Retief: Aide Memoire

By Keith Laumer

The Fustians looked like turtles—but they could move fast when they chose! Keith Laumer was a best selling author who was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Before becoming a science fiction writer Laumer was an officer in the United States Air Force and a diplomat in the Foreign Service, adding a note of realism to many of his stories. One of science fiction’s true luminaries

• Language: English
• Publisher: Start Publishing LLC
• Release date: Oct 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781649740427

Keith Laumer

John Keith Laumer (June 9, 1925 – January 23, 1993) was an American science fiction author. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he was an officer in the United States Air Force and a diplomat in the United States Foreign Service. His older brother March Laumer was also a writer, known for his adult reinterpretations of the Land of Oz (also mentioned in Laumer's The Other Side of Time). Frank Laumer, their youngest brother, is a historian and writer.

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Retief: Aide Memoire

by Keith Laumer

Start Publishing LLC

Copyright © 2020 by Start Publishing LLC

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

First Start Publishing eBook edition.

Start Publishing is a registered trademark of Start Publishing LLC

Manufactured in the United States of America

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ISBN 978-1-64974-042-7

The Fustians looked like turtles—but they could move fast when they chose!

Across the table from Retief, Ambassador Magnan rustled a stiff sheet of parchment and looked grave.

This aide memoire, he said, was just handed to me by the Cultural Attache. It’s the third on the subject this week. It refers to the matter of sponsorship of Youth groups—

Some youths, Retief said. Average age, seventy-five.

The Fustians are a long-lived people, Magnan snapped. These matters are relative. At seventy-five, a male Fustian is at a trying age—

That’s right. He’ll try anything—in the hope it will maim somebody.

Precisely the problem, Magnan said. But the Youth Movement is the important news in today’s political situation here on Fust. And sponsorship of Youth groups is a shrewd stroke on the part of the Terrestrial Embassy. At my suggestion, well nigh every member of the mission has leaped at the opportunity to score a few p—that is, cement relations with this emergent power group—the leaders of the future. You, Retief, as Councillor, are the outstanding exception.

I’m not convinced these hoodlums need my help in organizing their rumbles, Retief said. Now, if you have a proposal for a pest control group—

To the Fustians this is no jesting matter, Magnan cut in. This group— he glanced at the paper—"known as the Sexual, Cultural, and Athletic Recreational Society, or SCARS for short, has been awaiting sponsorship for a