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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Little Fuzzy, by Henry Beam Piper
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Little Fuzzy
+
+
+Author: Henry Beam Piper
+
+
+
+Release Date: April 9, 2006  [eBook #18137]
+Most recently updated: June 20, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE FUZZY***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Greg Weeks, Barbara Tozier, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)
+
+
+
+LITTLE FUZZY
+
+by
+
+H. Beam Piper
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Jack Holloway found himself squinting, the orange sun full in his eyes. He
+raised a hand to push his hat forward, then lowered it to the controls to
+alter the pulse rate of the contragravity-field generators and lift the
+manipulator another hundred feet. For a moment he sat, puffing on the
+short pipe that had yellowed the corners of his white mustache, and looked
+down at the red rag tied to a bush against the rock face of the gorge five
+hundred yards away. He was smiling in anticipation.
+
+"This'll be a good one," he told himself aloud, in the manner of men who
+have long been their own and only company. "I want to see this one go up."
+
+He always did. He could remember at least a thousand blast-shots he had
+fired back along the years and on more planets than he could name at the
+moment, including a few thermonuclears, but they were all different and
+they were always something to watch, even a little one like this. Flipping
+the switch, his thumb found the discharger button and sent out a radio
+impulse; the red rag vanished in an upsurge of smoke and dust that mounted
+out of the gorge and turned to copper when the sunlight touched it. The
+big manipulator, weightless on contragravity, rocked gently; falling
+debris pelted the trees and splashed in the little stream.
+
+He waited till the machine stabilized, then glided it down to where he had
+ripped a gash in the cliff with the charge of cataclysmite. Good shot:
+brought down a lot of sandstone, cracked the vein of flint and hadn't
+thrown it around too much. A lot of big slabs were loose. Extending the
+forward claw-arms, he pulled and tugged, and then used the underside
+grapples to pick up a chunk and drop it on the flat ground between the
+cliff and the stream. He dropped another chunk on it, breaking both of
+them, and then another and another, until he had all he could work over
+the rest of the day. Then he set down, got the toolbox and the
+long-handled contragravity lifter, and climbed to the ground where he
+opened the box, put on gloves and an eyescreen and got out a microray
+scanner and a vibrohammer.
+
+The first chunk he cracked off had nothing in it; the scanner gave the
+uninterrupted pattern of homogenous structure. Picking it up with the
+lifter, he swung it and threw it into the stream. On the fifteenth chunk,
+he got an interruption pattern that told him that a sunstone--or
+something, probably something--was inside.
+
+Some fifty million years ago, when the planet that had been called
+Zarathustra (for the last twenty-five million) was young, there had
+existed a marine life form, something like a jellyfish. As these died,
+they had sunk into the sea-bottom ooze; sand had covered the ooze and
+pressed it tighter and tighter, until it had become glassy flint, and the
+entombed jellyfish little beans of dense stone. Some of them, by some
+ancient biochemical quirk, were intensely thermofluorescent; worn as gems,
+they glowed from the wearer's body heat.
+
+On Terra or Baldur or Freya or Ishtar, a single cut of polished sunstone
+was worth a small fortune. Even here, they brought respectable prices from
+the Zarathustra Company's gem buyers. Keeping his point of expectation
+safely low, he got a smaller vibrohammer from the toolbox and began
+chipping cautiously around the foreign object, until the flint split open
+and revealed a smooth yellow ellipsoid, half an inch long.
+
+"Worth a thousand sols--if it's worth anything," he commented. A deft tap
+here, another there, and the yellow bean came loose from the flint.
+Picking it up, he rubbed it between gloved palms. "I don't think it is."
+He rubbed harder, then held it against the hot bowl of his pipe. It still
+didn't respond. He dropped it. "Another jellyfish that didn't live right."
+
+Behind him, something moved in the brush with a dry rustling. He dropped
+the loose glove from his right hand and turned, reaching toward his hip.
+Then he saw what had made the noise--a hard-shelled thing a foot in
+length, with twelve legs, long antennae and two pairs of clawed mandibles.
+He stopped and picked up a shard of flint, throwing it with an oath.
+Another damned infernal land-prawn.
+
+He detested land-prawns. They were horrible things, which, of course,
+wasn't their fault. More to the point, they were destructive. They got
+into things at camp; they would try to eat anything. They crawled into
+machinery, possibly finding the lubrication tasty, and caused jams. They
+cut into electric insulation. And they got into his bedding, and bit, or
+rather pinched, painfully. Nobody loved a land-prawn, not even another
+land-prawn.
