BY KEITH LAUMER
I
As Second Secretary of Embassy James Retief stepped from the lighter which had delivered the Terran Mission to the close-cropped turquoise sward of the planet Zoon, a rabbit-sized creature upholstered in deep blue-violet angora bounded into view from behind an upthrust slab of scarlet granite. It sat on its oddly arranged haunches a few yards from the newcomers, twitching an assortment of members as though testing the air for a clue to their origin. First Secretary Magnan’s narrow face registered apprehension as a second furry animal, this one a yard-wide sphere of indigo fuzz, came hopping around the prow of the vessel.
“Do you suppose they bite?”
“They’re obviously grass-eaters,” Colonel Smartfinger, the military attaché, stated firmly. “Probably make most affectionate pets. Here, ah, kitty, kitty.” He snapped his fingers and whistled. More bunnies appeared.
“Ah—Colonel.” The agricultural attaché touched his sleeve. “If I’m not mistaken, those are immature specimens of the planet’s dominant life form!”
* * * *
“Eh?” Oldtrick pricked up his ears. “These animals? Impossible!”
They look just like the high-resolution photos the Sneak-and-peek teams took. My, aren’t there a lot of them!”
“Well, possibly this is a sort of playground for them. Cute little fellows.” Oldtrick paused to kick one which had opened surprising jaws for a nip at his ankle.
“That’s the worst of these crash operations.” The economic officer shied as a Terrier-sized fur-bearer darted in close and crunched a shiny plastic button from the cuff of his mauve, late midmorning, semi-informal hip-huggers. “One never knows just what one may be getting into.”
“Oh-oh.” Magnan nudged Retief as a technician bustled from the lock, heavy-laden. “Here comes the classified equipment the ambassador’s been sitting on since we left Sector HQ.”
“Ah!” Ambassador Oldtrick rubbed his small, well manicured hands briskly together, lifted an article resembling a Mae West life jacket from the stack offered.
“Here, gentlemen, is my personal contribution to, ahem, high-level negotiations!” He smiled proudly and slipped his arms through a loop of woven plastic. “One-man, self-contained, power-boosted aerial lift units,” he announced. “With these, gentlemen, we will confront the elusive Zooner on his home ground!”
“But—the post report said the Zooners are a sort of animated blimp!” the information officer protested. “Only a few of them have been seen, and those were cruising at high altitudes! Surely we’re not going after them!”
“It was inevitable, gentlemen.” Oldtrick winced as the technician tugged the harness strap tight across his narrow chest. “Sooner or later man was bound to encounter lighter-than-air intelligence—a confrontation for which we of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne are eminently well qualified!”
“But, your excellency,” First Secretary Magnan spoke up. “Couldn’t we have arranged to confront these, er, gaseous brains here on solid land?”
* * * *
“Nonsense, Magnan! Give up this superb opportunity to display the adaptability of the trained diplomat? Since these beings dwell among the clouds of their native world, what more convincing evidence of good will could we display than to meet them on their own grounds, so to speak?”
“Of course,” the corpulent political officer put in, “we aren’t actually sure they’re anyone up there.” He squinted nervously up at the lacy mass of land-coral that reached into the Zoonian sky, its lofty pinnacles brushing a seven-thousand-foot stratum of cumulonimbus.
“That’s where we’ll steal a march on certain laggards,” Old trick stated imperturbably. “The survey photos clearly show the details of a charming aerial city nestled on the reef. Picture the spectacle, gentlemen, when the mission descends on them from the blue empyrean to open a new era of Terran-Zoon relations!”
“Yes—a striking mis en scene indeed, as your excellency points out.” The economic officer’s cheek gave a nervous twitch. “But what if something goes wrong with the apparatus? The steering mechanism, for example, appears a trifle insubstantial—”
“These devices were designed and constructed under my personal supervision, Chester,” the ambassador cut him off coolly. “However,” he continued, “don’t allow that circumstance to prevent you pointing out any conceptual flaws you may have detected.”
“A marvel of lightweight ingenuity,” the economic officer said hastily. “I only meant…”
“Chester’s point was just that maybe some of us ought to wait here, Mr. Ambassador,” the military attaché said. “In case any, ah, late dispatches come in from Sector, or something. Much as I hate to miss participating, I volunteer—”
“Kindly rebuckle your harness, Colonel,” Oldtrick said through thinned lips. “I wouldn’t dream of allowing you to make the sacrifice.”
“Good Lord, Retief,” Magnan said in a hoarse whisper behind his hand. “Do you suppose these tiny little things will actually work? And does he really mean …” Magnan’s voice trailed off as he stared up into the bottomless sky.
“He really means,” Retief confirmed. “As for his Excellency’s invention, I suppose that given a large-diameter, low-density planet with a standard mass of 4.8 and a surface G of .72, plus an atmospheric pressure of 27.5 P.S.I. and a super-light gas—it’s possible.”
“I was afraid of that,” Magnan muttered. “I don’t suppose that if we all joined together and took a firm fine…?”
“Might be a savings at that,” Retief nodded judiciously. “The whole staff could be court-martialed as a group.”
“… and now,” Ambassador Oldtrick’s reedy voice paused impressively as he settled his beret firmly in place.
“If you’re ready, gentlemen—inflate your gasbags!”
