Chapter Two
Down in the lobby, Retief went first across the fallen gate. A nearly solid wall of intertwined locals reared up to oppose him, fangs bared, shredding hooks at the ready. He took a rusty kitchen-knife from the knobby grip of the nearest and poked it at the fellow's neck-region until it recoiled; then he seized the thus isolated creature just below the jaws and squeezed the pressure point until the fanged mandible opened to its widest gape. With the other hand, he scooped up a loop of the most conveniently placed local and wedged it into the yawning maw of the first, which reflexively closed, pinching the other's abdomen painfully, and eliciting a shrill screech. Thick umber ichor leaked from the wound thus inflicted, running down across the rumpled fur of its owner to drip reluctantly into the gutter below.
"Hey!" the bitten mobster yelled. "Whatsa idear, Leroy, you can't wait for chow?"
Retief released him and stepped back as he threshed and heaved frantically, until at last he threw off the grip of Leroy, who, jaws snapping, was at once engulfed in the suddenly writhing mass of rioters. The injured local continued to whip his elongated torso against the in-pressing mob until he had cleared a space of a few cubic yards in which he could inspect his hurtie in relative solitude. By then, a free-for-all was raging around him.
"Wonder what come over old Leroy?" the bitten one mourned. "Usely a nice, quiet feller. Where is the son of a gurge?" he added with sudden vehemence. "I'll teach him to go gnawing on his cell boss!" As he charged the writhing wall of his fellows, Bill reached him and delivered a hearty kick to the punctured area, setting off a new flurry of resentful body-threshing, accompanied by appropriate invective.
"This feller talks pretty rough," Bill said admiringly to Retief. "Must of ordered hisself one o' them black-market O & P tapes, guaranteed to outrage decency in a hunnert dialects and blaspheme all the gods from Azuz to Zuba." So saying he promptly assaulted the nearest bystander, only to be thrown promptly on his back. Retief grabbed him before he rolled off the edge of the narrow entry-ledge.
"Geeze," the husky lad commented, regaining his feet. "I guess you make it look easier 'n it is, General," he commented, rubbing a bruised shin, while waving away the ever-present gnats.
The focus of attention of the angry crowd was now shifting from their impromptu riot back to the two embattled Terrans. With the threatening locals snapping and jabbing him from every direction, Bill took up a position back-to-back with Retief, fending off teeth and daggers with lightning fast forearm blocks, dodging the more daring attempts at tail-blows, the accuracy of which was spoiled by the constant movement of both the aggressors' allies and their intended prey. Then Leroy reappeared, howling, closely pursued by the comrade who had been bitten by him, and now quite apparently intending to return the favor. Leroy recoiled at sight of the embattled Terrans and instantly received a sharp nip near the tip of his elongated last somite, at which he lashed out in frustration, passing the bite along to a bystander, who retaliated in land, setting off a chain reaction which again embroiled the entire crowd in a whipping, snapping free-for-all, ignoring the Terrans.
One group, ignoring the affray, was busy attaching handbills to every available surface. Magnan, retreating from the thick of the affray, got close enough to see that the documents being distributed were typical of those badly reproduced on the equipment in the Office of Information. It showed a blurry photo of Retief which Magnan recognized as having been surreptitiously snapped by Art Proudflesh during Staff Meeting. Above the picture was the legend, in bold block letters, 'reward for retief Dead or Alive.'
"Why, the scoundrel!" Magnan blurted. "Or, rather, the incompetent ass! The very idea! All His Excellency intended was to assist a subordinate to safety. One would think he was a hunted criminal!" He turned away, muttering, jostled by the bill stickers.
Smudge, standing aloof beyond the fringe of the melee, yelled in vain for order. The noise-level decreased slightly: in the respite thus afforded, Bill blurted:
"We can't stay here, General; they'll remember us any second, specially with old Chief over there yelling 'Get Terry!' and blowing that whistle!" The Marine ducked a wild blow aimed by a local who employed half his length as a bludgeon, with his fanged head at the end, a blow which would have crushed the Terran's skull had it connected. Bill, shaken by the near miss, stepped back for a wide view of the crowd, saw reinforcements crowding in along the avenue from the conspicuously marked Police HQ, in the next block to the left.
"We got to get outa here, General!" Bill yelled over his shoulder; suiting action to words, the Marine rushed the heap of entangled battlers directly before him, made it across the two-by-four to the relative spaciousness of the boulevard, where he paused for only a moment before setting off at a sprint toward the somewhat less crowded area to the right.
"Hold it, Bill," Retief called, as a fresh contingent appeared ahead. "They've got us blocked both ways."
Bill skidded to a halt as yet another platoon of locals burst from a side street and swarmed over the boulevard directly in his path. He turned and dashed back to a cable-sized sideway and started out across it, holding his arms horizontally for balance, and shaking his head at the busy gnats, moving at a snail's pace while the locals rapidly closed the gap between their snapping jaws and the Terran's unprotected flesh. With a final lunge, he reached the beaver-dam-like structure at the end of the cable, secured hand-holds in the shedding surface and started up. His pursuers halted and began to pile up at the base of the fragile wall, which they were apparently reluctant to scale. As usual the persistent gnats seemed to avoid the locals, to swarm around the Terran faces.
Retief came up behind the press and began prying a confused rookie away from his grip on the cableway. The surprised fellow struggled to retain his grasp on the cable, but Retief inexorably broke one grip at a time until the frantic creature's full six-foot length was dangling by a single knobby fist.
"Tell you what, pal," the terrified cop proposed, his thin voice rendered even shriller by fear. "You give me a hand up and leave off stamping on my knuckles, and I'll leave you go this time, OK? I'm constable Bub," he added hopefully, as if giving his name sealed the compact.
"You've been watching too much classic telley, Bub," Retief counselled the fellow. "Real life isn't like that. But don't worry, you won't be lonely; I'll send some of your colleagues along very soon, to keep you company."
"That ain't the point," the cop complained. "It's the company I will have down there in them lightless depths and all that worries me."
"Tell me about it," Retief suggested. When the cop hesitated, Retief raised his foot into position to stamp on the overstrained fist which alone supported the obstinate constable.
"Wait!" the latter yelped. "It's like a state secret, as well as common tradition here on Sardon: the Underworld down there is inhabited by demons and aliens and goblins and outworlders, and ogres and foreigners and trolls and Terries: tear a fellow into small pieces and put ketchup on 'em and eat 'em rawr, is what they do. Don't let on I tole you, OK, pal? Now gimme that hand up."
Retief bent and grasped the wiry wrist attached to the hand at his feet and at once Bub whipped his nether end up and over in a bone-crushing blow which however, missed its mark, as Retief, unsurprised, stepped aside so that Bub's fourteenth somite impacted the cable with a force which nearly bisected him. In frantic reflex, Bub recoiled, releasing his hand-hold, to dangle, draped over the cable, doubled over with his head adjacent to his terminal pair of feet. He gazed mournfully up at Retief, who was now engaged in beating back another cop, this one less determined than Bub, relinquishing his grips in an effort to reverse himself so as to snap his yellow jaws at his assailant. Retief unceremoniously dumped him from the cable. He fell with a long drawn-out but abruptly terminated screech.
