Reward for Retief Read Online Free PDF Page B

entire
staff, hisself, and Terran policy at this end of the Galaxy, the veteran
diplomatic pro would appear to the uninitiated to be as totally unconcerned as
if he didn't have a clue to what's going on. Folks, is that some kinda cool, or
what?" Hy concluded his dispatch and turned in time to fend off a grab by
an acquisitive Customs being intent on lifting his telephoto equipment.
     
                "Leave yer meat-hooks
offa my stuff," Hy commanded.
     
                "Hyman,"
Ambassador Shortfall cautioned. "Do mind your tone, lest these simple
people misinterpret your enthusiasm as hostility."
     
                "Enthusiasm?" Hy
echoed. "Which this crudbum is tryna swipe my Mark 19, which I've signed
fer it, and besides I'll need it to record those close-ups of the inoffensive
ladies and gents of the Embassy staff being throttled, or gutted, or otherwise
unlawfully kilt in the performance of our duties and all!"
     
                "Surely you exaggerate,
Hyman," Shortfall expostulated mildly. "Where's that Retief fellow? I
understood he was sometimes rather effective in pacifying throngs of this sort,
correcting misunderstandings and all that."
     
                "He's right here,
sir," Magnan supplied, indicating his subordinate who had now grabbed two
pillars at once; he hauled them close and threw them down across the counter on
their backs, and planted a foot on each one. He glanced up and caught Magnan's
eye.
     
                "Ben," he said,
"if you'll use your umbrella to poke the yellow spot on each of these
fellows ..." He indicated with his chin a sallow patch at the center of
the ranked shredding hooks.
     
                "What's that?"
Magnan yelped. "Poke them with my umbrella, you say?" He clutched his
rolled brolly to him as if to protect it from involvement in such goings-on.
     
                "Hurry, sir,"
Retief urged, "before it dawns on them that I can't hold both of them down
with a foot each and have anything left to stand on."
     
                As one hypnotized, Magnan
extended his weapon and in gingerly fashion poked one supine pillar, as
directed. The creature responded by rolling up into a two-foot sphere, which
Retief sent rolling with a well-placed kick. Astonished, Magnan poked the other
and looked about for new targets, as Retief sent the second tightly-curled
pillar after its partner.
     
                "Capital, Jim!" Magnan
cried. "Do arrange some more. Heavens, I'd no idea I was so formidable a
warrior, actually!"
     
                "Did you say 'warrior,'
or 'worrier,' Ben?" Felix inquired in his cynical fashion.
     
                "I realize, Hy,"
Magnan replied loftily, "that by your remark you intend to reflect
discredit on the latter activity. However, the role of constructive worrying in
the successful conduct of interplanetary affairs is not in so cavalier a
fashion to be dismissed."
     
                "Well, par me,
sir," Felix returned, still playing to a hypothetical grandstand. "If
that's how it is, you better get busy worrying our way out of this one; it was
bad enough having his Ex's 'throng' warming up to dismember us, but now you got
the cops on our back, too. So worry good, Ben. I'm pulling for you."
     
                "Your remarks,
Hyman," the Ambassador put in, "are uncalled-for. This is not a
matter for constructive or even creative worrying. This is a time for prompt,
effective action! Ben already has his instructions, you may inform the
Agency, should you survive this affair."
     
                "Yeah, Boss," Hy
acknowledged. "I heard the instructions: 'take the necessary action,' you
said. What's that supposed to mean?"
     
                "Calmly, Hyman,"
Shortfall admonished the agitated newsman. "Rest assured that the
Department requires no action of Agency personnel at this time."
     
                " 'Terran