+
+This one dodged the thrown flint, scuttled off a few feet and turned,
+waving its antennae in what looked like derision. Jack reached for his hip
+again, then checked the motion. Pistol cartridges cost like crazy; they
+weren't to be wasted in fits of childish pique. Then he reflected that no
+cartridge fired at a target is really wasted, and that he hadn't done any
+shooting recently. Stooping again, he picked up another stone and tossed
+it a foot short and to the left of the prawn. As soon as it was out of his
+fingers, his hand went for the butt of the long automatic. It was out and
+the safety off before the flint landed; as the prawn fled, he fired from
+the hip. The quasi-crustacean disintegrated. He nodded pleasantly.
+
+"Ol' man Holloway's still hitting things he shoots at."
+
+Was a time, not so long ago, when he took his abilities for granted. Now
+he was getting old enough to have to verify them. He thumbed on the safety
+and holstered the pistol, then picked up the glove and put it on again.
+
+Never saw so blasted many land-prawns as this summer. They'd been bad last
+year, but nothing like this. Even the oldtimers who'd been on Zarathustra
+since the first colonization said so. There'd be some simple explanation,
+of course; something that would amaze him at his own obtuseness for not
+having seen it at once. Maybe the abnormally dry weather had something to
+do with it. Or increase of something they ate, or decrease of natural
+enemies.
+
+He'd heard that land-prawns had no natural enemies; he questioned that.
+Something killed them. He'd seen crushed prawn shells, some of them close
+to his camp. Maybe stamped on by something with hoofs, and then picked
+clean by insects. He'd ask Ben Rainsford; Ben ought to know.
+
+Half an hour later, the scanner gave him another interruption pattern. He
+laid it aside and took up the small vibrohammer. This time it was a large
+bean, light pink in color, He separated it from its matrix of flint and
+rubbed it, and instantly it began glowing.
+
+"Ahhh! This is something like it, now!"
+
+He rubbed harder; warmed further on his pipe bowl, it fairly blazed.
+Better than a thousand sols, he told himself. Good color, too. Getting his
+gloves off, he drew out the little leather bag from under his shirt,
+loosening the drawstrings by which it hung around his neck. There were a
+dozen and a half stones inside, all bright as live coals. He looked at
+them for a moment, and dropped the new sunstone in among them, chuckling
+happily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Victor Grego, listening to his own recorded voice, rubbed the sunstone on
+his left finger with the heel of his right palm and watched it brighten.
+There was, he noticed, a boastful ring to his voice--not the suave,
+unemphatic tone considered proper on a message-tape. Well, if anybody
+wondered why, when they played that tape off six months from now in
+Johannesburg on Terra, they could look in the cargo holds of the ship that
+had brought it across five hundred light-years of space. Ingots of gold
+and platinum and gadolinium. Furs and biochemicals and brandy. Perfumes
+that defied synthetic imitation; hardwoods no plastic could copy. Spices.
+And the steel coffer full of sunstones. Almost all luxury goods, the only
+really dependable commodities in interstellar trade.
+
+And he had spoken of other things. Veldbeest meat, up seven per cent from
+last month, twenty per cent from last year, still in demand on a dozen
+planets unable to produce Terran-type foodstuffs. Grain, leather, lumber.
+And he had added a dozen more items to the lengthening list of what
+Zarathustra could now produce in adequate quantities and no longer needed
+to import. Not fishhooks and boot buckles, either--blasting explosives and
+propellants, contragravity-field generator parts, power tools,
+pharmaceuticals, synthetic textiles. The Company didn't need to carry
+Zarathustra any more; Zarathustra could carry the Company, and itself.
+
+Fifteen years ago, when the Zarathustra Company had sent him here, there
+had been a cluster of log and prefab huts beside an improvised landing
+field, almost exactly where this skyscraper now stood. Today, Mallorysport
+was a city of seventy thousand; in all, the planet had a population of
+nearly a million, and it was still growing. There were steel mills and
+chemical plants and reaction plants and machine works. They produced all
+their own fissionables, and had recently begun to export a little refined
+plutonium; they had even started producing collapsium shielding.
+
+The recorded voice stopped. He ran back the spool, set for sixty-speed,
+and transmitted it to the radio office. In twenty minutes, a copy would be
+aboard the ship that would hyper out for Terra that night. While he was
+finishing, his communication screen buzzed.
+
+"Dr. Kellogg's screening you, Mr. Grego," the girl in the outside office
+told him.
+
+He nodded. Her hands moved, and she vanished in a polychromatic explosion;
+when it cleared, the chief of the Division of Scientific Study and
+Research was looking out of the screen instead. Looking slightly upward at
+the showback over his own screen, Victor was getting his warm,
+sympathetic, sincere and slightly too toothy smile on straight.
+
+"Hello, Leonard. Everything going all right?"
+
+It either was and Leonard Kellogg wanted more credit than he deserved or
+it wasn't and he was trying to get somebody else blamed for it before
+anybody could blame him.