"Guess you won't want to give me another chance," Bub guessed correctly.
Retief went over the next half-dozen cops and reached the tattered wall with a final lunge which dislodged the most eager of Bill's pursuers, who had reared up half his length to snap chartreuse fangs six inches from the Marine's foot. Bill looked down, saw Retief behind him.
"Hi, General," he called over his shoulder, "glad to see you. I thought the mob had you cut off."
"They did," Retief conceded, "so I went around them."
"Musta jostled a few of 'em by accident," Bill commented. "Heard a few ceremonial terminal yells, like it says about in the Post Report."
"Could have," Retief acknowledged.
Below Retief, one of the mob-members was slamming his upper torso against the shaky, doorless structure to which both Terrans clung. Suddenly, there was a ripping sound and Bill shifted position abruptly, grabbing for a secure hold as he pitched forward, his head and torso disappearing inside the abruptly opened gap in the loose-woven fabric of the structure. Retief caught a glimpse of movement inside the rent just before Bill, with a yell, seemed to leap forward to disappear inside. Retief hauled himself up, looked inside, saw flickering hand-lights in the otherwise unrelieved pitch darkness.
"Hey, Mr. Retief!" Bill shouted. "They got me! And they ain't caterpillars! They're—" his voice cut off in mid-word. Retief heard threshing sounds, the smack! of a fist impacting on flesh, a brief scuffling, then silence, except for the howl of the frustrated mob outside, and a background of faint rustlings and creakings from the rickety building. He climbed in through the narrow aperture, found himself standing on a resilient and uneven floor which creaked underfoot. There did not seem to be any gnats here.
Retief froze, breathing silently. The yells of the frustrated cops outside were diminishing in volume as Smeer's commands gradually began to restore a degree of order. Inside the still, haystack-smelling space, nothing stirred. Retief called quietly to Bill, but received no reply. He lit a micro-flash and played its brilliant needle-beam around the room, on a shedding woven-grass partition, a high ceiling of decaying rattan and rushes. A black opening in a far corner suggested where Bill's captors had taken him. Looking in, Retief saw woven walls which had sagged until they nearly touched. He heard a faint yell, far ahead. He stepped in, proceeded quickly along the narrow passage, came to a dubious-looking down-ramp where the main corridor curved off to the right. He paused to listen, heard a faint murmur from the side. He went cautiously, using the light sparingly, and after a hard left turn, saw ahead a dim glow as of filtered daylight. Another ten feet brought him to a broad landing made of unexpectedly solid planks at the head of a long flight of equally firm steps. The light, such as it was, came from below. There was no sound from the stairwell. Retief descended, step-by-step; suddenly the light below brightened, and he heard the creak of a heavy door on unoiled hinges. Then a voice, unmistakably Bill's, yelled, "Whoopee!"
Shadows moved near the foot of the stairs, where, Retief now saw, a heavy timber blocked ingress. He went quickly but silently down to the barrier, squinting against the brightness. Someone loomed up in view just beyond the six-by-twelve blockade. It was Bill, his hair disheveled, a hand-blown flask in one fist.
"Mr. Retief!" the non-com boomed jovially. "I mean, General, sir. Come on in, if I can get this dang timber outa way. Run into some good fellers down here! Got some pretty good home-brew, one drag and I'm already pretty well juiced." He paused to take a grip on the unplaned timber and lift—to no avail. It remained firmly in place.
"Hold on, General, sir," he muttered. "I'll get Big Henry."
The space Retief could see beyond the turnstile was wide, low-ceilinged, illuminated by daylight filtering through chinks in the windowless wall opposite the stair. There were tables and chairs, and along one side, a crude counter, on which Retief saw a number of misshapen bottles similar to the one Bill had been waving. The place was crowded with crudely-garbed Terrans with the look of seasoned spacemen, all intent on their drinking and arguing.
"It seems we've found where the local Terry Colony hangs out," Retief told Bill, who nodded and set off determinedly to push through the heedless crowd.
"Too right, Matey," someone called cheerfully from near at hand. A bleary face in need of a shave appeared around the corner where the entry hall debouched into the room proper, followed by a small, skinny body clothed in rags with brass buttons.
"Call me Blinky, Mate," the newcomer suggested, and proffered one of the lumpy bottles, this one a deep green, with a crooked neck. Retief accepted, and took a taste, then braced himself and took a long pull.
"That's right, Mate," Blinky approved. "Man can't sip a good pale ale; don't taste right. Come on, meet the boys."
Retief tossed the barrier aside and followed his scrawny guide into the room. There were windows along one side, covered by slatted shutters. Behind the crude bar, a big, paunchy fellow with 'Spike' lettered on his pocket was polishing a ruby-red goblet clearly of Yalcan manufacture.
"Name yer pizen," he muttered around a well-gnawed cigar-stub.
"Bacchus black," Retief replied. Spike nodded and turned to extract a dusty green bottle from a shelf below the back bar. In the tarnished mirror against which bottles were stacked, Retief was surprised to see a reflection not of a sagging stick-and-grass architecture, but a gas-lit interior with red plush settees and a crowd of top-hatted dandies and bustled ladies in fantastic chapeaux sitting at tiny tables or standing crowded against yet another mirror across the broad room.
"Curious effect," Retief commented, and tasted his wine, which was rich and dry, of a deep jewel-red.
"What's yer loose-nation, stranger?" the mixologist inquired indifferently. Retief described the scene in the mirror.
"Oh, that's just old Will," the barman explained. "Got a lot of funny idears. He's what you call a pote."
Before Retief could respond, a deep, hoarse voice shouted across the room:
"What six varlets done messed with my set-up here on the door?" Retief turned to see a red-faced seven-footer dressed in the costume of a trideo pirate. "Taken me a halfa hour to wrassle that timber up there!" the newcomer continued. "Now I got to do it again! Hey, you!" he interrupted himself, thrusting through the crowd toward Bill, who stood, bottle in hand, awaiting whatever came next.
"I ain't seen you!" the giant accused. "You're new! Likely you know something about this!" He dropped the bottle and grabbed Bill by the front of his blue uniform-blouse and lifted the six-footer clear of the floor, whereupon Bill doubled a fist and delivered a hearty jab to the big fellow's jaw. He hardly noticed.
"Oh, frisky, eh?" the giant said.
"Hey," Bill interjected in a shaken voice as the big fellow drew back a ham-sized fist, "lemme down, Big Henry; you know me. Blinky gave us an introduction no more'n ten minutes ago."
"Yeah, I guess I seen you," Henry acknowledged regretfully; then his choleric eye fell on Retief. "But you I ain't seen, fer sure!" He dropped Bill, who staggered but retained his balance.
