 CHAPTER VI The recorded voice ceased. For a moment the record player hummed voicelessly. Loud in the silence a photocell acted with a double click, opening one segment of the sun shielding and closing another at the opposite side of the dome. Space-commodore Alex Napier glanced up from his desk, and out at the harshly angular landscape of Xerxes in the blackness of airless space beyond the disquietingly close horizon. Then he picked up his pipe and knocked the heel out into the ashtray. Nobody said anything. He began packing tobacco into the bowl. Well, gentlemen, he invited comment. Pancho! Captain Conrad Greibenfeldt, the exec, turned to Lieutenant Weibera, the chief psychologist. How reliable is this stuff, Weibera asked. Well, I knew Jack Holloway thirty years ago on Fenris when I was just an ensign. He must be past seventy now, he parenthesised. If he says he saw anything, I'll believe it. And Bennet Reinsford's absolutely reliable, of course. How about the agent, Weibera insisted. He and Stephen Alborg, the intelligence officer, exchanged glances. He nodded, and Alborg said, One of the best, one of our own. Lieutenant J. G., Naval Reserve, you don't need to worry about credibility, Pancho. They sound sapient to me, Weibera said. You know, this is something I've always been half-hoping and half-afraid would happen. You mean an excuse to intervene in that mess down there, Greibenfeldt asked. Weibera looked blankly at him for a moment. No, no, I meant a case of borderline sapience. Being our sacred talk and build-a-fire rule won't cover. Just how did this come to our attention, Stephen? Well it was transmitted to us from Contact Centre in Mallory's port late Friday night. There seemed to be a number of copies of this tape around. Our agent got hold of one of them and transmitted it to Contact Centre, and it was relayed on to us with the agent's comments. Alborg said. Contact Centre ordered a routine surveillance inside Company House, and to play safe at the residency. At the time there seemed no reason to give the thing any beat-to-quarters-and-man guns treatment, but we got a report on Saturday afternoon, Mallory's port time, that is, that Leonard Kellogg had played off the copy of the tape that Juan Jiménez had made for file and had alerted Victor Grego immediately. Of course Grego saw the implications at once. He sent Kellogg and the chief company psychologist, Ernst Mullen, out to beat a continent, with orders to brand Rainsford and Holloway's claims as a deliberate hoax. Then the company intends to encourage the trapping of fuzzies for their fur in hopes that the whole species will be exterminated before anybody can get out from terror to check on Rainsford's story. I hadn't heard that last detail before. Well, we can prove it, Elborg assured him. It sounded like a Victor Grego idea. He lit his pipe slowly. Dammit, he didn't want to have to intervene. No Space Navy CO did. Taking intervention on a colonial planet was too much bother, always a board of inquiry, often a court-martial, and supercession of civil authority was completely against service doctrine. Of course there were other and more important tenets of service doctrine. The sovereignty of the Terran Federation for one, and the inviolability of the Federation Constitution, and the rights of extraterrestrials, too. Conrad Greibenfeld, too, seemed to have been thinking about that. If those fuzzies are sapient beings that whole setup down there is illegal—company, colonial administration and all, he said—Zarathustra's a Class IV planet, and that's all you can make out of it. We won't intervene unless we're forced to. Pancho, I think the decision will be largely up to you." Pancho, why, Berra, was horrified. Good God, Alex, you can't mean that. Who am I? A nobody. All I have is an ordinary M.D. and a Psyche D. Why the best psychological brains in the Federation? Aren't on Zarathustra, Pancho? There on terror, five hundred light-years, six months' ship voyage each way. Intervention, of course, is my responsibility, but the sapience question is yours. I don't envy you, but I can't relieve you of it." Gerd van Riebig suggested that all three of the visitors sleep aboard the airboat hadn't been treated seriously at all. Gerd himself was accommodated in the spare-room of the living-hut. Juan Jimenez went with Ben Rainsford to his camp for the night. Ruth Ortheras had the cabin of the boat to herself. Rainsford was on the screen the next morning, while Jack and Gerd and Ruth and the Fuzzies were having breakfast. He and Jimenez had decided to take his air-jeep and work down from the head of Cold Creek in the belief that there must be more Fuzzies around in the woods. Both Gerd and Ruth decided to spend the morning at the camp and get acquainted with the Fuzzies on hand. The family had had enough breakfast to leave them neutral on the subject of land prawns, and they were given another of the nude toys, a big-colored ball. They rolled it around in the grass for a while, decided to save it for their evening romp and took it into the house. Then they began playing aimlessly among some junk in the shed outside the workshop. Once in a while one of them would drift away to look for a prawn, more for sport than food. Ruth and Gerd and Jack were sitting at the breakfast table on the grass, talking idly and trying to think of excuses for not washing the dishes. Mama Fuzzy and Baby were poking about in the tall grass. Suddenly Mama gave a shrill cry and started back for the shed, chasing Baby ahead of her and slapping him on the bottom with the flat of her chopper-digger to hurry him along. Jack started for the house at a run, Gerd grabbed his camera and jumped up on the table. It was Ruth who saw the cause of the disturbance. Jack, look over there! She pointed to the edge of the clearing. Two strange fuzzies. He kept on running, but instead of the rifle he had been going for, he collected his movie-camera, two of the spare chopper-diggers and some X-T3. When he emerged again the two fuzzies had come into the clearing and stood side by side, looking around. Both were females, and they both carried wooden prawn killers. You have plenty of film," he asked Gerd. Here, Ruth, take this. He handed her his own camera. Keep far enough away from me to get what I'm doing and what they're doing. I'm going to try to trade with them." He went forward, the steel weapons in his hip-pocket and the X-T3 in his hand, talking softly and soothingly to the newcomers. When he was as close to them as he could get without stampeding them, he stopped. Our gang's coming up behind you," Gerd told him. Regular skirmish-line choppers at Highport. Now they've stopped about thirty feet behind you. He broke off a piece of X-T3, put it in his mouth, and ate it. Then he broke off two more pieces and held them out. The two fuzzies were tempted, but not to the point of rashness. He threw both pieces within a few feet of them. One darted forward through a piece to her companion and then snatched the other piece and ran back with it. They stood together, nippling and making soft, delighted noises. His own family seemed to disapprove strenuously of this lavishing of delicacies upon outsiders. However, the two strangers decided that it would be safe to come closer, and soon he had them taking bits of field ration from his hand. Then he took the two steel chopper-diggers out of his pocket and managed to convey the idea that he wanted to trade. The two strange fuzzies were incredulously delighted. This was too much for his own tribe, they came up yeaking angrily. The two strange females retreated a few steps, their new weapon ready. Everybody seemed to expect a fight, and nobody wanted one. From what he could remember of old Terran history, this was a situation which could develop into serious trouble. Then Coco advanced, dragging his chopper-digger in an obviously pacific manner, and approached the two females, yeaking softly and touching first one and then the other. Then he laid his weapon down and put his foot on it. The two females began stroking and caressing him. Immediately the crisis evaporated. The others of the family came forward, stuck their weapons in the ground, and began fondling the strangers. Then they all sat in a circle, swaying their bodies rhythmically and making soft noises. Finally Coco and the two females rose, picked up their weapons, and started for the woods. Jack stopped them, Ruth called out, they're going away. If they want to go, I have no right to stop them. When they were almost to the edge of the woods Coco stopped, drove the point of his weapon into the ground, and came running back to Pappy Jack, throwing his arms around the human knees and yeaking. Jack stooped and stroked him, but didn't try to pick him up. One of the two females pulled his chopper-digger out, and they both came back slowly. At the same time little Fuzzy, Mama Fuzzy, Mike and Mitzy came running back. For a while all the Fuzzies embraced one another, yeaking happily. Then they all trooped across the grass and went into the house. Get all that, Gerd, he asked. On film, yes, that's the only way I did, though, what happened? You have just made the first film of intertribal social and mating customs, Zarathustra and Fuzzy. This is the family's home, they don't want any strange Fuzzies hanging around. They were going to run the girls off. Then Coco decided he liked their looks, and he decided he'd team up with them. That made everything different. The family sat down with them to tell them what a fine husband they were getting, and to tell Coco good-bye. Then Coco remembered that he hadn't told me good-bye, and he came back. The family decided that two more Fuzzies wouldn't be in excess of the carrying capacity of this habitat, seeing what a good provider Papyjack is. So now I should imagine they're showing the girls the family treasures. You know they married into a mighty world a new family. The girls were named Goldilocks and Cinderella. When lunch was ready they were all in the living-room with the view-screen on. After lunch the whole gang went into the bedroom for a nap on Papyjack's bed. He spent the afternoon developing movie film, while Gerd and Ruth wrote up the notes they had made the day before, and collaborated on an account of the adoption. By late afternoon, when they were finished, the Fuzzies came out for a frolic and a prawn hunt. They all heard the air-car before any of the human people did, and they all ran over and climbed up on the bench beside the kitchen door. It was a constabulary-cruise car. It landed, and a couple of troopers got out, saying that they'd stopped to see the Fuzzies. They wanted to know where the extras had come from, and when Jack told them they looked at one another. Next gang that comes along, call us and keep them entertained until we can get there, one of them said. We want some at the post, for prawns, if nothing else. What's George's attitude, he asked. The other night, when he was here, he seemed half-scared of them. Ah! He's got over that, one of the troopers said. He called Ben Rainsford, Ben said they were perfectly safe. Hey! Ben says they're not animals, they're people. He started to tell them about some of the things the Fuzzies did. He was still talking when the Fuzzies heard another air-car and called attention to it. This time it was Ben Rainsford and Juan Jimenez. They piled out as soon as they were off contra-gravity, dragging cameras after them. Jack, there are Fuzzies all over the place up there, Rainsford began while he was getting out, all headed down this way, regular Volcavonderant. We saw over fifty of them, four families and individuals and pairs. I'm sure we missed ten for every one we saw. We'd better get up there with a car to-morrow, one of the troopers said. Ben, just where were you? I'll show you on the map. Then he saw Goldilocks and Cinderella. Hey! Where'd you two girls come from? I never saw you around here before. There was another clearing across the stream with a log-footbridge and a path to the camp. Jack guided the big air-boat down onto it and put his air-jeep alongside with the canopy up. There were two men on the forward deck of the boat, Kellogg and another man who would be Ernst Mallon. A third man came out of the control cabin after the boat was off contra-gravity. Jack didn't like Mallon, he had a tight, secretive face with arrogance and bigotry showing underneath. The third man was younger, his face didn't show anything much, but his coat showed a bulge under the left arm. After being introduced by Kellogg, Mallon introduced him as Kurt Bosch, his assistant. Mallon had to introduce Bosch again at the camp, not only to Ben Rainsford, but also to Van Riebik, to Jimenez, and even to Ruth Ortheris, which seemed a little odd. Ruth seemed to think so, too, and Mallon hastened to tell her that Bosch was with personnel giving some kind of tests. That appeared to puzzle her even more. None of the three seemed happy about the presence of the Constabulary Troopers, either. They were all relieved when the cruise-car lifted out. Kellogg became interested in the fuzzies immediately, squatting to examine them. He said something to Mallon, who compressed his lips and shook his head, saying, We simply cannot assume sapiens until we find something in their behaviour which cannot be explained under any other hypothesis. We should be much safer to assume non-sapiens, and proceed to test that assumption. That seemed to establish the keynote. Kellogg straightened, and he and Mallon started one of those, Of course I agree, doctor, but don't you find on the other hand that you must agree, sort of arguments, about the difference between scientific evidence and scientific proof? He mayneth got into it to the extent of agreeing with everything Kellogg said, and differing politely with everything Mallon said that he thought Kellogg would differ with. Bosch said nothing. He just stood and looked at the fuzzies with ill-concealed hostility. Gerd and Ruth decided to help getting dinner. They ate outside on the picnic table with the fuzzies watching them interestingly. Kellogg and Mallon carefully avoided discussing them. It wasn't until after dusk when the fuzzies brought their ball inside and everybody was