Chapter Four
1
The reconstituted Phoenix functioned as sweetly as she looked, lifting on command and taking up course for the tenth planet of the Barter System, Goldblatt's World, where His Ree Excellency Slive had installed his field HQ and where the time for Retief's appointment was now only hours away.
It was an uneventful transit, even the swarming Ree gunboats keeping well clear, until a hail came from a Ree dreadnaught which hove majestically into view and took up station at fifty miles on a parallel course.
"Imperial Ree flagship, Admiral Glun commanding, calling side-boat Phoenix" the communicater announced abruptly. "We have the honor to escort the Terran diplomatic Mission to port."
Retief acknowledged, and instructed the autopilot to lock to the Ree vessel and comply with its landing instructions.
An hour later, normal protocols thrust aside brusquely by the imperious Admiral, Retief was docked at a convenient slip adjacent to the Port Authority HQ. He descended under the watchful optical organs of a squad of Ree Rangers, conferred briefly with the maintenance personnel who reported to him, and accepted a lift in a plushed-up line cart to the office of the Port Commander.
2
The imposing building into which Retief was ushered by a punctiliously correct Ree captain and a squad of soldiers in battle dress was, it seemed, almost solid, with long, tunnel-like, mother-of-pearl-lined corridors lined with tiny cubicles, with businesslike armed sentries posted between doors. He was curtly directed into one of these.
The escorting captain saluted, a maneuver involving a curious rippling of his upper tentacular fringe, and said in barely understandable Terran:
"This is the VIP no-waiting area. The big chief don't like waiting around, Terry; he's right in there." The guide pointed to a plain door. "So you go right in and get down to business plenty chop-chop."
With that, he marched his detail off down the cramped passage. Retief entered the office of Intimidator Slive. It was a small room, its nacreous walls ornately decorated with inlays, and with a bull's eye window overlooking close-packed rooftops. Among the gold curlicues and inlays bright against the dark walls and floor, the Intimidator, standing beside his VIP ashcan, was inconspicuous, in spite of his scarlet harness and imposing height.
This upper-echelon Ree was all of six-foot-six, Retief estimated, and of commensurate girth. Like the lower-caste Ree Retief had previously encountered, his physique was a thick column of solid muscle, but on a larger scale. He inclined his garishly decorated sense-organ plate toward Retief and said in a harsh voice:
"You may enter, rash Terry, to receive your instructions."
"I already entered, and I already have my instructions, Intimidator," Retief returned firmly.
Slive recoiled a fraction of an inch and resumed:
"Since I have not yet notified you of the terms of surrender, it is obscure to me how you could have anticipated my commands relevant thereto."
"Who's surrendering?" Retief asked in mock innocence. "If you want to give up, you'd better begin by getting your advance units out of Tip space."
"You, Terry, are insolent!" Slive boomed, coming out from behind his massive desk.
"Well, I try," Retief pointed out.
"It was you, through my Groaci colleague Snith, who desired this audience," Slive pointed out. "I can conceive of no possible reason therefore other than to sign Articles of Unconditional Surrender."
"I fear Your Excellency has gotten a false impression," Retief answered. "We haven't even fought a battle yet, only a few experimental skirmishes to determine whether it will be necessary to unlock the Doom Fleet, which we naturally hold in reserve for serious occasions."
"You don't consider a confrontation with Ree might be a serious occasion?" Slive demanded in an ominous tone.
"We've been letting our military students run exercises," Retief explained. "Your fleet units make amusing targets."
He went past Slive and glanced over the U-shaped desk the Ree war-chief had vacated. The desk console, he saw, was actually a fully equipped command center. "Nice toy," he commented. "But the game's over, Slive. We've decided it's time for you to pick up what's left of your play-pretties and go home. For the present, we won't follow you and set your primitive culture back to the Stone Age."
"This," Slive stated in a voice like the first rumble of a minor earthquake, "is preposterous! You seem completely to have misconstrued the significance of our self-restrained activities!"
"That's unimportant," Retief dismissed the protest. "What's important—to your continued existence—is that you clear out of the Arm and report that the grab didn't work. This Arm is taken."
"Are you mad, Terran upstart?" Slive grated. "Consider the matter rationally, if you are indeed capable of logic: we Ree find ourselves running short of available breeding surfaces in the Western Arm; we require new worlds—and here they are, ready to pseudopod, in the adjacent Arm! And you suggest that we should forego the convenience of expanding into what is manifestly our destined sphere, merely because of the trifling circumstance that various lesser beings happen to be squatting there? It is unreasonable, Terry, can you not grasp that single fact?"
