Reward for Retief Read Free Page B

encouraging.
     
                "Well, sir, to take
down the Note and all," the colonel prompted his chief. "You know, I
said about getting off a fast apology and all."
     
                "Your fatuous proposal
was duly noted, Fred," Shortfall assured his military advisor. "But
may I enquire as to precisely what it is for which you propose I offer
expressions of regret and pleas for forgiveness?"
     
                "Sure, go ahead,"
Fred acceded cheerfully.
     
                "Oh, sir," Magnan
cut in diffidently. "I wonder, as the locals are about to attack us in
force, hadn't we better do something, instead of standing around
jawing?"
     
                " 'Jawing,'
Magnan?" Shortfall yelped. "As it happens, I am taking counsel of my
military expert as to precisely the appropriate steps to be taken to rectify
the unfortunate situation into which your isolationism has plunged us!
As for yourself, I assign you personal responsibility for ensuring that Mr.
Whatsis—Retief—is guilty of no further provocative acts!"
     
                "Gee, sir," Magnan
whined, "all he did was not get skulled with a locking-bar. That would
have been an Interplanetary Incident; and besides, it would probably have set
off this mob, which is at the point of exploding in a frenzy of
xenophobia!"
     
                " 'Xenophobia,'
Ben?" Shortfall echoed sadly. " 'Mob'? Really, you must do something
to curb or at least conceal your Isolationism, before I'm forced to take
official notice." He turned and spoke quietly to Euphronia Furkle, who had
belatedly taken her position to his left and slightly to the rear. She nodded
emphatically, shot Magnan a scathing glance, and muttered a note into her
recorder.
     
                "Sir," Magnan
spoke up desperately, "am I to understand that avoiding being brained is
Isolationism'? Excuse the expression."
     
                "No, Ben," the AE
and MP replied in a melancholy tone. "It's calling—and thinking of—this
carefree throng as a 'mob'. "
     
                "But, sir," Magnan
struggled on like a fly with five legs mired in flypaper, "this throng is
gathered awfully close around us, and they're shaking cargo-hooks and things at
us, and shooting us dirty looks and yelling unflattering epithets—so one can't
help feeling somewhat threatened."
     
                " 'Epithets',
Ben?" His Ex demanded. "I wasn't aware you'd audited the language, or
even that the language of this mystery world was known."
     
                "They're speaking a
rather old-fashioned dialect of Standard, sir," Magnan gasped out, shying
as a well-aimed dungtray whizzed past his head. "Didn't you notice, sir,
when you were meeting with the delegation who accepted your credentials?"
     
                "Never listen to the
admin chaps," Shortfall admitted. "Sign-language works better, and
there's less chance of committing myself to some unwise position by
inadvertance, like the time on Raunch 41 when Stan Hairshirt unwittingly
obligated the Corps to lift in two hundred shiploads of custom-made plastic
joss-houses under the impression he was accepting an invitation to tea."
     
                "A tragic end to a
great career," Magnan murmured.
     
                "And I'm not
interested in ending my career," Shortfall barked, "here in
this damned terminal, surrounded by a yelling, ah, throng, before I've even had
a chance to have my Exequatur framed!"
     
                "Sure not, sir,"
Magnan chirped. "Still, one has to do something, before it's too
late!"
     
                "Too late for what,
Magnan?" His Ex challenged, turning his back on the spectacle of his plump
Commercial attache, Herb Lunchwell, being pitched headfirst over the Health
counter. "Ben," he said sharply, "tell Herb he's not maintaining
the dignity expected of a senior staff officer of this Mission (horsing about