in the living-room that Kellogg, adopting a presiding officer manor, got the conversation onto the subject. For some time, without giving anyone else an opportunity to say anything, he gushed about what an important discovery the fuzzies were. The fuzzies themselves ignored him and began dismantling the stick-and-ball construction. For a while golly-locks and Cinderella watched interestingly and then they began assisting. Unfortunately, Kellogg continued, so much of our data is in the form of uncorroborated statements by Mr. Holloway. Now, please don't misunderstand me. I don't myself doubt for a moment anything Mr. Holloway said on that tape. But you must realize that professional scientists are most reluctant to accept the unsubstantiated reports of what, if you'll pardon me, they think of as non-qualified observers. Oh, rubbish Leonard! Rainsford broke in impatiently. I'm a professional scientist of a good many more years standing than you, and I accept Jack Holloway's statements. A frontiersman like Jack is a very careful and exact observer. People who aren't don't live long on frontier planets. Now, please don't misunderstand me, Kellogg reiterated. I don't doubt Mr. Holloway's statements. I was just thinking of how they would be received on terror. I shouldn't worry about that, Leonard. The Institute accepts my reports, and I'm vouching for Jack's reliability. I can substantiate most of what he told me from personal observation. Yes, and there's more than just verbal statements, Gerd van Riebeck chimed in. A camera is not a non-qualified observer. We have quite a bit of film of the fuzzies. Oh, yes, there was some mention of movies, Mallon said. You don't have any of them developed yet, do you? Quite a lot. Everything except what was taken out in the woods this afternoon. We can run them off right now. He pulled down the screen in front of the gun rack, got the film, and loaded his projector. The fuzzies, who'd begun on a new stick-and-ball construction, were irritated when the lights went out, then wildly excited when little fuzzy digging a toilet-pit with the wood chisel appeared. Little fuzzy in particular was excited about that. If he didn't recognize himself, he recognized the chisel. Then there were pictures of little fuzzy killing and eating land prawns, little fuzzy taking the nut off the bolt and putting it on again, and pictures of the others after they'd come in hunting and at play. Finally there was the film of the adoption of Goldilocks and Cinderella. What one and I got this afternoon up in the woods isn't so good, I'm afraid, Rainsford said, when the show was over and the lights were on again. Mostly its rear views disappearing into the brush. It was very hard to get close to them in the jeep. Their hearing is remarkably acute. But I'm sure the pictures we took this afternoon will show the things they were carrying, wooden prawn killers like the two that were traded from the new ones in that last film. Malon and Kellogg looked at one another in what seemed oddly like consternation. You didn't tell us there were more of them around, Malon said, as though it were an accusation of duplicity. He turned to Kellogg. This alters the situation. Yes, indeed, Ernst, Kellogg burbled delightedly. This is a wonderful opportunity, Mr. Holloway. I understand that all this country up here is your property by land-grant purchase. That's right, isn't it? Well, would you allow us to camp on that clearing across the run where our boat is now? We'd get prefab huts, Red Hills the nearest town, isn't it, and have a company construction gang set them up for us, and we won't be any bother at all to you. We'd only intended staying overnight on our boat and returning to Mallory's port in the morning. But with all these fuzzies swarming around in the woods, we can't think of leaving now. You don't have any objection, do you? He had lots of objections. The whole business was rapidly developing into an acute pain in the neck for him. But if he didn't let Kellogg camp across the run, a three of them would move seventy or eighty miles in any direction and be off his land. He knew what they'd do then. They'd live-trap or sleep-gas fuzzies. They'd put them in cages and torment them with maize and electric shock experiments and kill a few for dissection, or maybe not bother killing them first. On his own land, if they did anything like that, he could do something about it. Not at all. I'll have to remind you again, though, that you're to treat these little people with consideration. Oh, we won't do anything to your fuzzies," Mallon said. You won't hurt any fuzzies, not more than once, anyhow. The next morning, during breakfast, Kellogg and Kurt Borsch put on an appearance, Borsch wearing old clothes and field boots and carrying his pistol on his belt. They had a list of things they thought they would need for their camp. Neither of them seemed to have more than the foggiest notion of camp requirements. Jack made some suggestions, which they accepted. There was a lot of scientific equipment on the list, including an x-ray machine. He promptly ran a pencil line through that. We don't know what these fuzzies' level of radiation tolerance is. We're not going to find out by overdosing one of my fuzzies. Up to his surprise, neither of them gave him any argument. Kurt and Ruth and Kellogg borrowed his air-jeep and started north. He and Borsch went across the run to make measurements after Rainsford and Jimenez arrived and picked up Mallon. Borsch took off soon after with the boat for Red Hill. Left alone, he loathed to run the camp and develop the rest of the movie film, making three copies of everything. Toward noon, Borsch brought the boat back, followed by a couple of scowl-like farm boats. In a few hours the company construction men from Red Hill had the new camp set up. Among other things, they brought two more air-jeeps. The two jeeps returned late in the afternoon, everybody excited. Between them the parties had seen almost a hundred fuzzies and had found three camps, two among rocks and one in a hollow pool-ball tree. All three had been spotted by belts of filled-in toilet-pits around them. Two had been abandoned and the third was still occupied. Goldilocks insisted on playing host to Jack and Rainsford for dinner at the camp across the run. The meal, because everything had been brought ready-cooked and only needed warming, was excellent. Returning to his own camp with Rainsford, Jack found the fuzzies finished with their evening meal and in the living-room, starting a new construction, he could think of no other name for it, with the molecule-model balls and sticks. Goldilocks left the others and came over to him with a couple of balls fastened together, holding them up with one hand while she pulled his trouser-lake with the other. Yes, I see, it's very beautiful," he told her. She tugged harder and pointed at the thing the others were making. Finally he understood. "'She wants me to work on it, too,' he said. "'Ben, you know where the coffee is, fix us a part, I'm going to be busy here.' He sat down on the floor and was putting sticks and balls together when Ben brought in the coffee. This was more fun than it had in a couple of days. He said so while Ben was distributing XT-3 to the fuzzies. "'Yes, I ought to let you kick me all around the camp for getting this started,' Rainsford said, pouring the coffee. I could make some excuses, but they'd all sound like I didn't know it was loaded.' "'Hell, I didn't know it was loaded, either.' He rose and took his coffee-cup, blowing on it to cool it. What do you think Kellogg's up to, anyhow? That whole act he's been putting on since he came here is phony as a nine-sol bill.' "'What I told you evening before last,' Rainsford said, he doesn't want non-company people making discoveries on Zarathustra. You notice how hard he and Mallon are straining to talk me out of sending a report back to terror before he can investigate the fuzzies. He wants to get his own report in first. Oh, I help with him. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going home, and I'm going to sit up all night getting a report into shape. Tomorrow morning I'm going to give it to George Lunt and let him send it to Mallory's port in the Constabulary mail-pouch. It'll be on a ship for terror before any of this gang knows it's been sent. Do you have any copies of those movies you can spare? About a mile and a half I made copies of everything, even the stuff the others took. Good! We'll send that, too. Let Kellogg read about it in the papers a year from now.' He thought for a moment, then said, "'Gerd and Ruth and one are bunking at the other count now. Suppose I move in here with you to-morrow. I assume you don't want to leave the fuzzies alone while that gang's here. I can help you keep an eye on them.' But Ben, you don't want to drop whatever else you're doing. What I'm doing now is learning to be a fuzzyologist, and this is the only place I can do it. I'll see you to-morrow, after I stop at the Constabulary post.' The people across the run, Kellogg, Mallon and Borsch, and Van Rebic, Manneth, and Ruth Ortheris, were still up when Rainsford went out to his air jeep. After watching him lift out, Jack went back into the house, played with his family in the living-room for a while, and went to bed. The next morning he watched Kellogg, Ruth and his Manneth leave in one jeep, and shortly after, Mallon and Van Rebic in the other. Kellogg didn't seem to be willing to let the three who had come to the camp first wander around unshaperoned. He wondered about that. Ben Rainsford's air jeep came over the mountains from the south in the late morning, and settled on to the grass. Borsch helped him inside with his luggage, and then they sat down under the big feather-leaf trees to smoke their pipes and watch the fuzzies playing in the grass. Occasionally they saw Kurt Borsch pottering around outside the other camp. I sent the report of, Rainsford said, then looked at his watch. It ought to be on the mail-boat for Mallory's port by now. This time to-morrow it'll be in hyperspace for terror. We won't say anything about it. Just sit back and watch Len Kellogg and Ernst Mallon working up a sweat trying to talk us out of sending it. He chuckled. I made a definite claim of sapience. By the time I got the report in shape to tape off I couldn't see any other alternative. Damned if I can. You hear that, kids? He asked Mike and Mitzi who had come over in the hope that there might be goodies for them. Uncle Ben says you're sapient. Eek! They want to know if it's good to eat. What'll happen now? Nothing for about a year. Six months from now when the ship gets in the Institute will release it to the press, and then they'll send an investigation team here. So will any of the other universities or scientific Institutes that may be interested. I suppose the Government will send somebody, too. After all, sub-civilised natives on colonised planets are wards of the Terran Federation. He didn't know that he liked that, the less he had to do with the Government the better, and his fuzzies were wards of Papijak Holloway, he said as much. Rainsford picked up Mitzi and stroked her. Nice fur, he said. Fur like that would bring good prices. It will if we don't get these people recognised as sapient beings. He looked across the run at the new camp and wondered, maybe Leonard Kellogg saw that, too, and saw profits for the company in fuzzy fur. The Aegean returned in the middle of the afternoon, first Malins and then Kellogg's. Everybody went inside. One hour later a constabulary car landed in front of the Kellogg camp. George Lunt and Ahmed Kadra got out. Kellogg came outside, spoke with them, and then took them into the main living hut. Half an hour later the lieutenant and the trooper emerged, lifted their car across the run and set it down on the lawn. The fuzzies ran to meet them, possibly expecting more whistles, and followed them into the living-room. Lunt and Kadra took off their berets but made no move to unbuckle their gun-belts. He got your package off all right, Ben, Lunt said. He sat down and took Goldilocks on his lap. Immediately Cinderella jumped up also. Jack, what the hell's that gang over there up to, anyhow? You've got that, too? You can smell it on them for a mile against the wind, in the first place, that borsch. I wish I could get his prints, I'll bet we have them on file. And the whole gang's trying to hide something, and what they're trying to hide is something they're scared of, like a body in a closet. While we were over there Kellogg did all the talking, anybody else who tried to say anything got shut up fast. Kellogg doesn't like you, Jack, and he doesn't like Ben, and he doesn't like the fuzzies. Most of all, he doesn't like the fuzzies. Well, I told you what I thought this morning, Reinsford said. They don't want outsiders discovering things on this planet. It wouldn't make them look good to the Home Office on terror. Remember it was some non-company people who discovered the first sun-stones back in forty-eight? George Lunt looked thoughtful. On him it was a scowl. I don't think that's it, Ben. When we were talking to him he admitted very freely that you and Jack discovered the fuzzies. The way he talked he didn't seem to think they were worth discovering at all. And he asked a lot of funny questions about you, Jack, the kind of questions I'd ask if I was checking up on somebody's mental competence. The scowl became one of anger now. By God, I wish I had an excuse to question him with a veridicator. Kellogg didn't want the fuzzies to be sapient beings. If they weren't, they'd be fur-bearing animals. Jack thought of some overfed society, dowager on terror or balder, wearing the skins of little Fuzzy and Mama Fuzzy and Mike and Mitzi and Coco and Cinderella and Goldilocks wrapped around her adipose carcass. It made him feel sick. End of chapter six. Chapter seven of Little Fuzzy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Little Fuzzy by H.Beam Piper. Chapter seven. Tuesday dawned hot and windless, a scarlet sun coming up in a hard brassy sky. The fuzzies, who were in to wake Pappy Jack with their whistles, didn't like it. They were edgy and restless. Maybe it would