+
+"Good afternoon, Victor." Just the right shade of deference about using
+the first name--big wheel to bigger wheel. "Has Nick Emmert been talking
+to you about the Big Blackwater project today?"
+
+Nick was the Federation's resident-general; on Zarathustra he was, to all
+intents and purposes, the Terran Federation Government. He was also a
+large stockholder in the chartered Zarathustra Company.
+
+"No. Is he likely to?"
+
+"Well, I wondered, Victor. He was on my screen just now. He says there's
+some adverse talk about the effect on the rainfall in the Piedmont area of
+Beta Continent. He was worried about it."
+
+"Well, it would affect the rainfall. After all, we drained half a million
+square miles of swamp, and the prevailing winds are from the west. There'd
+be less atmospheric moisture to the east of it. Who's talking adversely
+about it, and what worries Nick?"
+
+"Well, Nick's afraid of the effect on public opinion on Terra. You know
+how strong conservation sentiment is; everybody's very much opposed to any
+sort of destructive exploitation."
+
+"Good Lord! The man doesn't call the creation of five hundred thousand
+square miles of new farmland destructive exploitation, does he?"
+
+"Well, no, Nick doesn't call it that; of course not. But he's concerned
+about some garbled story getting to Terra about our upsetting the
+ecological balance and causing droughts. Fact is, I'm rather concerned
+myself."
+
+He knew what was worrying both of them. Emmert was afraid the Federation
+Colonial Office would blame him for drawing fire on them from the
+conservationists. Kellogg was afraid he'd be blamed for not predicting the
+effects before his division endorsed the project. As a division chief, he
+had advanced as far as he would in the Company hierarchy; now he was on a
+Red Queen's racetrack, running like hell to stay in the same place.
+
+"The rainfall's dropped ten per cent from last year, and fifteen per cent
+from the year before that," Kellogg was saying. "And some non-Company
+people have gotten hold of it, and so had Interworld News. Why, even some
+of my people are talking about ecological side-effects. You know what will
+happen when a story like that gets back to Terra. The conservation
+fanatics will get hold of it, and the Company'll be criticized."
+
+That would hurt Leonard. He identified himself with the Company. It was
+something bigger and more powerful than he was, like God.
+
+Victor Grego identified the Company with himself. It was something big and
+powerful, like a vehicle, and he was at the controls.
+
+"Leonard, a little criticism won't hurt the Company," he said. "Not where
+it matters, on the dividends. I'm afraid you're too sensitive to
+criticism. Where did Emmert get this story anyhow? From your people?"
+
+"No, absolutely not, Victor. That's what worries him. It was this man
+Rainsford who started it."
+
+"Rainsford?"
+
+"Dr. Bennett Rainsford, the naturalist. Institute of Zeno-Sciences. I
+never trusted any of those people; they always poke their noses into
+things, and the Institute always reports their findings to the Colonial
+Office."
+
+"I know who you mean now; little fellow with red whiskers, always looks as
+though he'd been sleeping in his clothes. Why, of course the Zeno-Sciences
+people poke their noses into things, and of course they report their
+findings to the government." He was beginning to lose patience. "I don't
+see what all this is about, Leonard. This man Rainsford just made a
+routine observation of meteorological effects. I suggest you have your
+meteorologists check it, and if it's correct pass it on to the news
+services along with your other scientific findings."
+
+"Nick Emmert thinks Rainsford is a Federation undercover agent."
+
+That made him laugh. Of course there were undercover agents on
+Zarathustra, hundreds of them. The Company had people here checking on
+him; he knew and accepted that. So did the big stockholders, like
+Interstellar Explorations and the Banking Cartel and Terra Baldur-Marduk
+Spacelines. Nick Emmert had his corps of spies and stool pigeons, and the
+Terran Federation had people here watching both him and Emmert. Rainsford
+could be a Federation agent--a roving naturalist would have a wonderful
+cover occupation. But this Big Blackwater business was so utterly silly.
+Nick Emmert had too much graft on his conscience; it was too bad that
+overloaded consciences couldn't blow fuses.
+
+"Suppose he is, Leonard. What could he report on us? We are a chartered
+company, and we have an excellent legal department, which keeps us safely
+inside our charter. It is a very liberal charter, too. This is a Class-III
+uninhabited planet; the Company owns the whole thing outright. We can do
+anything we want as long as we don't violate colonial law or the
+Federation Constitution. As long as we don't do that, Nick Emmert hasn't
+anything to worry about. Now forget this whole damned business, Leonard!"
+He was beginning to speak sharply, and Kellogg was looking hurt. "I know
+you were concerned about injurious reports getting back to Terra, and that
+was quite commendable, but...."
+
+By the time he got through, Kellogg was happy again. Victor blanked the
+screen, leaned back in his chair and began laughing. In a moment, the
+screen buzzed again. When he snapped it on, his screen-girl said:
+
+"Mr. Henry Stenson's on, Mr. Grego."