* * * *
A sharp hissing started up as a dozen petcocks opened as one. Bright-colored plastic bubbles inflated with sharp popping sounds above the shoulders of the Terran diplomats. The ambassador gave a little spring and bounded high above the heads of his staff, where he hung, supported by the balloon, assisted by a softly snorting battery of air jets buckled across his hips.
Colonel Smartfinger, a large bony man, gave a half-hearted leap, fell back, his toes groping for contact as a gust of air bumbled him across the ground. Magnan, lighter than the rest, made a creditable spring and rose to dangle beside the chief of mission. Retief adjusted his buoyancy indicator carefully, jumped off as the rest of the staff scrambled to avoid the questionable distinction of being the last man airborne.
“Capital, gentlemen!” Oldtrick beamed at the others as they drifted in a ragged row, roped together like alpinists, five yards above the surface. “I trust each of you is ready to savor the thrill of breaking new ground!”
“An unfortunate turn of phrase,” Magnan quavered, looking down at the rocky outcropping below. The grassy plain on which the lighter had deposited the mission stretched away to the horizon, interrupted only by the upthrusting coral reefs dotted across it like lonely castles in the Daliesque desert and a distant smudge of smoky green.
“And now—onward to what I hope I may, without charges of undue jocularity, term a new high in diplomacy,” Oldtrick cried. He advanced his jet control lever and lifted skywards, trailed by the members of his staff.
* * * *
II
Five hundred feet aloft, Magnan clutched the arm of Retief, occupying the adjacent position in the fine.
“The lighter is lifting off!” He pointed to the slim shape of the tiny Corps vessel, drifting upward from the sand below. “It’s abandoning us!”
“A mark of the ambassador’s confidence that we’ll meet with a hospitable reception at the hands of the Zooners,” Retief pointed out.
“Frankly, I’m at a loss to understand Sector’s eagerness to accredit a mission to this wasteland.” Magnan raised his voice above the whistling of the sharp wind and the polyphonous huffing of the jato units. “Retief, you seem to have a way of picking up odd bits of information. Any idea what’s behind it?”
“According to a usually reliable source, the Groaci have their eyes on Zoon—all five of them. Naturally, if they’re interested, the Corps has to beat them to it.”
“Aha!” Magnan looked wise. “They must know something. By the way,” he edged closer. “Who told you? The ambassador? The undersecretary?”
“Better than that; the bartender at the departmental snackbar.”
“Well, I daresay our five-eyed friends will receive a sharp surprise when they arrive to find us already on a cordial basis with the locals. Unorthodox though Ambassador Oldtrick’s technique may be, I’m forced to concede that it appears the only way we could have approached the Zooners.” He craned upwards at the fanciful formation of many-fingered rock past which they were rising. Odd that none of them have sallied forth to greet us.”
Retief followed his gaze. “We still have six thousand feet to go,” he said. “I suppose we’ll find a suitable reception waiting at the top.”
* * * *
Half an hour later, Ambassador Oldtrick in the lead, the party soared above the final rampart to look down on a wonderland of rose and pink violet coral, an intricacy of spires, tunnels, bridges, grottos, turrets, caves, avenues, as complex and delicately fragile as spun sugar.
“Carefully, now, gentlemen.” Oldtrick twiddled his jato control, dropped in to a gentle landing on a graceful arch spanning a cleft full of luminous gloom produced by the filtration of light through the translucent construction. His staff settled in nearby, gazing with awe at the minarets rising all around them.
The ambassador, having twisted a knob to deflate his gasbag and laid aside his flying harness, was frowning as he looked about the silent prospect.
“I wonder where the inhabitants have betaken themselves?” He lifted a finger, and six eager underlings sprang to his side.
“Apparently the natives are a trifle shy, gentlemen,” he stated. “Nose around a bit. Look friendly. And avoid poking into any possibly taboo areas such as temples and public comfort stations.”
Leaving their deflated gasbags heaped near their point of arrival, the Terrans set about peering into caverns and clambering up to gaze along twisting alleyways winding among silent coral palaces. Retief followed a narrow path atop a ridge which curved upward to a point of vantage. Magnan trailed, mopping at his face with a scented tissue.
“Apparently no one’s at home,” he puffed, coming up to the tiny platform from which Retief surveyed the prospect spread below. “A trifle disconcerting, I must say. I wonder what sort of arrangements have been laid on for feeding and housing us?”
“Another odd thing,” Retief said. “No empty beer bottles, tin cans, old newspapers, or fruit rinds. In fact, no signs of habitation at all.”
“It rather appears we’ve been stood up,” the economic officer said indignantly. “Such cheek—and from a pack of animated intangibles, at that!”
“It’s my opinion the town’s been evacuated,” the political officer said in the keen tones of one delivering an incisive analysis of a complex situation. “We may as well leave.”
“Nonsense!” Oldtrick snapped. “Do you expect me to trot back to Sector and announce that I can’t find the government to which I’m accredited?”
* * * *
“Great heavens!” Magnan blinked at a lone dark cloud drifting ominously closer under the high overcast. “I thought I sensed something impending. Uh, Mr. Ambassador!” he called, starting back down. At that moment, a cry from an adjacent cavern focused all eyes on the military attaché, emerging with a short length of what appeared to be tarred rope, charred at one end.
“Signs of life, your excellency!” he announced. “A dopestick butt!” He sniffed it. “Freshly smoked.”
“Dope-sticks! Nonsense!” Oldtrick prodded the exhibit with a stubby forefinger. “I’m sure the Zooners are far too insubstantial to indulge in such vices.”