"Hey, Big Henry," he called to the giant's back, "that there's my pal, Mr. Retief. He's a OK guy. So ..." His voice trailed as Henry halted, confronting Retief, who, at six-three, was an inch shorter than the official greeter.
"What you want here, Sonny?" Henry demanded. "Don't you know no strangers ain't allowed in The Cloud-Cuckoo Club, excusin' they're friends o' mine?" His speech delivered, Big Henry reached as if to grab Retief s shirtfront, but Retief casually knocked the oaklike arm aside and chucked the bouncer gently under his unshaven chin.
"You did that real well," he commented. "Better let it go at that."
Quick as a snake, Henry grabbed Retief s wrist and was instantly thrown on his back.
"I don't like to be man-handled by strangers," Retief explained.
"Who's 'strange'?" Henry demanded indignantly. He climbed back to his fall height and looked around belligerently at the awe-struck crowd. "Wheresa bum says this here feller—"
"Retief," his new-found lifelong pal supplied.
"Who says Retief, here, and me ain't old buddies? Which I'm prouda welcome him and his side-kick to the club."
No one volunteered, and Henry, flanked by Retief and Bill, retired to a table in a relatively quiet corner where a woven-grass screen intersected the bamboo wall, a spot embellished by a flowering green plant in a five-gallon putty-bucket. Henry leaned to sniff one of the showy white-with-yellow-streaks blossoms, then turned to the small, wiry waiter, clad in rusty black, with a small-checked vest, who had followed them.
"Three brews, Chauncey," Henry commanded. "My private stock," he added, then fixed his small, piggy eyes on Retief.
"You hear about some kinda official Johnnies done settled in, up Embassy row?" he demanded stonily, as the waiter returned with three dusty flagons and three heavy pewter mugs.
"The rumor is true," Retief told him.
"They gonna try and interfere with the Club, you think?" There was an anxious tone in Big Henry's voice now.
"They'll probably try to regulate the booze production," Retief suggested, "and maybe tax you boys a little."
"Taxes?" Henry spat the word like a doody-bug in his soup. "I like to see the slob collects any graft offen Big Henry Laboochy!"
"Taxes aren't actually graft, Henry," Retief corrected his host. "Just ordinary stealing."
"Ain't no mug gonna steal nothing off Big Henry Laboochy neither!" Henry declared with vehemence. He took a long pull at the tankard.
Bill touched Retief's sleeve. "Mr. Retief," he said hesitantly. "What kinda place is this?" He looked around with a puzzled expression at the crowded room with its watery light. "Looks like a old 'movie,' I guess they useta call 'em, I seen once."
"What old movie?" Retief asked him.
"Name of the Vikins, or somethin like that," Bill replied uncertainly. "All about these guys useta row around in little boats with gargoyles or like that carved on the front end. Had little swords and iron hats with a cow's horns on 'em. Useta raid the churches and all. Then they went home and sat around and bragged and got juiced and started fights with each other. Don't sound too bad. But lookit them two bozos over there ..." He nodded toward a table where two beefy, redfaced men with immense walrus mustaches had put down their glasses and were glaring at each other across the table. A frail-looking young woman with a pale face and large eyes sat between them, looking distressed. Bill looked at Henry.
"Well, how about it, Big?" he said challengingly, "you gonna let them two start a fistfight right here in the club? Girl might get hurt, them two heavies start in."
"Oh, Edgar," Henry called. One of the belligerent men responded by turning briefly to look inquiringly at the bouncer cum host.
"Yah?" he muttered. "Just a minute, if you don't mind, Hank, I got to teach this here feller a few things about Realism. Beat it, Minnie," he added, addressing the girl.
"Poor Edgar takes the epithet Intransigents' literally," the other fellow supplied, looking smugly at the back of Edgar's head. The girl, clad in a tight-fitting bodice and a voluminous skirt of unpressed pinkish cloth rose quickly and walked away.
"You guys finish it outside," Henry ordered. "And leave Minette outa it."
Henry returned his attention to his beer-mug, and the two art critics returned to their low-voiced quarrel.
"Mr. Retief," Bill said softly, sounding troubled. He pointed to the far side of the big room. "Look at them two fellas: getting ready to fight it out with their butcher-knives, and their buddies are egging them on."
Retief followed the young fellow's gaze, saw a pair of lean, mustached men in westkits and with ruffled shirt-fronts intent over a card-game.
"You're exaggerating, Bill," Retief told the lad. "They're playing cut-throat, but they're not cutting any actual throats."
Big Henry, who had been growling as he listened, rose suddenly and yelled, "Willy! Get it over here right now!
The nearby crowd parted to allow a wraith-thin fellow whose face seemed all forehead to hurry up, clearly distressed.
"What wouldst, friend Henry?" he gasped. "Art displeased? Softly, pray. Thy wish is my command."
"OK, Will, take it easy," Henry soothed the nervous fellow. "Everything's jake, or will be soon's you lay off horsing around." Henry turned to Retief. "Old Willy likes to 'peer into the future,' like he says. Got a lot of funny ideas; his loose-nations are so clear they kinda spill over, know what I mean?"
"No," Bill put in, "I sure don't know what you mean. What's this here Willy's ideas got to do with a couple light-heavies starting a riot?"
Henry looked sadly at the young Marine. "You got a lot to learn about the Club, kid," he observed regretfully.
"I'm with Bill," Retief put in. "What's it all about, Big?"
"Well, it's kinda hard to explain to a feller ain't use to it," the big fellow told Retief. "But, what the hell, when I first come, I didn't catch on neither, for a while.
See, this here is a place where some kinda force lines or like that are in what ya call resonance with the alpha rhythm and all, get it? So it like reinforces the old imagery, OK?"
"That's an explanation?" Bill inquired in the tone of One who Still Doesn't Get It.
"Well, every guy's got a few ideas about where he'd like to go on shore leave," Henry pointed out patiently. "Some guys can see it in their head better'n others; it's what they call mind over matters and all. Will here likes to pick up on stuff that's coming up sometime later, and he brings it right into focus, so sometimes it almost drowns out I and the boys' loose-nations. See?"
"I don't get you," Bill complained. "Sounds like you're tryna tell us around here you imagine stuff and it's real."
"Sure," Big replied, nodding in reinforcement of his verbalization. "I already said about the loose-nations and all. So here we are."
At that moment there was a sudden stir near the entry, where the bandy-legged little fellow who had greeted Retief stood ready with a baseball-bat sized club to greet the next arrival. He swung and missed as a smallish, slightly-built man incongruously clad in a seersucker dicky-suit only slightly disheveled by contact with the mob at his heels, dashed through, shied at the near miss and uttered a yelp of protest.
"The very idea!" he cried. "A matron of your years clowning in such a disgraceful fashion!"
"What's a matron?" somebody called.
"Some kinda dance," another supplied. "He thinks Blinky's dancin!"
"Don't take it so hard, Mate," Blinky advised the newcomer. "What's goin on out there? Looks like we got a regular invasion here. How'd you boys get the 'pillars' all worked up, anyways?"
