Retief at Large (15 page)

            "As
a newcomer, perhaps you've noticed certain ... oh ... irregularities in our
little organization here." Four of his eyes studied different corners of
the room. Retief said nothing.

            "I
wished merely to caution you: It would be unwise to evince excessive curiosity
..."

            Retief
waited. The tower leaned to the steady pressure of the rising gale. The floor
slanted. Consul-General Dools clung to a desk, his throat-sacs vibrating.

            "There
are many ways," he started, "in which accidents could befall one
here."

            The
floor sagged, rose abruptly. Dools gulped, threw Retief a last despairing
glance and fled as Wimperton came in, still muttering. He looked after the
departing Groaci.

            "Consul-General
Dools isn't a very good sailor," he commented. "Of course, in the
week you've been here, you haven't seen a real blow yet—"

            The
native peddler poked his round head through the door hanging, padded across the
room oh large, bare webbed feet and paused before Retief.

            "You
want um basket?" The round, amber-and-olive patterned face gazed hopefully
at him.

            "I'll
take that one," Retief said in the native language, pointing.

            The
wide lipless mouth stretched wide in the local equivalent of a delighted grin.

            "A
sale! I was beginning to think you High-Pockets—excuse me, sir—you Terries were
tighter than weed-ticks in a belly-button." He lowered his wares,
extracted the basket.

            "You
shouldn't encourage him," Wimperton said snappishly. "For months I've
been indoctrinating him to bring in some gold nuggets. The land-masses are
practically solid with them—but no, they build their town on a raft of seaweed
in mid-ocean and weave _ baskets!"

            "They
evolved in the weed," Retief said mildly. "And if they lifted the
embargo on gold, in six months the planet would be swarming with prospectors,
dumping their tailings into the ocean. They like it the way it is."

            The
Poon caught Retief's eyes, jerked his head toward the doorway, then ducked out
through the door hanging.

            Retief
waited half a minute, then rose lazily and stepped out on the wide observation
deck.

            AH
around, lesser towers, intricately patterned, rose from the miles-long mat of
yellow-green seaweed far below, moving restlessly with the long ocean swells.
Sea fowl with weed-colored backs and sky-blue undersides wheeled and screamed.
Between the swaying pinnacles, a spiderweb complex of catwalks swung in
hundred-yard festoons. A continuous creaking of rattan filled the air. Far
away, the white-flecked surface of the open sea was visible.

            Retief
crossed to where the Poon waited by the stairwell entry.

            "You
seem like a good fellow," the peddler said as Retief came up. "So
I'll give you some free advice." He glanced around at the color-drenched
sky. "There'll be a Big Blow tonight. Get down below— don't waste any
time." He hitched at his load of baskets and turned to the stairs.
"And don't bother to tell those clowns." He jerked his head toward
the Consular offices. "They're bad medicine." He bobbed his head and
was gone.

            Retief
threw a sharp glance at the clouds, got out a cigar and lit up, turned from the
rail.

            A
tall, broad-shouldered man in a somber uniform stood by the catwalk mouth,
looking Retief over. He came across the close-woven deck and thrust out a
large, well-tanned hand.

            "My
name's Klamper, Planetary Monitor Service. I guess you're the new man."

            Retief
nodded.

            "Let
me give you some advice. Watch out for the natives. They're sly, tricky
devils." He paused. "You were talking to one just now. Don't let him
lure you into going down into the native quarter. Nothing down there but
natives and dark holes to fall into. A helluva place for a Terry. Knifings,
poisonings—nothing there worth climbing down thirty flights of wicker steps to
look at."

            Retief
puffed at his dope stick. The wind swirled the smoke away.

            "Sounds
interesting," he said. "I'll think it over."

            "Plenty
to do right up here in the Consulate tower," Klamper said. "I guess
you've seen the Tri-D tank—a twenty-footer—and the sublimation chamber. And
there's a pretty good auto-banquet. And don't overlook the library. They've got
a few dandy sense-tapes there; I confiscated them from a Joy-boat in a twelve
mile orbit off Callisto last year." The constable got out a dopestick and
cocked an eye at Retief. "What do you think of your Groaci boss,
Consul-General Jack Dools?"

            "I
haven't seen much of him. He's been seasick ever since I got here."

            "First
time I ever ran into a Groaci in the CDT," Klamper said. "A
naturalized Terry, I hear. Well, maybe he hasn't got all five eyes on an
angle—but I'd say watch him." Klamper hitched up his gun belt. "Well,
I'll be shoving off." He glanced at the stormy sky. "Looks like I've
got a busy night ahead."

            Retief
stepped back into the office. A small, round man with pale hair and eyebrows
looked up from the chair by Wimperton's desk.

            "Oh."
Wimperton blinked at Retief. "I thought you'd gone for the day." He
folded a sheaf of papers hurriedly, snapped a rubber band around them, turned
and dropped them in the drawer of the filing cabinet.

            Wimperton
rose. "Well, I'll be nipping along to Dorm Tower, I believe, before the
wind gets any worse. This breeze is nothing to what we get sometimes. I'd
suggest you take care crossing the catwalk, Retief. It can be dangerous. In a
cross-wind, it sets up a steady ripple." His limber hands demonstrated a
steady ripple. "Other times it seems to float up and down." He eyed
Retief. "I hope the motion isn't bothering you?"