rain to-day, after all. They had breakfast outside on the picnic table and then Ben decided he'd go back to his camp and pick up a few things he hadn't brought and now decided he needed. "'My hunting-rifles won,' he said, and I think I'll circle down to the edge of the brush-country and see if I can pick off a zebralope. We ought to have some more fresh meat.' So after eating, Rainsford got into his jeep and lifted away. Across the run Kellogg and Mallon were walking back and forth in front of the camp, talking earnestly. When Ruth Ortheris and Gerd Van Ribic came out, they stopped, broke off their conversation, and spoke briefly with them. Then Gerd and Ruth crossed the footbridge and came up the path together. The fuzzies had scattered by this time to hunt prawns. Little Fuzzy and Coco and Goldilocks ran to meet them. Ruth picked Goldilocks up and carried her, and Coco and Little Fuzzy ran on ahead. They greeted Jack, declining coffee. Ruth sat down on a chair with Goldilocks. Little Fuzzy jumped up on the table and began looking for goodies, and when Gerd stretched out on his back on the grass, Coco sat down on his chest. Goldilocks is my favourite fuzzy, Ruth was saying. She's the sweetest thing. Of course they're all pretty nice. I can't get over how affectionate and trusting they are. The ones we saw out in the woods were so timid. Well, the ones out in the woods don't have any pappy-jack to look after them, Gerd said. I'd imagine they're very affectionate among themselves, but they have so many things to be afraid of. You know, there's another prerequisite for sapience. It develops in some small, relatively defenseless animals surrounded by large and dangerous enemies he can't outrun or outfight. So to survive he has to learn to outthink them, like our own remote ancestors, or like Little Fuzzy, he has his choice of getting sapient or getting exterminated. Ruth seemed troubled. Gerd, Dr. Malan has found absolutely nothing about them that indicates true sapience. Oh, Malan, be bloodied, he doesn't know what sapience is any more than I do, and a good deal less than you do, I'd say. I think he's trying to prove that the Fuzzies aren't sapient. Ruth looked startled. What makes you say that? It's been sticking out all over him ever since he came here. You're a psychologist. Don't tell me you haven't seen it. Maybe if the Fuzzies were proven sapient it would invalidate some theory he's gotten out of a book and he'd have to do some thinking for himself. He wouldn't like that. But you have to admit he's been fighting the idea intellectually and emotionally right from the start. Why they could sit down with pencils and slide rules and start working differential calculus and it wouldn't convince him. Dr. Malan's trying to—she began angrily. Then she broke it off. Jack, excuse us, we didn't really come over here to have a fight. We came to meet some Fuzzies. Didn't we, Goldilocks? Goldilocks was playing with the silver charm on the chain around her neck, holding it up to her ear and shaking it to make it tinkle, making small, delighted sounds. Finally she held it up and said, Yeek! Yes, sweetie pie, you can have it. Ruth took the chain from around her neck and put it over Goldilocks' head. She had to loop it three times before it would fit. There, now, that's your very own. Oh, you mustn't give her things like that. Why not? It's just cheap trade junk. You've been on Loki, Jack, you know what it is. He did. He traded stuff like that to the natives himself. Some of the girls at the hospital there gave it to me for a joke. I only wear it because I have it. Goldilocks likes it a lot better than I do. An air jeep rose from the other side and floated across, while his manneth was piloting it. Ernst Mallon stuck his head out the window on the right, asked her if she were ready, and told Gerd that Kellogg would pick him up in a few minutes. After she had gotten into the jeep and it had lifted out, Gerd put cocoa off his chest and sat up, getting cigarettes from his shirt pocket. I don't know what the devil's gotten into her, he said, watching the jeep vanish. Oh, yes, I do. She's gotten the word from on high. Kellogg hath spoken. Fuzzies are just silly little animals, he said bitterly. You work for Kellogg, too, don't you? Yes, he doesn't dictate my professional opinion, though. You know, I thought in the evil hour when I took this job, he rose to his feet, hitching his belt to balance the weight of the pistol on the right against the camera binoculars on the left, and changed the subject abruptly. Jack has been Reinsford sent a report on the fuzzies to the institute yet, he asked. Why? If he hasn't, tell him to hurry up and get one in. There wasn't time to go into that further. Kellogg's jeep was rising from the camp across the run and approaching. He decided to let the breakfast-dishes go until after lunch. Kurt Busch had stayed behind at the Kellogg camp, so he kept an eye on the fuzzies and brought them back when they started to stray toward the footbridge. Ben Reinsford hadn't returned by lunchtime, but Zebralow-punting took a little time, even from the air. While he was eating outside, one of the rented air-jeeps returned from the north-east in a hurry, disgorging Ernst Mullen, Juan Jimenez, and Ruth Ortheris. Kurt Busch came hurrying out. They talked for a few minutes, and then they all went inside. A little later the second jeep came in, even faster, and landed. Kellogg and Van Reebik hastened into the living-hut. There wasn't anything more to see. He carried the dishes into the kitchen and washed them, and the fuzzies went into the bedroom for their nap. He was sitting at the table in the living-room when good Van Reebik knocked on the open door. Jack, can I talk to you for a minute? He asked. Sure, come in. Van Reebik entered, unbuckling his gun-belt. He shifted a chair so that he could see the door from it and laid the belt on the floor at his feet when he sat down. Then he began to curse Leonard Kellogg in four or five languages. Well, I agree in principle. Why in particular, though? You know what that son of a cougar is doing, Gerd asked. He and that—he used a couple of sheshen words vileer than anything in lingua tera. That quack hedge-ringer Mullen are preparing a report, accusing you and Ben Rainsford of perpetrating a deliberate scientific hoax. You taught the fuzzies some tricks, you and Rainsford, between you, made those artifacts yourselves, and the two of you were conspiring to foist the fuzzies off as sapient beings. Jack, if it weren't so goddamn stinking contemptible, it would be the biggest joke of the century. I take it they wanted you to sign this report, too. Yes, and I told Kellogg he could—what Kellogg could do, it seemed—was both appalling and physiologically impossible. He cursed again, and then lit a cigarette, and got hold of himself. Here's what happened. Kellogg and I went up that stream about twenty miles down Cold Creek, the one you've been working on, and up into the high flat to a spring in a stream that flows down in the opposite direction—know where I mean? Well, we found where some fuzzies had been camping among a lot of fallen timber, and we found a little grave where the fuzzies had buried one of their people. He should have expected something like that, and yet it startled him. You mean they buried their dead? What was the grave like? A little stone can, about a foot and a half by three, a foot high. Kellogg said it was just a big toilet-pit, but I was sure of what it was. I opened it, stones under the can, and then filled in earth, and then a dead fuzzie wrapped in grass, a female, she'd been mangled by something, maybe a bush-goblin. And get this, Jack, they'd buried her prawn-stick with her. They buried their dead. What was Kellogg doing while you were opening the grave? Dithering around, having ants. I'd been taking snaps of the grave, and I was burbling away like an ass about how important this was and how it was positive proof of sapience, and he was insisting that we get back to camp at once. He called the other jeep and told Mullen to get to camp immediately, and Mullen and Ruth and one were there when we got in. As soon as Kellogg told him what we'd found, Mullen turned fish-belly white and wanted to know how we were going to suppress it. I asked him if he was nuts, and then Kellogg came out with it. They don't dare let the fuzzies be proven sapient. Because the company wants to sell fuzzy furs? Van Riebik looked at him in surprise. I never thought of that. I doubt if they did either. No, because if the fuzzies are sapient beings, the company's charter is automatically void. This time Jack cursed, not at Kellogg, but himself. I am a senile old Dodard. Good Lord, I know colonial law. I've been skating on the edge of it on more planets than your years old, and I never thought of that. Why, of course it would. Where are you now with the company, by the way? Out, but I couldn't care less. I have enough in the bank for the trip back to terror, not counting what I can raise on my boat and some other things. Xeno-naturalists don't need to worry about finding jobs. There's Ben's outfit, for instance. And brother, when I get back to terror, what I'll spill about this deal? If you get back, if you don't have an accident before you get on the ship, he thought for a moment. Know anything about geology? Why some? I have to work with fossils. I'm as much a paleontologist as a zoologist. Why? How'd you like to stay here with me and hunt fossil jellyfish for a while? We won't make twice as much together as I'm making now, but you can look one way while I'm looking the other, and we may both stay alive longer that way. You mean that, Jack? I said it, didn't I? Van Riebik rose and held out his hand. Jack came around the table and shook it. Then he reached back and picked up his belt, putting it on. Better put yours on, too, partner. Borscht is probably the only one we'll need a gun for, but— Van Riebik buckled on his belt, then drew his pistol and worked the slide to load the chamber. What are we going to do? he asked. Well, we're going to try to handle it legally. Fact is, I'm even going to call the cops. He punched out a combination on the communications screen. It lighted and opened a window into the constabulary post. The sergeant, who looked out of it, recognized him and grinned. Hi, Jack, how's the family? he asked. I'm coming up one of these evenings to see them. You can see some now. Goh and Goldilocks and Cinderella were coming out of the hall from the bedroom. He gathered them up and put them on the table. The sergeant was fascinated. Then he must have noticed that both Jack and Gohd were wearing their guns in the house. His eyes narrowed slightly. He got problems, Jack, he asked. Little ones, they may grow, though. I have some guests here who have outstayed their welcome. For the record, better make it that I have squatters I want evicted. If there were a couple of blue uniforms around, maybe it might save me the price of a few cartridges. I read you. George was mentioning that you might regret inviting that gang to camp on you. He picked up a handphone. Called her on to car three, he said. Do you read me three? Well, Jack Holloway's got a little squatter trouble. Yeah, that's it. He's ordering them off his grant, and he thinks they might try to give him an argument. Yeah, sure. Peace, love, and Jack Holloway, that's him. Well, go chase his quarters for him, and if they give you anything about being company big wheels, we don't care what kind of wheels they are, just so as they start rolling. He replaced the phone. Look for them in about an hour, Jack. Why, thanks, Phil. Drop in some evening when you can hang up your gun and stay a while. He blanked the screen and began punching again. This time he got a girl, and then the company construction boss at Red Hill. Oh, hello, Jack, is Dr. Kellogg comfortable? Not very. He's moving out this afternoon. I wish you'd have your gang come up with those scows and get that stuff out of my backyard. Well, he told us he was staying for a couple of weeks. He got his mind changed for him, is to be off my land by sunset. The company man looked troubled. Jack, you haven't been having trouble with Dr. Kellogg, have you? He asked. He's a big man with the company. That's what he tells me. He'll still have to come and get that stuff, though. He blanked the screen. You know, he said, I think it would be no more than fair to let Kellogg in on this. What's his screen combination? Gertz applied it, and he punched it out. One of those tricky special company combinations. Gertz-Borsch appeared in the screen immediately. I want to talk to Kellogg. Dr. Kellogg is very busy at present. He's going to be a damn side busier. This is moving day. The whole gang of you have to late in hundred to get off my grant. Borsch was shoved to side, and Kellogg appeared. What's this nonsense? He demanded angrily. You're ordered to move. You want to know why? I can let Gerd van Riebeck talk to you. I think there are a few things he's forgotten to call you. You can't order us out like this. Why, you gave us permission. Permission cancelled. I've called Mike Hennan in Red Hill. He's sending his scours back for the stuff he brought here. Lieutenant Lunt will have a couple of troopers here, too. I'll expect you to have your personal things aboard your airboat when they arrive." He blanked the screen while Kellogg was trying to tell him that it was all a misunderstanding. I think that's everything. It's quite a while till sundown, he added, but I move for suspension of rules while we pour a small libation to sprinkle our new partnership, and we can go outside and observe the enemy. There was no observable enemy action when they went out and sat down on the bench by the kitchen door. Kellogg would be screening Mike Hennan in the constabulary post for verification, and there would be a lot of gathering up and packing to do. Finally Kurt Borsche emerged with a contra-gravity lifter piled with boxes and luggage, and Jim Enneth walking beside to steady the load. Jim Enneth climbed up onto the airboat, and Borsche floated the load up to him, and then went back to the huts. This was repeated several times. In the meantime Kellogg and Mallon seemed