"Enough of your insolence, Madam!" the frail-looking new arrival snapped. He stood on tiptoes to scan the room over the heads of its occupants. Blinky moved in to block him off. "A spy, hey?" he charged, shoving the slightly larger, but unathletic stranger.
"It's OK," Henry advised his guests. "Blinky can handle it. Looked to me like one o' them topsiders. Wonder how he got past the patrol."
"That's Mr. Magnan, a professional associate of mine," Retief told the big fellow. "I'd better introduce him before Blinky does something a little too permanent."
"Suit yourself, pal," Henry conceded, and began to ply a well-worn toothpick on his large, square, yellow teeth.
As Magnan disappeared from his view in the gang of excited men, Retief rose. "Excuse me," he said. "Bill, order another round and I'll be right back."
"Retief!" Magnan yelled from the midst of the huddle of waving arms and raised voices. "There you are! I feared the worst! Get away, you hussy!" he snapped at a paunchy deck-ape type who was attempting to frisk him. "Take your grimy paws off my person instanter, or I shall be forced to resort to harsh measures!"
Blinky recoiled, blinking rapidly. "Zounds!" he exclaimed, whipping off his warped nautical cap. "Best belay that, me hearties," he advised his modey crew. "Most planet-lubbers know when to keep their jaw shut, but this here one seems to be made of sterner stuff!"
"Quite right, Madam," Magnan told the frustrated fellow. "You may now conduct me to your leader."
"Still too cheeky by arf," Blinky remarked, then, addressing Magnan: "You wouldn't be a shipmate of my chum Retief, I don't suppose?"
"Indeed I am!" Magnan averred. "Now stand aside."
"Sure, bub," Blinky agreed, backing away, shooing his minions from Magnan's path. "Any pal o' Retief and Big Henry is OK with me!"
"Big Henry, indeed!" Magnan snapped and forged into the press directly toward Retief, who led him to the table.
"May I join you, gentlemen?" Magnan inquired rhetorically as he sank into an empty chair. He mopped at his forehead dramatically with an Ambassador-only issue hanky.
"Well!" he remarked to Retief by way of greeting, "I rather thought you could have come along sooner to assist me with that cutthroat crew, rather than continuing to linger here in low company, swilling whatever it is you're swilling."
"I was admiring your technique, Mr. Magnan," Retief explained blandly. "You handled matters quite well, I thought."
Magnan dug at his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Of course," he snapped, "I was at no moment at a loss for the correct mode of response to those hussies."
" 'Hussies'," Big Henry echoed. "That's some kinda dames, ain't it? If you seen one, that's the second time the Number One House Rule's been broke this afternoon. Will don't really count, o' course, him bein' a pote and all, not like a regular humern bean. But now, this here swab—what's yer alias, bub?" His small porcine eyes suddenly bored into Magnan's.
"Uh, as to that," Magnan gobbled, "one wonders by what authority—I mean to say, while I have nothing to hide, of course, it happens that at the moment I am engaged on a most sensitive operation, and both honor and custom require that I decline to disclose that datum to one of your stripe, sir, in the absence of competent authorization, that is." He turned to Retief with an earnest expression.
"What sort of place is this?" he almost wailed. "Somehow," he confided, "it gives me the creeps. Everything seems so ... so, well, I don't really know how to describe it, but my hair is attempting to stand on end. Let's go." He broke off to peer anxiously around. "A moment ago—" he began and fell silent.
"It's all right, sir," Retief reassured him. "Or, it's not exactly 'all right,' but it's not immediately disastrous."
"The disaster comes later, eh?" Magnan queried, still nervous. He looked distastefully at Henry.
"Where did the ladies go?" he wondered aloud. "And who is this ... ah ..."
"Henry," Retief put in, "may I present Mr. Magnan of the Econ Section. Mr. Magnan, Big Henry, also known as Sir Henry, and Lord Shivingston, as well as King Hank."
Magnan extended a shaky palm. "Honored, Your Majesty," he managed. "God Lord, Retief," he interrupted himself. "Why didn't you tell me? I'd have observed proper protocol."
"Didn't want to risk a fall when you backed into the Presence," Retief told the senior diplomat.
"In what way, Your royal Majesty, may I be of service?" Magnan inquired in his most unctious tone.
"Say, Retief," Henry addressed his guest, sotto voce, "you sure this here guy is a shipmate o' yours? Sounds like a spy to me. And you shunt of said about the boys electing me king and all."
"Hardly, Your Imperial Highness," Magnan objected, "and I do hope I have got your style right. A diplomatic member of an Embassy staff would hardly stoop to espionage!"
"Well, if Retief says you're OK, Bub, you're OK with me. Now, I was just tryna tell the boys here, about the Club. See, one o' the first Terries in here, a couple hunnert years back, was a big Swede, Captain Larson, and natcherly he had his own idears, all about the olden times, and he was one tough hombre, I guess, and he printed his old-time Swedes and all on the place so they still stick. Me and Willy together never got 'em all cleared out; but we got a good bunch here now; we all work together at a what you might say is a compromise set-up. Course, you fellers are welcome to add a few choice items o' your own, if you got the loose-nation power to make it stick. Now, you, Bill, you was objecting to the knife fights and all—so what I say is, who needs em? See? We aim to make a feller feel at home."
"We got a few house rules, like no nood dames—ner no nood guys, neither. One time we hadda pair here, name of Ralphie and Dood, had the whole place steamed up, something you call a sharrom, whatever that is, where some guys they call Rams hang out, and all. Hadda throw 'em out. Ralphie and Dood, I mean, not these Rams. But mostly we get along good. Jest don't expect to be able to override me nor Willy: we got the strongest loose-nations here, especially Willy, eh, Willy?" Henry looked knowingly at the half-bald pote, who nodded dreamily.
"Tis passing strange," he commented. "I dreamt of days to come—and in the instant here was I, amid the scenes I mused on. But for Hal's rude warriors, tis true."
"Tole ya an I tole ya, Willy, them ain't my knaves," Henry objected. "Left over from old Cap Larson, like I was telling Retief here. Wisht I could get ridda 'em. Club'd be peaceful joint cept fer them rogues!"
"Easily done, friend Harry," Will said. "But concentrate your will, as I shall mine—and perhaps our guests as well. We'll wish 'em to Hell, and no part of this our club." He closed his eyes and frowned.
"Geeze!" Bill exclaimed. "Willya look at that! Old Olaf and Helgi—least that's what they been callin each other—jest got up and walked out, like they hadda go or something. And the rest of 'em, too." He twisted in his chair to scan the farthest corners of the cavernous room.
"Well done, gentles!" Will exclaimed. "Better than any putter-out at three to one had wagered, I trow!"
"Old Willy talks funny sometimes," Henry told Bill behind his hand. "But he's larning."
"Methought twas your own rude dialect that 'casioned fun," Willy observed mildly. "Still, so long as we can converse, what matters terminology, say I."
"Ere, ere," Blinky put in from a position just behind the windy pote. He raised his warped amber bottle and drank deep.