"As you state the matter, Intimidator," Retief replied thoughtfully, "it seems clear enough. But perhaps you haven't given sufficient consideration to the viewpoint of the squatters."
"What, you expect me to take into account the whims of those spoilsports? Whatever for? I fail to see how that would redound to the profit of Great Ree."
"It might help prevent a full-scale war," Retief pointed out. "So far, there've been only a few skirmishes between outlying units, doubtless exceeding orders."
"What do I care for avoiding salutary conflict?" Slive demanded. "It is clear that you Terries, no less than the perfidious Groaci, are unprepared to resist the unleashed might of Ree!"
"My point," Retief persisted, "is that if you continue to infiltrate the Arm, you'll eventually become impossible to ignore."
"We are both, presumably, beings of the world," Slive said reasonably. "Let me restate the Ree position once more, and invite your agreement that it is indeed the very soul of sweet reasonableness. Then you will of course cease your irritating interference with the orderly unfolding of Ree destiny:
"You have something we want, and we naturally intend to take it. In your possession, the worlds of the Eastern Arm serve no purpose useful to Ree; therefore, we will put them to good use. What could be more transparently equitable than that?"
"You're still overlooking the Terry position," Retief told the excited Intimidator. "Consider the case of Fred L. Underslung for example: for nearly a decade, he's been Charge at Dobe, hanging on by his teeth and sweating out promotion at Longone. But if you fellows take over Longone, naturally we'll have broken off diplomatic relations due to the de facto state of war, so there'll be no ambassadorial slot there for Underslung to be appointed to. Ergo, he's against your invasion."
"Hmmm, perhaps there's something in what you say, Terry," Slive conceded thoughtfully. "Almost, I begin to grasp the basis for your intransigence. It's an utterly novel concept, of course, to imagine that an alien might have some reason on his side, but this does, I confess, come close to having a certain distorted logic However," he continued, "I foresee that if we were to yield to such yivshish, in the end it might interfere with our securing possession of your property."
"Speaking of property," Retief put in, "what about all the development the pioneers have accomplished on these outlying worlds? Mines on Hardtack and McGillicudy's World, roads and towns on Drygulch and a dozen others, farms and bridges and lumber mills, chemical plants, port facilities, golf courses and resorts, billboards, and all the rest."
"No need to fret; I assure you, that we Ree, no wastrels, will put all such amenities to good use," Slive reassured Retief. "Indeed, their existence makes the planets in question considerably more desirable than would be raw, undeveloped real estate. You see, you naively undermine your own position. But enough of these trivialities. You, Terry, will at once sign the Articles, or suffer the consequences! I assume your simple species enjoys at least a vestigial instinct for personal preservation."
With that, the seventy-eight-inch-tall, two-foot-in-diameter cylinder of muscle advanced truculently to confront Retief.
"I've got a better idea," Retief said as the oversized Ree crowded him as if to nudge him toward the waiting window.
Retief slid aside from the thrust and, locking the massive alien's lower body with his knee, palmed the columnar being backward, toppling him to the floor, where he coiled reflexively into a stubby U-shape, and became quiescent.
Retief paused to remove the two-inch-wide blue tump-leather belt that was part of his CDT dress, service, undeveloped worlds, for use on, and strapped it around Slive's featureless torso six inches above his foot.
A full minute passed before Slive revived, struggled for purchase with his frilly 'foot' and re-erected himself.
"Pay no attention, Terry," Slive commanded, taking no notice of the belt. "I but slipped on the floor, overzealously waxed by a menial, no doubt. But you were about to offer further concessions."
"Not quite," Retief corrected. "My idea is that if you'll pull back into your own territory, youTl save yourselves a lot of unnecessary bother."
"I don't mind a spot of bother," Slive pointed out. "Life here at Field HQ is a trifle dull, you know."
"It's livelier at the front," Retief said. "You could save a few zillion troops if you back off now."
