Retief and the PanGalactic Pageant of Pulchritude Read Online Free PDF Page B

You're lucky they
can't use alien juices. That's one of our like grievances," he went on.
"Damn Glorbs—or their Groaci pals—could exterminate the yutz-bugs any
time—but they don't bother. Maybe old Zup didn't make such a neat deal after
all. Well, let's go see if we can pick up her trail. I lost it on the rock-flats—but
we oughta be able to find it on the sand if we quarter it pretty good."
                Retief
looked out across the sun-hazed expanse of wind-rippled dunes. "Let's try
the jungle first," he suggested.
                "No
offense, pal," Yong offered almost diffidently, "but you don't look
to me like you're designed for the desert work. Wanta ride? I wouldn't let no
Glorb set on me, but hell, we're in this together. We'd make better time,"
he added.
                Retief
accepted, and a moment later the constable was proceeding by twenty-foot bounds
toward the distant streak of green which marked the jungle's edge, the Terran
astride and gripping the shaggy mane.
                After
a five-minute gallop, they were in the grateful shade of the towering fung
trees, vine-draped patriarchs adorned with showy red-and-yellow blossoms the
size of dinnerplates. Retief dismounted and thanked his steed for the lift.
Yong nodded, his breathing hardly accelerated by the brisk run. "What we
gotta do, Retief," he offered, "we got to look out for slangs—some of
'em run twenty foot and bigger around than me. Got jaws can snap up a boar mump
in one bite, and got poison to boot. Nasty customers. Like to hang in the big
fungs and drop on a fellow. Could squash a little guy like you accidental
before he got a whiff and realized he couldn't digest you. Here, better let me
go first." As the Vang thrust past his Terran ally, Retief glanced up at a
scraping sound from the dark foliage above. He caught a glimpse of a sinuous
neck supporting a head with a mouth like a dragline bucket, set with yellow
fangs which dripped black venom. Then the head swooped, trailing an apparently
inexhaustible length of yard-thick neck, uncoiling from the darkness. The heavy
loops fell across Yong's back, staggering the powerful carnivore, then whipped
around him in a crushing embrace while the head hovered, alert for the
opportunity to dart in and inflict the fatal bite. As Yong screeched in pain
and shock, Retief made a sudden movement with his right hand, and was holding a
switch-blade poniard. He held it out to intercept a tarry glob of venom as it
fell from the slang's jaws. Then he took a step forward, arm outstretched to
intercept the attack. The knife sank to the hilt in the pale underside of the
slang's throat. At once, the stricken monster recoiled, threshing with a fury
that snapped off foot-thick boughs and tossed both Yong and Retief into the
underbrush. Yong was first to speak:
                "I
seen that, Retief, neatly done, for a foreigner. How'd you know the only way to
stop a slang is to knife him with his own venom?"
                "We
have a similar, though smaller creature back on Terra with a similar
sensitivity," the Terran explained. "And in any case, I didn't have
time to work out anything more sophisticated." He emerged from the tangle
of vines into which he had been tossed by the slang's death-struggle to see
Yong limp from cover, looking battered but intact.
                "Like
I said," the Vang commented calmly. "It don't pay to mess with a
slang. That was a big one," he added. "Lucky, in a way; a smaller
one'd struck first and broke up the bones after." He paused to rub
awkwardly at his chest with a forepaw.
                "Let
me take a look," Retief suggested. He went over and gently palpated the
big cat's side, eliciting a low moan of pain.
                "We'd
better get you back to the ship and see if our surgeon can tape you up,"
he suggested. "You've got at least three broken ribs there."
                Yong
turned to