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twisted his head to speak to Retief,
who had dismounted:
                "These
bums claim to be Customs Officers; claim they're looking for smuggled
zitz-weed. Prolly lying. They want to search you and Gertrude."
                "I
won't bother invoking diplomatic immunity," Retief concurred mildly.
"But I doubt if Gertie will sit still for any invasion of privacy."
                Yong
spoke briefly to the Glorbs in the glottal local trade tongue. One of the
Glorbs nodded and stepped forward. Retief raised his arms to be patted down
efficiently. The inspector paused and re-patted Retief's left side, then
roughly unzipped the access-slot and, groping over Retief's hip, encountered
his 1mm needler, which he unceremoniously jerked from its holster with an
exclamation.
                "Naughty,"
Retief commented, and plucked the weapon from the Glorb's grasp. "You said
zitz-weed, remember?" The Terran reminded his host. "In any case, the
side arm is part of the standard coverall, late early morning, fatigue, middle
three grades, for the use of. Just remember your manners, and maybe we won't
need to have an Interplanetary Incident."
                Yong
translated, somewhat garbling the part about the Interplanetary Incident. The
excited Glorb retired, rubbing his manipulatory members, to confer in heated
gabble with his associates.
                "You
handled that knot-head right," Yong told Retief. "Give these hick
cops an ulp and they'll take a yik."
                One
of the Glorbs went briskly to Gertrude, began his frisk, patting down the
tiger's sleek side. She wrinkled her nose and offered a rumbling growl. When
the inspector began exploring her neck, she shook him off impatiently, then
cuffed him aside, sending him skidding into the underbrush. The other Glorbs
rushed forward, and Gertie sent them spinning left and right.
                "I
ain't sure that was such a good idear, kid," Yong commented to Gertie, as
more Glorbs came boiling from the tumbledown barracks off to the right,
unlimbering weapons as they closed in, growling sharp commands to each other.
As the first one reached Gertie, coming up from behind her, she spun and cuffed
him back among his fellows, bowling over half a dozen, who came to their feet
drawing guns. Yong uttered a bellow and, with a prodigious leap, placed himself
in front of the Terran cat, shielding her from gunfire. The Glorbs halted, and
Yong delivered a speech—short, but deadly in tone. As Retief came up beside
him, he said:
                "They
think Gertrude's some kind of off-color Vang. I'm stringing 'em: reminded 'em
about the treaty says any Glorb uses one of them fire-guns on a Vang, they get
Vang coming at 'em from all directions at once. They'll back off." He
edged protectively close to Gertrude, who ambled away unconcernedly.
                As
Yong had predicted, the excited locals holstered their weapons and withdrew
into huddles, all talking at once. Other Glorbs were poking their lumpy heads
from the doorways of the long buildings at the far side of the marketplace,
only to be shooed back inside by those in authority. One of the stumpy locals
confronting Yong barked at the big feline in his stacatto tongue. Yong turned
to Retief.
                "This
clown says he heard about how the Minister was assaulted when he went to pay
his respects to the damned foreigners," he translated. "Now he claims
to see why.
                "There's
something going on here, Retief," the Vang added quietly. "There are
too many armed troops here. I think they're planning something tricky, and we
stumbled into it. No wonder they're so touchy."
                "Where's
their boss?" Retief asked. Yong pointed to a small, but somewhat more
sturdily built hut at the end of the row of barracks. "That's
headquarters," he told Retief. "I don't see any rank on them bums, so
the colonel's