With his Quoppina armor in an inconspicuous bundle under one arm and Hish, still in Voion trappings, trailing dismally, Retief followed a guiding Phip to the Ween encampment a mile from Rum Jungle. Startled veterans of the morning's action jumped up, fighting claws ready, as he walked into the clearing around their main campfire, the Groaci close on his heels. Jik-jik came forward.
"Well, you must be one of them Terries us saved the bacon for," he shrilled, coming up close. "Hmmm; you looks tender and juicy . . ."
"We've already been through this routine, Jik-jik," Retief said in a low voice. "Don't you know me?"
"Oh, uh, yeah," Jik-jik made a fast recovery. "Well, Terry, just step on in and sit down. Just be a little bit careful one of the boys don't get kind of curious and nip off a small bite."
"I'm poison," Retief said loudly. "You get terrible belly cramps if you eat a Terry, and afterward your cuticula falls off in big patches." He took a seat on a fallen log; Hish hovered close, looking nervously at the Ween fighting claws gleaming all around. "I have to get into town, Jik-jik," Retief said. "I'm going to need some help from the tribes with what I have in mind . . ."
Retief, once again clad in his bright-colored armor, scanned the ground below as the immense male Rhoon on which he rode beat its way southward in company with a dozen picked companions. To the left flew the steed of General Hish, a mount specially equipped with a dummy cockpit astride which the terrified Groaci sat, a gay red scarf fluttering from his neck. "It looks as though the ground troops have rounded up most of the refugees from last night's fiasco," Retief called to his Rhoon. "I see a few small parties huddled together here and there, but no concentrations."
"Except the fifty thousand of the rascals who still behind the city's towers hide," the deep voice boomed. "My hope it is they'll venture up, their stolen Rhoonish corpses to employ against us."
"I doubt if you'll get your wish," Retief said. "Gerthudion and her friends have pretty well cleared the skies, I think."
With the Rhoon carrying Hish a hundred yards in advance, Retief's flyer descended steadily, passed over the port at five hundred feet, aiming for the rooftop heli pad that crowned the Terran Chancery Tower.
"That gun crew down there is tracking us," Retief said. "But they're not quite sure enough to shoot."
"That's but a trivial hazard, Tief-tief, compared with challenging the Blackwheel's stronghold."
"Let's hope Hish remembers his lines."
"The prospect of Lundelia's rending claws will him inspire to a flawless performance," the Rhoon croaked. Ahead, the lead Rhoon settled in to the pad, Hish clinging to his saddle, his jaunty scarf fluttering downward now in the air blast from Lundelia's rotors. Two Voion posted on the roof rolled to meet him, guns in hand. Hish lowered himself awkwardly, cast a nervous glance at the looming head of his mount; his arms waved as he spoke to the police. He pointed to Retief's Rhoon, now dropping in to light beside Lundelia. The big flyer braked his rotors to a stop with a final whop-whop-woooppp of displaced air.
" . . . prisoner," Hish was whispering. "Just stand aside, fellow, and I'll take him along to His Omnivoracity."
As Retief jumped down, Hish waved the power gun from which the energy cell had been removed. "I'm sure the prime minister will be interested in meeting the rebel chieftain, Tief-tief," he amplified.
"So that's the bandit, eh?" One of the Voion rolled over, peering through the failing light of the sun, now a baleful spotlight behind flat purple clouds on the horizon. "He's a queer-looking Quopp; how'd you snare him?"
"I snatched him single-handed from under the noses of his compatriots, killing dozens and injuring hundreds more," Hish snapped in his breathy Groaci voice. "Now clear my path before I lose my temper and add you to the list of casualties."
"OK, OK, don't get huffy," the guard said sullenly. He waved the pair toward the door. "For your sake I hope that's the genuine article you've got there," he muttered as Hish rolled awkwardly by on his prosthetic wheels.
"Oh, I'm genuine," Retief said. "You don't think he'd lie to you?"
Inside, Retief went ahead of Hish, glanced along the short hall, turned to Hish.
"You're doing fine, General. Now don't get excited and blow this next scene; it's the climax of the morning's entertainment." He took the gun, fitted the kick-stick back in the butt, slipped it into his concealed hip holster, then adjusted his face mask.
"How do I look?"
"Like an insomniac's nightmare," Hish whispered. "Let me go now, Retief! When you're shot down for the idiot you are, it would be a pity if I were caught in the overkill."
