Reward for Retief by Keith Laumer Read Free Book Online

Zanny-duers.
     
                "Wait!" Magnan
called. "Don't leave me here!" As if goaded by the concept of being
alone on the swaying foot-path, he took a hesitant step. "Look there,
Retief!" he cried, pointing to the entry to the Embassy, below and to the
left, just ahead, opening on a relatively broad ledge where a crowd of elongated
locals had gathered, some armed, all shouting and shaking half a dozen fists
each, while others busied themselves with prybars levering open the folding
metal gate.
     
                "The Embassy is under
attack!" Magnan yelled, in his excitement hurrying past Retief to the
point opposite and above the wide doorway and its besieging mob, crowding onto
the porch-like entry slab.
     
                "Here, now, you in the
yellow headdress!" he shouted over the din, addressing a noisy fellow who
seemed to be the prime agitator.
     
                Having thus captured the
attention of the locals, Magnan retreated along the plank as the focus of the
angry mob shifted instantly from the intransigent gate to himself. Rocks arced
toward him, a few chipping wood near his feet.
     
                "Get Terry!" the
cry went up. And "there's two of em!
     
                "Rush 'em!" the
boss troublemaker commanded, and his minions obediently crept forward, first
crowding, then crawling atop each other, forming a mound directly below the
point where Magnan crouched, babbling.
     
                "Retief! Do something!"
he yelped. "Remember, as Ambassador Straphanger so stirringly put it when
the avalanche cut off the rescue party: 'Do something, even if it's the wrong
thing!', an exhortation to the implementation of which his whole career bore
witness! However, in this instance I feel you should improve upon His
Excellency's example at least to the extent that you avoid availing yourself of
his alternative!"
     
                "Good thinking, Mr.
Magnan," Retief congratulated his supervisor. "Any ideas as to what
might not be the wrong thing?"
     
                "Just get me inside,
intact, instantly," Magnan specified. "And yourself, as well, of
course, if you can manage it," he conceded generously.
     
                "Incisive instruction,
indeed, Mr. Magnan," Retief commented. He backed off a few steps, then,
taking a running start, jumped over the fringe of the mob to impact feet-first
atop the heap of eager rioters on the porch; the mound promptly dissolved, its
individual numbers making all possible haste to withdraw to a more
statesmanlike distance from the rude tactics so unexpectedly employed by the
foreign barbarian. Yellow-headdress bustled forward like a ten-foot inchworm
completing his circuit.
     
                "Who," he demanded
with an accent even worse than that of Chief Smeer and his swat team, "are you, fellow? And
why? Can't you see that by your careless mode of perambulation, you've injured
a number of public-spirited citizens, to say very little of busting up this
traditional eating-pyramid formation!"
     
                "I noticed, Mr.
Loudmouth," Retief conceded. " 'Retief is the handle. Par me if I
don't offer to shake manipulatory members."
     
                "Come down at once,
sir," Loudmouth yelled to the Terran standing atop half a dozen stunned
rioters who were writhing feebly as they attempted to disentangle their
elongated bodies each from the other.
     
                "Done busted Roy's
cranial plumes, too," the leader noted aggrievedly, just as Retief
launched himself at him, slamming the excited fellow backward, sending the
yellow headdress rolling in the gutter. Its owner turned back upon himself to
scramble frantically after the badge of office, snatching it up, dripping
gutter-goo just as one of his retreating underlings was about to trample it.
     
                Retief stepped over a
laggard rioter which snapped green teeth an inch