to be having some sort of exchange of recriminations in front. Ruth Ortheris came out carrying a briefcase and sat down on the edge of a table under the awning. Neither of them had been watching the fuzzies until they saw one of them start down the path toward the footbridge, a glint of silver at the throat identifying Goldilocks. Look at that fool kid! You stay put, Ger, and I'll bring her back. He started down the path. By the time he'd reached the bridge Goldilocks was across and had vanished behind one of the air-jeeps parked in front of the Kellogg camp. When he was across and within twenty feet of the vehicle he heard a sound he had never heard before, a shrill thin shriek like a phylon sore-teeth. At the same time Ruth's voice screamed, Don't, Leonard, don't stop that! As he ran around the jeep the shrieking broke off suddenly. Goldilocks was on the ground her fur reddened. Kellogg stood over her, one foot raised. He was wearing white shoes and they were both spotted with blood. He stamped the foot down on the little bleeding body, and then Jack was within reach of him and something crunched under the fist he drove into Kellogg's face. Kellogg staggered and tried to raise his hands, he made a strangled noise, and for an instant the idiotic thought crossed Jack's mind that he was trying to say, Now please don't misunderstand me. He caught Kellogg's shirt front in his left hand and punched him again in the face and again and again. He didn't know how many times he punched Kellogg before he heard Ruth or Thera's voice. Jack, watch up, behind you! He let go of Kellogg's shirt and jumped aside, turning and reaching for his gun. Kirk Borsch, twenty feet away, had a pistol drawn and pointed at him. His first shot went off as soon as the pistol was clear of the holster. He fired the second while it was still recoiling. There was a spot of red on Borsch's shirt that gave him an aiming point for the third. Borsch dropped the pistol he hadn't been able to fire and started folding at the knees and then at the waist. He went down in a heap on his face. Behind him, Gerd van Riebig's voice was saying, Hold it, all of you! Get your hands up! You too, Kellogg. Kellogg, who had fallen, pushed himself erect, blood was gushing from his nose and he tried to staunch it on the sleeve of his jacket. As he stumbled towards his companions he blundered into Ruth or Thera's who pushed him angrily away from her. Then she went to the little crushed body, dropped to her knees beside it, and touched it. The silver charm-bell on the neck-chain jingled faintly. Ruth began to cry. One Jimenez had climbed down from the air-boat. He was looking at the body of Kurt Borsch in horror. You killed him, he accused. A moment later he changed that to murdered. Then he started to run toward the living-hut. Gerd van Riebig fired a bullet into the ground ahead of him, bringing him up short. He'll stop the next one-one, he said. Go help Dr. Kellogg, he got himself hurt. Call the constabulary, Mallon was saying. Ruth, you go, they won't shoot at you. Don't bother, I call them, remember? Jimenez had gotten a wad of handkerchief tissue out of his pocket and was trying to stop his superior's nose-bleed. Through it Kellogg was trying to tell Mallon that he hadn't been able to help it. The little beast attacked me, it cut me with that spirit it was carrying. Ruth or Therys looked up. The other fuzzies were with her by the body of Goldilocks. They must have come as soon as they heard the screaming. She came up to him and pulled at his trouser-leg the way they all do when they want to attract your attention, she said. She wanted him to look at her new jingle. Her voice broke and it was a moment before she could recover it. And he kicked her and then stamped her to death. Ruth, keep your mouth shut, Mallon ordered. The thing attacked Leonard, it might have given him a serious wound. It did. Still holding the wad of tissue to his nose with one hand, Kellogg pulled up his trouser-leg with the other and showed a scar on his shin. It looked like a briar scratch. You saw it yourself. Yes, I saw it. I saw you kick her and jump on her. All she wanted was to show you her new jingle. Jack was beginning to regret that he hadn't shot Kellogg as soon as he saw what was going on. The other fuzzies had been trying to get Goldilocks onto her feet. When they realized that it was no use, they let the body down again, and crouched in a circle around it, making soft lamenting sounds. Well, when the constabulary get here, you keep quiet, Mallon was saying. Let me do the talking. Intimidating witnesses, Mallon, gird inquired, don't you know everybody will have to testify at the constabulary post under verification, and your drawing pay for being a psychologist, too? He saw some of the fuzzies raise their heads and look toward the south-eastern horizon. Here come the cops now! However, it was Ben Rainsford's air-cheap with a zebra-lobe carcass slashed along one side. It circled the Kellogg camp and then let down quickly. Rainsford jumped out as soon as it was grounded, his pistol drawn. What happened, Jack? He asked, and then glanced around, from Goldilocks to Kellogg to Borsch, to the pistol beside Borsch's body. I get it. Next time anybody pulled a gun on you, they called it suicide. That's what this was, more or less. You have a movie camera in your jeep? Well, get some shots of Borsch and some of Goldilocks, then stand by, and if the fuzzies start doing anything different, get it all. I don't think you'll be disappointed. Rainsford looked puzzled, but he holed at his pistol and went back to his jeep, returning with a camera. Mallon began insisting that as a license M.D. he had a right to treat Kellogg's injuries. But Van Riebig followed him into the living-hut for a first-aid kit. They were just emerging, Van Riebig's automatic in the small of Mallon's back, when a constabulary car grounded beside Rainsford's air jeep. It wasn't car three. George Lunt jumped out, unsnapping the flap of his holster, while Armoured Cardra was talking into the radio. What's happened, Jack? Why didn't you wait until we got here? This maniac assaulted me and murdered that man over there, Kellogg began viscerating. There's your name, Jack, too, Lunt demanded. My name's Leonard Kellogg, and I'm a chief of division with the company. Then keep quiet until I ask you something. Armoured called the post, get Nabba and Yorimitsu with investigative equipment, and find out what's tying up car three. Mallon had opened the first-aid kit by now. Gerd, on seeing the constabulary, had holstered his pistol. Kellogg, still holding the sodden tissues to his nose, was wanting to know what there was to investigate. There's the murderer. You have him red-handed. Why don't you arrest him? Jack, let's get over where we can watch these people without having to listen to them," Lunt said. He glanced toward the body of Goldilocks. That happened first? Watch out, Lieutenant. He still has his pistol, Mallon shouted, warningly. They went over and sat down on the contra-gravity field generator housing, one of the rented air jeeps. Jack started with Gerd van Riebig's visit immediately afternoon. Yes, I thought of that angle myself, Lunt said disgustedly. I didn't think of it until this morning, though, and I didn't think things would blow up as fast as this. Hell, I just didn't think. Well, go on." He interrupted a little later to ask. Kellogg was stamping on the fuzzy when you hit him. You were trying to stop him? That's right. You can veridicate me on that, if you want to. I will. I'll veridicate this whole damn gang. And this guy Borsch had his heater out when you turned around? Nothing to it, Jack. We'll have to have some kind of a hearing, but it's just plain self-defence. Think any of this gang will tell the truth here without taking them in and putting them under veridication? Who thought Thurus will, I think? Send her over here, will you? She was still with the fuzzies, and Ben Rainsford was standing beside her, his camera ready. The fuzzies were still swaying and yeaking, plaintively. He nodded and rose without speaking, going over to where Lunt waited. Just what did happen, Jack, Rainsford wanted to know, and whose side is he on? He nodded towards Van Riebeek's standing guard over Kellogg and Mallon, his thumbs in his pistol-belt. Aris has quit the company. Just as he was finishing, car three put on an appearance. He had to tell the same story over again. The area in front of the Kellogg camp was getting ingested. He hoped Mike Hennan's labour-gang would stay away for a while. Lunt talked to Van Riebeek when he had finished with Ruth, and then with Himeaneth and Mallon and Kellogg. Then he and one of the men from car three came over to where Jack and Rainsford were standing. Guard Van Riebeek joined them, just as Lunt was saying. Jack, Kellogg's made a murder complaint against you. I told him it was self-defence, but he wouldn't listen. So according to the book, I have to arrest you. All right. He unbuckled his gun and handed it over. Now George, I herewith make complaint and accusation against Leonard Kellogg, charging him with the unlawful and unjustified killing of a sapient being to wit an aboriginal native of the planet of Zarathustra, commonly known as Goldilocks. Lunt looked at the small battered body and the six mourners around it. But Jack, they aren't legally sapient beings. There is no such thing. A sapient being is a being on the mental level of sapience, not a being that has been declared sapient. Fuzzies, a sapient being, Rainsford said, that's the opinion of a qualified xenonaturalist. Two of them, Guard Van Riebeek said, that is the body of a sapient being. There's the man who killed her. Go ahead, Lieutenant. Make your pinch. Hey, wait a minute. The Fuzzies were rising, sliding their chopper-diggers under the body of Goldilocks and lifting it on the steel shafts. Then Rainsford was aiming his camera as Cinderella picked up her sister's weapon and followed, carrying it. The others carried the body toward the far corner of the clearing, away from the camp. Rainsford kept just behind them, pausing to photograph and then hurrying to keep up with them. They set the body down. Mike and Mitzi and Cinderella began digging, the others scattered to hunt for stones. Coming up behind them, George Lunt took off his beret and stood holding it in both hands. He bowed his head as the grass-wrapped body was placed in the little grave and covered. Then when the can was finished he replaced it, drew his pistol and checked the chamber. That does it, Jack, he said. I'm now going to arrest Leonard Kellogg for the murder of a sapient being. CHAPTER VIII. Jack Holloway had been out on bail before, but never for quite so much. It was almost worth it, though, to see Leslie Coombs' eyes widen and Muhammad Ali O'Brien's jaw drop when he dumped the bag of sun-stones, blazing with the heat of the day in of his body, on George Lunt's magisterial bench, and invited George to pick out twenty-five thousand souls' worth, especially after the production Coombs had made of posting Kellogg's bail with one of those pre-certified company checks. He looked at the whiskey bottle in his hand and then reached into the cupboard for another one, one for Gus Brannard and one for the rest of them. There was a widespread belief that that was why Gustavus Adolphus Brannard was practicing sporadic law out here in the boondocks of a boondock planet, defending gunfighters and belt-beast rustlers. It wasn't. Nobody on Zarathustra knew the reason, but it wasn't whiskey. Whiskey was only the weapon with which Gus Brannard fought off the memory of the reason. He was in the biggest chair in the living-room which was none too ample for him, a mountain of a man with tousled grey-brown hair, his broad face masked in a tangle of grey-brown beard. He wore a faded and grimy bush-jacket with clips of rifle cartridges on the breast, no shirt and a torn undershirt over a shag of grey-brown chest hair. Between the bottoms of his shorts and the tops of his ragged hose and muddy boots his legs were covered with hair. Baby Fuzzy was sitting on his head, and Mama Fuzzy was on his lap. Mike and Mitzi sat one on either knee. The Fuzzies had taken instantly to Gus, but they thought he was a big Fuzzy. Ah! He rumbled as the bottle and glass were placed beside him, being staying alive for hours hoping for this. Well, don't let any of the kids get at it. Little Fuzzy trying to smoke pipes is bad enough. I don't want any dipsoes in the family, too. Gus filled the glass. To be on the safe side he promptly emptied it into himself. You've got a nice family, Jack. Make a wonderful impression in court, as long as Baby doesn't try to sit on the judge's head. Any jury that sees them and hears that authorised girl's story will acquit you from the box with a vote of sentry for not shooting Kellogg, too. I'm not worried about that. What I want is Kellogg convicted. You better worry, Jack, Rainsford said. You saw the combination against us at the hearing. Fuzzy Coombs, the company's top attorney, had come out from Mallory's Port in a yacht rated at Mach 6, and he must have crowded it to the limit all the way. With him almost on a leash had come Muhammad Ali O'Brien, the colonial attorney general who doubled as chief prosecutor. They had both tried to get the whole thing dismissed, self-defense for Holloway, and killing an unprotected wild animal for Kellogg. When that had failed they had teamed in flagrant collusion to fight the inclusion of any evidence about the fuzzies. After all it was only a complaint court. Lieutenant Lunt as a police magistrate had only the most limited powers. You saw how far they got, didn't you? I hope we don't wish they'd succeeded, Rainsford said gloomily. What do you mean, Ben? Brannad asked. What do you think they'll do? I don't know. That's what worries me. We're threatening the Zarathustra Company and the company's too big to be threatened safely, Rainsford replied. They'll try to frame something on Jack. With veridication that's ridiculous, Ben. Don't you think we can prove sapience, Gerd Van Riebeck demanded? Who's going to define sapience and how, Rainsford asked, why between them Coombs and O'Brien can even agree to