The Return of Retief by Keith Laumer Read Free Book Online Page B

rebuke the intruder, but the reprimand
died on his lips as he was greeted by the entrance of a tall, broad-shouldered
man clad in a scorched and torn garment barely recognizable as a CDT issue
coverall, informal, undeveloped worlds, for use on, and supporting on one
shoulder a bulky polyon bag.
     
                "What's
this, sir?" Crodfoller barked. "Your appearance is disgraceful!"
     
                "Not
nearly as disgraceful as his disappearance, Mr. Undersecretary," Magnan
objected, jumping up excitedly. "Retief," he went on more calmly,
addressing the newcomer, "we'd heard you'd been captured by the insidious
Ree, out on Icebox Nine!"
     
                "Not
quite, Mr. Magnan," Retief replied coolly. "I spotted them landing,
and decided to surround them, just in case."
     
                "Surround
them?" Crodfoller echoed hollowly. "You did nothing to create an
impression of hostility, I hope!"
     
                "Nothing
much, Mr. Undersecretary," Retief demurred. "I just gave them a good
scare, and let it go at that."
     
                "Indeed?
And how, may I ask, did you, a single individual, terrorize an entire
detachment of Ree?"
     
                "Easy,"
Retief said, as he seated himself and dumped on an adjacent chair the polyon
bag-he was carrying.
     
                "A
small Ree VIP scout-boat landed in an adjacent sector," he reported.
"Captain Fump, who seemed not only lost but at his wit's end, pulse-bombed
my bubble and sent a squad after me. I dodged the squad, boarded the scout, and
parleyed with Captain Fump."
     
                "Oh,
dear; oh, dear," Crodfoller mourned. "A VIP boat, you say; and you
waylaid the VIP himself. I do hope you didn't give offense. A complaint lodged
by an important Ree dignitary just at this juncture could prove disastrous to my
plans for a Ree-Terry accord."
     
                "Don't
sweat, Mr. Undersecretary," Retief soothed the great man. "Captain
Fump didn't complain. He got interested in my gun collection, and hardly
uttered a word."
     
                "How
did you get here, Mr. Retief?" Crodfoller demanded. "All unessential
travel has been suspended for the duration of the crisis." The
Undersecretary pulled at his ear thoughtfully. "And it was my
understanding you had been delivered to Icebox Seventeen or whatever by a Corps
lighter, which at once returned to base. You, I believe, were to await pick-up
at the conclusion of your assignment, some months hence."
     
                Retief
nodded. "I had to take Fump's boat," he explained.
"Unfortunately, it got shot up a little on the way in."
     
                "Worse
and worse," Crodfoller mourned. "You had the audacity to preempt,
confiscate, requisition—"
     
                "Steal
is the word you want," Retief put in. "Yep. I did. Steal Fump's boat,
I mean."
     
                "And
then permitted the borrowed vessel to be damaged by an alert Naval
Patrol," Crodfoller grieved.
     
                "Not
quite," Retief corrected. "Our alert patrols weren't around. Did you
forget? Today is the Inter-Arm Friendship Ceremonial. All patrols are grounded
for Maximum Fraternization. It was a Ree Dreadnought that opened fire on
me."
     
                "This,"
Crodfoller pronounced, "is disaster, unadorned. It's war, Mr. Retief! And
yon precipitated it." Hastily the Undersecretary scribbled out a whole row
of squares.
     
                "No,
just a routine foul-up," Retief corrected. "After all, the Ree fired
on a Ree boat by mistake; no official Terran involvement at all."
     
                "Let
us hope," Crodfoller said fervently, "that Captain Fump is
sufficiently large-minded to view the affair in that light."
     
                "A
fast Note of Apology ought to do the trick," the long-silent political
officer Proudfoot suggested quickly, thereby