The Return of Retief Read Online Free Page A

Secretary.
His thin, narrow shoulders shuddered as his gaze darted along the silent avenue
which thirty thousand years (standard) before had echoed to the tread of
victorious legions.
     
                "Cripes,
Ben," muttered Hy Felix, the Information Service Attache. "Can't you
just say the joint gives you the creeps just like it does everybody, without
making it sound like a bailout clause in a treaty?"
     
                "This,
gentlemen," Career Ambassador Sidesaddle rebuked sternly, "is not the
time for creeps, faced as we are with an awkward negotiation with a de facto invader of Terrestrial space."
     
                "What's
so awkward about it, Mr. Ambassador?" inquired Colonel Trenchfoot, the
newly-assigned Military Attache, with only a touch of his well-known
irascibility. "All we have to do is tell 'em to scram, right?"
     
                The
Ambassador turned on the colonel a look of Restrained Impatience (621-C), not
unmixed with Greatness Sorely Tried (623-N). "That, my dear Colonel,"
he said coolly, "is hardly the diplomatic spirit, if I may say so. Perhaps
you've not yet had time to read through the orientation binder, providing as it
does the background to the present conference to which we've been
summoned." The great man glanced at his watch, then up at the classical
stainless steel facade which graced the ground-level entry, where two Marines
in dress blues stood at parade rest.
     
                "Sure,
Chief, I read all that jazz," the colonel replied testily. "I still
say if we run a bluff on them they'll fold like a three-card flush to a
hundred-C raise."
     
                "The
allusion, one assumes," Sidesaddle returned coldly, "is to some
ruffianly game of chance, which is precisely the diametrical opposite of the
scientifically exact approach of enlightened diplomacy, which alone proffers
hope of an equitable accommodation with the insidious Ree."
     
                "Give
these suckers an inch and they'll take a couple of lights," the colonel
said stubbornly garbled (37-M).
     
                "Your
37 requires work, Trenchfoot," His Excellency rebuked mildly. "I
suggest you supplement your other professional reading with a re-perusal of the
handbook Alien Organ Clusters and How to Read Them, I believe it's
titled."
     
                "Unless
the rot runs even deeper than the rumors have it," the military man
responded doggedly, "there's no aliens in HQ for me to read their organ
clusters."
     
                "Wait'll
you meet some of these headquarters types, Stan," Information Attache
Felix put in. "Maybe the rumors ain't so far off after all," a remark
which netted him a frigid stare from the Ambassador. Before the situation could
deteriorate further, the eerie silence was broken by a distant whining as of a
giant and ill-tempered hornet, followed a moment later by a boom! which
dislodged a number of tiles from the facades along the avenue to fall and
shatter on the paving below. Immediately thereafter, a grotesque atmosphere
craft of clearly alien design darted into view from behind the clustered towers
and braked sharply to overfly the street on a strafing run.
     
                "Gentlemen,"
Ambassador Sidesaddle intoned, over the chatter of bore-guns, "it appears
we are witness to a breach of diplomatic etiquette of the grossest
description." His pronouncement fell on empty air, however, since his
colleagues were by this time halfway to the shadowy entry; noting which,
Sidesaddle himself broke into a heavy trot toward shelter.
     
                "Gracious,
Mr. Ambassador!" Magnan burbled, as his chief arrived to take shelter
between the two Marines, now standing at rigid attention. "That was a near
thing! I do admire the way your Excellency stood your ground until the
bullets were practically ripping up the pavement at your feet—but wasn't it
just the teensiest bit