accept the talk-and-vill to fire rule? Uh-uh. Brannad was positive, caught ruling on that about forty years ago on Vishnu. In Phantaside case, woman charged with murder in the death of her infant child, a lawyer moved for dismissal on the grounds that murder is defined as the killing of a sapient being, as sapient being is defined as one that can talk and build a fire, and a newborn infant can do neither. Motion denied, the court ruled that while ability to speak and produce fire is positive proof of sapience, inability to do either or both does not constitute legal proof of non-sapience. If O'Brien doesn't know that, and I doubt if he does, Coombs will. Brannad poured another drink and gulped it before the sapient beings around him could get at it. You know what? I will make a small wager, and I will even give odds, that the first thing Hammer O'Brien does when he gets back to Mullery's port will be to enter Nollay-Prosquy on both charges. What I'd like would be for him to noll cross Kellogg and let the charge against Jack go to court. He would be dumb enough to do that himself, but Leslie Coombs wouldn't let him. But if he throws out the Kellogg case, that's it, Gerd van Riebig said. When Jack comes to trial, nobody will say a mumbling word about sapience. I will, and I will not mumble it. You all know colonial law on homicide. In the case of any person killed while in commission of a felony, no prosecution may be brought in any degree against anybody. I'm going to contend that Leonard Kellogg was murdering a sapient being, that Jack Holloway acted lawfully in attempting to stop it, and that when Kurt Walsh attempted to come to Kellogg's assistance, he himself was guilty of felony, and consequently any prosecution against Jack Holloway is illegal. And to make that contingent stick, I shall have to say a great many words and produce a great deal of testimony about the sapience of Fuzzies. It'll have to be expert testimony, Rainsford said. The testimony of psychologists. I suppose you know that the only psychologists on this planet are employed by the Chartered Zarathustra Company. He drank what was left of his highball, looked at the bits of ice in the bottom of his glass, and then rose to mix another one. I'd have done the same as you did, Jack, but I still wish this hadn't happened. Ha! Mama Fuzzy looked up startled by the exclamation. What do you think Victor Grego is wishing right now? Victor Grego replaced the handphone. Leslie on the yacht, he said, they're coming in now, they'll stop at the hospital to drop Kellogg, and then they're coming here. Nick Emmert nibbled a canopy, he had reddish hair, pale eyes, and a wide bovine face. Holloway must have done him up pretty badly, he said. I wish Holloway had killed him. He blurted it angrily, and saw the resident general's shocked expression. You don't really mean that, Victor. The devil I don't. He gestured at the recorder player, which had just finished the tape of the hearing, transmitted from the yacht at sixty speed. That's the only teaser to what'll come out at the trial. You know what the company's epitaph will be. Kick to death, along with the Fuzzy by Leonard Kellogg. Everything would have worked out perfectly if Kellogg had only kept his head and avoided collision with Holloway. Why even the killing of the Fuzzy and the shooting of Borsch, inexcusable as that had been, wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been for that asinine murder complaint. That was what had provoked Holloway's counter-complaint, which was what had done the damage. And now that he thought of it, it had been one of Kellogg's people, Van Rebik, who had touched off the explosion in the first place. He didn't know Van Rebik himself, but Kellogg should have, and he had handled him the wrong way. He should have known what Van Rebik would go along with and what he wouldn't. But, Victor, they won't convict Leonard of murder, Emmett was saying, not for killing one of those little things. Murder shall consist of the deliberate and unjustified killing of any sapient being of any race, he quoted, that's the law, if they can prove in court that the Fuzzies are sapient beings. Then some morning a couple of deputy marshals would take Leonard Kellogg out in the jail-yard and put a bullet through the back of his head, which in itself would be no loss. The trouble was they would also be shooting an irreparable hole in the Zarathustra Company's charter. Maybe Kellogg could be kept out of court at that. There wasn't a ship blasted off from Darius without a couple of drunken spacemen being hustled aboard at the last moment. With the job Holloway must have done, Kellogg should look just right as a drunken spaceman. The twenty-five thousand souls Bond could be written off that was penniest to the company. No, that would still leave them stuck with the Holloway trial. You want me out of here when the others come, Victor? Emmett asked, popping another canapé into his mouth. No, no, sit still. This will be the last chance we'll have to get everybody together. After this we'll have to avoid anything that'll look like collusion. Well, anything I can do to help, you know that, Victor, Emmett said. Yes, he knew that. If worst came to utter worst and the company charter were invalidated, he could still hang on here, doing what he could do to salvage something out of the wreckage, if not for the company, then for Victor Grego. If Zarathustra were reclassified Nick would be finished, his title, his social position, his sinecure, his grafts and perquisites, his alias shrouded company expense account, all out the airlock. Nick would be countered upon to do anything he could, however much that would be. He looked across the room at the levitated globe revolving imperceptibly in the orange spotlight. It was full dark on beta-continent now where Leonard Kellogg had killed a fuzzy-named Goldilocks and Jack Holloway had killed a gunman named Kurt Borsch. That angered him, too, hell of a gunman. Clear shot at the broad of a man's back and still got himself killed. Borsch hadn't been any better choice than Kellogg himself. What was the matter with him? Couldn't he pick men for jobs any more? And ham O'Brien. No, he didn't have to blame himself for O'Brien. O'Brien was one of Nick Emmett's boys, and he hadn't picked Nick, either. The cork-box on the desk made a pre-monitory noise, and a feminine voice advised him that Mr. Coombs and his party had arrived. All right, show-men. Coombs entered first, tall, suavely elegant, with a calm, untroubled face. Leslie Coombs would wear the same serene expression in the midst of a bombardment or an earthquake. He had chosen Coombs for chief attorney, and thinking of that made him feel better. Muhammad Ali O'Brien was neither tall, elegant nor calm. His skin was almost black. He'd been born on Agni under a hot B-3 sun. His bald head glistened, and a big nose peeped over the ambuscade of a pushy-white moustache. What was it they said about him? Only man on Zarathustra who could start sitting down. And behind them, the remnant of the expedition to beta-continent, Ernst Malan, Juan Jimenez, and Ruth Ortheras. Malan was saying that it was a pity Dr. Kellogg wasn't with them. I question that. Well, please be seated. We have a great deal to discuss, I'm afraid. Mr. Chief Justice Frederick Pandavas moved the ashtray a few inches to the right and the slender vase with the spray of star flowers a few inches to the left. He set the framed photograph of the gentle-faced white-haired woman directly in front of him. Then he took a thin cigar from the silver box, carefully punctured the end, and lit it. Then unable to think of further delaying tactics, he drew the two bulky loose-leaf books towards him and opened the red one, the criminal-case docket. Something would have to be done about this. He always told himself so at this hour. Shovelling all this stuff into central courts had been all right when Malarys ported a population of less than five thousand, and nothing else on the planet had had more than five hundred. But that time was ten years past. The Chief Justice of a planetary colony shouldn't have to wade through all this to see who had been accused of blotting the brand on a belt-beast calf, or who'd taken a shot at whom in a bar-room. Well, at least he'd managed to get a few misdemeanor and small claims courts established. That was something. The first case, of course, was a homicide, it usually was. From Beta, Constabulary 15, Lieutenant George Lunt, Jack Holloway, so old Jack had cut another notch on his gun, Cold Creek Valley, Federation citizen, race, Terran human, willful killing of a sapient being to Witt Kurt Borsch, Malarys Porte, Federation citizen, race, Terran human. Complainant Leonard Kellogg, the same, Attorney of Record for the Defendant, Gustavus Adolphus Brunnerd. The last time Jack Holloway had killed anybody, it had been a couple of thugs who'd tried to steal his son's stones, it hadn't even gotten into complaint court. This time he might be in trouble. Kellogg was a company executive. He decided he'd better try the case himself, the company might try to exert pressure. The next charge was also homicide from Constabulary Beta 15. He read it and blinked. Leonard Kellogg, willful killing of a sapient being to Witt Jane Doe, alias Goldilocks, Aborigini, race, Zarathustran, Fuzzy. Complainant Jack Holloway, Defendant's Attorney of Record, Leslie Coombs. In spite of the outrageous frivolity of the charge he began to laugh. It was obviously an attempt to ridicule Kellogg's own complaint out of court. Every judicial jurisdiction ought to have at least one Gus Brunnerd to livid things up a little. Race, Zarathustran, Fuzzy. Then he stopped laughing suddenly and became deadly serious like an engineer who finds a cataclysmite cartridge lying around primed and connected to a discharger. He reached out to the screen-panel and began punching a combination. A spectacled young man appeared and greeted him deferentially. "'Morning, Mr. Wilkins,' he replied. A couple of homicides at the head of this morning's docket, Holloway and Kellogg, both from Beta 15, ought to know about them. The young man began to laugh. Oh, your honour, they're both a lot of nonsense. Dr. Kellogg killed some pet belonging to old Jack Holloway, the Sunstone digger. And in the ensuing unpleasantness, Holloway can be very unpleasant if he feels he has to. This man Borsch, who seems to have been Kellogg's bodyguard, made the suicidal error of trying to draw a gun on Holloway. I'm surprised at Lieutenant Lunt for letting either of those charges get past hearing court. Mr. O'Brien has entered Nollay-Prosaquy on both of them, so the whole thing can be disregarded. Muhammad O'Brien knew a charge of cataclysmite when he saw one, too. His impulse had been to pull the detonator. Well, maybe this charge ought to be shot just to see what it would bring down. I haven't approved the Nollay-Prosaquy yet, Mr. Wilkins, he mentioned gently. Would you please transmit to me the hearing tapes on these cases at sixty speed? I'll take them on the recorder of this screen. Thank you." He reached out and made the necessary adjustments. Wilkins, the clerk of the court, left the screen and returned. There was a wavering scream for a minute and a half. Going to take more time than he had expected. Well. There wasn't enough ice in the glass, and Leonard Kellogg put more in. Then there was too much, and he added more brandy. He shouldn't have started drinking this early, be drunk by dinner time if he kept it up. But what else was there to do? He couldn't go out, not with his face like this. In any case, he wasn't sure he wanted to. They were all down on him, Ernst Mallon and Ruth Ortheris, and even Juan Jimenez. At the constabulary post, Coombs and O'Brien had treated him like an idiot child who has to be hushed in front of company, and coming back to Mallory's port they'd ignored him completely. He drank quickly, and then there was too much ice in the glass again. Victor Grego had told him it better take a vacation until the trial was over and put Mallon in charge of the division. Said he oughtn't to be in charge while the division was working on defence evidence. Well, maybe. It looked like the first step towards shoving him completely out of the company. He dropped into a chair and lit a cigarette. It tasted badly, and after a few puffs he crushed it out. Well, what else could he have done? After they'd found that little grave he had to make Gerd understand what it would mean to the company. Juan and Ruth had been all right. But Gerd, the things Gerd had called him, the things he'd said about the company, and then that call from Holloway and the humiliation of being ordered out like a tramp. And then that disgusting little beast had come pulling at his clothes and he'd pushed it away, well, kicked it, maybe, and it had struck at him with the little spirit it was carrying. Nobody but a lunatic would give a thing like that to an animal anyhow, and he'd kicked it again and it had screamed. The communication screen in the next room was buzzing. Maybe that was Victor. He gulped the brandy left in the glass and hurried to it. It was Leslie Coombs his face remotely expressionless. Oh, hello Leslie. Good afternoon, Dr. Kellogg. The formality of address was studiously rebuking. The chief prosecutor just called me. Judge Prendarvis has denied the nollé prosaquet he ended in your case and in Mr. Holloway's and ordered both cases to trial. You mean they're actually taking this seriously? It is serious. If you're convicted the company's charter will be almost automatically voided, and although this is important only to you personally, you might very probably be sentenced to be shot. He shrugged that off and continued, Now I want to talk to you about your defence for which I am responsible, say ten-thirty tomorrow at my office. I should, by that time, know what sort of evidence is going to be used against you. I will be expecting you, Dr. Kellogg. He must have said more than that, but that was all that registered. Leonard wasn't really conscious of going back to the other room until he realized that he was sitting in his relaxer chair, filling the glass with brandy. There was only a little ice in