“Ah, Mr. Ambassador,” Magnan called. “I suggest we all select a nice dry cave and creep inside, out of the weather—”
“Cave? Creep? Weather? What weather?” Oldtrick rounded on the first secretary as he came up. “I’m here to establish diplomatic relations with a newly discovered race, not set up housekeeping!”
“That weather,” Magnan said stiffly, pointing at the giant cloud sweeping swiftly down on them at a level which threatened to shroud the party in a fog in a matter of minutes.
“Eh? Oh.” Oldtrick stared at the approaching thunderhead. “Yes, well, I was about to suggest we seek shelter.”
“What about the dope-stick?” The colonel tried to recapture the limelight. “We hadn’t finished looking atmy dope-stick when Magnan came along with his cloud.”
“My cloud is of considerably more urgency than your dope-stick, Colonel,” Magnan said softly. “Particularly since, as his excellency has pointed out, your little find couldn’t possibly be the property of the Zooners.”
“Ha! Well, if it isn’t the property of the Zooners, then whose is it?” The officer looked at the butt suspiciously, passed it around. Relief glanced at it, sniffed it.
“I believe you’ll find this to be of Groaci manufacture, Colonel,” he said.
* * * *
“What?” Oldtrick clapped a hand to his forehead. “Impossible! Why, I myself hardly know—that is, they couldn’t—mean to say, drat it, the location of this world is Utter Top Secret!”
“Ahem.” Magnan glanced up complacently at his cloud now a battleship-sized shape only a few hundred feet distant. “I wonder if it mightn’t be as well to hurry along now before we find ourselves drenched.”
“Good Lord!” The political officer stared at the gray-black mass as it moved across the hazy sun, blotting it out like an eclipse. In the sudden shadow, the wind was abruptly chill. The cloud was above the far edge of the reef now; as they watched, it dropped lower; brushed across a projecting digit of stone with a dry squeel, sent a shower of tiny rock fragments showering down. Magnan jumped and blinked his eyes hard, twice.
“Did you see… ? Did I see… ?”
Dropping lower, the cloud sailed between two lofty minarets, scraped across a lower tower topped with a series of sharp spikes. There was a ripping sound, a crunch of stone, a sharp pow!, a blattering noise of escaping gas. A distinct odor of rubberized canvas floated across to the diplomats, borne by the brisk breeze.
“Ye gods!” The military attaché shouted. “That’s no cloud! It’s a Trojan horse! A dirigible in camouflage! A trick!” He cut off and turned to run as the foundering four-acre balloon swung, canted at a sharp angle, and thundered down amid gratings and crunchings, crumbling bridges, snapping off slender towers, settling in to blanket the landscape like a collapsed circus tent. A small, agile creature in a flared helmet and a black hip-cloak appeared at its edge, wading across the deflated folds of the counterfeit cloud, cradling a formidable blast gun in its arms. Others followed, leaping down and scampering for strategic positions on the high ground surrounding the Terrans.
“Groaci shock troops!” the military attaché shouted. “Run for your lives!”
He dashed for the concealment of a shadowy canyon; a blast from a Groaci gun sent a cloud of coral chips after him. Retief, from a position in the lee of a buttress of rocks, saw half a dozen of the Terrans skid to a halt at the report, put up their hands as the invaders swarmed around them, hissing soft Groaci sibilants. Three more Terrans, attempting flight, were captured within fifty feet, prodded back at gun-point. A moment later a sharp oof! and a burst of military expletives announced the surrender of Colonel Smartfinger. Retief made his way around a rock spire, spotted Ambassador Oldtrick being routed from his hiding place behind a cactus-shaped out-cropping.
* * * *
“Well, fancy meeting you here, Hubert.” A slightly built, splendidly dressed Groaci strolled forward, puffing at a dope-stick held in silver tongs. “I regret to submit you to the indignity of being trussed up like a Gerp-fowl in plucking season, but what can one expect when one commits an aggravated trespass, eh?”
“Trespass? I’m here in good faith as Terran envoy to Zoon!” Oldtrick sputtered. “See here, Ambassador Shish, this is an outrage! I demand you order these bandits to release me and my staff at once! Do you understand?”
“Field Marshal Shish, if you please, Hubert,” Shish whispered. “These are a duly constituted constabulary. If you annoy me, I may just order them to exercise the full rigor of the law which you have so airily disregarded !”
“What law?” Your confounded dacoits have assaulted peaceful diplomats in peaceful pursuit of their duties!”
“Interplanetary law, my dear sir,” Shish hissed. “That section dealing with territorial claims to uninhabited planets.”
“But—but the Zooners inhabit Zoon!”
“So? An exhaustive search of the entire planetary surface by our Scouting Service failed to turn up any evidence of intelligent habitation.”
“Surface? But the Zooners don’t occupy the surface!”
“Exactly. Therefore we have assumed ownership. Now, about reparations and damages in connection with your release. I should think a million credits would be about right—paid directly to me, of course, as Planetary Military Governor, pro tem.”
“A million?” Oldtrick swallowed hard. “But… but… see here!” He fixed Shish with a desperate eye. “What is it you fellows are after? This isn’t me kind of sandy-dry real estate you Groaci prefer—and the world has no known economic or strategic value.”
“Hmmm.” Shish flicked his dope-stick butt aside. “No harm in telling you, I suppose. We intend to gather a crop.”
