Retief and the Rascals by Keith Laumer Read Free Book Online

factions."
     
                "A gaffe which netted Team-Leader Gangplank
a nasty entry in the 'Handling of Emergencies' column of his ER," Ben
explained. "And I suppose His Ex hardly improved relations when he
referred to the starving Despicables as 'kin' of His Ferocity, simply because
they're closely related, through hereditary feud partners. An understandable
error, but a fatal one. Now, it appears, we're personally about to precipitate
the next rupture in Terran-Bloorish relations. Jim, get us out of
this!"
     
                The narrow metal-clad door which the Terrans had
previously broached was half-open beside them. Retief thrust Magnan through
into the stygian darkness with its dense aroma of half-cured hides. Magnan
struck a permatch and stared in dismay at the Dales of furs stacked in rows,
almost to the sagging ceiling joists.
     
                "Good Lord!" he gasped. "Retief!
Look at all the bales! Someone's been poaching on a grand scale, in direct
defiance of the Most Favored Species Agreement! His Ex will be furious. And I,
as well, noted pet-lover that I am!"
     
                Retief was fingering a pink-and-green dappled
pelt in the nearest bale. "Looks like prime frinkle-furs, he noted.
"Not the best pets, Ben. More like a dangerous pest. And over there I see
Glavian hell-hound hides; they'll be no loss."
     
                "Jim! How can you be so heartless?"
Magnan protested. "Useless and even pestiferous as these animals can be to
us, they're still Nature's living creatures, and under our protection!"
     
                "Too late now," Retief pointed out.
"Nothing short of a Groatian twaffle-master could help these
fellows."
     
                "Good thinking, Retief!" Magnan
caroled. "I've a holiday coming up, and I'll just dodge over to Grote and
talk dear D'ong into coming along to attend to the chore!"
     
                "Whoever's gone to the trouble of skinning
these hides out and partly tanning them might take a dim view of that,"
Retief pointed out, "to say very little of the confusion that would be
occasioned when a few thousand frinkles and hell-hounds suddenly burst out of
confinement and start roaming the streets."
     
                "Trifles, Jim!" Magnan enthused.
"We'll have the fellows from Wildlife Control on hand to scoop them up,
and in an hour they'll be on their way home, as happy as clams, eating each
other and fighting with their own kind for mating rights!"
     
                "Sounds halcyon indeed," Retief
agreed. "So maybe we'd better figure how to escape from this locked
dungeon in time to catch the Two-Planet to Grote."
     
                " 'Locked'?" Magnan yelped.
"Whatever do you mean?"
     
                "This is the basement of the bonded
warehouse, Ben," Retief reminded his chief. "The exits are locked
tight. Supposed to be full of foof blossoms for the Tinkerbell trade!"
     
                "Indeed it is!" Magnan agreed as he
looked around carefully for the first time, noting the OFF LIMITSsigns on the nearest wall. "The
scamps have been smuggling illicit skins under our very noses!" he yelped.
"Maybe we'd better leave the same way we came in." He turned to the
shattered door where a seven-foot Abominable was wrestling with an eight-foot
Reprehensible for possession of a ten-inch Bowie knife. "Or perhaps
not," he amended quickly. "But there's no other way out except the
triple-locked Security gate!"
     
                Retief shoved the battling pair back out the
doorless doorway and pushed a bale of colorful hides in position to block it.
     
                "I guess it's the gate, then," Retief
concluded cheerfully. "Let's go."
     
                Trailed by Magnan, Retief made his way along the
crooked aisle into the reeking, lightless depths of the cavernous room to a steel-barred
partition half-covered with placards warning, in