it, but he didn't care. They were going to try him for murder for killing that little animal, and Ham O'Brien had said they wouldn't. He'd promised he'd keep the case from trial, and he hadn't. They were going to try him anyhow, and if they convicted him they'd take him out and shoot him for just killing a silly little animal. He'd killed it. He'd kicked it and jumped on it. He could still hear it screaming and feel the horrible soft crunching under his feet. He gulped what was left in the glass and poured and gulped more. Then he staggered to his feet and stumbled over the couch and threw himself onto it, face down among the cushions. Leslie Coombs found Nick Emmett with Victor Grego in the latter's office when he entered. They both rose to greet him, and Grego said, You've heard? Yes. O'Brien called me immediately. I called my client, my client of record that is, and told him. I'm afraid it was rather a shock to him. It wasn't any shock to me, Grego said, as they sat down. When Ham O'Brien's as positive about anything as he was about that, I always expect the worst. Pandavas is going to try the case himself, Emmett said. I always thought he was a reasonable man, but what's he trying to do now? Cut the company's throat. He isn't anti-company, he isn't pro-company either, he's just pro-law. The law says that a planet with native sapient inhabitants is a class-four planet and has to have a class-four colonial government. If Zarathustra is a class-four planet, he wants it established and the proper laws applied. If it's a class-four planet, the Zarathustra company is illegally chartered. It's his job to put a stop to illegality. Frederick Pandavas' religion is the law and he is its priest. You never get anywhere by arguing religion with a priest. They were both silent for a while after he had finished. Grego was looking at the globe and he realized now that while he was proud of it, his pride was the pride in a paste-jewel that stands for a real one in a bank vault. Now he was afraid that the real jewel was going to be stolen from him. Nick Emmett was just afraid. You were right yesterday, Victor. I wish Holloway had killed that son of a kugra. Maybe it's not too late. Yes, it is, Nick. It's too late to do anything like that. It's too late to do anything but win the case in court. He turned to Grego. What are your people doing? Grego took his eyes from the globe. Ernst Mullins studying all the film-devidence we have and all the descriptions of fuzzy behavior and trying to prove that none of it is the result of sapient mentation. Ruth Ortheris is doing the same, only she's working on the line of instinct and conditioned reflexes and non-sapient single-stage reasoning. She has a lot of rats and some dogs and monkeys and a lot of apparatus and some technician from Henry Stenson's instrument shop helping her. Juan Jiménez is studying mentation of Terran dogs, cats and primates and Frey and colfs and Mimir black slingers. He hasn't turned up any simian or canine parallels to that funeral, has he? Grego said nothing, merely shook his head. But muttered something inaudible and probably indecent. I didn't think he had. I only hoped those fuzzies don't get up in court, build a bonfire, and start making speeches in lingua tera. Nick Emmert cried out in panic, you believe they're sapient yourself. Of course, don't you?" Grego laughed sourly. Nick thinks you have to believe a thing to prove it. It helps, but it isn't necessary. Say we're a debating team. We've been handed the negative of the question. It's resolved that fuzzies are sapient beings. Personally, I think we have the short end of it, but that only means we'll have to work harder on it. You know, I was in a debating team at college, Emmert said brightly. When that was disregarded, he added, if I remember, the first thing was definition of terms. Grego looked up quickly. Leslie, I think Nick has something. What is the legal definition of a sapient being? As far as I know, there isn't any sapience is something that's just taken for granted. How about talk and build a fire? He shook his head. People of the colony of Vishnu versus Amy Morish, 612AE. He told them about the infanticide case. I was looking up rulings on sapience. I passed the word on to Hammer Bryan. You know, what your people will have to do will be to produce the definition of sapience, acceptable to the court, that will include all known sapient races, and at the same time exclude the fuzzies. I don't envy them. We need some fuzzies of our own to study, Grego said. Too bad we can't get hold of Holloway, as Emmert said. Maybe we could if he leaves them alone at his camp. No, we can't risk that," he thought for a moment. Wait a moment. I think we might be able to do it at that, legally. CHAPTER IX Jack Holloway saw Little Fuzzy eyeing the pipe he had laid in the ashtray, and picked it up, putting it in his mouth. Little Fuzzy looked reproachfully at him, and started to get down onto the floor. Pappy Jerk was mean. Didn't he think of Fuzzy, might want a smoker pipe, too? Well, maybe it wouldn't hurt him. He picked Little Fuzzy up, and set him back on his lap, offering the pipe stem. Little Fuzzy took a puff. He didn't cough over it, evidently it learned how to avoid inhaling. They scheduled the Kellogg trial first, Gus Brannard was saying, and there wasn't any way I could stop that. You see what the idea is. They'll try him first, with Leslie Coombs running both the prosecution and the defence, and if they can get him acquitted it'll prejudice the sapience evidence we introduce in your trial. Mamar Fuzzy made another try at intercepting the drink he was hoisting, but he frustrated that. Baby had stopped trying to sit on his head, and was playing peek-a-boo from behind his whiskers. First he continued, they'll exclude every bit of evidence about the Fuzzies that they can. That won't be much, but there'll be a fight to get any of it in. What they can't exclude, they'll attack. They'll attack credibility. Of course with veridication they can't claim anybody's lying, but they can claim self-deception. You make a statement you believe, true or false, and the veridicator will back you up on it. They'll attack qualifications on expert testimony, they'll quibble about statements of fact and statements of opinion, and what they can't exclude or attack they'll accept, and then deny that it's proof of sapience. What the hell do they want for proof of sapience, Gerd de Mounted, nuclear energy and contragravity in hyperdrive? They will have a nice, neat, pedantic definition of sapience tailored especially to exclude the Fuzzies, and they will present it in court and try to get it accepted, and it's up to us to guess in advance what that will be, and have a refutation of it ready, and also a definition of our own. Their definition will have to include Kugares, Gerd. Do the Kugares bury their dead? Hell no, they eat them. But you have to give them this, they cook them first. Look, we won't get anywhere arguing about what Fuzzies do and Kugares don't do, Rainsford said, will have to get a definition of sapience. Remember what Ruth said Saturday night? Gerd van Riebeek looked as though he didn't want to remember what Ruth had said, or even remember Ruth herself. Jack nodded and repeated it. I got the impression of non-sapient intelligence shading up to a sharp line, and then sapience shading up from there, maybe a different color, or wavy lines instead of straight ones. It's a good graphic representation, Gerd said. You know, that line's so sharp I'd be tempted to think of sapience as a result of mutation, except that I can't quite buy the same mutation happening in the same way on so many different planets. Ben Rainsford started to say something, then stopped short when a constabulary siren hooted over the camp. The Fuzzies looked up interestingly. They knew what that was, Papi Jack's friends in the blue clothes. Jack went to the door and opened it, putting the outside light on. The car was landing. George Lunt, two of his men and two men in civilian clothes were getting out. Both the latter were armed, and one of them carried a bundle under his arm. Hello, George, come on in. We want to talk to you, Jack. Lunt's voice was strained, empty of warmth or friendliness. At least these men do. Why, yes, sure. He backed into the room to permit them to enter. Something was wrong. Something bad had come up. Kadra came in first, placing himself beside and a little behind him. Lunt followed, glancing quickly around and placing himself between Jack and the gun-rack, and also the holstered pistols on the table. The third trooper let the two strangers in ahead of him, and then closed the door and put his back against it. He wondered if the court might have cancelled his bond and ordered him into custody. The two strangers, a beefy man with scrubby black moustache, and a smaller one with a thin, satin-ine face, were looking expectantly at Lunt. Rainsford and Van Reebick were on their feet. Gus Brannard leaned over to refill his glass, but did not rise. Let me have the papers, Lunt said to the beefy stranger. The other took a folded document and handed it over. Jack, this isn't my idea, Lunt said. I don't want to do it, but I have to. I wouldn't want to shoot you, either, but you make any resistance, and I will. I'm no Kurt Borsch. I know you, and I won't take any chances. If you're going to serve that paper, serve it, the bigger of the two strangers said. Don't stand yacking all night. Jack, Lunt said uncomfortably, this is a court order to impound your fuzzies as evidence in the Kellogg case. These men are deputy marshals from central courts. They've been ordered to bring the fuzzies into Mallory's port. Let me see the order, Jack, Brannard said, still remaining seated. Lunt handed it to Jack, and he handed it across to Brannard. Gus had been drinking steadily all evening. Maybe he was afraid he'd show it if he stood up. He looked at it briefly and nodded. Got order all right, signed by the Chief Justice. He handed it back. They have to take the fuzzies, and that's all there is to it. Keep that order, though, and make them give you a signed and thumb-printed receipt. Wrap it up for them now, Jack. Gus wanted to busy him with something so he wouldn't have to watch what was going on. The smaller of the two deputies had dropped the bundle from under his arm. It was a number of canvas sacks. He sat down at the typewriter, closing his ears to the noises in the room, and wrote the receipt, naming the fuzzies and describing them, and specifying that they were in good health and uninjured. One of them tried to climb to his lap, yeaking frantically. He clutched his shirt, but it was snatched away. He was finished with his work before the invaders were with theirs. They had three fuzzies already in sacks. Cadre was catching Cinderella. Coco and little Fuzzy had run for the little door in the outside wall, but Lunt was standing with his heels against it, holding it shut. When they saw that, both of them began burrowing in the bedding. The third trooper and the smaller of the two deputies dragged them out and stuffed them into sacks. He got to his feet still stunned and only half comprehending and took the receipt out of the typewriter. There was an argument about it. Lunt told the deputies to sign it or get the hell out without the fuzzies. They signed, inked their thumbs and printed after their signatures. Jack gave the paper to Gus, trying not to look at the six bulging writhing sacks or hear the frightened little sounds. George, you'll let them have some of their things, won't you? He asked. Sure, what kind of things? Their bedding, some of their toys. You mean this junk? The smaller of the two deputies kicked the ball and stick construction. All we got orders to take is the fuzzies. You heard the gentleman. Lunt made the word sound worse than son of a cougar. He turned to the two deputies. Well, you have them. What are you waiting for? Jack watched from the door as they put the sacks into the air-car, climbed in after them and lifted out. Then he came back and sat down at the table. They don't know anything about court orders, he said. They don't know why I didn't stop it. They think Pabby Jack let them down. Have they gone, Jack? Brannadast. Sure. Then he rose, reaching behind him, and took up a little ball of white fur. Pabby Fuzzy caught his beard with both tiny hands, yicking happily. Baby, they didn't get him. Brannad disengaged the little hands from his beard and handed him over. No, and they signed for him, too. Brannad done what was left of his drink, got a cigar out of his pocket and lit it. Now we're going to go to Mallory's Port and get the rest of them back. But the chief just assigned that order. He won't give them back just because we asked him to. Brannad made an impolite noise. I'll bet everything I own, Penn Darvis, never saw that order. They have stacks of those things signed in blank in the chief of the court's office. If they had to wait to get one of those judges to sign an order every time they wanted to subpoena a witness or impound physical evidence, they'd never get anything done. If Hamo Bryan didn't think this up for himself, Leslie Coombs thought it up for him. We'll use my airboat, Gerd said. You coming along, Ben? Let's get started." He couldn't understand. The big ones in the blue clothes had been friends, they had given the whistles and shone sorrow when the killed one was put in the ground. And why had Pappy Jack not gotten the big gun and stopped them? It couldn't be that he was afraid, Pappy Jack was afraid of nothing. The others were near in bags like the one in which he had been put. He could hear them and call to them. Then he felt the edge of the little knife Pappy Jack had made. He could cut his way out of the bag now and free the others, but that would be no use. They were in one of the things the big ones went up into the sky in, and if he got out now there would be nowhere to go and they would be caught at once, better to wait. The one thing that really worried him was that he would not know where they were being taken. When they did get away how would they ever find Pappy Jack again? Thus Brannard was nervous, showing it by being over-talkative and that worried