“Crop? There’s nothing growing here but blue grass and land coral!”
* * * *
“Wrong again, Hubert. The crop that interests us is this…” He fingered the edge of his shaggy violet cape. “A luxury fur, light, colorful, nonallergic.” He lowered his voice and leered with three eyes. “And with reportedly fabulous aphrodisiac effects; and there are millions of credits worth of it, leaping about the landscape below, free for the harvesting!”
“But surely you jest, sir! There are—”
There was a sudden flurry as one of the Terrans broke free and dashed for a cave. The Groaci constabulary gave chase. Shish made an annoyed sound and hurried away to oversee the recapture. Oldtrick, left momentarily alone, eyed the flying harnesses lying in a heap ten yards from him. He took a deep breath, darted forward, snatched up a harness.
As he turned to sprint for cover, a breathy cry announced his discovery. Desperately, the chief of mission struggled into his straps as he ran, twisted the valve, fired his pato units and shot into the air above the heads of a pair of fleet-footed aliens who had been about to lay him by the heels. He passed over Retief’s head at an altitude of twenty feet, driven smartly by the brisk breeze. Retief ducked his head, hugged the shadows as Groaci feet pounded past at close range, pursuing the fleeing Terran. Retief saw half a dozen marksmen taking aim at the airborne diplomat as the wind swept him out over the reef’s edge. Shots rang. There was a sharp report as a round pierced the gasbag. With a despairing wail, the ambassador sank swiftly out of sight.
Retief rolled to his feet, ran to the pile of flight harnesses, grabbed up two, whirled and sprinted for the edge over which Oldtrick had vanished. Two Groaci, turning to confront the new menace descending on their rear, were bowled aside by Retief’s rush. Another sprang to intercept him, bringing his gun around. Retief caught the barrel in full stride, swung the gun with its owner still clinging desperately to it, slammed the unfortunate alien into the faces of his astounded comrades. Shots split the air past Retief’s ear, but without slowing, he charged to the brink and dived over into seven thousand feet of open air.
* * * *
III
The uprushing wind shrieked past Retief’s ears like a typhoon. Gripping one of the two harnesses in his teeth, he pulled the other on as one would don a vest, buckled the straps. He looked down, squinting against the rush of air.
The ambassador, falling free now with his burst balloon fluttering at his back, was twenty feet below. Retief tucked his arms close, kicked his heels up to assume a diver’s attitude. The distance between the two men lessened. The rock face flashed past, dangerously close. Retief’s hand brushed Oldtrick’s foot. The ambassador twisted convulsively to roll a wild eye at Retief, suspended above him in the hurtling airstream. Retief caught the senior diplomat’s arm, shoved the spare harness into his hand. A moment later Oldtrick had shed his ruined gasbag and shrugged into the replacement.
With a twist of the petcock, he inflated his balloon and at once slowed, falling behind Retief, who opened his own valve, felt the sudden tug of the harness. A moment later, he was floating lightly a hundred feet below the ambassador, who was drifting gently closer.
“Quick thinking, my boy,” Oldtrick’s voice came faintly. “As soon as I’m aboard the transport, I shall summon a heavy PE unit to deal with those ruffians! We’ll thwart their inhuman scheme to massacre helpless infant Zoomers, thus endearing ourselves to their elders!” He was close now, dropping as Retief rose. “You’d better come along with me,” he said sharply as they passed, ten feet apart. “I’ll want your corroborative statements, and—”
“Sorry, Mr. Ambassador,” Retief said. “I seem to have gotten hold of a heavy-duty unit. It wants to go up, and the valve appears to be stuck.”
“Come back,” Oldtrick shouted as he dropped away below the younger man. “I insist that you accompany me!”
“I’m afraid it’s out of my hands now, sir,” Retief called. “I suggest you stay out of sight of any colonist who may have settled in down below. I have an idea they’ll be a little trigger happy when they discover their police force is stranded on the reef, and a dangling diplomat will make a tempting target.”
* * * *
The southwest breeze bore Retief along at a brisk twenty-mile-per-hour clip. He twisted the buoyancy control lever both ways, to no avail. The landscape dwindled away below him, a vast spread of soft aquamarine hills.
From this height, immense herds of creatures were visible, ranging in color from pale blue to deep grape-juice. They appeared, Retief noted, to be converging on a point not far from the base of the coral reef, where a number of black dots might have been small structures. Then the view was obscured, first by whipping streamers of fog, then by a dense, wet mist which enveloped him like a cool, refreshing Turkish bath.
For ten minutes he swirled blindly upward; then watery sunshine penetrated, lighting the vapor to a golden glow; a moment later he burst through into brilliance. A deep blue sky arched above the blinding white cloud-plain. Squinting against the glare, he saw a misty shape of pale green projecting above the clouds at a distance he estimated at five miles. Using steering jets, he headed for it.
Fifteen minutes later, he was close enough to make out thick, glossy yellow columns, supporting masses of chartreuse foliage. Closer, the verdure resolved into clusters of leaves the size of tablecloths, among which gaudy blossoms shone scarlet.
In the leafy depths, the sun striking down from zenith was filtered to a deep green-gold gloom. Retief maneuvered toward a sturdy-looking branch, only at the last moment saw the yard-long thorns concealed in the shadow of the spreading leaves. He ducked, twisted aside from the savage stab of a needle-point, heard the rip and kerpow! as his gasbag burst, impaled; then he slammed hard against a thigh-thick, glass-smooth branch, grabbed with both hands and both legs, and braked to a halt inches from an upthrust dagger of horny wood.