"Whatever for? We have a gracious plenty of them. In fact, they're really why I'm here, in a way. You see," Slive went on, sounding gossipy now, "we Ree are mostly neuter. Only one egg in a thousand hatches a female and they start right in laying a million eggs a day, but there's only one male Ree. He's a horny old devil we call the Ultimate. About seven hundred years ago, standard, we had a virus epidemic that altered male genes, hormone-wise. A lot of the male population died in the epidemic. The rest were sterile—except for one male, the Ultimate. Apparently, instead of cancelling out his hormones, the virus threw all his genes into a perpetual-replacement mode. He can't die—he just goes from one longevity cycle to the next.
"So he's become the lone progenitor, and he's been busy ever since, trying to get around to all of those poor, lonely females, longing for the joys of motherhood.
"Once fertilized, they go on laying a million eggs a day, only now the eggs are fertile. We used to ship infertile eggs out into the Eastern Arm, under the trade name glimp eggs; seems there's a ready market for 'em, and we needed a little hard currency for paying spies and all. But we couldn't hardly ship out infant Ree the same way, the Ultimate decided. After all, they're all his own kids."
Slive paused to dab at his moist ocular patches. So," he went on, "you can see it didn't take long to fill up all our available spawning surfaces. That's why we need this Arm. These new-hatched Ree are little more than throwbacks to an early stage of Ree evolution, good for nothing but cannon-fodder. An occasional exceptional individual, such as myself, better endowed intellectually, is made an officer, to keep them headed in the right direction, with rank in accordance with IQ. We've been forced to make do with some certifiable morons. I daresay without my own dynamic leadership, the invasion would never have been launched. Most of our officer corps is wholly dependent on my direction."
"I met one of your certifiable officers," Retief said. "The idea didn't work out, it seems."
"Nope, too dumb. But we still got the spawning problem to contend with."
"Has anyone suggested to the Ultimate that he might slow down?" Retief asked.
"Are you kidding?" Slive demanded rhetorically. "It's the only fun he has and it's the basis for his exalted position besides. He'd be crazy to stop."
"Still," Retief pointed out, "there are limits to everything. The end had to come sometime, and the time is here. Just go home and report that you tried but failed."
"I don't see," Slive countered, "in what way I would explain away failure to annex available territory."
"Maybe that depends on your definition of 'available'." Retief suggested.
"Whatever is this for?" Slive inquired, suddenly noticing the strap Retief had put around his lower quarters.
"I assume you want to do this thing right," Retief said. "Solemn accords should never be entered into without use of the ceremonial belt, symbolizing the binding nature of the agreement."
"Great Ree is, of course, a civilized power,"
Slive stated, deploying his neck-tentacles to adjust the belt more comfortably.
"To make it doubly binding," Retief added, "another strand around the upper quarters is considered chic How about the drape cords?"
Eager to clinch the surrender, Slive jerked free the thick length of plush-covered rope, and deftly tied it around himself as Retief indicated, just below his tentacles.
"That's nice—and so flattering," Retief commented at the same moment that he stepped in close and slammed a pile-driver right hand to the Ree's pinkish nerve plexus, at which Slive instantly doubled over hard in irresistible reflex response.
Retief deftly caught the trailing end of the pull-cord and tied it firmly to the sabre-loop on the belt, cinching it up tight, forcing Slive into a tightly folded position.
The Ree Generalissimo humped on the floor, impotent, his neck-tentacles plucking ineffectively at the hard knot, Retief ignored the impotent Intimidator's bellows of rage and circled the desk to the impressive command console. At a glance he identified it as a standard Bogan export model of a type with which he was familiar from a number of previous encounters with ambitious Groaci.
While Slive yelled, Retief punched in orders to all Ree front-line units to disarm, and to disable all weaponry. The computer quickly confirmed unquestioning obedience by all units with one exception: Captain Bliff's Ree command reported, "Negative: Goblins of Goblinrock on offensive—"
Retief cut him off curtly. "This command is direct from the HQ of Intimidator Slive," he pointed out in flawless Ree, knowing that the automatic security circuitry would instantly confirm the authenticity of the order.
Moments later, the computer reported hostile activities at the periphery of the controlled zone surrounding field HQ. A quick check confirmed that Bliff, in his frustration, had attempted to penetrate the Ree security perimeter without proper clearance and had been fired upon, precipitating a free-for-all, which automatically triggered a massive response from units of the Outer Line.
"The fools think HQ is under occupation by you Terries," Slive mourned as the volume of incoming Operational Catastrophic transmissions rose in volume and unintelligibility.
"Stop this outrage at once!" Slive yelled. "Or I shall order the instant defenestration of all Terry and other Eastern hostages, yourself taking pride of place!"
