sized TV screens. The bright-eyed inhabitants
clustered at their railings, twittering like spar-
rows as he passed. He picked his way with
care among the pedestrians crowding the way:
twelve-inch Ploots and eighteen-inch Grimbles
in purple and red leathers, two-foot Choobs in
fringed caps and aprons, lordly three-foot-six-
inch Blufs, elegant in ruffles and curled pink
wigs. Ahead, he heard shrill cries, a tinkle of
breaking glass, a dull thump. Rounding a sharp
turn, he came on the scene of action.
Before a shop with a sign bearing a crude
painting of a salami, a crowd had gathered,
RETIEF OF THE CDT 11
ringing in a group of half a dozen giant
Oberonians of a type new to Retief: swagger-
ing dandies in soiled silks, with cruelly cropped
tails, scimitars slung at their waists'чif crea-
tures of the approximate shape of tenpins can
be said to have waists. One of the party held
the bridles of their mountsчscaled, spike-
maned brutes resembling gaily painted rhi-
noceri, but for their prominent canines and
long, muscular legs. Two more of the over-
sized locals were busy with crowbars, lever-
ing at the lintel over the shop doorway. Another
pair were briskly attacking the adjacent wall
with sledge hammers. The sixth, distinguished
by a scarlet sash with a pistol thrust through
it, stood with folded arms, smiling a sharp-
toothed smile at the indignant mob.
" 'Tis the pastry and ale shop of Binkster
Druzz, my granduncle twice removed!" Relief's
diminutive guide shrilled. "A little lighthearted
destruction in the course of making one's po-
litical views clear is all very wellчbut these
pirates would reduce us to penury! Gramercy,
milord, canst not impede the brutes?" He
swarmed ahead, clearing a path through the
onlookers. The red-sashed one, noticing Retief s
approach, unfolded his arms, letting one hand
linger near the butt of the pistolчa Groaci
copy of a two-hundred-year-old Concordiat
sliver-gun, Retief noted.
