Magnan
plucked a sheet of yellow paper from his desk and handed it to Retief.
"This came in over the autotyper forty minutes ago."
-
UNIDENTIFIED
CONVOY COMPRISING FIFTY UHLAN CLASS VESSELS SIGHTED ON COURSE FOR YALC III ETA
1500 GST 33 OCT GSC. SIGNED POMFROY, ENSIGN PATROL NAVY 786-G.
-
"Uhlans,"
Retief said. "Those are thousand-man transports. And oh-nine-hundred on
the thirty-third is just about two hours from now."
"This
could be an invasion, Retief! A major breach of the peace! Can you imagine how
it would look in my record if the planet were invaded under my very nose!"
"Tough
on the natives, too," Retief commented. "What action have you taken
so far?"
"Action?
Why, I've canceled this afternoon's social engagements, checked out-going
passenger schedules ... and sharpened a number of pencils."
"Have
you tried contacting this Ensign Pomfroy for a little more detail?"
"There's
no one on duty in the Message Center but a local Code Clerk. He's trying to
raise him now." Magnan depressed a button on his desk. "Oo-Gilitit,
have you met with any success?"
"Pomfroy-Tic
all same have organ cluster up ventral orifice—"
"Gilitit,
I've warned you to watch your language!" Magnan roared, 'it's no habit for
a communications man to get into!" He clicked off. "Confounded
locals! It's hopeless, of course. Our equipment was never designed for pinpointing
moving patrol boats at four A-U's."
"How
do the Yalcan's feel about the situation?" asked Retief, playing with the
goblet still in his hand.
Magnan
blinked. "Why, as to that, I—all—was just going to call Oo-Rilikuk."
Magnan punched keys, tuned in a bland yellow and blue face with eyes like gold
pinheads, and vertically-hinged jaws busy with an oily drumstick.
"Ah,
there, Magnan," a voice like an unoiled wheel said. "Just finished up
my lunch. Roast haunch of giant locust. Delicious." A tongue like a length
of green silken rope flicked a tidbit from a corner of the lipless mouth.
"Oo-Rilikuk,
do you know anything of a large convoy due here today?"
Rilikuk
dabbed at his chin with a gossamer napkin. "I seem to recall issuing a
number of visas to Groaci nationals in recent weeks."
"Groaci?
Fifty shiploads of them?"
"Something
like that," the Yalcan said carelessly. "By the way, if you haven't
already made arrangements, perhaps you'd care to join my Bachelor's Group for
the upcoming festivities—"
"You're
not concerned? Perhaps you're not aware of the insidious reputation the Groaci
enjoy!"
"I
don't mind saying I've exercised a trifle of influence to procure a choice mud
pocket. The rich, oleaginous kind, you know. And there'll be no shortage of
nubile females along—though you're not organized to appreciate the latter, it's
true—"
"May
I ask the state of the planetary defenses, Rilikuk? I'm warning you, Groaci
can't be trusted!"
"Planetary
defenses?" Rilikuk issued a chirrup of amusement. "As confirmed
pacifists, we've never felt the need for such an extravagance. Now, I'll be
leaving the office in a few minutes. Suppose I drop by for you. We'll go on to
my place for dinner, then off to the bog— "
"You're
leaving the Foreign Office at a moment like this?" Magnan yelped.
"They'll be landing in a matter of minutes!"
"I
fear I'll have no time to devote to tourism this week, Magnan," Rilikuk
said. "They'll just have to manage alone. After all, Voom Festival comes
but once in ninety-four standard years."
Magnan
rang off with a snort. "We'll receive scant help from that quarter."
He swiveled to gaze out the unglazed window across the gay tiles of the plaza,
lined with squat, one-story shops of embossed and colored ceramic brick, to the
glittering minarets of the mile-distant temple complex.
"If
these idlers invested less energy in shard-sorting and more in foreign affairs,
I wouldn't be faced with this contretemps."
"If
the CDT would talk Groac into selling them a few thousand tons of sand, they
wouldn't have to sort shards."
"There
are better uses for CDT bottoms than hauling sand, Retief ... though I notice
the local scrap pile is about depleted. Possibly now they'll turn to more
profitable pursuits then lavishing the artistry of generations on tenantless
shrines." He indicated the cluster of glass towers sparkling in the sun.
"They might even consent to export a reasonable volume of glassware in
place of the present token amounts."
"Rarity
keeps the price up; and they say they can't afford to let much glass off-world.
It all goes back in the scrap piles when it's broken, for reuse."
Magnan
stared across the plain, where the white plumes of small geysers puffed into
brief life, while the pale smoke rising from the fumaroles rose straight up in
the still air. Far above, a point of blue light twinkled.
"Odd,"
Magnan said, frowning. "I've never seen one of the moons in broad daylight
before."
Retief
came to the window.
"You
still haven't. Apparently our Groaci friends are ahead of schedule. That's an
ion drive, and it's not over twenty miles out."