+
+"Well, put him on." He caught himself just before adding that it would be
+a welcome change to talk to somebody with sense.
+
+The face that appeared was elderly and thin; the mouth was tight, and
+there were squint-wrinkles at the corners of the eyes.
+
+"Well, Mr. Stenson. Good of you to call. How are you?"
+
+"Very well, thank you. And you?" When he also admitted to good health, the
+caller continued: "How is the globe running? Still in synchronization?"
+
+Victor looked across the office at his most prized possession, the big
+globe of Zarathustra that Henry Stenson had built for him, supported six
+feet from the floor on its own contragravity unit, spotlighted in orange
+to represent the KO sun, its two satellites circling about it as it
+revolved slowly.
+
+"The globe itself is keeping perfect time, and Darius is all right, Xerxes
+is a few seconds of longitude ahead of true position."
+
+"That's dreadful, Mr. Grego!" Stenson was deeply shocked. "I must adjust
+that the first thing tomorrow. I should have called to check on it long
+ago, but you know how it is. So many things to do, and so little time."
+
+"I find the same trouble myself, Mr. Stenson." They chatted for a while,
+and then Stenson apologized for taking up so much of Mr. Grego's valuable
+time. What he meant was that his own time, just as valuable to him, was
+wasting. After the screen blanked, Grego sat looking at it for a moment,
+wishing he had a hundred men like Henry Stenson in his own organization.
+Just men with Stenson's brains and character; wishing for a hundred
+instrument makers with Stenson's skills would have been unreasonable, even
+for wishing. There was only one Henry Stenson, just as there had been only
+one Antonio Stradivari. Why a man like that worked in a little shop on a
+frontier planet like Zarathustra....
+
+Then he looked, pridefully, at the globe. Alpha Continent had moved slowly
+to the right, with the little speck that represented Mallorysport
+twinkling in the orange light. Darius, the inner moon, where the
+Terra-Baldur-Marduk Spacelines had their leased terminal, was almost
+directly over it, and the other moon, Xerxes, was edging into sight.
+Xerxes was the one thing about Zarathustra that the Company didn't own;
+the Terran Federation had retained that as a naval base. It was the one
+reminder that there was something bigger and more powerful than the
+Company.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gerd van Riebeek saw Ruth Ortheris leave the escalator, step aside and
+stand looking around the cocktail lounge. He set his glass, with its inch
+of tepid highball, on the bar; when her eyes shifted in his direction, he
+waved to her, saw her brighten and wave back and then went to meet her.
+She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, dodged when he reached for her and
+took his arm.
+
+"Drink before we eat?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, Lord, yes! I've just about had it for today."
+
+He guided her toward one of the bartending machines, inserted his credit
+key, and put a four-portion jug under the spout, dialing the cocktail they
+always had when they drank together. As he did, he noticed what she was
+wearing: short black jacket, lavender neckerchief, light gray skirt. Not
+her usual vacation get-up.
+
+"School department drag you back?" he asked as the jug filled.
+
+"Juvenile court." She got a couple of glasses from the shelf under the
+machine as he picked up the jug. "A fifteen-year-old burglar."
+
+They found a table at the rear of the room, out of the worst of the
+cocktail-hour uproar. As soon as he filled her glass, she drank half of
+it, then lit a cigarette.
+
+"Junktown?" he asked.
+
+She nodded. "Only twenty-five years since this planet was discovered, and
+we have slums already. I was over there most of the afternoon, with a pair
+of city police." She didn't seem to want to talk about it. "What were you
+doing today?"
+
+"Ruth, you ought to ask Doc Mallin to drop in on Leonard Kellogg sometime,
+and give him an unobstusive going over."
+
+"You haven't been having trouble with him again?" she asked anxiously.
+
+He made a face, and then tasted his drink. "It's trouble just being around
+that character. Ruth, to use one of those expressions your profession
+deplores, Len Kellogg is just plain nuts!" He drank some more of his
+cocktail and helped himself to one of her cigarettes. "Here," he
+continued, after lighting it. "A couple of days ago, he told me he'd been
+getting inquiries about this plague of land-prawns they're having over on
+Beta. He wanted me to set up a research project to find out why and what
+to do about it."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I did. I made two screen calls, and then I wrote a report and sent it up
+to him. That was where I jerked my trigger; I ought to have taken a couple
+of weeks and made a real production out of it."
+
+"What did you tell him?"
+
+"The facts. The limiting factor on land-prawn increase is the weather. The
+eggs hatch underground and the immature prawns dig their way out in the
+spring. If there's been a lot of rain, most of them drown in their holes
+or as soon as they emerge. According to growth rings on trees, last spring
+was the driest in the Beta Piedmont in centuries, so most of them
+survived, and as they're parthenogenetic females, they all laid eggs. This
+spring, it was even drier, so now they have land prawns all over central
+Beta. And I don't know that anything can be done about them."