Jack. He'd stopped twice at mirrors along the hallway to make sure that his gold-threaded grey neck cloth was properly knotted and that his black jacket was zipped up far enough and not too far. Now in front of the door marked the Chief Justice he paused before pushing the button to fluff his newly shampooed beard. There were two men in the Chief Justice's private chambers. Pendavas he had seen once or twice, but their paths had never crossed. He had a good face, thin and aesthetic, the face of a man at peace with himself. With him was Muhammad Ali Al-Bryan, who seemed surprised to see the mentor and then apprehensive. Nobody shook hands. The Chief Justice bowed slightly and invited them to be seated. Now he continued when they found chairs. Miss Ugatori tells me that you're making complaint against an action by Mr. O'Brien here. We are indeed your honour. Brannard opened his briefcase and produced two papers, the writ and the receipt for the fuzzies, handing them across the desk. My client and I wished to know upon what basis of legality your honour sanctioned this act, and by what right Mr. O'Brien sent his officers to Mr. Holloway's camp to snatch these little people from their friend and protector, Mr. Holloway. The judge looked at the two papers. As you know Miss Ugatori took prints of them when you called to make this appointment. I've seen them. But believe me, Mr. Brannard, this is the first time I have seen the original of this writ. You know how these things are signed in blank. It's a practice that has saved considerable time and effort, and until now they have been used only when there was no question that I or any other judge would have proved. Such a question would certainly have existed in this case. Because had I seen this writ I would never have signed it. He turned to the now-fidgeting chief prosecutor. Mr. O'Brien, he said, one simply does not impound sapient beings as evidence, as say one impounds a velk-beast calf in a brand alteration case. The fact that the sapience of these fuzzies is still subjudice includes the presumption of its possibility. Now you know perfectly well that the courts may take no action in the face of the possibility that some innocent person may suffer wrong. And your honour, Brannard leapt into the breach, it cannot be denied that these fuzzies have suffered a most outrageous wrong. Picture them. No, picture innocent and artless children, for that is what these fuzzies are, happy trusting little children, who until then had known only kindness and affection, rudely kidnapped, stuffed into sacks by brutal and callous men. Your honour, O'Brien's face turned even blacker than the hot sun of Agni had made it. I cannot hear officers of the court so characterised without raising my voice in protest. Mr. O'Brien seems to forget that he is speaking in the presence of two eye-witnesses to this brutal abduction. If the officers of the court need defence, Mr. O'Brien, the court will defend them. I believe that you should presently consider a defence of your own actions. Your honour, I insist that I only acted as I felt to be my duty, O'Brien said. These fuzzies are a key exhibit in the case of people versus Kellogg, since only by demonstration of their sapience can any prosecution against the defendant be maintained. Then why, Brannard demanded, did you endanger them in this criminally reckless manner? Endanger them, O'Brien was horrified. Your honour, I acted only to ensure their safety and appearance in court. So you took them away from the only man on this planet who knows anything about their proper care, a man who loves them as he would his own human children, and you subjected them to abuse which, for all you knew, might have been fatal to them." Judge Pendarvis nodded. I don't believe, Mr. Brannard, that you have overstated the case. Mr. O'Brien, I take a very unfavourable view of your action in this matter. You had no right to have what are at least putatively sapient beings treated in this way. And even viewing them as mere physical evidence I must agree with Mr. Brannard's characterisation of your conduct as criminally reckless. Now speaking judicially, I order you to produce these fuzzies immediately and return them to the custody of Mr. Holloway. Well, of course, your honour, O'Brien had been growing progressively distraught, and his face now had the grey-over-brown hue of a walnut gun-stock that has been out in the rain all day. It'll take an hour or so to send for them, and have them brought here. You mean they're not in this building?" Pendarvis asked. Oh, no, your honour, there are no facilities here. I had them taken to Science Centre. What? Jack had determined to keep his mouth shut and let Gus do the talking. The exclamation was literally forced out of him. Nobody noticed. It had also been forced out of both Gus Brannard and Judge Pendarvis. Pendarvis leaned forward and spoke with dangerous mildness. Do you refer, Mr. O'Brien, to the establishment of the Division of Scientific Study and Research of the Chartered Zaratustra Company? Why, yes, they have facilities for keeping all kinds of live animals, and they do all the scientific work for—Pendarvis cursed blasphemously. Brannard looked as startled as though his own briefcase had jumped at his throat and tried to bite him. He didn't look half as startled as Hamm O'Brien did. So you think, Pendarvis said, recovering his composure with visible effort, that the logical custodian of prosecution evidence in a murder trial is the defendant? Mr. O'Brien, you simply enlarge my view of the possible. The Zaratustra Company isn't the defendant, O'Brien argued sullenly. Not of record, no, Brannard agreed, but isn't the Zaratustra Company's scientific division headed by one Leonard Kellogg? Dr. Kellogg's been relieved of his duty, spending the outcome of the trial. The division is now headed by Dr. Ernst Malin. Chief Scientific Witness for the Defense I fail to see any practical difference. Well, Mr. Emmet said it would be all right, O'Brien mumbled. Jack, did you hear that? Brannard asked. Treasure it in your memory. You may have to testify to it in court some time. He turned to the Chief Justice. Your honour, may I suggest the recovery of these fuzzies be entrusted to Colonial Marshall Fane, and may I further suggest that Mr. O'Brien be kept away from any communication equipment until they are recovered? That sounds like a prudent suggestion, Mr. Brannard. Now, I'll give you an order for the surrender of the fuzzies and a search warrant, just to be on the safe side. And I think an orphan's court-form naming Mr. Holloway as guardian of these putatively sapient beings. What are their names? Oh, I have them here on this receipt. He smiled pleasantly. See, Mr. O'Brien, we're saving you a lot of trouble. O'Brien had little enough wit to protest. But these are the defendant and his attorney in another murder-case I'm prosecuting, he began. Penn Darvis stopped smiling. Mr. O'Brien, I doubt if you'll be allowed to prosecute anything or anybody around here any more, and I am specifically relieving you of any connection with either the Kellogg or the Holloway trial. And if I hear any argument out of you about it, I will issue a bench warrant for your arrest on charges of malfeasance in office. CHAPTER X Colonial Marshal Max Fane was as heavy as Gus Brannard and considerably shorter, wedged between them on the back seat of the Marshal's car, Jack Holloway contemplated the backs of the two uniformed deputies on the front seat, and felt a happy smile spread through him. He was going to get his fuzzies back. Little Fuzzy and Coco and Mike and Mama Fuzzy and Mitzi and Cinderella. He named them over, and imagined them crowding around him happy to be back with Pappy Jack. The car settled onto the top-learning stage of the company's science centre, and immediately a company cop came running up. Gus opened the door, and Jack climbed out after him. Hey! You can't land here, the cop was shouting. This is for company executives only. Gus Fane emerged behind them and stepped forward, the two deputies piled out from in front. The hell you say now, Fane said, a court order lands anywhere. Bring him along, boys, we wouldn't want him to go and bump himself on a communication screen anywhere. The company cop started to protest, then subsided and fell in between the deputies. Maybe it was beginning to dawn on him that the Federation courts were bigger than the chartered Zarathustra company after all, or maybe he just thought there'd been a revolution. Leonard Kellogg's temporarily-earned Malin's office was on the first floor of the penthouse counting down from the top-landing stage. When they stepped from the escalator the hall was crowded with office people, gubbling excitedly in groups. They all stopped talking as soon as they saw what was coming. In the division chief's outer office three or four girls jumped to their feet, one of them jumped into the bulk of Marshal Fane which had interposed itself between her and the communication screen. They were all shoed out into the hall, and one of the deputies was dropped there with the prisoner. The middle office was empty. Fane took his badge holder in his left hand as he pushed through the door to the inner office. Kellogg's, temporarily Malin's secretary, seemed to have preceded them by a few seconds. She was standing in front of the desk, sputtering incoherently. Malin, starting to rise from his chair, froze, hunched forward over the desk. One himeneth, standing in the middle of the room, seemed to have seen them first. He was looking about wildly as though for some way of escape. Fane pushed past the secretary and went up to the desk, showing Malin his badge and then serving the papers. Malin looked at him in bewilderment. "'But we're keeping those fuzzies for Mr. O'Brien, the chief prosecutor,' he said. He'd turn them over without his authorisation." "'This,' Max Fane said gently, is an order of the court, issued by Chief Justice Pendavis. As for Mr. O'Brien, I doubt if his chief prosecutor any more. In fact, I suspect that he's in jail. "'And that,' he shouted, leaning forward as far as his waistline would permit, and banging on the desk with his fist, is where I'm going to stuff you if you don't get those fuzzies in here, and turn them over immediately." If Fane had suddenly met a morphose himself into a damn thing, it couldn't have shaken Malin more. Involuntarily he cringed from the marshal, and that finished him. "'But I can't,' he protested. "'We don't know exactly where they are at the moment.' "'You don't know,' Fane's voice sank almost to a whisper, "'you admit you're holding them here, but you don't know where. "'Now start over again, tell the truth this time.' At that moment the communication screen began making a fuss. Ruth Ortheris in a light blue-tailed costume appeared on it. "'Dr. Malin, what is going on here?' she wanted to know. "'I just came in from lunch, and a gang of men are tearing my office up. Haven't you found the fuzzies yet?' "'What's that?' Jack yelled. At the same time Malin was almost screaming. "'Ruth, shut up, blank out, and get out of the building.' With surprising speed for a man of his girth, Fane whirled, and was in front of the screen, holding his badge out. "'I'm Colonel Marshal Fane, now young woman, I want you up here right away. Don't make me send anybody after you, because I won't like that, and neither will you.' "'Right away, Marshal,' she blanked the screen. Fane turned to Malin. "'Now he wasn't bothering with vocal tricks any more. Are you going to tell me the truth, or am I going to run you in and put a veridicator on you? Where are those fuzzies?' "'But I don't know, Malin whirled. One, you tell him. You took charge of them. I haven't seen them since they were brought here.' Jack managed to fight down the fright that was clutching at him, and got control of his voice. "'If anything's happened to those fuzzies, you two are going to envy Kurt Busch before I'm through with you,' he said. "'All right, how about it?' Fane asked him, Enneth. Start with when you and Jaime O'Brien picked up the fuzzies at Central Court's building last night. "'Well, we brought them here. I'd gotten some cages fixed up for them and—' Ruth Ortheris came in. She didn't try to avoid Jack's eyes, nor did she try to brazen it out with him. She merely nodded distantly, as though they'd met on a ship some time, and sat down. "'What's happened, Marshal?' she asked. "'Why are you here with these gentlemen?' The court's ordered the fuzzies return to Mr. Holloway. Mullen was in a dither. He has some kind of a writ or something, and we don't know where they are.' "'Oh, no!' Ruth's face, for an instant, was dismay itself. Not when—' Then she froze shut. "'I came in about oh-seven hundred,' Hemaneith was saying, to give them food and water, and they'd broken out of their cages. The netting was broken loose on one cage, and the fuzzy that had been in it had gotten out and let the others out. They got into my office. They made a perfect shambles of it, and got out the door into the hall. And now we don't know where they are, and I don't know how they did any of it.' Cages built for something with no hands and almost no brains. Ever since Kellogg and Mullen had come to the camp, Mullen had been hypnotizing himself into the just silly little animal's doctrine. He must have succeeded. Last night he'd acted accordingly. "'We want to see the cages,' Jack said. "'Yup,' Fane went to the outer door. "'Miguel?' The deputy came in, herding the company cop ahead of him. "'You heard what happened?' Fane asked. "'Yeah, big fuzzy jailbreak. What did they do? Make little wooden pistols and bluff their way out?' "'By God, I wouldn't put it past them. Come along, bring Chummy along with you. He knows the inside of this place better than we do. "'Pete, call in. We want six more men. Tell Chang to borrow from the constabulary if he has to.' "'Wait a minute,' Jack said. He turned to Ruth. "'What do you know about this?' "'Well, not much. I was with Dr. Mullen here when Mr. Grego—I mean Mr. O'Brien— called to tell us that the fuzzies were going to be kept here until the trial. We were going to fix up a room for them, but till that could be done one got some cages to put