            "I
like it," Retief said. "As a boy, I had a habit of eating candy
bars—you know, the sticky kind—while standing on my head on a
merry-go-round."

            Wimperton's
eyes stared fixedly at Retief. A fine sweat popped out on his forehead.

            "Feels
like it's building up, all right," Retief said genially. "Feel that
one?"

            A
distant, thoughtful look crept over Wimperton's face.

            "It's
good and hot in here, too," Retief went on. "And there's that slight
odor of fish, or octopus, or whatever it is ..."

            "Uh
... I'd better see to the goldfish," Wimperton gasped. He rushed away.

            Retief
turned to the round-faced man.

            "How
was your trip, Mr. Pird?"

            "Ghastly,"
Pird piped. His voice sounded like a rubber doll. "I visited continents
One and Two. Bare rock. No life higher than insects, but plenty of those.

            You
know, it never rains on Poon. All five continents are deserts, and the
heat—"

            "I
understood the Zoological Investigation and Liaison Council Headquarters had
financed a couple of wild-life census stations over there," Retief said.

            "To
be sure, facilities were provided by ZILCH but unhappily, no volunteers have
come forward to man them." Pird smiled sourly. "A pity.
Consul-General Dools has expressed a passionate interest in wildlife."
Pird grabbed at a paperweight as it slid across the desk-top. The walls
creaked; wind shrilled, flapping the door hanging. The floor heaved and settled
back. Pird swallowed, looking pale.

            "I
believe I'd best be going," he said, starting toward the door.

            "Hold
it," Retief called. Pird jerked. His eyes blinked.

            "Aren't
you going to warn me about anything?"

            Pird
stared for a moment, then scurried off.

            Alone,
Retief stood with braced feet in the Consular office, gloomy now in the eerie
light of the stormy sunset. He crossed to the filing cabinet, took a small
instrument from a leather case and went to work on the lock. After five
minutes' work, the top drawer popped out half an inch.

            Retief
pulled it open; it was empty. The second contained a dry sandwich and a small
green flask of blended whiskey. In the bottom drawer were four dogeared copies
of
Saucy Stories,
a prospectus in full-dimensional color illustrating Playtime
on Paradise, the Planet with a Past, glossy catalogs describing the latest in
two-seater sport helis and a fat document secured by a wide rubber band.

            Retief
extracted the latter and opened the stiff paper. It was an elaborately worded
legal instrument. In the fifth paragraph he read:

           
"...
whereas such body is otherwise uninhabited, unimproved, and subject to no prior
claim filed with the proper authorities as specified in paragraph 2 A
(3)
above,
and;

            Whereas
claimant has duly established, by personal occupancy for a period of not less
than six Standard Months, or by improvement to a value of ..."

           
Retief read on, then removed the
elaborately engraved cover sheet of the document, folded the rest and fitted it
into an inside pocket.

            Outside,
the wind rose to a howling crescendo; the floor shuddered; the walls tilted
precariously. Retief took a magazine from the drawer, fitted the document cover
over it, folded it and snapped the red rubber band in place, then replaced it
in the drawer and closed it. The lock seated with a snick. He left the
consulate and crossed the swaying catwalk to the next tower.

            Retief
stood in the doorway of his room, smoking a cigar. Pird, just starting down the
stairway, clucked. "Better hurry, sir. Everyone else has gone down. The
wind is rising very rapidly."

            "I'll
be along." Retief looked down the empty corridor, undulating in the dim
late-evening light, then went along to a curtain-hung doorway and stepped out
onto a wind-swept balcony. From it a swaying wicker catwalk launched itself in
a dizzy span to the Consulate Tower, a hundred yards distant.

            A
dim light winked on in the consular offices, moving about slowly. Retief
watched for a moment, then turned up the collar of his windbreaker and stepped
off into the dark tunnel of the wildly swinging passage. The gale buffeted at
it with a ferocity that had increased even in the quarter-hour he had spent in
the Dorm Tower. The sky had darkened to an ominous mauve, streaked with fiery
crimson. Below, lights sparkled all across the lower levels.

            The
last fifty feet of the crossing was a steep climb up the sagging catwalk.
Abruptly the catwalk dropped three feet and came to a stop with its floor
canted at a sharp angle. Retief steadied himself, then went on, climbing now.
Ten feet ahead, the yellow and blue hanging at the end of the passage was
visible. It moved. The slight figure of Consul Dools appeared for a moment,
wrapped in a dark poncho, then whisked back out of view.

            Retief
made another two yards against the bucking of the sloping passage. He could
hear a rasping now, a harsh sawing sound. A wedge of electric-purple sky
appeared through the wicker roof ahead. It widened ...

            With
an abrupt crackling of breaking fibers, the end of the catwalk broke free and
dropped like an express elevator. Retief locked his fingers in the twisted
rattan and held on. The face of the tower flashed past. Retief slid two feet
and caught himself with his torso half out the open end. Air shrieked past his
face. A foot from his eyes, the severed end of the supporting cable whipped in
the screaming wind—cut clean.