"I'll see that your passing won't be accidental," Retief reassured the Groaci. He checked to see that the bulky pouch slung over his left hip was in place; its contents shifted with a dull clank of glass.
"All right, Hish," he said. "Let's go down."
"How can I negotiate these stairs, wheeled as I am?" the Groaci demanded.
"No stalling, General; just bump down the way the Voion do, not forgetting to use the handrails."
Hish complied, grumbling. In the wide corridor one flight down, Voion sentries posted at intervals turned cold oculars on the pair.
"Sing pretty," Retief said softly.
"You there," Hish keened at the nearest Voion. "Which are the chambers of His Omnivoracity?"
"Who wants to know, wobbly-wheels?" the cop came back. "What's this you've got in tow? A Terry-Quopp half-breed?" He made the scratchy sound that indicated Appreciation of One's Own Wit.
"What wandering cretin fertilized your tribal ovum racks just prior to your hatching?" Hish inquired pointedly. "But I waste time with these pleasantries. Show me the way to the prime minister or I'll see to it your component parts are added to the bench stock in a front line reppo deppo."
"You will, eh? Who the Worm you think you are—"
Hish tapped his narrow, Voion-armored thorax with a horny pseudoclaw, eliciting a hollow clunk. "Is it possible you don't know the insignia of a general officer?" he hissed.
"Uh—is that what you are?" the fellow hesitated. "I never saw one—"
"That omission has now been rectified," Hish announced. "Quickly now! This prisoner is the insurgent commander-in-chief!"
"Yeah?" The guard rolled closer. Others in hearing pricked up their auditory antennae, moving in to follow the conversation.
"To watch your step," Retief said quietly in Groaci. "To remember that if I have to shoot, you'll be in my line of fire . . ."
"Stop!" Hish snapped hoarsely, waving back the curious Voion. "Resume your posts at once! Clear the way—"
"Let's have a look at this Stilter," a Voion shrilled.
"Yeah, I'd like to get a piece of the Quopp that blew the wheels off a couple of former associates of mine!"
"Let's work him over!"
Hish crowded back against Retief. "One step closer, and you die!" he choked. "I can assure you a gun is aimed at your vitals at this instant—"
"I don't see any guns—"
"Let's see if this Stilter's arms bend—"
There was the crash of a door slamming wide, an ear-splitting screech of Voion rage; the sentries whirled to see the oversized figure of Prime Minister Ikk, Jarweel feathers atremble with rage, confronting them, flanked by armed guards.
"You pond scum have the unmitigated insolence to conduct a free-for-all at my very door?" he shrilled. "I'll have the organ-clusters off the lot of you! Niv! Kuz! Shoot them down where they stand!"
"Ah . . . if I might interject a word, Your Omnivoracity . . . ?" Hish raised a hand. "I hope you remember me—General Hish? I just happened along with my prisoner—"
"Hish? Prisoner? What—" The irate leader clacked his jeweled palps with a sound like a popped paper bag, staring at the disguised Groaci. "You mentioned the name of, ah, General Hish . . ."
"Ah—there was the matter of a suitable, er, cover identity . . . ?"
"Cover . . ." Ikk rolled up, waving the chastened sentries aside. He stared closely at Hish. "Hmmm. Yes," he muttered. "I see the joints now; nice job. You look like a tribal reject with axle rickets and shorted windings, but I'd never have guessed . . ." He looked at Retief. "And this is a prisoner, you say, Hish?"
"This, my dear Ikk, is the leader of the rabble forces."
"What—are you sure?" Ikk rolled quickly back, looking Retief up and down. "I heard he was a Stilter . . . maroon cuticula . . . rudimentary rotors . . . by the Worm, it fits! How did you manage—but never mind! Bring him along!" He whirled; his eye fell on the sentries huddled in a clump under the watchful oculars of the bodyguards.
"Send these good fellows along," he shrilled merrily. "See that they all get promotions. Nothing like a show of spirit, I always say. Shows morale's up." Buzzing a merry tune, the Voion leader led the way through the wide door into the ambassadorial office, took up his pose under the large portrait of himself hanging where the Corps Ensign had been on Retief's last visit.
"Now," he rubbed his grasping members together, eliciting a sound effect reminiscent of a hacksaw cutting an oil drum. "Let's have a look at the dacoit who had the effrontery to imagine he could interfere with my plans!"