* * * *
All around, life swarmed, humming, buzzing, chattering in a hundred oddly euphonious keys. There were fluffy, spherical bird-things in vivid colors; darting scaled runners like jeweled ferrets; swarms of tiny golden four-winged butterflies. Once something hooted, far away, and for a moment the chorus was stilled to resume a moment later.
Looking down, Retief could see nothing but level after level of leafy branches, blotting out the swirling clouds two hundred feet below. The ground, he estimated, was a mile and a half farther—not what could be described as an easy climb. Still, it looked like the only way. He divested himself of the ruined altitude harness, picked a route and started down.
Retief had covered no more than fifty feet when a sudden flurry of motion caught his eye through the foliage. A moment later, a clump of leaves leaned aside, pushed by a gust of wind, to reveal a bulky, ghost-pale creature, its body covered with short white bristles, its head a flattened spheroid. Its multiple shiny black limbs threshed wildly against the restraint of a web of silky, scarlet threads, stretched between limbs in an intricate spiral pattern. A flat pouch, secured by a flat strap, bobbed against the trapped creature’s side. The web, Retief saw, was constructed at the very tip of a pair of long boughs which leaned in a deep curve under the weight of the victim—and of something else.
Peering into the shadows, he saw a foot-long claw like a pair of oversized garden shears poised in the air two feet from the trapped being. Then he noted that the claw was attached to an arm like a six-foot length of stainless steel pipe, which was attached in turn, to a body encased in silvery-blue armor plate, almost invisible in the leafy gloom.
As Retief watched, the arm lunged, sheared through a cluster of awning-sized leaves, snipped off a tuft of stiff white hairs as the snared one made a desperate bound sideways. The aggressor, it appeared, had advanced as far along the fragile support as possible; but it was only a matter of time until the murderous pincer connected with its target.
Retief checked his pockets, produced a pocket knife with a two-inch blade, useful chiefly for cutting the tips from hand-rolled Jorgensen cigars. He used it to saw through a half-inch thick vine drooping near him. He coiled the rope over his shoulder and started back up.
* * * *
IV
From a branch far above, Retief peered down through the leafy shadows at the twelve-foot monstrosity that was clinging head down from a six-inch stem. The predator had stretched itself out to its utmost length in its efforts to reach the victim trapped below.
Retief slid down to a crouch within touching distance of the monster’s main hind leg, He flipped out the lariat he had fashioned hastily from the length of pliable vine, passed its end under the massive ankle joint, whipped it quickly into a slip knot which would tighten under pressure. He tied the other end of the rope to a sturdy bole at his back, pulling it up just short of taut. Then he slid around the trunk and headed back for the scene of the action, paying out a second rope, the end of which was secured to a stout limb.
The trapped creature, huddled at the extreme extent of the rein given it by the binding strands of silk, saw Retief, gave a convulsive bound which triggered another snap of the claw.
“Stand pat,” Retief called softly. “I’ll try to distract his attention.” He stepped out on a slender branch, which sagged but held. Holding the end of the rope in his free hand, he made his way to within ten feet of the web.
Above, the claw-creature, sensing movement nearby, poked out a glittering eye at the end of a two-foot rod, studied Retief from a distance of five yards. Retief watched the claw, which hovered indecisively ready to strike in either direction.
A baseball-sized fruit was growing within easy reach. Retief plucked it, took aim, and pitched it at the eye. It struck and burst, spattering the surrounding foliage with a sticky yellow goo and an odor of overripe melon. Quick as thought, the claw struck out straight at Retief as he jumped, gripping the vine, and swung in a graceful Tarzan-style arc across toward a handy landing platform thirty feet distant. The armoured meat-eater, thwarted, lunged vainly after him. The sudden strain on the behemoth’s overextended grip was too much. There was a noisy rasping of metal-hard hooks against wood, a frantic shaking of branches; then the barrel-shaped body came crashing down—and snapped to a halt with a tremendous jerk as the rope lashed to its leg came up short.
Retief, safely lodged in his new platform, caught a momentary glimpse of an open mouth lined with ranks of multipronged teeth. Then, with a sharp zong! the rope supporting the monster parted. The apparition dropped away, smashing its way downward with a series of progressively fainter concussions until it was lost in the depths below.
* * * *
The bristled Zoonite sagged heavily in the net, watching Retief with a row of shiny eyes like pink shirt buttons as he sawed through the strands of the web with his pocket knife. Freed, it dipped into its hip-pouch with a four-fingered hand encased in a glove, ornamented with polished, inch-long talons, brought out a small cylinder which it raised to its middle eye.
“Hrikk,” it said in a soft rasp. A mouth like Jack Pumpkin-head gaped in an unreadable expression. There was a bright flash which made a green after-image dance on Relief’s retina. The alien dropped the object back in the pouch, took out a second artifact resembling a foot-long harmonica, which it adjusted on a loop around its neck. At once, it emitted a series of bleeps, toots and deep, resonant thrums, then looked at Retief in a way which seemed expectant.
“If I’m not mistaken, that’s a Groaci electronic translator,” Retief said. “Trade goods like the camera, I presume?”
“Correct,” the device interpreted the small alien’s rasping tones. “By George, it works!”