Magnan
bounded to his feet. "Get your hat, Retief! We'll confront these
interlopers the moment they set foot on Yalcan soil! The Corps isn't letting
this sort of thing pass without comment!"
"The
Corps is always a fast group with a comment." Retief said. "I'll give
it that,"
Outside,
the plaza was a-bustle with shopkeepers glittering in holiday glass jewelry,
busily closing up their stalls, erecting intricate decorations resembling
inverted chandeliers before the shuttered shops, and exchanging shouted
greetings. A long-bodied pink-and-red-faced Yalcan in a white apron leaning in
the open door of a shop waved a jointed forearm.
"Retief-Tic!
Do me honor of to drop in for last Voom cup before I lock up. Your friend,
too!"
"Sorry,
Oo-Plif; duty calls."
"I
see you've established your usual contacts among the undesirable element,"
Magnan muttered, signaling a boat-shaped taxi edging through the press on fat
pneumatic wheels. "Look at these lackwits! Completely engrossed in their
frivolity, while disaster descends scarcely a mile away."
Retief
eyed the descending ship as it settled in behind the glittering spires of the
temple-city.
"I
wonder why they're landing there, instead of at the port," Retief
wondered.
"They've
probably mistaken the shrine for the town," Magnan snapped. "One must
admit that it makes a far more impressive display than this collection of mud
huts!"
"Not
the Groaci. They do their homework carefully before they start anything."
The
cab pulled up and Magnan barked directions at the driver, who waved his
forearms in the Yalcan equivalent of a shrug.
"Speak
to this fellow, Retief!" Magnan snapped. "Obscure dialects are a
hobby of yours, I believe."
Retief
gave the driver instructions in the local patois and leaned back against the
floppy cushions. Magnan perched on the edge of the seat and nipped at a
hangnail. The car cleared the square, racketed down a side street streaming
with locals headed for the bog, gunned out across the hard-baked mud-flat,
swerving violently around the bubbling devil's cauldrons of hot mud that dotted
the way. A small geyser erupted with a
whoosh!
and spattered the open
vehicle with hot droplets. A whiff of rotten-egg smoke blew past. Off to the
left, the sunlight glinted from the wide surface of the swamp, thickly
scattered with exotic lily-like flowers. Here and there, tree-ferns grew in
graceful clumps from the shallow water. Along the shore, bright-colored tents
had been erected, and local celebrants clustered in groups among them, weaving
to and fro and waving their multiple arms.
"It's
disgraceful," Magnan sniffed. "They're already staggering and their
infernal festival's hardly begun!"
"It's
a native dance," Retief said. "Very cultural."
"What's
the occasion for this idiotic celebration? It seems to have completely
paralyzed whatever elementary sense of responsibility these flibertigibbets
possess."
"It's
related in some way to the conjunction of the four moons," Retief said.
"But there's more to it than that. It seems to have an important religious
significance. The dances are symbolic of death and rebirth, or something of the
sort."
"Hmmph!
I see the dancers are now falling flat on their faces! Religious ecstasy, no
doubt!"
As
they swept past the reeling locals, the driver made cabalistic signs in the air
and grabbed the steering bar just in time to swerve past a steam-jet that
snored from a cleft boulder. Ahead, a cloud of dust was rolling out from the
landing spot where the Groaci ship had settled in, a scant hundred yards from
an outlying shrine, a sparkling fifty-foot tower of red, yellow and green
glass.
"They're
coming perilously close to violating the native holy place," Magnan
observed as the taxi pulled up beside the ship."There may be mob violence
at any moment."
A
pair of locals, emerging from one of the many fanciful glass arches adorning
the entrances to the shrine complex, cast no more than a casual glance at the
vessel as a port opened in its side and a spindle-legged Groaci in golfing
knickers and loud socks appeared.
Magnan
climbed hurriedly from the cab. "I want you to note my handling of this,
Retief," he said behind his hand. "A firm word now may avert an
incident."
"I'd
better say a firm word to the driver, or we'll be walking back."
"Look,
Mac-Tic, I got a reserved slot in a hot pocket of mud waiting for me," the
driver called as he wheeled the car around. "Five minutes, okay?"
Retief
handed the cabbie a ten credit token and followed Magnan across the scorched
ground to the landing ladder. The Groaci descended, all five eye-stalks canted
in different directions—One on Magnan.
"Minister
Barnshingle," he said in his faint Groac voice before Magnan could speak.
"I am Fiss, Tour Director for Groac Planetary Tours, Incorporated. I assume
you've come to assist in clearing my little flock through the Customs and
Immigration formalities. Now—"
"Tour
Director, did you say, Mr. Fiss?" Magnan cut in. "Fifty shiploads of
tourists?"
"Quite
correct. I can assure you that passports and visas are all in order, and
immunization records are up-to-date. Since we Groaci have no diplomatic mission
to Yale, it is most kind of the CDT to extend its good office."
"Just
a minute, Mr. Fiss! How long are your tourists planning to stay on Yale? Just
during the Voom Festival, I assume?"
"I
believe our visas read ... ah ... indefinite, Mr. Minister."