"Par me, Big, and fellers," he added. "I gotta get back on the gate. Gotta press a crew to get the timber back in place." He paused to eye Retief, half resentfully, half hopefully, "Lessen maybe Cap Retief here might wanta lend a hand."
"With pleasure," Retief acceeded, rising. "But may I inquire why it's necessary to set up a roadblock of such heroic dimensions?"
"You been lissening to Willy too much," Big Henry grunted. "But I get the drift: you wanta know how come we got to fortify the door."
"Precisely put, Your Majesty," Magnan supplied. "I think that is precisely what Mr. Retief was wondering, as I do myself."
"Well, you see, gents," Henry began hesitantly, "some slob named Goldberg or like that with a grudge against old Cap Larson they say, tried to bring in a horde of evil spirits and all, to drag old Wolf direct to the Bad Place, least that's what they usta say, the old boys was here when I come." He paused to empty his bottle and bellow for refills all around.
"Fact is," he continued, a trifle defiantly, "I seen 'em myself, once. Had a few too many, maybe a couple dozen brews and a jug o' rum, and had a notion to go outside for a looksee. And this here devil in the shape of a big old caterpillar or what ya call 'em rared up square in front o' me and said, 'Hold hard, Mate, notaries loud in the high street,' or like that." Henry uncapped a new bottle with a flip of his thumb and drank half of its contents in a gulp. "Fer meself," he went on thoughtfully, "I like a nice grog-shop where a feller can get some good brew and a nice plate o' eats and maybe get into a few friendly fights. No guys blowing that loud music and guitar-picking. And no dames—dames cause trouble," he explained. "Sure, I like a nice dame, but so does every other guy, 'cept Ralphie and Dood, o' course, and that's where the trouble comes in. Guys use knives over dames ..."As he spoke, Henry fingered a scar on the side of his neck. "Hadda bar one feller fer life," he added. "Say, talking about a nice plate of eats, what say we put on the feed bag, fellers?" He yelled and the black-clad waiter was back. He nodded at Big Henry's instructions, and was gone only a moment before returning with five heaped plastron plates balanced along one arm.
"I hope ya like a golosh, boys," Big said heartily. "My own recipe. Have it every day. Only one issue galosh to a batch, but it's got lots o' glimp eggs fer texture."
"Why I'm sure it's delightful, Your Highness—" Magnan burbled.
" 'Majesty'," Henry corrected, "if ya wanta be technical. Retief mentioned I was king, remember?"
Bill sniffed his steaming plate and commented. "Seems like that galosh was a used one—GI, too."
Will averted his eyes. "Didst forget thy promise, good Henry?" he inquired. "Twas agreed that I should prevail in the kitchen. In this my ideal pot-house, height Ye Moulin Rouge, I assure you the chef de cuisine is an artist."
"I dunno, Willy," Henry temporized. "That there Moolin Rooje grub might be a mite too fancy for the new—I mean my old pals here." He looked inquiringly at Retief.
"I'd be glad to try Willy's recommendation," the diplomat assured his host. "The restaurants in Paris in the 1870's have an excellent reputation."
"Didst say ... 1870?" Will demanded breathlessly. "Three centuries beyond the veil of time, I trow. And how didst thou, good Retief, come to know this milieu, of mine own devising?"
Retief explained to the unworldly poet that he had imagined better than he knew, that he had visioned what was indeed to come to pass, and that even in Retief s time, a thousand years later than Will's, the restaurants of Paris had a reputation so high that it was even able to overwhelm the reputation of the Parisians' manners as those of super New Yorkers, and attract vast numbers of tourists from America and Japan and elsewhere.
"Thou dost pull my leg, I trow," Willy replied, grinning. "Savages, you'd have me believe, cross the ocean sea from the New World in order to dine in Paris. A most pleasant conceit, good Retief—and equal to mine own imaginings, forsooth!"
Magnan leaned close to Retief to ask, "That Will, whence—I mean where did he come from? He hardly fits in with the rest of these rude louts."
"Ask Henry," Retief suggested. Magnan did so.
"Oh, old Willy, well, he just was here one day," Henry reminisced. "Mighta been around a while fore I noticed him. Quiet feller; talks funny, like you, Mr. Magnan, only worse, no offense."
Magnan turned to Will, sitting slightly apart in the corner of the booth. "If you don't mind my asking—" he began but broke off as Henry came abruptly to his feet.
"Hold hard, mates!" the big fellow boomed, holding up a callussed hand. "I smell mischief afoot, as I draw breath!" He peered across the room toward the entry. "Aye," he commented, more calmly. "Tis the demon-worms, come again! But my brave lads will drive them off, as always. They've sharp teeth, these imps, but dull livers! Bother the rogues, we'll dine and be damned to them!" As he concluded his peroration, the waiter reappeared with two subordinates beside him, each bearing a silver tray laden with savory aromas.
"Beef Bourgignon," Magnan announced, "but of course, the consomme au buerre blanc first." He beamed approvingly as the Sevres china bowl of soup was placed before him. Henry had already dipped his spoon in his bowl and smacked his lips loudly.
"I've but little patience with slops in the ordinary way," he cried, "but this be no ordinary broth! Well done, Retief! I declare to all, you've effected an improvement on my own rude eats! And the beef good Chaucey bears tastes one half so good as it smells, tis a viand of rare delight!"
"Chow hounds," Bill commented, as he slurped his soup noisily. "They're all alike. Rather eat then run off the caterpillars."
"All in good time, Sergeant," Magnan reproved the lad. "Eat slowly, and savor your food. You'll not soon get its equal in the Embassy dining room."
"All that stuff seems like it's a long way off," Bill commented dreamily, as he took Magnan's advice and noticed the rich taste of the fine soup.
"But alas, it is not," Magnan said as he glanced toward the entry where men were crowding, obscuring the view. "I'll wager it's that scamp Smeer," he observed, "intent on seizing our persons in flagrant violation of diplomatic custom, the rules of hospitality, and common justice, to say nothing of Interplanetary Law." Magnan paused to tug at Retief s sleeve. "Hadn't we, that is, you, better—" he started, but Retief shook his head.
"Remember what you said about savoring the food?" he said as he tried his beef.
Magnan finished off his mousse choclat, leaned back and sighed. After a sip of his Chateau d'Yquem, he leaned toward Retief, cupped his hand beside his mouth and whispered:
"Am I actually to understand that whatever some of these fellows consider the ideal place to have a good time becomes manifested as though it were actual?"
"So it appears," Retief told him.
"That's impossible!" Magnan snapped.
"Certainly, Mr. Magnan," Retief agreed readily. "I didn't suggest that it's possible, only that it's happening."
"Well," Magnan ruminated, somewhat mollified, "that was a rather fine Chateau Lafitte-Rothschilde. An 89, or I miss my guess. So I suppose one may as well accommodate to appearances."
"I'm curious, Mr. Magnan," Retief said. "What did the place look like to you when you came in?"