“The Groaci are second to none, when it comes to miniaturized electronics and real-estate acquisition,” Retief said.
“Real estate?” the Zoonite inquired with a rising inflection.
“Planetary surfaces,” Retief explained.
“Oh, that. Yes, I’d heard they’d settled in down below. No doubt a pregermination trauma’s at the root of the matter. But, every being to his own form of self-destruction, as Zerd so succinctly put it before he dissolved himself in fuming nitric acid.” The alien’s button eyes roved over Retief. “Though I must say your own death-wish takes a curious form.”
“Oh?”
“Teasing a vine-jack for a starter,” the Zoonite amplified. “That’s dangerous, you know. The claw can snip through six inches of gilv as though it were a zoob-patty.”
“Actually, I got the impression the thing was after you,” Retief said.
“Oh, it was, it was. Almost got me, too. Hardly worth the effort. I’d make a disappointing meal.” The Zoonite fingered its translator, the decorative claws clicking tinnily on the shiny plastic. “Am I to understand you came to my rescue intentionally?” it said.
* * * *
Retief nodded.
“Whatever for?”
“On the theory that one intelligent being should keep another from being eaten alive, whenever he conveniently can.”
“Hmmm. A curious concept. And now I suppose you expect me to reciprocate?”
“If it doesn’t inconvenience you,” Retief replied.
“But you look so, so edible…” Without warning, one of the alien’s ebon legs flashed out, talons spread, in a vicious kick. It was a fast stroke, but Retief was faster; shifting his weight slightly, he intercepted the other’s shin with the edge of his shoe, eliciting a sharp report. The Zooner yelped, simultaneously lashed out, left-right, with a pair of arms—to meet painful interceptions as Retief struck upward at one with the edge of his hand, down at the other. In the next instant, a small hand gun was pressing into the alien’s paunch-bristles.
“We Terries are handy at small manufacturing, too,” Retief said easily. “This item is called a crater gun. You’ll understand why when you’ve seen it fired.”
“… but appearances can be so deceiving,” the Zoonite finished its interrupted sentence, wringing its numbed limbs.
“A natural mistake,” Retief commiserated. “Still, I’m sure you wouldn’t have found me any more nourishing than the vine-jack would have found you. Incompatible body chemistry, you know.”
“Yes. Well, in that case, I may as well be off.” The Zooner backed a step.
“Before you go,” Retief suggested, “there are some matters we might discuss to our mutual profit.”
“Oh? What, for example? “
“The invasion of Zoon, for one. And ways and means of getting back down to Zoona Firma for another.”
“You are a compulsive. And it’s a highly channelized neurosis: A vine-jack or my humble self won’t do; it has to be the hard way.”
“I’m afraid your translator is out of adjustment,” Retief said. “That doesn’t seem to mean anything.”
“I find your oblique approach a trifle puzzling, too,” the alien confided. “I sense that you’re trying to tell me something, but I can’t for the life of me guess what it might be. Suppose we go along to my place for an aperitif, and possibly we can enlighten each other. By the way, I’m known as Qoj, the Ready Biter.”
“I’m Retief, the Occasional Indulger,” the Terran said. “Lead the way, Qoj, and I’ll do my best to follow.”
* * * *
V
It was a breathtaking thirty-minute journey through the towering tree tops. The alien progressed by long, curiously dreamlike leaps from one precarious rest to another, while Retief made his way as rapidly as possible along interlacing branches and bridges of tangled vine, keenly aware of the bottomless chasm yawning below.
The trip ended at a hundred-foot spherical space where the growth had been cleared back to create a shady, greenlit cavern. Bowers and leafy balconies were nestled around its periphery; tiny, fragile-looking terraces hung by one or more limbs from festooning vines, fronds.
There were several dozen Zooners in sight, some lounging on the platforms or perched in stem-mounted chairs which swayed dizzyingly to the light breeze; others sailed gracefully from one roost to another, while a few hung by one or more limbs from festooning vines, apparently sleeping.
“I’ll introduce you around,” the Zooner said. “Otherwise the fellows will be taking experimental cracks at you and getting themselves hurt. I’m against that, because an injured Zooner is inclined to be disagreeable company.” He flipped a switch on the translator and emitted a sharp cry. Zooner heads turned. Qoj spieled off a short speech, waved a hand at Retief, who inclined his head courteously. The locals eyed the Terran incuriously, went back to their previous activities. Qoj indicated a tiny table mounted atop a ten-foot rod, around which three small seats were arranged, similarly positioned.
Retief hastily scaled the support, took up his seat like a flagpole sitter. Qoj settled in opposite him, the stem quivering and swaying under his weight. He whistled shrilly, and a black-spotted gray creature came sailing in a broad leap, took orders, bounded away, returned in a moment with aromatic flagons.
* * * *
“Ah.” Qoj leaned back comfortably with two pairs of legs crossed. “Nothing like a little bottled Nirvana, eh?” He lifted his flask and poured the contents in past a row of pronged teeth, rivaling those of the vine-jack.
“Quite an interesting place you have here.” Retief unobtrusively sniffed his drink, sampled it. The fluid evaporated instantly on his tongue, leaving a fruity aroma.
“It’s well enough, I suppose,” Qoj assented, “under the circumstances.”
“What circumstances are those?”
“Not enough to eat. Too many predators—like that fellow you dispatched. Cramped environment—no place to go. And of course, cut off as we are from raw materials, no hope for technological advancement. Let’s face it, Retief: we’re up the tree without a paddle.”
