Reward for Retief Read Online Free PDF Page A

woods
available, and with our people scattered and being cut out and surrounded one
by one, we didn't stand a chance. Now they'll have to come to us, and perhaps
we can discourage them if we concentrate all able-bodied men, plus Miss Furkle,
at whatever point they start over the counter."
     
                "Possibly, Jim,"
the military attache conceded dubiously. "At least, it gives one a
breather. There were three of the beggars attempting to steal my insignae of rank,
simultaneously. Outrageous!" He waved aside the persistent gnats and
returned to his traffic-copping.
     
                Retief muttered 'excuse me',
and stepped around the indignant bird-colonel to seize by its straps a 'pillar'
which was struggling to retain a grip on Nat Sitzfleisch, the Econ officer, as
it withdrew across the barrier. When Retief hauled its forequarters back atop
the counter, it dropped Herb and devoted all its energies to resisting Retief's
efforts and to yelling "Help! I'm being savaged by this foreigner!"
     
                Retief lifted the creature's
front half and threw it back across the barricade, and at once was confronted
by another eager intruder. Behind him, Magnan wailed.
     
                "Gracious, where are
the police?"
     
                "Right here,
chum," a raspy pillar voice responded. Magnan whirled to see a local,
differing from the rest of the throng only in the large brass badge on a brass
chain draped around its upper torso.
     
                "You got some kinda
beef, outlander?" the cop inquired in a tone of Mild Curiosity, a feeble
31-c, Magnan judged.
     
                "I should think,
sir," he yelped over the din, "that would be obvious."
     
                "Well, it ain't,"
the cop replied. "I see this here throng of folks eager to get through the
routines and get going on their holiday junkets, which they're stalled by you
foreigners tryna play fort with official property here, which I got to write
you a citation. Which one is the wise guy?"
     
                "That one,"
Magnan supplied quickly, pointing at Retief, just as the latter threw back yet
another enthusiastic invader. "I told him—that is I would have
told him if I'd had the chance—not to do it."
     
                "Oh, you were in on it,
too," the cop muttered, before mumbling into his note-taking device, which
at once said urch! and disgorged a ticket in triplicate, the yellow copy
of which the cop handed over without apparent rancor.
     
                Hy Felix pushed through,
scenting a story.
     
                "What we got to do, Ben
..." he pontificated. "We got to like suck up to the friendlies,
which we're outnumbered ten to one."
     
                "B-but how can you tell
which are which?" Magnan wailed. "They never seem to change the scowl
on their faces," he went on, "so one can hardly know if they're being
affable or insufferable!"
     
                "They'll catch on to
the system in a few months," Hy guessed. "Look at the Grobies out on
Smurch Nineteen: they got faces like a slab o' rock, but they worked out the
system with the cheek-tendrils, so they could do a Phony Sincere Smile to Allay
Apprehensions of Inferior Species (679-A through W) with the best of 'em. Too
bad they developed a 41 (Fearsome Grimace Designed to Avert Attack) that you
couldn't tell from their 679, and used it on the next boatload o' Bogan
tourists come along, which the Grobies went extinct all of a sudden. Take this
fellow, now," he indicated the cop. "I'll show you how to sweeten him
up." He scuttled around to what he judged was the policeman's front side.
     
                "Hi, there,
officer," he began heartily. Then in an aside to Magnan, "They like
it when you call 'em 'officer,' on account of they're enlisted personnel and
nacherly it makes 'em feel good when the civilians think they're officers and
gentlemen and