"Ah, Ikk," Hish made a fluttery gesture. "There are aspects to the present situation I haven't yet mentioned . . ."
"Well?" Ikk canted his oculars at the Groaci. "Mention them at once! Not that they can be of any importance, with this fellow in my hands. A capital piece of work, Hish! For this, I may allow you to . . . But we'll go into that later."
"It's rather private," Hish whispered urgently. "If you wouldn't mind sending these fellows along . . . ?"
"Umph." Ikk waved an arm at his bodyguards. "Get out, you two. And while you're at it, tell Sergeant Uzz and his carpenters to hurry up with the ten-Terry gibbet. No need to wait until morning now."
The two Voion rolled silently to the door, closed it gently behind them. Ikk turned to Retief, making a clattering sound with his zygomatic plates indicative of Pleasure Anticipated.
"Now, criminal," he purred. "What have you to say for yourself?"
Retief lifted the holster flap, snapped out the power gun and leveled it at Ikk's head. "I'll let this open the conversation," he said genially.
Ikk crouched, slumped down over his outward-slanting wheels, his lower arms slack, his upper pair picking nervously at his chest inlays.
"You!" he addressed Hish. "A traitor! I trusted you! I gave you full powers, listened to your counsels, turned over my army to you! And now this!"
"Surprising how these matters sometimes turn out," Hish agreed in his whispery voice. He had his headpiece off now and was smoking one of Ikk's imported dope-sticks. "Of course, there was the little matter of the assassins assigned to eliminate me from the picture as soon as you had achieved your modest goal, but of course that was to be expected."
Ikk's oculars twitched. "Who, me?" he said dazedly. "Why . . ."
"Naturally, I eliminated them the first day; a small needle fired into their main armatures did the trick neatly—"
There was a small sound at the door; it snapped wide and Ikk's two bodyguards rolled quickly through, guns at the ready, flipped the door shut behind them. Ikk came to life then, dropped behind the platinum ambassadorial desk as the two swiveled to face Hish. Behind the Groaci, Retief held the gun steady against his hostage's back-plates.
"Shoot them down, Kuz!" Ikk shrilled. "Blast them into atoms! Burn them where they stand; never mind about the rug . . ." His voice faded off. He extended an ocular above tabletop level, saw the two Voion standing, guns at their sides.
"What's this?" he shrilled. "I order you to shoot them at once!"
"Please, my dear Ikk!" Hish objected. "Those supersonic harmonics are giving me a splitting headache!"
Ikk rose up, his palps working spasmodically. "But—but I summoned them! I pushed my secret button right here under my green and pink inlay . . ."
"Of course. But naturally, your bodyguards are on my payroll. But don't feel badly; after all, my budget—"
"But—" Ikk waved his arms at the Voion. "You can't mean it, fellows! Traitors to your own kind?"
"They're a couple of chaps you ordered disassembled for forgetting to light your dope-stick," Hish said. "I countermanded the order and planted them on you. Now—"
"Then—at least let them shoot the Stilter!" Ikk proposed. "Surely you and I can settle our little differences—"
"The Stilter has the drop on me, I'm afraid, Ikk. No, these two good lads will have to be locked in the W.C. Attend to it, will you, there's a good fellow."
"You handled that properly, Hish," Retief commended as Ikk rolled dejectedly back after snapping the lock behind his former adherents. "Now, Ikk, I think we'd better summon Ambassador Longspoon here to make the party complete."
Ikk grumbled, pressed a button on the silver mounted call box, snapped an order. Five minutes dragged past. There was a tap at the door.
"You'll know just how to handle this," Retief suggested gently to the prime minister.
Ikk twitched his oculars. "Send the Terry in!" he snapped. "Alone!"
The door opened cautiously; a sharp nose appeared past its edge, then an unshaved, receding chin, followed by the rest of the Terran ambassador. He ducked his head at Ikk, shot a glance at Retief and Hish, whose face was again concealed behind the Voion mask. He let the door click behind him, tugged at the upper set of chrome-plated lapels of his mauve after-midnight extra-formal cutaway, incongruous in the early evening light that gleamed through the hexagonal window behind Ikk.
"Ahh . . . there you are, Mr. Prime Minister," he said. "Er, ah . . ."
