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Agency slandered by Ambassador Clyde Shortfall with dying breath'," Felix
intoned, as if dictating a fast-breaking headline over the din of the city-room
at Sector.
     
                "Take no hasty action,
despatch-wise, Hy," Shortfall advised. "Lest I be forced to reflect
your negative attitudes on your upcoming ER. And what do you mean, 'dying
breath'?"
     
                "Well, Mr.
Ambluster," Hy responded apologetically, "it ain't likely yer Ex will
be doing a whole lot more breathing after that fella behind you knocks yer
brains out. Right, chief?"
     
                "It appears also that
certain succinct comments in the Reverence for Superiors column would not be
amiss," Shortfall came back smartly, ignoring Hy's remark except to step
aside in time to see yet another locking-bar impact on the Customs Counter
beside him.
     
                "Still on the old ER
gambit, eh, Mr. Ambluster?" Felix challenged, "which I guess I saved
yer skull that time."
     
                "Oh, Hy," Magnan
interjected sweetly. "Would you just take my brolly and poke that fellow
Retief is holding upside down? Right on that saffron-hued spot. My hands are
occupied keeping the looters out of our baggage."
     
                Felix complied, and
exclaimed happily when the object of his thrust promptly curled up and was sent
rolling along the baggage chute by another of Retief s well-placed kicks.
     
                "Wow!" Hy yelped.
"Where'd you learn that one, Ben?" He leaped at another exposed
Zotz-patch, then another.
     
                "Retief tipped me
off," Magnan explained. "I understand he picked it up from some
illicit publication or other, actually quite contrary to the Manual."
     
                "Good thing!" Hy
returned. "Prolly the Journal of Isolationism Today, a yellow sheet
if there ever was one, but handy sometimes." He lent substance to the
latter comment by dispatching two pillars in quick succession.
     
                "—and do like me!"
Hy finished sending yet another tightly-curled local off to the baggage
carousel.
     
                "Gentlemen!"
Shortfall's voice sounded, almost lost against the general outcry. "Let us
not escalate this trifling incident into a pitched battle! Nice work,
Ben," he added in a lower tone. "Keep 'em back, but don't do anything
that could be interpreted as overreaction, or even aggression on our
part."
     
                "Who's to
interpret?" Felix demanded, poking on with undiminished enthusiasm. "
'Enbattled Terrans Defend Position Against All Odds', " he quoted from his
soon-to-be-filed Pulitzer Prize-winning story.
     
                Having, with Hy's help,
cleared the route to the ramp doors, Retief caught Magnan's eye. "Time to
evacuate all personnel, sir," he suggested. "Get 'em together and
lead 'em in a rush and you'll make it." He pivoted one counter aside, to
open a lane to the rear.
     
                Magnan looked dubious, but
complied, herding his charges through the improvised opening in the enclosing
barrier and across the littered floor to the portal normally used by the
baggage carts, and out onto the dusty tarmac, where a fitful wind blew grit
into their faces.
     
                "It seems to me,"
Magnan commented, waving away an insistent cloud of gnats, "that these
confounded midges are as excited by this outrage as are we ourselves."
     
                After sending off a final
determined pillar, Retief joined the rest, followed at once by Chief Smeer, who
pointed at him accusingly and yelled.
     
                "This here one's the
ringleader! I seen him! Grab him, boys, which after a couple years in a
Zanny-du jail waiting to be squashed, he'll show a little restraint before he
goes using them tactics he got outa that there bootleg book Ben Magnan was
bragging about!"
     
                His troops,