"Why, it was a near-perfect duplicate of Ye Cozy Tea Shoppe back home in Salinas," Magnan replied, sounding surprised. "Charming place, really. One could pop in on a blustery winter afternoon and take a dish of Soochong and a really lovely crumpert, all in an atmosphere of the most refined propriety. But, alas, I was so happy to see the place, I made the error of impulsively embracing Madam Lachaise, the maiden lady proprietress, much to her and my own embarrassment, especially when she repulsed me like a termagent as if I'd been guilty of an improper advance!"
"And Blinky thought you were attacking him," Retief commented. "That's what precipitated the riot."
"Then, oddly enough," Magnan mused on, "the surroundings were different. Nothing actually changed, it seemed, but in some curious way, rather than the cozy tea-room on a chilly afternoon, it seemed to be some sort of dreadful, old-fashioned French bordello, but with bits and pieces of the sort of gin-mill one sees in unlikely pseudo-historicals about Pacific islands, where all sorts of unsavory riff-raff turn up and spend their time plotting to raid some forbidden temple or the like. All very confusing." He subsided, looking out past the potted geranium on the sill of the dusty window at the white sails of the pleasure-yachts on the breeze-riffled bay.
"Pleasant enough corner, here," Magnan observed. "And the food is superb. One wonders how the management is able to import the rare old vintages to this dismal backwater world so far off the trade-lanes. Odd I didn't notice a lake when we drove in."
"Will is responsible for the Gaslight Era Parisian milieu," Retief told his supervisor. "He's drowning out Big's mariners' roost, and between them they've pretty well suppressed Captain Larson's mead-hall. Your tearoom didn't stand a chance, I'm afraid. I settled for this corner table, and it seems to stand up pretty well. I suppose because it doesn't clash too much, and good food and service have a universal appeal."
"Fantastic!" Magnan blurted. "But—" he frowned at Retief, who was watching the heavily-draped wide double window across the room. Beyond its small panes, something moved. Then the glass and mullions burst inward with a prolonged crash!, and Smeer appeared, a cloud of gnats swarming in behind him. The cop coiled through the opening, apparently unheeding of the shards of broken glass over which he crawled, to take up a position with the first few feet of his sinuous body coiled on a table, from which four drinkers had fled, uttering yells:
"L-look out! It's the pillars comin again! Get Henry!"
"—outa my way, Leroy. You get Henry!"
"—thought we taught them worms a lesson!"
"Silence, lesser creatures!" Smeer commanded, and paused to await conformity with his order. As the hubbub rose in volume, and a barrage of hurled objects came arching in toward him, he suddenly drew the remainder of his long form in through the shattered window and whipped it up and over and down with a force that splintered the adjacent table and sent two chairs and their occupants spinning. Glasses shattered, and an overturned bottle discharged its contents unheeded on the floor, until someone darted in and grabbed it up, directing its flow to his mouth.
"Well," Henry commented. "Looks like I got a job o' work to do here, all over again. Them pillars don't learn too fast, seems like. Want to have some fun, Retief?
You, too, Bill. Mr. Magnan?" He looked dubiously at the latter who was still firmly seated, gripping the arms of his chair.
"One in my position can hardly associate himself with an affair of this land," Magnan stated in a defensive tone.
"Oh, I get it," Henry replied, "OK if I and the boys do something, or you figger we're gonna just set here and let 'em take over the club?"
Magnan paused judiciously before framing his reply: "Inasmuch," he began portentiously, "as your 'club,' as you term it, is in fact located on a site wrested by force from its original owners, Enlightened Galactic Opinion can but look with approbation on the initiative of the latter to retain possession of their real estate—to fulfill their legitimate aspirations, that is to say."
"What was that part after 'however'?" Henry inquired doubtfully.
"Never mind, Big," Retief reassured him, "Mr. Magnan is just reciting some old traditional CDT spells that are intended to ward off disapproving glances from some source unspecified."
"Does it work?" Henry asked.
"Nope," Retief told him. "But it comforts Mr. Magnan to have the rituals to fall back on."
"These here 'disapproving glantses' and all," Henry posed his inquiry gingerly. "They anything like ten-inch Hellbores?"
"More potent by far, when intercepted by traditionalists like Mr. Magnan," Retief explained.
"Well," Henry ventured hesitantly, "seems old Cap Larson built this here clubhouse in a swamp on a pile o' dirt him and his boys dug up offn the bottom, and the 'pillars' musta been thunk up by some slob of unknown origins like I told you about so, I guess we got a like obligation and all to run these here pillars off."
"Sheer yivshish," Magnan sniffed. "The very mud dug up by this Larson person was the property of the autochthones!"
"Mud they can have," Henry muttered and advanced toward Smeer, who twisted his elongated form into a position of readiness, two hands gripping machetes deployed in front of his fang-studded visage. He seemed, however, to be looking past Henry.
"I say, Mr. Magnan," he called, "you're not figgering on pitting this here ruffian which there's a APB out on him, against a official of the law, I hope."
"Certainly not, Captain," Magnan replied, rising to shout after Retief and Bill, who were flanking Henry. "He's simply going to eject a trouble-maker, in pursuance of law and order."
"Oh," Smeer said, relaxing his defensive stance just as Retief and Bill simultaneously jumped in and grabbed the machetes, while Henry, dodging a snap of the yellow spike-studded jaws, took a casual arm lock on Smeer's person just below the head and wrenched the cop's face upside down, so that he could look him squarely in the eye.
"Seems like I seen you before, Bub," he told the astonished cop. "Looks like you'da had sense enough to stay outa where you ain't wanted."
"As for that breach of decorum," Smeer came back tartly, talking past Bill, "it is you yourself, Henry, and your cronies, who are at fault, as so great a man as S. Goldblatt conceded, long ago, at the time he so decisively transferred his operations elsewhere. And besides," he added, "youse are harboring a wanted fugitive, this here Retief, which they's a reward out on him."
"Naw, Chief, you got the wrong guy," Henry objected. "That Mr. Magnan buys that line o' crap, not big Henry Laboochy."
"So," the chief came back, "it is clearly Mr. Magnan to whom I should direct my conciliatory remarks." So saying, he gave a mighty flip of his forequarters, throwing Henry off, just as Magnan emerged from among jumbled tables into the clear.
"Good lord, Your Majesty!" the Second Secretary and Consul gasped. "Did the brute ...?"
Before Henry could frame a disgusted reply, Smeer arrived with a crash! that shook the floor, and at once threw a coil around the surprised Magnan and before the diplomat could so much as yelp, whisked him away through the shattered window. Henry made a fruitless lunge in the direction they had gone. "Hey!" he said without conviction. He turned to seek out Retief and saw him, approaching from a few feet away, Bill at his side.
"They done got pore old Mr. Magnan," Henry reported sadly, rubbing the elbow on which he had landed, as if to remind everyone that he, too, had suffered at the hands of the enemy. "Too bad. He was a nice feller, too. Used to call me 'my majesty' and all. Too bad, but— Hey, where you going, Retief?" he broke off to call as the latter bypassed him and continued toward the broken window. "Look out! That dang pillar's yonder! Where he's taken Mr. Magnan."
