Retief at Large (37 page)

            "Now,
don't be hasty, Mr. Minister," Rainsinger persisted. "I'm prepared to
promise you prompt shipment of any items you care to' name. What about a nice
line of genuine machine-loomed antimacassars, inscribed with patriotic and
inspirational mottos? I can make you an attractive price on lots of a hundred
thousand."

            Sir
Frederik shook his flat head sadly. "Items luxury afford can't we,
bringing nuts-berps prices the at— nix!"

            Rainsinger
took the minister's elbow in a fatherly grip. "Now, Freddy ..."

            "It's
no use, sir," Magnan interposed glumly. "Lord knows I've tried. But
they're incurably content. They already have everything they want."

            "That's
enough of your defeatism," Rainsinger snapped. "You'd best be on your
way, and take Mr. Retief with you. I'll pitch in myself, as soon as I've given
a few more instructions. We have a great deal of ground to cover if we're to be
ready to receive our guests in four and a half hours!"

            "Well,
Magnan," Rainsinger complacently surveyed the chattering conversational
groups of Slunchans and Terrans dotted across the gleaming ballroom floor,
newly ornamented along one wall by a tasteful display of engraved headstones
and funerary urns. "I must say we've acquitted ourselves creditably. And
I've taken measures to insure conditions don't deteriorate again." He
lifted a glass from a passing tray borne by a Slunchan who limped heavily.

            "Hmmm.
Chap seems to have a cast on his foot," the Inspector remarked.
"Couldn't you have secured able-bodied personnel to staff the catering
function, Magnan?"

            "He's
not actually injured, sir," Magnan said. "He just happened to step in
some, er, material."

            "Say,
isn't that a lump of powdered tombstone adhering to his foot?" Rainsinger
demanded suspiciously. "I hope you haven't handled my cargo
carelessly!"

            "Say,
when are the sandwiches coming?" the stout attache inquired testily.

            "Ah,
here comes the premier," Magnan cut in as a loose-hided local approached,
rotating a hula-hoop with his torso. "Hi, there, your Excellency. May I
present Mr. Rainsinger our new, er, ah. Sir, Mr. Blabghug, the leader of the
Slunchan people in their fight against, ah, whatever it is they're fighting
against."

            Rainsinger
nodded curtly, eyeing the muddy tracks across the floor left by the chief
executive. "See here, Blabghug," he said in a no-nonsense tone.
"I'd like to request that you have your people step up the street-cleaning
program. Those pavements are a gift of the Terrestrial taxpayer."

            "Too,
was it gesture nice a and," Blabghug acknowledged cheerfully. "Them
see to get never we bad too."

            "Yes.
My point exactly. Now, Mr. Prime Minister; I've been here for only five hours,
but I've already gotten a firm grasp of the situation and I see what the source
of our problem is. Once we've cleared up the more active vermin—"

            "Vermin
what?"

            "That
little monster, for one!" Rainsinger nodded sharply toward an inquisitive
rodentoid nose poking around the nearest door.

            "Kidding
be must you," Blabghug said. "Rats-vine the for wasn't it if—"

            "As
soon as we've completed dusting with fast-acting pesticides, we'll see no more
of the creatures," Rainsinger bored on. "Meanwhile, a few zillion
tons of weed killer will control these man-eating vines you've been tolerating
so complacently."

            "About
talking you're what know don't you," Blabghug protested.

            "I
know how to conduct a clean-up campaign!" Rainsinger came back hotly.
"This state of affairs is an insult to the Slunchan people and a
reflection on the Terran Consulate! I've already set wheels in motion—"

            He
broke off as a low rumble tinkled the newly polished glass of the chandelier. A
deep-throated
ba-rooom!
sounded, like a distant cannonade, followed by a
vast, glutinous
smooosh!

           
Magnan glanced at his watch.
"Right on time," he said.

            The
Slunchan premier cocked his head thoughtfully. "Usual than fluid more
little a sounds that," he commented. "High early an for ready get
better we'd."

            "What
the devil's he saying, Magnan?" Rainsinger muttered in an aside. "I
can't make out one word in three."

            "High
mud in a few minutes," Magnan translated, as a second shock rocked the
ballroom. A heavy splattering sounded, as of moist material raining against the
building.

            "Up
button to time, oh-oh," Blabghug warned. He stepped to the nearest window
and slammed shut a set of improvised shutters.

            "What's
this, Mr. Retief?" Rainsinger inquired. "Some sort of religious
observation? Tribal taboo sort of thing?"

            "No,
it's just to keep the worst of the soot and mud out of the building during the
eruption."

            "What's
this about an eruption?"

            "It's
a sort of mud geyser. Shoots a few million tons of glop into the air every
twenty-seven hours."

            Rainsinger
blinked. "A million tons of glop?"

            A
third, even more vigorous tremor caused the ballroom to sway drunkenly.
Rainsinger braced his feet, thrust out his chin, glared at Magnan, who was
staring anxiously toward the door.

            "Glop
or no glop, this is an official diplomatic function, gentlemen! We'll carry on,
and ignore the disturbance!"