"Hish, tell him not to get in my line of fire," Retief said in Tribal. Longspoon's eyes settled on Retief, still fully armored, jumped to the disguised Groaci, then back to the prime minister. "I'm not sure I understand . . ."
"The person behind me is armed, my dear Archie," Hish said. "I fear he, not our respected colleague, the prime minister, controls the situation."
Longspoon stared blankly at Retief, his close-set eyes taking in the maroon chest-plates, the scarlet-dyed head, the pink rotors.
"Who—who is he?" he managed.
"He's the Worm-doomed troublemaker who's had the effrontery to defeat my army," Ikk snapped. "So much for visions of a Quopp united in Voionhood."
"And," Hish put in quickly, "you'll be astonished to learn that his name is . . ." He paused as though remembering something.
"Why, I know the bandit's name," Longspoon's mouth clamped in an indignant expression. "As a diplomat, it's my business to keep in touch with these folk movements. It's, ah, Tough-tough or Toof-toof or something of the sort."
"How clever of Your Excellency," Hish murmured.
"Now that the introductions are out of the way," Retief said in Tribal, "we'd better be getting on with the night's work. Ikk, I want the entire Embassy staff taken to the port and loaded aboard these foreign freighters you've impounded and permitted to lift. Meanwhile, we'll use the hot line to Sector HQ to get a squadron of CDT Peace Enforcers headed out this way. I hope they arrive in time to salvage a few undamaged Voion for use as museum specimens."
"What's he saying?" Longspoon pulled at his stiff vermilion collar, his mouth opening and closing as though he were pumping air over gills.
"He demands that you and your staff leave Quopp at once," Ikk said quickly.
"What's that? Leave Quopp? Abandon my post? Why, why, this is outrageous! I'm a fully accredited Terran emissary of Galactic Good Will! How could I ever explain to the under-secretary—"
"Tell him you departed under duress," Ikk suggested. "Driven out by lawless criminals wielding illegal firearms."
"Firearms? Here on Quopp? But that's . . . that's—"
"A flagrant violation of Interplanetary Law," Hish whispered piously. "Shocking . . ."
"Give the orders, Ikk," Retief said. "I want the operation concluded before Second Jooprise. If I have to sit here any longer with my finger on the firing stud it may begin to twitch involuntarily."
"What? What?" Longspoon waited for a translation.
"He threatens to kill me unless I do as he commands," Ikk said. "Much as I regret seeing you depart under such, ah, humiliating circumstances, Archie, I fear I've no choice. Still, after your dismissal from the Corps for gross dereliction of duty in permitting shipments of Terry-manufactured arms to the rebels—"
"I? Nonsense! There are no Terran weapons on Quopp—"
"Look at the gun even now being aimed at my Grand Cross of the Legion d'Cosme," Ikk snapped. "I assume you know a Terran power pistol when it's pointed between your eyes!"
Longspoon's face sagged. "A Browning Mark XXX," he gasped.
Hish canted an eye to look at Retief. Retief said nothing.
"Still," Ikk went on, "you can always write your memoirs—under a pseudonym of course, the name Longspoon having by then acquired a Galaxy-wide taint—"
"I'll not go!" Longspoon's Adam's apple quivered with indignation. "I'll stay here until this is covered up—or, rather, until I'm able to clarify the situation!"
"Kindly advise the ambassador this his good friend Ikk intends to hang him," Retief instructed Hish.
"Lies!" Ikk screeched in Terran. "All lies! Archie and I have sucked the Sourball of Eternal Chumship!"
"I'll not stir an inch!" Longspoon quavered. "My mind is made up!"
"Let's have a little action, Ikk," Retief ordered. "I can feel the first twitch coming on."
"You wouldn't dare," Ikk keened faintly. "My loyal troops would tear you wheel from wheel . . ."
"But you won't be here to see it." Prodding Hish ahead of him, Retief went up to the desk, leaned on it, put the gun to Ikk's central inlay. "Now," he said.
Behind him there was a rustle, a wheeze of effort—
He stepped back, whirled in time to see a chair wielded by the ambassador an instant before it crashed down across his head.