Retief watched a bulky Zooner sail past in one of the feather-light leaps characteristic of the creatures.
“Speaking of technology,” he said. “How do you manage that trick?”
“What trick?”
“You must weigh three hundred pounds—but when you want to, you float like a dandelion seed.”
“Oh, that. Just an inherent knack, I guess you’d call it. Even our spore-pods have it; otherwise, they’d smash when they hit the ground. It’s not much good for anything but short hops, you know.”
“Organic antigravity,” Retief said admiringly. “Or perhaps teleportation would be a better name.”
“The gland responds to mental impulses,” Qoj said. “Fortunately, our young have no mentality to speak of, so they’re grounded. Otherwise we’d never have a moment’s peace.”
He tossed another shot down his throat, lounging back in his chair as it swayed past Retief, rebounded to swing in the opposite direction, while Retief’s perch waved in gentle counterpoint, a motion which tended to cross the eyes and bring a light sweat to the forehead.
“Oh, I wondered why there were no little ones gamboling about your doorstep,” Retief said.
“Doorstep?” Qoj jerked upright and stared in alarm towards the shaded entrance to his bower. “Great slavering jaws, Retief, don’t give me a start like that! The little monsters are down on the surface where they belong!”
“Unattended?”
Qoj shuddered. “I suppose we really ought to be doing something about them, but frankly—it’s too dangerous.”
* * * *
Retief raised an eyebrow in polite inquiry.
“Why, the little fiends would strip the very crust off the planet if they weren’t able to assuage their voracity by eating each other.”
“So that’s why you don’t occupy the surface.”
“Um. If our ancestors hadn’t taken to the trees, we’d be extinct by now—devoured by our own offspring.”
“And I suppose your apparent indifference to the arrival of the Groaci is based on the same reasoning?”
“Feeding season’s about to begin,” Qoj said off-handedly. “Those fellows won’t last a day. Not much juice in them, though—at least not in the one I met”
“That would be the previous owner of the camera and the translator?”
“Correct. Interesting chap. He was buzzing about in an odd little contrivance with whirling vanes on top and ran afoul a loop of string-vine. My, wasn’t he full of plans.” The Zooner sipped his flask, musing.
“The Groaci, individually, don’t look like much, I’ll agree,” Retief said. “But they have a rather potent sub-nuclear arsenal at their command. And it appears they’re about to launch a general offensive against your young.”
“So? Maybe they’ll clear the little nuisances out. Then we can descend to the ground and start living like gentle-beings.”
“What about the future of the race?”
“That for the future of the race.” Qoj made a complicated gesture with obscure biological implications. “We’re only concerned about ourselves.”
“Still,” Retief countered, “you were young once.”
“If you’re going to be crude,” the Zooner said with inebriated dignity, “you may leave me.”
“Sure,” Retief said. “But before I go, would you mind describing these little fellows?”
“In shape, they’re not unlike us adults; they come in all sizes, from this—” Qoj held two taloned fingers an inch apart—”to this.” He indicated a yard and a half. “And of course, the baby fur. Ghastly blue fuzz a foot long.”
“Did you say…blue?”
“Blue.”
Retief nodded thoughtfully. “You know, Qoj, I think we have the basis for a cooperative understanding after all. If you’ll give me another five minutes of your time, I’ll explain it to you…”
* * * *
VI
Flanked by Qoj and another Zooner named Ornx the Eager Eater, Retief dropped down through the cloud layer, propelled by a softly hissing steering jet salvaged from his punctured lift harness.
“That’s it, dead ahead,” he pointed to the towering coral reef, rose-colored in the distance.
“Whee!” Qoj squealed with delight as he pulled up abreast of Retief with a shrill whistling of his borrowed jet. “Capital idea, Retief, these little squirt-bottles! You know, I never dreamed flying could be such fun! Always lived in dread of getting out of reach of a branch and just drifting aimlessly until one of the boys or some other predator got me. With these, a whole new dimension opens up! I can already detect a lessening of sibling rivalry drives and inverted Oedipus syndromes!”
“Don’t let your released tensions go to your head, Qoj,” Retief cautioned. “The Groaci may still take a little managing. You hang back while I go in to check the he of the land.”
Minutes later, Retief swept in above the convoluted surface of the coral peak. No Groaci were to be seen, but half a dozen Terrains were wandering aimlessly about their lofty prison. They ran forward with glad cries as Retief landed.
“Good show, my boy!” Colonel Smartfinger pumped his hand. “I knew you wouldn’t leave us stranded here! Those rascals Groaci commandeered our harnesses.”
“But—where are the reinforcements,” the political officer demanded, staring around. “Where’s the lighter? Where’s his excellency? Who are these creatures?” He eyed the Zooners, circling for a landing. “Where have you been, Retief?” He broke off, staring. “And where’s your harness?”
“I’ll tell you later.” Retief motioned the diplomats toward the deflated Groaci gasbag now draped limply across the rocks. “There’s no time to dally, I’m afraid. All aboard.”
“But— it’s punctured!” Smartfinger protested. “It certainly won’t fly, man!”
“It will when our new allies finish,” Retief diligently reassured the colonel.
The Zooners were already busy, bustling about the ersatz cloud, stuffing fistfuls of seed-pods inside. A corner of it stirred lazily, lifted to flap gently in the breeze. One side curled upwards, tugging gently.
