Retief and the PanGalactic Pageant of Pulchritude by Keith Laumer Page A

Ambassador
Pouncetrifle, seated at the head of the table beside Jith, his diminutive
Groacian opposite number and Joint Chairman of the Lumbagan Peace Commission.
    "Now,
if we're quite ready," His Excellency began in an ominous tone,
"I—"
    "A
moment, if you please, Harvey," Jith spoke up in his breathy whisper.
"It happens to be my turn to chair the meeting, so if you don't
mind—"
    "What's
this, one of your little jokes?" Pouncetrifle barked. "Most amusing,
Mr. Ambassador. Now, as I was saying—"
    "Just
hand me the gavel, there's a good chap, and we'll get on with the
meeting." Jith plucked the microphone from before the Terran dignitary.
"Fellow beings—" he started.
    "Look
here, Jith," the Terran said sharply, "you know perfectly well you
took precedence in the elevator this morning—and at breakfast, I distinctly
noted the bearer handing you your menu before so much as whisking the crumbs
off my chair—"
    "Doesn't
count," Jith cut in tersely, and keyed the microphone. "This
afternoon, I should like to review our progress in bringing racial equality to
Lumbaga." His amplified voice crackled through the room.
    "—to
say nothing of your subtle maneuver in bribing the chief of the motor pool to
repaint your parking space upwind of mine!" Pouncetrifle's remonstrance
rose above the PA system.
    "And in
bringing the blessings of noncombatant status to the unhappy natives of this
benighted world," Jith continued, "no offense to our native guests
intended, of course." The Groaci inclined three of his five eyestalks in a
perfunctory salute to the latter—a pair of observers squatting silently on a
bench by the far wall, both bulky, multilimbed, and heavily swathed in beaded
robes. They returned the gesture with stony expressions.
    "Now,
the past six years during which the Interplanetary Peace Tribunal has exercised
its good offices in the search for an avenue of racial rapprochement have not
been unmarked by progress," Pouncetrifle stated, leaning across to address
the microphone. "To date, we've completed forty-two VIP villas for Class
One personnel and above, a hundred-table billiardium, and a forty-bed fun
house—"
    "Frivolities
aside," Jith breathed, recommandeering the mike, "I direct your attention
to the recent consecration of a hundred-stall cybernetic confessional,
featuring coin-operated holy sand dispensers, a scourgomat capable of
processing one gross of penitents per hour, and a most ingenious mechanized
collection plate, employing 1000-Gauss magnets—"
    "On the
substantive side," Pouncetrifle's voice boomed out amid a vicious feedback
howl as he ripped the mike from his rival's grasp, "pacification efforts
proceed apace. In reply to certain critics I can report that close statistical
analyses by departmental teams skilled in the detection of obscure phenomena
report that the percentage of casualties among unemployed frume-leaf gatherers
between the ages of eighteen and forty-nine during the daylight hours in
alternate months are down a big, big .0046 percent over a similar period last
year."
    Jith ducked
under Pouncetrifle's arm to clutch the microphone.
    "While
it's quite true that the bases of the racial conflicts here on Lumbaga have not
yet been isolated," he stated breathily, "nor have the precise
ideological battle lines been delimited, nor the values involved definitely
identified, some progress has been made in the study of native beadwork, a
circumstance which lends substance to the hope that in the near future—say the
next half-dozen years—we may meet with limited success in determining who is
fighting whom—or should I say whom is fighting who—if not why."
    "Come
to the point," the assistant military attaché muttered. "What it
boils down to is that with all these rival cliques, factions, races, mobs,
unions, congregations, bands, platoons, crews, and clans constantly involved in
squabbles, bickerings, pitched battles, bombings, disagreements, feuds,
wrangles, wars, altercations,