+
+"Well, did he think you were just guessing?"
+
+He shook his head in exasperation. "I don't know what he thinks. You're
+the psychologist, you try to figure it. I sent him that report yesterday
+morning. He seemed quite satisfied with it at the time. Today, just after
+noon, he sent for me and told me it wouldn't do at all. Tried to insist
+that the rainfall on Beta had been normal. That was silly; I referred him
+to his meteorologists and climatologists, where I'd gotten my information.
+He complained that the news services were after him for an explanation. I
+told him I'd given him the only explanation there was. He said he simply
+couldn't use it. There had to be some other explanation."
+
+"If you don't like the facts, you ignore them, and if you need facts,
+dream up some you do like," she said. "That's typical rejection of
+reality. Not psychotic, not even psychoneurotic. But certainly not sane."
+She had finished her first drink and was sipping slowly at her second.
+"You know, this is interesting. Does he have some theory that would
+disqualify yours?"
+
+"Not that I know of. I got the impression that he just didn't want the
+subject of rainfall on Beta discussed at all."
+
+"That is odd. Has anything else peculiar been happening over on Beta
+lately?"
+
+"No. Not that I know of," he repeated. "Of course, that swamp-drainage
+project over there was what caused the dry weather, last year and this
+year, but I don't see...." His own glass was empty, and when he tilted the
+jug over it, a few drops trickled out. He looked at his watch. "Think we
+could have another cocktail before dinner?" he asked.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Jack Holloway landed the manipulator in front of the cluster of prefab
+huts. For a moment he sat still, realizing that he was tired, and then he
+climbed down from the control cabin and crossed the open grass to the door
+of the main living hut, opening it and reaching in to turn on the lights.
+Then he hesitated, looking up at Darius.
+
+There was a wide ring around it, and he remembered noticing the wisps of
+cirrus clouds gathering overhead through the afternoon. Maybe it would
+rain tonight. This dry weather couldn't last forever. He'd been letting
+the manipulator stand out overnight lately. He decided to put it in the
+hangar. He went and opened the door of the vehicle shed, got back onto the
+machine and floated it inside. When he came back to the living hut, he saw
+that he had left the door wide open.
+
+"Damn fool!" he rebuked himself. "Place could be crawling with prawns by
+now."
+
+He looked quickly around the living room--under the big combination desk
+and library table, under the gunrack, under the chairs, back of the
+communication screen and the viewscreen, beyond the metal cabinet of the
+microfilm library--and saw nothing. Then he hung up his hat, took off his
+pistol and laid it on the table, and went back to the bathroom to wash his
+hands.
+
+As soon as he put on the light, something inside the shower stall said,
+"_Yeeeek!_" in a startled voice.
+
+He turned quickly to see two wide eyes staring up at him out of a ball of
+golden fur. Whatever it was, it had a round head and big ears and a
+vaguely humanoid face with a little snub nose. It was sitting on its
+haunches, and in that position it was about a foot high. It had two tiny
+hands with opposing thumbs. He squatted to have a better look at it.
+
+"Hello there, little fellow," he greeted it. "I never saw anything like
+you before. What are you anyhow?"
+
+The small creature looked at him seriously and said, "Yeek," in a timid
+voice.
+
+"Why, sure; you're a Little Fuzzy, that's what you are."
+
+He moved closer, careful to make no alarmingly sudden movements, and kept
+on talking to it.
+
+"Bet you slipped in while I left the door open. Well, if a Little Fuzzy
+finds a door open, I'd like to know why he shouldn't come in and look
+around."
+
+He touched it gently. It started to draw back, then reached out a little
+hand and felt the material of his shirt-sleeve. He stroked it, and told it
+that it had the softest, silkiest fur ever. Then he took it on his lap. It
+yeeked in pleasure, and stretched an arm up around his neck.
+
+"Why, sure; we're going to be good friends, aren't we? Would you like
+something to eat? Well, suppose you and I go see what we can find."
+
+He put one hand under it, to support it like a baby--at least, he seemed
+to recall having seen babies supported in that way; babies were things he
+didn't fool with if he could help it--and straightened. It weighed between
+fifteen and twenty pounds. At first, it struggled in panic, then quieted
+and seemed to enjoy being carried. In the living room he sat down in his
+favorite armchair, under a standing lamp, and examined his new
+acquaintance.
+
+It was a mammal--there was a fairly large mammalian class on
+Zarathustra--but beyond that he was stumped. It wasn't a primate, in the
+Terran sense. It wasn't like anything Terran, or anything else on
+Zarathustra. Being a biped put it in a class by itself for this planet. It
+was just a Little Fuzzy, and that was the best he could do.