            "Frankly,
I don't like the sound of that mud, sir." Magnan turned to the window,
peered through a crack in the shutter.

            "No
doubt the consulate has weathered such conditions before," Rainsinger said
uncertainly. "No reason why ..."

            His
voice was drowned by an ominously rising bubbling sound swelling outside. At
the window, Magnan emitted a sharp yelp, leaped back as something struck the
side of the building with an impact like a tidal wave. Jets of ink-black mud
squirted into the room like fire hoses through every cranny around the
shutters. One stream caught Rainsinger full in the flowered weskit, almost
knocked him down.

            "One
bad a is this!" Blabghug called over the hissing and splattering.
"Look a have and roof the for head better we'd think I!"

            "He's
right, sir!" Magnan raised his voice. "This way!" He led the
excited party along a hall, up a stair splattered with steaming mud from a
shattered window on the landing. Emerging on the roof, Rainsinger ducked as a
head-sized cinder slammed down beside him, bounded high and disappeared over
the side. A rain of mud splattered down around them. The air was thick with
tarry soot. Coughing, Rainsinger hastily donned the breathing mask offered by
Magnan.

            "This
must be the worst disaster ever recorded here," he shouted over the
groaning and squishing of the mud welling along the street below them.

            "No,
actually, by the sound of it, it's a rather mild one, as eruptions go,"
Retief leaned close to shout. "But the mud seems to be running wild."

            "There
look!" Blabghug shouted, pointing. "Seven-sixty in back made mark
mud-high record the over it's!"

            "There's
something wrong," Retief called over the still-rising roar of the flowing
mud. "The tide's not acting normally. Too fluid—and too much of it."

            "Why
on Slunch, with an entire planet to choose from, was the town situated in a
disaster area?" Rainsinger frowned ferociously as sounds of massive
gurglings and sloshing sounded from below.

            "It
appears this was one of the rush jobs," Magnan called. "The entire
city was erected in four days which happened to be during a seasonal lull in
the underground coolery."

            "See
here, Magnan, why didn't you report the situation?"

            "I
did. As I recall, my dispatch ran to three hundred and four pages!"

            "A
three hundred page dispatch? And nothing was done?"

            "We
received a consignment of twelve brooms, six dust-pans and a gross of mops.
They must have been overstocked on mops back at Sector."

            "And
that's
all?"
Rainsinger's voice almost cracked.

            "I
think that's about as far as Headquarters could go without admitting a mistake
had been made." Across the street, the swelling, bubbling surface of the
mud flow was rising past the first row of windows. Shutters creaked and burst
inward. Refugees were crowding onto roofs all along the streets now. Retief
stepped to the edge of the roof, looked down at the heaving bosom of the sea of
mud, dotted with small, sodden forms, floating inertly. A great mass of dead
creeper vine came sweeping along on the flood. A tongue of mud sluicing in from
a side street struck a wall, sent a great gout thundering upward to descend on
the crowded consulate roof. Diplomats and locals alike yelped and slapped at
the hot, corrosive muck.

            "Look
there!" Magnan pointed to the feebly struggling body of a large vine-rat,
which gave a final twitch and expired.

            "Trouble
in we're, oh-oh!" Premier Blabghug exclaimed, as other Slunchans gathered
about, talking rapidly.

            "Why
all the excitement about a dead animal?" Rainsinger barked.

            "It's
a vine-rat," Magnan blurted. "What could have killed it?"

            "I
imagine the vigorous application of pest-killer I ordered had something to do
with it," the inspector snapped. "I suggest we defer grieving over
the beggar until after we've taken steps to extricate ourselves from this
situation!"

            "You
... you ordered
what?"
Magnan quavered.

            "Ten
tons of rodenticide, from your own consulate stores," Rainsinger said
firmly. "I don't wonder you're astonished at the speed with which I went
into action—"

            "You
... you didn't!"

            "Indeed
I did, sir! Now stop goggling at a purely routine display of efficiency, and
let's determine what we're to do about this mud."

            "But—"
Magnan wailed. "If you killed off the vine-rats—that means the
creeper-vine was allowed to grow all afternoon, uncontrolled—"

            "Uncontrolled?"

            "By
the rats," Magnan groaned. "So the vines got the upper hand over the
grab-grass—and it's the grass, of course, which suppresses the
tangleworms—"

            "Tangleworms?"

            "And
the young worms eat the egg-nit grubs," Magnan yelped. "The egg-nits
being the only thing that keeps the firebugs under control—though of course the
vine-rats need them for protein in the diet; while their droppings nourish the
sneak weed which provides a haven for the nit-mites which prey on the
mud-crabs—"

            "Here,
what's all this nonsense!" Rainsinger roared over the roar of the rising
mud-flood. "You'd chatter on about the local wildlife, with disaster
lapping at our ankles?"

            "That's
what I've been trying tell you!" Magnan's voice broke. "With the
ecological cycle broken, there's nothing to control the mud! That's why it's
rising! And in another hour it will be up over roof level and that—" he
shuddered—"will be a very sticky ending for all of us!"