.

 

            "Better than what, Mister Boss?" the kid asked. "I resent being confined," he added. "And it's your doing. I want—well," his voice faltered, "I don't exactly know what I want, but it sure isn't this—being locked in here with this surly lout."

 

            Boss lunged toward the boy and somehow found his ankle hooked by the child's foot. The boy jumped back as Boss crashed on the crate, flattening the flimsy slats back.

 

            "Kid's got no respeck, j'ear what the punk said? Talks like a book, 'surly lout,' he calls me! Me!" The swarthy man sat breathing hard and glaring resentfully at the boy.

 

            "Who are you, lad?" Magnan asked in a kindly tone, with just a hint of Sternness Available As Needed (981-c).

 

            "Don't waste no 981 on that lousy kid," Boss advised. "He wun't bat a eyelash if a full Ambluster unleashed a 989, Now You're Really Going to Get It, on him. Even a Z-plus. Hard as tube linings." Magnan ignored the comment and continued to look at the boy with benign expectancy. The lad returned a defiant look then stared into a corner.

 

            "Really, my boy," Magnan said a trifle testily, "it's no good standing mute. We want only to help you, you know."

 

            "All I need is for these guys to go away and stop bugging me," the boy muttered. "I was doing OK until they came along."

 

            " They'?" Magnan queried. "I see only one guard."

 

            "There's more of'em," the boy told him. "Outside."

 

            "There's nothing outside," Magnan objected, "except a, ah, class one discordancy, brought about, no doubt, by meddling by half-informed individuals."

 

            "They're ahead of me," the boy grumbled. "Nobody informs me of anything, ever since—" His voice trailed off and for the first time he looked like a lost child.

 

            "Still," Magnan pointed out, "we're here now—and the situation must be dealt with, not merely deplored. Now, Retief and I represent the Embassy of Terra— and the first order of business is for you to tell us all you know that would assist us in grasping, and thus mastering the situation. All right?"

 

            "Whattaya talking to the kid for?" Boss demanded. "This here is man's work."

 

            "He's lying to you," the boy told Magnan. "Said he was here first. He's lying."

 

            Boss lunged again, but shied as Retief stepped into his path.

 

            "Go sit down, Captain," Retief told the frustrated fellow, who went to a broken chair beside the door, pushed aside an empty carton, and perched tentatively.

 

            "Now, tell us your name, boy," Magnan urged the child. "How old are you?" He waited, beaming. "Come, come, boy," Magnan said sharply. "I am a First Secretary of Embassy of Terra," he stated importantly. "How dare you offer me mute insolence?"

 

            "Easy, Ben," Retief interjected. "From his point of view you're just a nosy stranger." He went over to the boy, and asked: "Would you like to get out of here?"

 

            "That I would, sir," the child replied promptly.

 

            "So would we," Retief told him. "Maybe you could give us some information that would help."

 

            "You'll take me with you?" the lad responded eagerly. Retief nodded.

 

            "Of course we'll take you," Magnan said impatiently. "But where? There's nothing outside that door but chaos. How are we to regain stable ground?"

 

            "Got to rotate under it," the boy said, as if it were obvious. "See, old Capgoldblatt tricked me: Pried me loose from my primary postulate, and the whole Shrodinger function collapsed, anyways that's what Humphrey says. Well, it's pretty obvious we'll have to bypass all that and sneak out along a paradigmatic error of closure."

 

            "Why, wherever did you learn such big words?" Magnan queried dazedly. " 'A paradigmatic error of closure,' you said. Why, the very concept is disconsonate with the fundamental postulates of modern physics. And who, pray, is this Humphrey?"

 

            "Then you better find some new postulates," the boy dismissed the objection curtly. "And Humphrey is my friend. Don't look like much, but he helps me a lot, talking to me, and all."

 

            "Talks to you?" Magnan echoed. "Just how does he do that, when you're confined here alone?"

 

            "I don't care if you believe me or not," the lad stated defiantly. "How do I know how he does it?"

 

            "Oh, dear," Magnan dithered. "I fear we've gotten off on the wrong foot ..."

 

            The boy made a production of angling his sneaker-clad feet and eyeing them suspiciously.

 

            "My feet are OK," he declared with finality. "Must be yours are mixed up." He craned in an exaggerated fashion to peer at Magnan's once-elegant but now scuffed melon slicers.

 

            "Look OK, too," he decided. "So I still say it's your postulates. I think you got yer coordinates knocked slanchways coming through the Vortex. Better recalibrate."

 

            "That's easier said than done," Magnan replied testily. "In the absence of reliable parameters."

 

            perhaps I can help, the small voice spoke up abruptly.

 

            "Good lord!" Magnan yelped, covering his ears. "After all these hours of silence, I thought you'd gone. Have you no duties requiring your attention?"

 

            Meanwhile, the boy had backed away, then went past Magnan to take a stand beside Retief. "Look out for the Big Scary Voice," he yelped. "I don't want—"

 

            what you want, alien eater, is of little consequence, the Voice boomed out with such force as to send Magnan to his knees, clutching his head as if to prevent it from exploding.