+
+That sort of nomenclature was the best anybody could do on a Class-III
+planet. On a Class-IV planet, say Loki, or Shesha, or Thor, naming animals
+was a cinch. You pointed to something and asked a native, and he'd gargle
+a mouthful of syllables at you, which might only mean, "Whaddaya wanna
+know for?" and you took it down in phonetic alphabet and the whatzit had a
+name. But on Zarathustra, there were no natives to ask. So this was a
+Little Fuzzy.
+
+"What would you like to eat, Little Fuzzy?" he asked. "Open your mouth,
+and let Pappy Jack see what you have to chew with."
+
+Little Fuzzy's dental equipment, allowing for the fact that his jaw was
+rounder, was very much like his own.
+
+"You're probably omnivorous. How would you like some nice Terran
+Federation Space Forces Emergency Ration, Extraterrestrial, Type Three?"
+he asked.
+
+Little Fuzzy made what sounded like an expression of willingness to try
+it. It would be safe enough; Extee Three had been fed to a number of
+Zarathustran mammals without ill effects. He carried Little Fuzzy out into
+the kitchen and put him on the floor, then got out a tin of the field
+ration and opened it, breaking off a small piece and handing it down.
+Little Fuzzy took the piece of golden-brown cake, sniffed at it, gave a
+delighted yeek and crammed the whole piece in his mouth.
+
+"You never had to live on that stuff and nothing else for a month, that's
+for sure!"
+
+He broke the cake in half and broke one half into manageable pieces and
+put it down on a saucer. Maybe Little Fuzzy would want a drink, too. He
+started to fill a pan with water, as he would for a dog, then looked at
+his visitor sitting on his haunches eating with both hands and changed his
+mind. He rinsed a plastic cup cap from an empty whisky bottle and put it
+down beside a deep bowl of water. Little Fuzzy was thirsty, and he didn't
+have to be shown what the cup was for.
+
+It was too late to get himself anything elaborate; he found some leftovers
+in the refrigerator and combined them into a stew. While it was heating,
+he sat down at the kitchen table and lit his pipe. The spurt of flame from
+the lighter opened Little Fuzzy's eyes, but what really awed him was Pappy
+Jack blowing smoke. He sat watching this phenomenon, until, a few minutes
+later, the stew was hot and the pipe was laid aside; then Little Fuzzy
+went back to nibbling Extee Three.
+
+Suddenly he gave a yeek of petulance and scampered into the living room.
+In a moment, he was back with something elongated and metallic which he
+laid on the floor beside him.
+
+"What have you got there, Little Fuzzy? Let Pappy Jack see?"
+
+Then he recognized it as his own one-inch wood chisel. He remembered
+leaving it in the outside shed after doing some work about a week ago, and
+not being able to find it when he had gone to look for it. That had
+worried him; people who got absent-minded about equipment didn't last long
+in the wilderness. After he finished eating and took the dishes to the
+sink, he went over and squatted beside his new friend.
+
+"Let Pappy Jack look at it, Little Fuzzy," he said. "Oh, I'm not going to
+take it away from you. I just want to see it."
+
+The edge was dulled and nicked; it had been used for a lot of things wood
+chisels oughtn't to be used for. Digging, and prying, and most likely, it
+had been used as a weapon. It was a handy-sized, all-purpose tool for a
+Little Fuzzy. He laid it on the floor where he had gotten it and started
+washing the dishes.
+
+Little Fuzzy watched him with interest for a while, and then he began
+investigating the kitchen. Some of the things he wanted to investigate had
+to be taken away from him; at first that angered him, but he soon learned
+that there were things he wasn't supposed to have. Eventually, the dishes
+got washed.
+
+There were more things to investigate in the living room. One of them was
+the wastebasket. He found that it could be dumped, and promptly dumped it,
+pulling out everything that hadn't fallen out. He bit a corner off a sheet
+of paper, chewed on it and spat it out in disgust. Then he found that
+crumpled paper could be flattened out and so he flattened a few sheets,
+and then discovered that it could also be folded. Then he got himself
+gleefully tangled in a snarl of wornout recording tape. Finally he lost
+interest and started away. Jack caught him and brought him back.
+
+"No, Little Fuzzy," he said. "You do not dump wastebaskets and then walk
+away from them. You put things back in." He touched the container and
+said, slowly and distinctly, "Waste ... basket." Then he righted it, doing
+it as Little Fuzzy would have to, and picked up a piece of paper, tossing
+it in from Little Fuzzy's shoulder height. Then he handed Little Fuzzy a
+wad of paper and repeated, "Waste ... basket."
+
+Little Fuzzy looked at him and said something that sounded as though it
+might be: "What's the matter with you, Pappy; you crazy or something?"