"Ah," Ikk purred, like a knife sawing through corn husks. "Our rabble-rouser is now in position to see matters in a new light . . ." He made rattling noises in tribute to the jest. Retief, strapped into the same chair with which Longspoon had crowned him, many loops of stout cord restraining his arms, held his headpiece half turned away from the lamp which had been placed to glare into his oculars. A pair of heavy-armed Voion interrogation specialists stood by, implements ready. Hish was parked in a corner, striving to appear inconspicuous. Longspoon, lapels awry, hooked a finger under the rope knotted about his neck.
"I . . . I don't understand, Your Omnivoracity," he quavered. "What's the nature of the ceremony I'm to take part in?"
"I promised you'd be elevated to a high post," Ikk snapped. "Silence, or we'll settle for a small informal ritual right here in your office." He rolled over to confront Retief. "Who supplied the nuclear weapons with which you slaughtered my innocent, fun-loving, primitively armed freedom fighters? The Terrans, no doubt? A classic double cross."
"The Terrans supplied nothing but big ideas," Retief confided, "and you Voion got all those."
"A claw-snap for their ideas." Ikk clicked his claws in discharge of the obligation. "You imagine I intended to conduct the planet's business with a cold Terran nose in all my dealings, carping at every trifling slum-clearance project that happened to involve the disassembly of a few thousand Sub-Voion villagers? Hah! Longspoon very generously supplied sufficient equipment to enable me to launch the Liberation; his usefulness ended the day the black banner of United Voionhood went up over Ixix!" He turned back to Retief. "Now, you will at once supply full information on rebel troop dispositions, armaments, unit designations—"
"Why ask him about troop dispositions, Ikk?" one of the interrogators asked. "Every Quopp on the planet's headed this way; we won't have any trouble finding them—"
"It's traditional," Ikk snapped. "Now shut up and let me get on with this!"
"I thought we were the interrogators," the other Voion said sullenly. "You stick to your prime-ministering and let Union Labor do their job—"
"Hmmmph. I hope the Union will enter no objection if my good friend Hish assists with the chore in the capacity of technical adviser?" He canted an ocular at the disguised Groaci. "What techniques would you recommend as being the most fun as well as most effective?"
"Whom, I?" Hish stalled. "Why, wherever did you get an idea like that . . . ?"
"To keep them occupied," Retief said quickly in Groaci. "To remember which side of the bread substitute has the ikky-wax on it."
"What's that?" Ikk waggled his antennae alertly at Retief. "What did you say?"
"Just invoking the Worm in her own language," Retief clarified.
"What language is that?"
"Worman, of course."
"Oh yes. Well, don't do it any more—"
"Ikk!" Hish exclaimed. "A most disturbing thought has just come to me . . ."
"Well, out with it." Ikk tilted his eyes toward the Groaci.
"Ah—er . . . I hardly know how to phrase it . . ."
Ikk rolled toward him. "I've yet to decide just how to deal with you, Hish; I suggest you endear yourself to me immediately by explaining what these hems and haws signify!"
"I was thinking . . . that is, I hadn't thought . . . I mean, have you happened to think . . ."
Ikk motioned his torturers over. "I warn you, Hish—you'll tell me what this is all about at once, or I'll give my Union men a crack at some overtime!"
As Hish engaged the Voion in conversation, Retief twisted his arm inside the fitted armor sheath, slipped his hand free of the gauntlet; the confining rope fell away. He reached to the pouch still slung at his side, lifted the flap, took out a small jar of thick amber fluid.
"Awwwwkk!" Ambassador Longspoon pointed at him, eyes goggling. "Help! It's liquid smashite! He'll blow us all to atoms—"
Ikk and his troops spun on their wheels; one Voion scrabbled at a holster, brought up a gun as the jar arched through the air, smashed at his feet; a golden puddle spread across the rug in an aroma of pure Terran clover honey. There was a moment's stunned silence.
"Sh—shoot him!" Ikk managed. The Voion with the gun dropped the weapon, dived for the fragrant syrup; an instant later, both interrogators were jackknifed over the honey, quivering in ecstasy, their drinking organs buried in nectar a thousand times stronger than the most potent Hellrose. Ikk alone still resisted, his antennae vibrating like struck gongs. He groped, brought up a gun, wavered, dithered, then with a thin cry dropped it and dived for the irresistible honey.
Retief shook the ropes from his arms, undid the straps and stood.
"Well done, General," he said. "I think that concludes this unfortunate incident in Quopp history. Now you and I had better have that little private chat you mentioned earlier . . ."