 

            Retief put a hand on the boy's unkempt head. "What's your name, fella?" he asked.

 

            "Sobby," the boy blurted. "I wasn't spose to tell anybody. But I guess it's OK because that's only a nickname."

 

            "Who gave it to you?" Retief prodded.

 

            "Old Marshall," the boy said promptly. "Use to call him Barky, and one day he heard me. Said to you, lad, I'm Field Marshall Prince Barcarol. And as for yourself, by the same principle of nomenclature, the rest of the lads will henceforth call you 'Sobby,' rather that 'Sobhain,' or 'Milord'."

 

            "So your real name is 'Sobhain'," Retief confirmed. "That's a noble name, Milord. On his home world, a few centuries ago, he was a national hero, 'the Prince of the Green,' was his sobriquet. Your parents made a good choice. Who were they?"

 

            "They're the Anointed of Rohax," the boy stated flatly.

 

            "So I had begun to suspect, Milord," Retief informed the lad. "Can you tell us how you came to be here?"

 

            "That man laid hands on me and dragged me in here," Sobby said, giving Boss a look colder than the core of Icebox Nine.

 

            "That look was as cold as the core of Icebox Nine," Magnan contributed. "Colder. Why did he drag you in here? Earlier, you said you were here before him."

 

            "That was before," Sobby explained. "He locked me in here, alone, and later on someone threw him in, too."

 

            "To be sure," Magnan mumbled. "But that's not what Retief meant—"

 

            "Retief?" the boy exclaimed, staring up at the tall man with an astonished expression. "I knew Barky would send someone—but, no, I suppose he didn't ..." His voice trailed off uncertainly.

 

            "He probably did," Retief said. "But you're correct: it wasn't me. I didn't know. But I'd like to help you, if you'll tell me what happened."

 

            "Well, Battle Commander," the boy responded readily, "Captain Lord William came in one night and woke me up, told me about the—invasion I guess it was, not a revolution like that upstart Knout told everybody. Captain Willy got me out and aboard a fleet boat, and we made it to Vanguard without an intercept, and he made a deal with a Tip trader, Captain Goldblatt, to take me to the place Willy had made ready for me. He left me aboard and went out on an errand and never came back; so I did as he'd said and we shipped out. Three days out, the First Officer led a mutiny, and then they got to fighting over who was in charge, and let the maintenance go and burned the main coil, and got lost and made an emergency landing in the last world Goldblatt had in the navigator. They set up camp and nobody was watching me, and I escaped and wandered around in the park until I found the house, and then old Runt, from the ship, came along one day and hit me over the head, and I woke up here. Vince was the First Officer that killed Captain Goldblatt, and—"

 

            "Hold hard, you little rat!" Boss yelled. "Don't you start lying about me! Matter of fact, I ain't even dead yet!"

 

            "Be calm, Captain," Retief advised. The boy stood his ground calmly, but fell silent.

 

            "That's why you're afraid of me," the lad told Boss.

 

            "Go ahead, Milord," Magnan urged the boy. "You were just saying that some person named Runt assaulted you—"

 

            "He must have waited for me," the boy explained. "I decided to go back out and try to find a loyal crewman, but as I stepped through the door, he struck me down, the cowardly swine."

 

            "Calmly, lad," Magnan admonished. "That's all over and done: now we must apply our thoughts to the problem of escape."

 

            "Why not just open the door and walk out?" Sobby suggested. "Now you're here, Boss won't be able to stop us."

 

            As Boss started up with a reflexive snarl, Magnan waved him back. "Your only hope for clemency, sir," he advised the unshaven fellow, "is to lend us your assistance now. I assure that good behavior at the juncture will weigh heavily in your favor at the inquiry which will inevitably follow this farcical affair."

 

            "Yeah?" Boss rejoined scornfully. "I don't see no junction. And what about the Vortex old Worm got set up out there?" He went to the door and opened it wide to reveal whirling snowflakes visible against the blackness.

 

            "Close it, close it!" Magnan yelped. "Well freeze in that icy wind!" He turned up the brocaded collar of his early mid-morning semi-demi half-cloak, official occasions, for use during, then turned a despairing look on Retief.

 

            "Whatever are we to do?" he implored. "I confess I've quite lost my grasp of the tactical situation. After all that confusion in the closet-cum-rockpile, and then that dreadful chaotic state of affairs out there! All I can grasp is that this poor lad appears to be some sort of kidnapped princeling, and it's surely our duty to assist in his repatriation."

 

            it was precisely to that end that I led you here, the almost forgotten Big Voice put in. I have suffered quite enough disturbance to the natural order of things. take the appropriate action at once, and rid me of this nuisance!

 

            "Have a care, Big Voice, or whoever you are," Magnan responded testily. "It is hardly appropriate that a mere disembodied voice—and a silent one at that—should presume to issue commands to Terran diplomats. You might try asking nicely," he added, in a more conciliatory tone.