+After a couple more tries, however, he got it, and began throwing things
+in. In a few minutes, he had everything back in except a brightly colored
+plastic cartridge box and a wide-mouthed bottle with a screw cap. He held
+these up and said, "Yeek?"
+
+"Yes, you can have them. Here; let Pappy Jack show you something."
+
+He showed Little Fuzzy how the box could be opened and shut. Then, holding
+it where Little Fuzzy could watch, he unscrewed the cap and then screwed
+it on again.
+
+"There, now. You try it."
+
+Little Fuzzy looked up inquiringly, then took the bottle, sitting down and
+holding it between his knees. Unfortunately, he tried twisting it the
+wrong way and only screwed the cap on tighter. He yeeked plaintively.
+
+"No, go ahead. You can do it."
+
+Little Fuzzy looked at the bottle again. Then he tried twisting the cap
+the other way, and it loosened. He gave a yeek that couldn't possibly be
+anything but "Eureka!" and promptly took it off, holding it up. After
+being commended, he examined both the bottle and the cap, feeling the
+threads, and then screwed the cap back on again.
+
+"You know, you're a smart Little Fuzzy." It took a few seconds to realize
+just how smart. Little Fuzzy had wondered why you twisted the cap one way
+to take it off and the other way to put it on, and he had found out. For
+pure reasoning ability, that topped anything in the way of animal
+intelligence he'd ever seen. "I'm going to tell Ben Rainsford about you."
+
+Going to the communication screen, he punched out the wave-length
+combination of the naturalist's camp, seventy miles down Snake River from
+the mouth of Cold Creek. Rainsford's screen must have been on automatic;
+it lit as soon as he was through punching. There was a card set up in
+front of it, lettered: AWAY ON TRIP, BACK THE FIFTEENTH. RECORDER ON.
+
+"Ben, Jack Holloway," he said. "I just ran into something interesting." He
+explained briefly what it was. "I hope he stays around till you get back.
+He's totally unlike anything I've ever seen on this planet."
+
+Little Fuzzy was disappointed when Jack turned off the screen; that had
+been interesting. He picked him up and carried him over to the armchair,
+taking him on his lap.
+
+"Now," he said, reaching for the control panel of the viewscreen. "Watch
+this; we're going to see something nice."
+
+When he put on the screen, at random, he got a view, from close up, of the
+great fires that were raging where the Company people were burning off the
+dead forests on what used to be Big Blackwater Swamp. Little Fuzzy cried
+out in alarm, flung his arms around Pappy Jack's neck and buried his face
+in the bosom of his shirt. Well, forest fires started from lightning
+sometimes, and they'd be bad things for a Little Fuzzy. He worked the
+selector and got another pickup, this time on the top of Company House in
+Mallorysport, three time zones west, with the city spread out below and
+the sunset blazing in the west. Little Fuzzy stared at it in wonder. It
+was pretty impressive for a little fellow who'd spent all his life in the
+big woods.
+
+So was the spaceport, and a lot of other things he saw, though a view of
+the planet as a whole from Darius puzzled him considerably. Then, in the
+middle of a symphony orchestra concert from Mallorysport Opera House, he
+wriggled loose, dropped to the floor and caught up his wood chisel,
+swinging it back over his shoulder like a two-handed sword.
+
+"What the devil? Oh-oh!"
+
+A land-prawn, which must have gotten in while the door was open, was
+crossing the living room. Little Fuzzy ran after and past it, pivoted and
+brought the corner of the chisel edge down on the prawn's neck, neatly
+beheading it. He looked at his victim for a moment, then slid the chisel
+under it and flopped it over on its back, slapping it twice with the flat
+and cracking the undershell. The he began pulling the dead prawn apart,
+tearing out pieces of meat and eating them delicately. After disposing of
+the larger chunks, he used the chisel to chop off one of the prawn's
+mandibles to use as a pick to get at the less accessible morsels. When he
+had finished, he licked his fingers clean and started back to the
+armchair.
+
+"No." Jack pointed at the prawn shell. "Wastebasket."
+
+"Yeek?"
+
+"Wastebasket."
+
+Little Fuzzy gathered up the bits of shell, putting them where they
+belonged. Then he came back and climbed up on Pappy Jack's lap, and looked
+at things in the screen until he fell asleep.
+
+Jack lifted him carefully and put him down on the warm chair seat without
+wakening him, then went to the kitchen, poured himself a drink and brought
+it in to the big table, where he lit his pipe and began writing up his
+diary for the day. After a while, Little Fuzzy woke, found that the lap he
+had gone to sleep on had vanished, and yeeked disconsolately.
+
+A folded blanket in one corner of the bedroom made a satisfactory bed,
+once Little Fuzzy had assured himself that there were no bugs in it. He
+brought in his bottle and his plastic box and put them on the floor beside
+it. Then he ran to the front door in the living room and yeeked to be let
+out. Going about twenty feet from the house, he used the chisel to dig a
+small hole, and after it had served its purpose he filled it in carefully
+and came running back.