"Au contraire," Retief countered. "Actually, you're going to order the immediate release and repatriation of all your state guests. Start with the ones you turned over to the Groaci Consul, Snith. I'll give you access to your gameboard here long enough for that. Any argument or delay, and I'll have to see just how sensitive that yatz-patch of yours is: say a good hard kick to start with, with a furb-ache thrown in for good measure."
"The highly-evolved Ree organism cannot servive mistreatment of the nexus," Slive stated coldly. "The barbarity you threaten would leave you incarcerated here with a corpse, and no way out. I suggest, out of sheer great-heartedness, that you reconsider. You got in, Terry, thanks to my punctilious observation of protocol, but how will you return to your own?"
Without a word, Retief went to the single round window, released the latch, and swung the hinged frame open. Even at this height, the wind gust bore a faint aroma of rotting refuse.
"I take it this is the window you planned to throw me out of," he commented, "since it's the only one I've seen in your hive, and it seems to have been installed very recently." He touched the still-damp mortar securing the porthole-like window.
"Correct," Slive conceded. "We Ree evolved from a handsome molluscoid form, you know; for ages we secreted our own personal chambers, which lacked windows. Ergo, we now feel no need overly to be reminded of vast chasms of open space yawning below us."
"Nice view," Retief commented. He leaned out and surveyed the sheer drop to a paved courtyard a thousand feet below. Slive shuddered. Retief examined the expanse of coarsely stuccoed wall looming above another fifty feet to an overhanging cornice, then turned back to Slive, whose hide had faded to a sickly greenish color.
"You don't like windows much, do you, Slive?" Retief inquired rhetorically. "Suppose I just push you out this one?"
The Intimidator spasmed convulsively. "Not that, Terry! Such a fate is beyond contemplation! Perhaps some accommodation could be worked out!"
"Too late," Retief said sadly. "I'm mad now."
He put one leg out, groped, and found a foothold on the rough surface.
"So long, ex-Intimidator," he called cheerfully to the immobilized war-lord. "Maybe within a few weeks one of your well-briefed underlings will get up his nerve to come in and see why you've been so quiet, and then you'll have the fun of explaining what happened. You can tell them I went out the window on schedule, which should help to establish your reputation all over again from scratch; but that shouldn't bother you much; I hear it only took you thirty years the first time."
Retief paused and scanned the sky, where ragged formations of Ree warcraft were converging from all directions at bombing altitude. Even as he watched, the first stick of chemical warheads fell away from the lead craft, followed almost at once by the deep-toned crum-mp-p! of detonation, which sent up a cloud of dense brown smoke from the outskirts of town to shred in the wind as more bombs fell, and more, their points of impact advancing steadily across the city.
"That's assuming there's anybody left alive to release you," he added to his gloomy prediction.
Slive humped on the floor, yelling curses.
"Your staff will assume you're giving the impudent Terry a good going-over," Retief suggested. "Of course, you could forget about losing face and yell for help."
"You, too, shall die in the holocaust, mischievous Terry!" Slive warned. "For Mug's sake, Retief, call 'em off! Let me at that console for ten seconds and prevent tragedy: I've got a locked channel that can cut through ten layers of jamming and override any priority up to Imperial Whim! Only just lay off that window!"
Slive strained in vain against his bonds, tentacles slack now, his hoarse voice fading to a whimper.
At that moment a near-miss threw a hail of shrapnel against the wall close enough for a sliver to draw blood from Retief's exposed ankle. He climbed back inside, went to the fallen big shot, took a grip on the leather belt, which was biting deep into the CIIU's muscular torso, and dragged him behind the console.
"First, order the hostages freed," he instructed. "Then you can call off the attack."
Slive flipped keys with his tentacles, shouting against the incomprehensible bellow from the tight-security, top-priority channels, the bedlam now amplified by the impact of bombs near at hand. The building shuddered.
"—at me!" Slive was yelling. "Abort mission! You have been duped by the enemy! Break off attack immediately and return to station! Clear classified channels for incoming Operational Ultimate orders! I repeat: break off attack at once!"
As his voice faded, cracked and became a mere croak, the volume of incoming calls slowly faded, only an occasional word or phrase coming through:
"Foul-up! But I've got my orders ..."
"—old Slive says hit HQ, he don't mean head for the boondocks!"