“You know what to do,” Retief called to Qoj. “Don’t waste any time following me down.” He jumped into the air, thumbed the jet control wide open, and headed for the next stop at flank speed.
Two thirds of the way down the sheer wall of the coral reef, a small figure caught Retief’s eye, perched disconsolately in a crevice on the rock. He swung closer, saw the spindly shanks and five-eyed visage of a Groaci, his once-splendid raiment in tatters.
“Well, Field Marshal Shish,” he called. “What’s the matter, conditions down below not to your liking?”
“Ambassador Shish, if you please,” the castaway hissed in sorrowful Groaci. “To leave me in solitude, soft one; to have suffered enough.”
“Not nearly enough,” Retief contradicted. “However, all is not yet lost. I take it your valiant troops have encountered some sort of difficulty below?”
“The spawn of the pits fell upon us while I was in my bath,” the Groaci whispered, speaking Terrain now. “They snapped up a dozen of my chaps before I could spring from the tub of hot sand in which I had been luxuriating! I was fortunate to escape with my life! And then your shoddy Terran-made harness failed and dropped me here. Alack! Gone are the dreams of a pro-curatorship.”
“Maybe not.” Retief maneuvered in close, held out a hand. “I’ll give you a piggyback and explain how matters stand. Maybe you can still salvage something from the wreckage.”
Shish canted his eye-stalks. “Piggyback? Are you insane, Retief? Why, there’s nothing holding you up! How can it hold two of us?”
“Take it or leave it, Mr. Ambassador,” Retief said. “I have a tight schedule.”
“I’ll take it.” Shish gingerly swung his scrawny frame out and scrambled to a perch on Retief’s back, four of his eyes sphinctered tight shut. “But if I hadn’t already been contemplating suicide, nothing would have coaxed me to it.”
* * * *
VII
Five minutes later, Retief heard a hail. He dropped down, settled onto a narrow ledge beside the slight figure of Ambassador Oldtrick.
The senior diplomat had lost his natty beret, and there was a scratch on his cheek. His flight harness, its gasbag flat, hung on a point of rock behind him.
“What’s this? Who’s captured whom? Retief, are you… ?”
“Everything’s fine, your excellency,” Retief said soothingly. “I’ll just leave his Groacian excellency here with you. I’ve had a little talk with him, and he has something he wants to tell you. The staff will be along in a moment, to help out.”
“But—you can’t—” Oldtrick broke off as a dark shadow flitted across the rock. “Duck! It’s that confounded cloud back again!”
“It’s all right,” Retief called as he launched himself into space. “It’s on our side now.”
* * * *
At the long table in the main dining room aboard the heavy Corps transport which had been called in to assist in the repatriation of the Groaci Youth Scouts marooned on Zoon after the local fauna had devoured their ship and supplies, Magnan nudged Retief.
“Rather a surprising about-face on the part of Ambassador Shish,” he muttered. “When that fake cloud dumped us off on the rock ledge with him, I feared the worst.”
“I think he’d had a spiritual experience down below that made him see the light,” Retief suggested.
“Quite an equitable division of spheres of influence the ambassadors agreed on,” Magnan went on. “The Groaci seem quite pleased with the idea of erecting blast-proof barriers to restrain those ferocious little eaters to one half the planet, and acting as herdsmen over them, in return for the privilege of collecting their hair when they moult.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t sneak out a few pelts beforehand.” Colonel Smartfinger leaned to contribute. “Still, the Zooners don’t seem to mind, eh, Ornx?”
“No problem,” the Zooner said airily. “We’re glad to wink at a few little violations in return for free access to our own real estate.”
There was a sharp dinging as Ambassador Oldtrick rose and tapped his glass with his fork.
“Gentlemen—gentlebeings, I should say.” He smirked at the Groaci and Zooners seated along the board. “It’s my pleasure to announce the signing of the Terran-Zoon accord, under the terms of which we’ve been ceded all rights in the coral reef of our choice on which to place our chancery, well out of reach of those nasty little— that is, the untutored—I mean, er, playfully inclined…” He quailed under the combined glares of a dozen rows of pink eyes.
“If he brings those abominations into the conversation again, I’m walking out,” Qoj said loudly.
“So we’re going to be relegated to the top of that dreadful skyscraper?” Magnan groaned. “We’ll be commuting by patent gasbag.”
“Ah!” Oldtrick brightened, glad of a change of subject “I couldn’t help overhearing your remark, Magnan. And I’m pleased to announce that I have just this afternoon developed a startling new improvement to my flight harness. Observe!” All eyes were on the ambassador as he rose gently into the air, hung, beaming from a height of six feet.
“I should mention that I had some assistance from Mr. Retief in, ah, working out some of the technicalities,” he murmured as the Terrans crowded around, competing for the privilege of offering their congratulations.
“Heavens! And he’s not even wearing a balloon!” Magnan gasped. “How do you suppose he does it?”
“Easy,” Qoj grunted. “He’s got a pocketful of prize-quality Zooner spore-pods.”
* * * *
Beside him, Ambassador Shish gave an annoyed hiss. “Somehow, I can’t escape the conviction that we Groaci have been had again.” He rose, leaving the room.
“Hmph,” Magnan sniffed. “He got what he wanted, didn’t he?”
“True,” Retief said, rising. “But it’s some people’s ill luck to always want the wrong thing.”