them in. That was all I knew about it until nine thirty, when I came in and found everything in an uproar, and was told that the fuzzies had gotten loose during the night. I knew they couldn't get out of the building, so I went to my office and lab to start overhauling some equipment we were going to need with the fuzzies. About ten hundred I found I couldn't do anything with it, and my assistant and I loaded it on a pickup truck and took it to Henry Stenson's instrument shop. By the time I was through there, I had lunch, and then came back here.' He wondered briefly how a polyencephalographic veridicator would react to some of those statements. Might be a good idea if Max Fane found out. I'll stay here, Gus Brannet was saying, and see if I can get some more truth out of these people. Why don't you screen the hotel and tell Gerd and Ben what's happened? He asked. Gerd used to work here. Maybe he could help us, Aunt. Good idea. Pete, tell our reinforcements to stop at the Mallory on the way and pick him up. Fane turned to Himaneth. Come along, show us where you had these fuzzies and how they got away. You say one of them broke out of his cage and then released the others, Jack said to Himaneth, as they were going down on the escalator. Do you know which one it was? Himaneth shook his head. We just took them out of the bags and put them into the cages. That would be little fuzzy. He'd always been the brains of the family. With his leadership they might have a chance. The trouble was that this place was full of dangers fuzzies knew nothing about, radiation and poison and electric wiring and things like that. If they really had escaped, that was a possibility that began worrying Jack. On each floor they passed going down. He could glimpse parties of company employees in the halls, armed with nets and blankets and other catching equipment. When they got off, Himaneth led them through a big room of glass cases, mounted specimens and articulated skeletons of Zarathustran mammals. More people were there, looking around and behind and even into the cases. He began to think that the escape was genuine and not just to cover up for the murder of the fuzzies. Himaneth took them down a narrow hall beyond to an open door at the end. Inside the permanent nightlight made a blue-white glow, a swivel chair stood just inside the door. Himaneth pointed to it. They must have gotten up onto that to work the latch and open the door, he said. It was like the doors at the camp spring latch with a handle instead of a knob. They'd have learned how to work it from watching Him. Fane was trying the latch. Not too stiff, he said, your little fellow strong enough to work it? He tried it and agreed. Sure, and they'd be smart enough to do it, too. Even baby fuzzy, the one your men didn't get, would be able to figure that out. And look what they did to my office, Himaneth said, putting on the lights. They'd made quite a mess of it. They hadn't delayed long to do it, just thrown things around. Everything was thrown off the top of the desk. They had dumped the wastebasket and left it dumped. He saw that and chuckled. The escape had been genuine all right. Probably hunting for things they could use as weapons and doing as much damage as they could in the process. There was evidently a pretty wide streak of vindictiveness in fuzzy character. I don't think they're like you, one. Wouldn't blame them, Fane said. Let's see what kind of a Houdini they did on those cages now. The cages were in a room, file room, storeroom, junk room, behind Himaneth's office. It had a spring lock, too, and the fuzzies had dragged one of the cages over and stood on it to open the door. The cages themselves were about three feet wide and five feet long, with plywood bottoms, wooden frames, and quarter-inch netting on the sides and tops. The tops were hinged and fastened with hospes, and bolts slipped through the staples with nuts screwed on them. The nuts had been unscrewed from five and the bolts slipped out. The sixth cage had been broken open from the inside. The netting cut away from the frame at one corner and bent back in a triangle big enough for a fuzzy to crawl through. I can't understand that, Himaneth was saying. Why, that wire looks as though it had been cut. It was cut, Marshal. I'd pull somebody's belt about this if I were you. Your men aren't very careful about searching prisoners. One of the fuzzies hid a knife out on them. He remembered how little Fuzzy and Coco had burrowed into the bedding in apparently unreasoning panic and explained about the little spring-steel knives he'd made. I suppose he palmed it and hugged himself into a ball as though he was scared witless when they put him in the bag. Waited till he was sure he wouldn't get caught before he used it, too, the Marshal said. That wire soft enough to cut easily. He turned to Himaneth. You people ought to be glad I'm ineligible for jury duty. Why don't you just throw it in and let Kellogg cop a plea? Kurt van Riebig stopped for a moment in the doorway and looked into what had been Leonard Kellogg's office. The last time he'd been here, Kellogg had had him in the carpet about that land-prawn business. Now Ernst Mallon was sitting in Kellogg's chair, trying to look unconcerned and not making a very good job of it. Gus Brannard sprawled in an armchair smoking a cigar and looking at Mallon as he would look at a river peak when he doubted whether it was worth shooting it or not. A uniformed deputy turned quickly, then went back to studying an elaborate wall-chart showing the interrelation of Zarathustran mammals. He'd made the original of that chart himself. And Ruth Ortheris sat apart from the desk and the three men smoking. She looked up and then when she saw that he was looking past and away from her, she lowered her eyes. You haven't found them, he asked Brannard. The fluffy-bearded lawyer shook his head. Jack has a gang down in the cellar working up. Max is in the psychology lab, putting the company cops who were on duty last night under veridication. They all claim, and the veridicator backs them up, that it was impossible for the fuzzies to get out of the building. They don't know what's impossible for a fuzzy. That's what I told him. He didn't give me any argument, either. He's pretty impressed with how they got out of those cages. Ruth spoke. Curd, we didn't hurt them. We weren't going to hurt them at all. One put them in cages because we didn't have any other place for them, but we were going to fix up a nice room where they could play together. Then she must have seen that he wasn't listening and stopped. Crushing out her cigarette and rising. Dr. Mallon, if these people haven't any more questions to ask me, I have a lot of work to do. You want to ask her anything, Curd? Brannard inquired. Once he had had something very important he had wanted to ask her. He was glad now that he hadn't gotten around to it. Hell, she was so married to the company, it would be bigamy if she married him, too. No, I don't want to talk to her at all. She started for the door, then hesitated. Curd, I—she began. Then she went out. Gus Brannard looked after her and dropped the ash of his cigar on Leonard Kellogg's now-earned Mallon's floor. Curd detested her, and she wouldn't have had any respect for him if he didn't. She ought to have known that something like this would happen. It always did in the business. A smart girl in the business never got involved with any one man. She always got herself four or five boyfriends on all possible sides, and played them off one against another. She'd have to get out of the science centre right away. Marshall Fain was questioning people under verification. She didn't dare let him get around to her. She didn't dare go to her office. The veridicator was in the lab across the hall, and that's where he was working. And she didn't dare—yes, she could do that by screen. She went into an office down the hall. A dozen people recognised her at once, and began bombarding her with questions about the fuzzies. She brushed them off, and went to a screen punching a combination. After a slight delay, an elderly man with a thin-lipped bloodless face appeared. When he recognised her, there was a brief look of annoyance on the thin face. Mr. Stenson, she began, before he could say anything, that apparatus I brought to your shop this morning, the sensory response detector, we've made a simply frightful mistake. There's nothing wrong with it, whatever, and if anything's done with it, it may cause serious damage. I don't think I understand, Dr. Otheris. Well, it was a perfectly natural mistake. You see, we're all at our wits' ends here. Mr. Holloway and his lawyer in the Colonial Marshall are here with an order from Judge Penn Darvis for the return of those fuzzies. None of us know what we're doing at all. Why, the whole trouble with the apparatus was the fault of the operator. We'll have to have it back immediately, all of it. I see, Dr. Otheris. The old instrument-maker looked worried. But I'm afraid the apparatus has already gone to the workroom. Mr. Stevenson has it now, and I can't get in touch with him at present, if the mistake can be corrected, what do you want done? Just hold it, I'll call or send for it. She blanked the screen. Old Johnson, the Chief Data Synthesis, tried to detain her with some question. I'm sorry, Mr. Johnson, I can't stop now. I have to go over to Company House right away. The suite at the Hotel Mallory was crowded when Jack Holloway returned with Gerd Van Rebic. It was noisy with voices, and the ventilators were laboring to get rid of the tobacco smoke. Gus Brannard, Ben Rainsford, and Baby Fuzzy were meeting the press. Oh, Mr. Holloway! somebody shouted as he entered. Have you found them yet? No, we've been all over the Science Centre from top to bottom. We know they went down a few floors from where they'd been caged, but that's all. I don't think they could have gotten outside. The only exit on the ground levels through a vestibule where a company policeman was on duty, and there's no way for them to have climbed down from any of the terraces or landing stages. Oh, Mr. Holloway, I hate to suggest this, somebody else said, but have you eliminated the possibility that they may have hidden in a trash bin and been dumped into the mass-energy converter? We thought of that. The converter's underground in a vault that can be entered only by one door, and that was locked. No trash was disposed of between the time they were brought here and the time the search started, and everything that's been sent to the converter since has been checked piece by piece. Well, I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Holloway, and I know that everybody hearing this will be glad too. I take it you've not given up looking for them. Are we on the air now? No, I have not. I'm staying here in Mallory's port until I either find them or am convinced that they aren't in the city, and I'm offering a reward of two thousand sols a piece for their return to me. If you'll wait a moment, I'll have descriptions ready for you. Victor Gregoe unstopped the refrigerated cocktail jug. More, he asked Leslie Coombs. Yes, thank you. Coombs held his glass until it was filled. As you say, Victor, you made the decision, but you made it on my advice, and the advice was bad. He couldn't disagree even politely with that. He hoped it hadn't been ruinously bad. One thing Leslie wasn't trying to pass the buck, and considering how hammer O'Brien had mishandled his end of it, he could have done so quite plausibly. I used bad judgment, Coombs said dispassionately, as though discussing some mistake Hitler had made or Napoleon. I thought O'Brien wouldn't try to use one of those pre-signed rits, and I didn't think Penn Darvis would admit publicly that he signed court orders in blank. He's been severely criticized by the press about that. He hadn't thought Brannard and Holloway would try to fight a court order either. That was one of the consequences of being too long in a seemingly irresistible position you didn't expect resistance. Kellogg hadn't expected Jack Holloway to order him off his land-grant. Kurt Bosch had thought all he needed to do with the gun was pull it and wave it around, and Jimenez had expected the Fuzzies to just sit in their cages. I wonder where they got to, Coombs was saying. I understand they couldn't be found at all in the building. Ruth Ortheris has an idea. She got away from science centre before Faine could get hold of her and veridicate her. It seems she and an assistant took some apparatus out about ten o'clock in a truck. She thinks the Fuzzies hitched a ride with her. I know that sounds rather improbable, but hell, everything else sounds impossible. I'll have it followed up. Maybe we can find them before Holloway does. They're not inside science centre, that's sure. His own glass was empty. He debated a refill and voted against it. Oh, Brann's definitely out, I take it. Completely. Van Darvis gave him his choice of resigning or facing malfeasance charges. They couldn't really convict him of malfeasance for that, could they? Misfeasance, perhaps, but— They could charge him, and then they could interrogate him under veridication about his whole conduct in office. And you know what they would bring out, Coombs said. He almost broke an arm signing his resignation. He's still attorney general of the colony, of course. Nick issued a statement supporting him. That hasn't done Nick as much harm as O'Brien could do spilling what he knows about residency affairs. Now Brannard is talking about bringing suit against the company, and his furnishing copies of all the Fuzzy Films Holloway has to the news services. Interworld News is going hog-wild with it, and even the services we control can't play it down too much. I don't know who's going to be prosecuting these cases, but whoever it is he won't dare pull any punches. And the whole thing's made Pendavas hostile to us. I know the law and the evidence, and nothing but the law and the evidence, but the evidence is going to filter into his conscious mind through this hostility. He's called a conference with Brannard and myself for tomorrow afternoon. I don't know what that's going to be like. End of CHAPTER TEN