"—emergency plan twelve-point-oh-nine. Clear enough. But—"
"Knock it off, I said!" Slive yelled raggedly, flipping keys frantically.
The attack formations were dispersing reluctantly, Retief saw through the shrapnel-shattered glass. Slive whimpered, his tentacles slack.
"Now the hostages," Retief reminded his host. He came over to stand beside the trussed-up Ree chieftain, who attempted to writhe out of reach of a kick to the yatz-patch. Retief jerked him back into optimum position, prodded the pink area with his toe.
"All right, all right," Slive croaked. "I got to give the old laryngeal plates a little rest first," he whispered, breaking off to cough rackingly.
"Now!" Retief said and drew back his foot. Slive began operating a different row of keys, marked in obscure Ree glyphs.
"All stations," he grated, "the signing of a new Ree-Terra accord renders status of hostages equivocal."
He paused. "I can make this a kill order just as easy, Terry," he told Retief. "You've got to ante up again. Now, what I've got in mind: I turn this bunch of nobodies loose, and you Terries deliver a new set, only VIP's this time. Better make up your mind, Terry." Slive turned back to his command console.
"Hold it," Retief said quickly. "No kill order. I'm not empowered to offer you any substitutes, except one. Me. Free the hostages, and one month from today, after I've personally confirmed that the hostages are home safe, I'll come back and report to you."
"Done!" Slive cried. "A capital notion, Terry! What fun I shall have with you ere I cast your broken remains out that selfsame window!" With renewed vigor, the CIIU resumed his tight-beam transmission to all Reedom:
"Contingency plan 321" he cited. "Release hostages intact, and deliver them to the nearest Terry enclave! I want them turned over in good shape, so nobody can claim that Great Ree don't know how to treat its property! Do it!"
"Get Snith on the hotline," Retief ordered. "Tell him to put Hardtack's Governor Anderson on." A moment later, he heard the elderly hostage's cracked voice.
"... tell this five-eyed little plucked rooster what—"
"Never mind, Governor," Retief said soothingly. "Keep cool and you'll be on your way to Hardtack within the hour. Spread the word: It's a genuine repatriation; we've worked out a deal."
"Wouldn't trust none of them consarned worms as far as they can jump," Anderson complained, until Retief signed off.
"Now what, bold Terry?" Slive demanded. "What, pray, is to prevent me from ordering my troops in to defenestrate you as originally planned?"
"Don't waste their time," Retief suggested, going to the window. "We Terries evolved from an arboreal type, you know. We love a brisk climb before dinner."
He swung himself out and was pleased to find convenient new hand-and-footholds where patches of stucco had been knocked away by the same blast which had broken the glass.
He leaned back in to wave to Slive, and started the upward climb. A soldier on an adjacent rooftop noticed and fired an offhand shot which knocked a chunk from the cornice in a convenient place to assist the lone Terran in gaining the roof.
Once there, Retief quickly sought out the stairhead, opened the heavy hatch-cover, and descended into the now familiar fishy odor. Down the dim, nacreous stairwell, he could hear faint sounds of alarms and excursions below. A glow from one side indicated the mouth of a cross-passage, which he entered and followed to the wider and relatively well-lit main corridor. Here he waited for a squad of uniformed Ree soldiery to pass, escorting a gaunt and ragged Terran, who shuffled along the corridor, shoulders hunched, muttering.
"—mess up a fellow's nap," he was uttering to himself aggrievedly. "Coulda waited a while."
Retief went along to the lift by which the group had arrived, rode it down to ground level, where he was challenged at once by a guard with the broad belly-stripes of a sergeant, who made an abortive move toward his holstered hand-gun, then waved him on.
"I've seen this one before; Admiral, said VIP treatment all the way," he explained to a pair of lesser sentries who had hurried forward, eager to exercise petty authority.
Without further incident, Retief reached the street, commandeered the passenger compartment of the same vehicle in which he had arrived, which was still parked in the GENERAL OFFICERS slot, and ordered the somnolent driver to take him to the port.
"Figgered yer worship to be in there longer," the chauffeur carped, laying aside his comic book. "Figgered I was good for the afternoon." Retief handed him a ten-Guck note to assuage his sorrow, and was rewarded with a fast trip to the CREW gate. Here he permitted the helpful driver to use his special key on the heavy padlock, and proceeded to the READY zone, where he briskly selected a line-cart and drove it across the cracked ramp to the berth assigned to Phoenix. As he opened the entry port, a cop-cart arrived and squealed to a halt.