"Well, we can't just let him rob us of Mr. Magnan's scintillating company, can we, Big?" Retief said, as he climbed out through the ragged opening.
"Don't hardly know what that 'scent-lation' is," Henry objected. "But wait up, I guess I want a piece o' this." He hunched his shoulders and followed through the shard-rimmed sash, Bill close behind.
Henry looked down and saw spongy-looking black soil thickly grown with slender brownish reeds. He dropped down, found the footing treacherous. Retief had started down a path overhung with tall grasses. A few gnats hovered listlessly here, as if uncertain whom to harrass.
"Careful," Henry told Bill. "Don't bog down in this here muck." The ragged path beaten through the clustered vegetation led off in a wavering line toward the water s edge. No locals were in sight. A battered light-alloy rowboat lay in the mud, lapped by the oily water. Retief went to it, and from the shore caught sight of a large, clumsy-looking galley moving briskly away, propelled by multiple oars which moved in approximate unison.
"How we gonna catch 'em, General?" Bill asked as he came up.
"Got just the thing," Henry supplied, arriving beside the two. "Right the way round, hid out under the deck." He led the way along the barely visible path which followed a ledge of fairly firm ground along the periphery of the apparently derelict structure housing the club. Blinky trailed behind, muttering audibly.
"Don't like it, going outside the club, 'mongst all them pillars," he told his biographers. "No skin off our butts, they grab some outsider. Let it go, I say." Henry shushed the little man.
When they had arrived at their destination, a cavernous, black, echoic space under the building and behind the pilings supporting the club, Henry abruptly told Blinky to go back. He went, protesting.
"Ole Blink's kindy shy o' the pillars, since he spent a week with 'em," Henry explained, "time he went to check the weather and got hisself grabbed. Taken to some kinda headquarters-like and he was had up before a judge with a regular little peruke and five eyes peekin out from under it, so he says. Too bad. Useta be a good man, old Blink: come here 'fore I did. Come on." He stepped off into surprisingly shallow water and waded, ducking his head under the sagging joists, to a tarp-covered dory-sized boat moored to a piling. He stripped away the cover to reveal the sleek but work-scarred form of a regulation dispatch boat as long ago issued to the Terran Navy for ship-to-shore personal transport for Rear Admirals and Captains. A six-digit number was stenciled on the prow.
"That there trifib," Bill stated in a flat voice, "was stole from the Navy, off the old Imperator, tell by the serial code on her; Imp was lost on survey duty more'n a hunnert years ago. Never found a trace of her until now." He looked Henry in the eye.
"Where'd you get it?" he demanded in the tone of a traffic cop almost politely requesting a citizen's DL.
"Right here when I come, boy," Henry told him, and proceeded to climb aboard, then turned to lend a hand to the Marine.
"Oh, boy," Bill said, almost gleefully. "Always wanted to go joy-riding in the Captain's gig. She looks wore but ship-shape."
"Durn right," Henry confirmed. "We taken good care of her. Think you can back her outa here?"
Retief climbed aboard as Bill deftly maneuvered the little craft out between the pilings, its almost silent power unit setting up an eerie, hollow echo between the riffled black waters and the underside of the club floor, where only a few gnats darted aimlessly.
Retief studied the structure close overhead. "This timber was cut with old-fashioned sonosaws," he commented. "So it must have been built by Terries—a long time ago."
"Club's been here a while," Henry confirmed thoughtfully. "Some say hundreds o' years, standard."
Back out in the watery sunshine, Bill looked around to orient himself, then steered alongside the unpainted plank-sided structure, and out into open water, turning the prow toward the fleeing boat, now a mile distant and approaching a heavily-wooded point of land projecting into the water. Even here, he noted absently, the gnats swarmed. He batted them away.
"Better step on it, before they land and skidaddle into the woods," Henry suggested; Bill nodded and opened the throttle; the hum of the power-pack deepened, and the prow of the boat rose as she leaped forward, a crisp bow wave curling away from the sleek hull.
The boat ahead passed the point, then curved in sharply and disappeared behind it.
"Wonder if the lift-unit still works," Bill muttered to himself.
"Better not try it, boy," Henry cautioned from the bow. "Oh-oh," he spoke up. "We got a stern chase on our hands, boys; there's a crick yonder; they'll get in it and try to lose us in the shallers."
"Look there!" Bill exclaimed, pointing toward the nearby shore-line. A man covered with black mud was staggering among mangrove-like roots, pausing to wave frantically.
"It's me!" Magnan's reedy voice came faintly across the water.
"Better pick him up, I reckon," Henry grunted as Bill curved in toward the shore, steering carefully between sandbanks just below the surface. Magnan waded out, paused to splash water over his face; his pinched features emerged starkly white against the black mud surrounding them. Bill reached, caught him by the arm and hauled him aboard amid the stench of sulphurous mud. Henry backed the skiff, twisting to look back over his shoulder to steer.
"Heavens!" Magnan gasped. "I'm indeed glad to see you! I feared the wrenches would do me in!" He paused to gulp air and slap ineffectually at the muck on his once-crisp late early afternoon informal dickey-suit.
"There are other Terran captives, you know," he commented tonelessly. "There's a sort of concentration camp back in the jungle. I caught a glimpse of it when I made my break, when they beached the boat. Terrans, in rags, herded like wild animals into that dreadful stockade, crowding around the locked gate, peering out mournfully. We must hurry back and inform His Excellency!"
"Maybe we ought to take a closer look, first," Retief suggested, "so we'll know what we're reporting."
The boat was back in deep water now. Henry looked inquiringly at Retief.
"Let's go back a hundred yards," the latter said. "Stay inshore and we'll keep a sharp lookout. Bill, get in the prow, if you don't mind, and sing out as soon as you see the locals."
Bill nodded and went forward. At once he raised a hand.
"Hold hard, Henry," he said. "Easy. They're on the beach; seem to be getting ready to hike inland; unloading the boat."
Henry halted their forward progress. Small ripples lapped at the hull with a gently slapping sound, over which could be heard the gabble of the pillar's wheezy voices, echoing across the flat water.
The Terrans arrived unnoticed at the edge of the small stream fifty feet from where the kidnappers had grounded their boat.
"I had managed to free my ankles," Magnan told Retief. "And I awaited the proper moment; while they were engaged in pushing the boat up on the mud, I slipped over the side and was off!"
"Nice work, sir," Retief congratulated his associate. The boat from which Magnan had escaped was a heavy, flat-bottomed affair with an untrimmed tree-trunk serving as mast and a much-patched sail drooping, unsheeted, from the yard. The oars, apparently chopped to shape with an axe, were heaped in a disorderly pile.
Rounding the prow of the beached galley, they saw a lone guard stretched out, partially coiled, in the shade of the close-growing jungle.
"Hadn't we, that is, you best, er, deal with this fellow before going further?" Magnan suggested in a gingerly way, as one Mentioning the Unmentionable, Just This Once (1206-a).