 

            "You heard Big Scary Voice too!" Sobby blurted. "So it's not me going off my head, like old Runt said!"

 

            "Anyway," Magnan added sulkily, still addressing the Voice: "I already said we should help to rescue this poor child. We're committed to do so!"

 

            "I'm getting out of here," Boss stated. Hearing no contradiction he enlarged on his thesis: "I can't take no more!" He broke for the door, and they let him go.

 

            "It's as well," Magnan commented. "He'd only have been a nuisance in any event. Besides, I doubt he'll get far in that cataclysm raging outside."

 

            Retief went to the closet whence he had extricated Magnan, opened the door and carefully examined the interior. He turned and motioned to the boy. "Come over here, Milord," he suggested; the lad complied. Retief pointed to a space between stacked boxes and hanging garments. "See if you can squeeze through there," he said. "It was a bit too tight for Mr. Magnan, but you should be able to make it." He lifted the lad and boosted him up to the dark crevice, into which the boy squeezed easily.

 

            "What do you see, Sobhain?" Retief asked.

 

            "It's home!" the boy called, his voice somewhat muffled but clear. "It's the field, and I see the Shallow Sea! Boost me just a little higher, Commander, and I can catch that branch and climb out of this hole. I don't understand, but I like it! I thought I'd never see home again, and all the time it was next door!"

 

            "Not quite, Milord," Retief corrected.

 

            Magnan crowded up behind him. "I smell fresh air and spring flowers," he cried. "What's happening, Retief? Have you found an escape route?"

 

            Before he could reply, the boy cried out. "Oh, no! It's a Rath raiding party, the scoundrels! As bold as can be, riding in echelon across the Plain! Where are the Guardians? Quickly, Battle Commander, we must give warning!" As he spoke, the lad scrambled up and through and was gone.

 

            "What's happening?" Magnan yelped. "What did he mean, about a raiding party? Where is he?"

 

            "He got through, Mr. Magnan," Retief told his excited colleague. "I can't see anything through the opening except a dim light."

 

            "Poor child," Magnan mourned. "And poor us as well, I fear. What are we to do, Retief? We seem to be sinking deeper and deeper into alien paradigm within alien paradigm! How are we ever to find our way out?"

 

            "Let's start with the door," Retief said, and went to it. Boss was there before him, his back to the door.

 

            "No, you don't, Mister. I know what's out there, and you ain't letting it in here!"

 

            Retief gently pushed him aside.

 

            "Just go sit on your chair and think enobling thoughts," he suggested, and flung the door wide open on a blast of discordant sound and garish light. Magnan, at his side, hunched his shoulders and averted his eyes from the chaotic spectacle. Retief took his arm and urged him through, and in an instant they were caught up in a hot, buffeting wind which nearly knocked Magnan from his feet. Retief hauled him upright.

 

            "Try to ignore the distractions," he suggested. "Close your eyes and imagine we're walking across a level floor to the door across the room."

 

            "B-but—" Magnan protested, "Boss's office should be here, not this kaliedophonic nightmare! We'd better go back!"

 

            "We can't," Retief told him. "We can only go ahead. There's nothing behind us, not even chaos."

 

            Magnan twisted to catch a glimpse, closed his eyes and shuddered. "It's the Vug dimension; I knew that meddling with that would only end in disaster! Lost in the Vug dimension! It's too grotesque to conceive! And for what? I came back to look for poor Gaby—and you came after me—we meant no harm. It isn't fair!"

 

            fair! the Big Voice came faintly, muffled by the roar of reality in collapse, that concept is a curious conceit invented by your own deviant species. the universe knows nothing of justice! you did well in expelling the troublesome eater from this paradigm. now to cleanse the node of the other, lesser, yet still disturbing nuisances. proceed as you were. I note an attention of the entropic density along THAT vector. As the Voice fell silent, a glowing pink line traced itself across the tossing surface of pre-matter that lay at their feet. It dimmed and disappeared in the writhing, light-shot mist. Retief followed it, Magnan trailing, muttering half aloud.

 

            "... none of this can be so much as mentioned en paspant in my report. After who can say how many days of unauthorized absence from our posts of duty, we can do no more than say we were detained by circumstances beyond our control—that's if we ever do get back to sanity."

 

            you consider an ambassadorial staff meeting to be 'sanity? the now-muffled Voice inquired. I suggest you abandon these fragile concepts, benmagnan, and concentrate your faculties on the immediate pseudo-reality confronting you.

 

            "Really!" Magnan huffed. "Your intrusiveness is exceeded only by your impracticality! How can one deal realistically with the unreal?"

 

            reality, the Voice intoned, may be defined as 'that which appears to be reality! abort this sterile concept and proceed boldly!

 

            Retief took a step and disappeared from Magnan's view. "Retief!" Magnan yelped. "You cant go off and leave me here like this!"

 

            "It's all right, Ben," Retief's voice replied calmly, as if emanating from directly ahead.