"Oh, for a minute I thought you was one of them Terries," the officer-braided policeman explained. "But that don't add up because nobody leaves those fellows running loose. I heard His Ex is planning to do some kinda swap deal. This here is a Terry boat, though, so you must be from the Eastern Arm, right? So I guess you must be one o' them Groacs or whatever. Never could understand why you fellows sold out your own Arm, no offense."
"To abstain from feckless speculation, Chief Inspector," Retief replied in flawless Groaci. "To extend my compliments to the Chief of Operations, and inform him I shall lift at once and require close escort to the vicinity of Goblinrock."
"Oh, sure, chief, I mean yer highness or whatever the appropriate style is fer foreign big shots."
As soon as Phoenix was clear of the ground-clutter, a tight formation of Ree gunships formed up to englobe completely the departing vessel, intercepting and warning off the patrol boats which swarmed to investigate the unscheduled liftoff.
Retief monitored the exchange of conversation on the open band, and after keying in his course, ate a light meal of boeuf bourgignon and a delicate Chablis, then went aft for a nap. As he dozed off he heard a commanding Ree voice cut through the background chatter:
"Now hear our sublime Intimidator Slive!" it announced impressively; then the voice of Slive himself: "From the depths of our inscrutable wisdom, we have determined that it is expedient that the recently dismissed Envoy of Terra, one Retief, be detained for further interrogation."
Slive's voice increased its decibels. "All units! Seize the Terran ship Phoenix. Don't destroy! Deliver the unspeakable Retief in prime condition for most intense interrogation!"
The open radio band seemed to vibrate with harsh echoes.
Noting that Goblinrock now lay a fractional AU dead ahead, Retief reached out tentatively with the insubstantial voice he had fallen so easily into using with the native organism on that body:
"Pushy—I'm estimating planet-fall in plus nine-oh-three-one, mark. Your next big meal is following me in."
"Greeting, Retief," Pushy's reply came promptly. "Welcome back! And we appreciate your thoughtfulness in bringing lunch. We do hope it's still alive, thus to furnish us the fun of preparing our meal personally."
Retief reassured the alien that the Ree would arrive alive and full of determination to retain that status.
"Superb!" Pushy came back. "Good sport, as well as good eats! Capital. Do hurry!"
Retief landed his refurbished ship on the opposite side of the small world from his first contact, but found Pushy, now resembling a heap of violet soccer balls, awaiting him.
Before he had finished telling Pushy what had been happening to him, a Ree cruiser flashed overhead, followed a moment later by three squadrons of atmospheric craft, a detachment of which peeled off to settle in in a mile-wide circle around Phoenix and Pushy.
"Oh goody," Pushy interrupted, "lunchtime!"
At once he collapsed into a heap of unconnected spheres, each of which rolled off on its own, forming a thin, purple circle, expanding like a ring on water to contact and overwhelm each Ree fighter craft as it fruitlessly fired antipersonnel charges at the advancing balls.
Retief tuned to the Ree battle-command frequency and overheard the confused babble:
"—new trick! What—hold it! Belay that! Secure all hatches with manual safe-bars!"
"—already told you slobs, deploy anti-explosive barriers and firewalls! Don't let—"
"—pigtail three to pigtail one, over! Pigtail three—"
"—have your orders," an overriding transmission cut through the gobble. "I shall dock and establish my field HQ at locus 13 degrees north, zero latitude. Stand by for further instructions."
"—tried everything! This stuff is everywhere, like sticky fish-nets, and it keeps coming! Ouch, it—"
"Silence!" the commanding voice boomed out. "We are now in position and can observe a curious phenomenon. G-5, did you report violet cobwebs? You blundered: these cobwebs are of a distinct green tint! We are now declaring a Condition Scarlet alert! Stand by!"
As the last Ree transmission cut off abruptly, Retief noticed that the purple spheres had reassembled and were even now taking the form of a lone, snow-white column, reaching far up into Goblinrock's dark sky.
"Capital!" Pushy exclaimed suddenly. "Retief, this has been an occasion of great joy. I didn't waste any H20 on these fellows, just bathed them in HCl; they dissolved readily. How soon can we hope for another shipment?"
"Not before your appetite recovers, I trust," Retief suggested. "I'd like to stay and visit, but I have to be on my way, before someone back at Sector gives away the Eastern Arm. Ta."
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