Retief shook his head, "Our best bet is to go around him quietly."
They moved up, treading silently on the soft ground, past the prow of the galley and into the shadow of the wattle-and-daub stockade. As they paused at the comer of the ten-foot-high barrier, they heard a faint sound, like the hiss of escaping steam.
"Hark!" Magnan said softly. "Did you hear that faint sound, like the hiss of escaping steam?"
"It ain't no steam that's escaping, pal," a hoarse voice whispered through a chink in the rude wall. "It's me: Looie Segundo." The voice continued: "Youse fellers can help. Jest get ready to decoy that dumb piker sleeping it off over there, and I'm over the top in nothing flat."
"Wait!" Magnan whispered urgently. "If you arouse the sentry, we shall be caught here in the open, exposed to his gaze."
"It ain't his gays you gotta worry about, chum," Segundo cautioned. "It's them fangs o' his. Can chew a feller's leg off in two shakes of a cat's whisker—jest ast Gimpy, here, he can tell ya. Lucky they don't like Terry meat: he spit out the leg and let it go at that."
"I find nothing implicit in that datum tending to refute my thesis that caution is in order," Magnan replied tartly.
At that moment, the pillar guard raised its head and opened its mouth, like a small drag-line bucket, to expose the very appurtenances under discussion. If it noticed the intruders, it showed no sign, but merely rearranged its sinuous body in a new configuration indistinguishable from the original one.
"Quick!" Looie hissed. "Gimpy here's gonna give me a leg up—that's a little joke, see? He only got the one leg and I said he's giving me a leg, see. The point is—"
"Enough, Mr. Segundo," Magnan cut in. "The jape is an ingenious one, and we fully appreciate its subtlety. Now you'd best hurry. At any moment it's going to occur to that alert guard that its duties do not include passive supervisions of an escape attempt."
"They don't care," Segundo replied off-handedly. "Why should they? It's us fellers livin off the fat o' the land.
It's just I got this little ole gal back on Oort station, got two er three nippers, reckon I orta get back to see 'em if I can."
"Naturally, Mr. Segundo," Magnan hastened to assure the confinee. "Just let's get on with it; I fear we'll be apprehended ere we can effect your release!"
"Hang loose, old buddy," Looie urged. "I jest remembered I got to say goodbye to Dottie and Frou-frou and old Hungry Annie and all, and my ole buddy Hump, too. Gimme a minute. Be right back."
"Well!" Magnan sniffed. "He doesn't seem very appreciative of one's efforts on his behalf." He went close to the shedding wall to peek through one of the many chinks in the ragged barrier.
"Their captors seem remarkably lackadaisical about restraining them," he commented, picking at a loose slat which fell away to open a six-inch wide gap. "Why," he went on wonderingly, "one could easily tear away that whole plank ..."
"Better not," Retief cautioned. "Since the boys inside haven't already done so, there's probably a reason."
"What possible reason could prompt a free-born Terry spaceman to languish voluntarily in durance vile?" Magnan addressed his appeal to the circumambient air.
Retief glanced through the newly-made opening, saw grass and shade-trees and a bank of imported flowering bumbum vine, all colored like a hand-tinted postcard. A whiff of a delicate floral perfume wafted through. One of the ubiquitous reward posters had been plastered on a tree-trunk.
"A curious sort of concentration camp," Magnan commented, looking over Retief s shoulder. "Just look at that burbling brook, and the wildflowers as countless as the stars that shine and twinkle in the Milky Way!"
"Wordsworth?" Retief inquired. "Or Shelley?"
"They're tossing their heads in sprightly dance, too," Magnan added.
"Who, the prisoners?" Bill inquired.
"No, don't be silly: the daffodills!" "All this and Dottie, too," Retief said. "Maybe Looie has a point."
"Damn right!" Looie's voice spoke up close at hand. Magnan looked up to see a beardless face, with blackened eyes and ochre bruises peering down at him from the top of the wall for a moment before the wall bulged outward under his weight and collapsed. Segundo, who was a short, muscular fellow neatly dressed in a loud sportshirt and overlong Bermuda shorts, got to his feet, muttering. "Damn wall, made me look like a fool! Hi, ole buddies," he addressed the diplomats. "Be right back." With that, he stepped back across the ruins of the fallen fence and disappeared into a grove of purple-fruit trees.
"Well, I never!" Magnan informed Galactic Public Opinion. "The scamp didn't so much as acknowledge our efforts on his behalf!"
"We didn't actually make any, sir," Retief reminded him. The sound of the collapse had at last attracted the attention of the lone sentinel, who came undulating across the mud toward the two diplomats.
"Say, you fellows are out of your bailiwick, eh?" it called cheerfully. "Old Smeer won't like that too good."
"Chief Smeer isn't obliged to like it," Magnan retorted tartly. "As fully accredited diplomatic members of the Terran Embassy staff, bearing the Exequatur of your own government, we enjoy the prerogative of visiting this installation to ensure that all is being conducted in accordance with solemn interplanetary accord."
"Naw, nothing like that, pal," the pillar objected. "What we're worried about, we find a creature don't thrive too good outside of its natural envirament and all."
"I assure you, my good fellow," Magnan stated loftily, "that we Terrans can thrive in virtually any environment, simply provided we have access to fresh air, clean water, and a modicum of nourishing victuals."
"Well, yeah, I guess that's right," the guard agreed dubiously. "But what I read, you fellows are just like you was Sardonic: you need a few extras, too, to really live it to the hilt; onny we can't figure out just what extras you need. Nookie, maybe, or slamph-balm. Now, you take old Looie, always tryna bust out: all he got to do is sign out at the main gate, and we got transport laid on to take him anyplace he wants, except outa his right envirament, o' course."
"Possibly it is precisely therein that the key to your problem lies," Magnan theorized. "The point being, my ma—good fellow—that is—that Looie wants to do whatever Looie wants to do, not choose from predetermined alternatives of another's devising."
"That don't make no sense," the pillar returned shortly. "Prang-nuts is prang-nuts, right?" he pursued the point. "Whether you find 'em inna woods, or they're dispensed by a autofeeder."
"It's not the same," Magnan insisted stubbornly. "Mr. Segundo—and the other illegal retainees as well, are free born citizens of the Terran Autonomy, not subject to arbitrary confinement by your local constabulary, or anyone else."
"So who's confining 'em?" the pillar persisted. "I tole ya the gate's open."
"Really?" Magnan demanded in a tone of Utter Scepticism (3-W). "In that case, why do they not depart at once?"
"What I was saying," the guard returned doggedly. "What ye'r doing, buddy, ye're jumping to conclusions and all, wrong ones, too." With that, he coiled up in a loose heap and blanked off his multi-faceted compound eyes from behind, an effect like having a blind pulled down in one's face.
"Well, we'll just ask," Magnan stated, and turned to pick his way across the fallen section of wall.
"I better do a recce o' this here wall," Bill volunteered, and set off at a trot.