+
+Well, maybe Fuzzies were naturally gregarious, and were
+homemakers--den-holes, or nests, or something like that. Nobody wants
+messes made in the house, and when the young ones did it, their parents
+would bang them around to teach them better manners. This was Little
+Fuzzy's home now; he knew how he ought to behave in it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning at daylight, he was up on the bed, trying to dig Pappy
+Jack out from under the blankets. Besides being a most efficient
+land-prawn eradicator, he made a first rate alarm clock. But best of all,
+he was Pappy Jack's Little Fuzzy. He wanted out; this time Jack took his
+movie camera and got the whole operation on film. One thing, there'd have
+to be a little door, with a spring to hold it shut, that little Fuzzy
+could operate himself. That was designed during breakfast. It only took a
+couple of hours to make and install it; Little Fuzzy got the idea as soon
+as he saw it, and figured out how to work it for himself.
+
+Jack went back to the workshop, built a fire on the hand forge and forged
+a pointed and rather broad blade, four inches long, on the end of a foot
+of quarter-inch round tool-steel. It was too point-heavy when finished, so
+he welded a knob on the other end to balance it. Little Fuzzy knew what
+that was for right away; running outside, he dug a couple of practice
+holes with it, and then began casting about in the grass for land-prawns.
+
+Jack followed him with the camera and got movies of a couple of prawn
+killings, accomplished with smooth, by-the-numbers precision. Little Fuzzy
+hadn't learned that chop-clap-clap routine in the week since he had found
+the wood chisel.
+
+Going into the shed, he hunted for something without more than a general
+idea of what it would look like, and found it where Little Fuzzy had
+discarded it when he found the chisel. It was a stock of hardwood a foot
+long, rubbed down and polished smooth, apparently with sandstone. There
+was a paddle at one end, with enough of an edge to behead a prawn, and the
+other end had been worked to a point. He took it into the living hut and
+sat down at the desk to examine it with a magnifying glass. Bits of soil
+embedded in the sharp end--that had been used as a pick. The paddle end
+had been used as a shovel, beheader and shell-cracker. Little Fuzzy had
+known exactly what he wanted when he'd started making that thing, he'd
+kept on until it was as perfect as possible, and had stopped short of
+spoiling it by overrefinement.
+
+Finally, Jack put it away in the top drawer of the desk. He was thinking
+about what to get for lunch when Little Fuzzy burst into the living room,
+clutching his new weapon and yeeking excitedly.
+
+"What's the matter, kid? You got troubles?" He rose and went to the
+gunrack, picking down a rifle and checking the chamber. "Show Pappy Jack
+what it is."
+
+Little Fuzzy followed him to the big door for human-type people, ready to
+bolt back inside if necessary.
+
+The trouble was a harpy--a thing about the size and general design of a
+Terran Jurassic pterodactyl, big enough to take a Little Fuzzy at one
+mouthful. It must have made one swoop at him already, and was circling
+back for another. It ran into a 6-mm rifle bullet, went into a backward
+loop and dropped like a stone.
+
+Little Fuzzy made a very surprised remark, looked at the dead harpy for a
+moment and then spotted the ejected empty cartridge. He grabbed it and
+held it up, asking if he could have it. When told that he could, he ran
+back to the bedroom with it. When he returned, Pappy Jack picked him up
+and carried him to the hangar and up into the control cabin of the
+manipulator.
+
+The throbbing of the contragravity-field generator and the sense of rising
+worried him at first, but after they had picked up the harpy with the
+grapples and risen to five hundred feet he began to enjoy the ride. They
+dropped the harpy a couple of miles up what the latest maps were
+designating as Holloway's Run, and then made a wide circle back over the
+mountains. Little Fuzzy thought it was fun.
+
+After lunch, Little Fuzzy had a nap on Pappy Jack's bed. Jack took the
+manipulator up to the diggings, put off a couple more shots, uncovered
+more flint and found another sunstone. It wasn't often that he found
+stones on two successive days. When he returned to the camp, Little Fuzzy
+was picking another land-prawn apart in front of the living hut.
+
+After dinner--Little Fuzzy liked cooked food, too, if it wasn't too
+hot--they went into the living room. He remembered having seen a bolt and
+nut in the desk drawer when he had been putting the wooden prawn-killer
+away, and he got it out, showing it to Little Fuzzy. Little Fuzzy studied
+it for a moment, then ran into the bedroom and came back with his
+screw-top bottle. He took the top off, put it on again and then screwed
+the nut off the bolt, holding it up.
+
+"See, Pappy?" Or yeeks to that effect. "Nothing to it."
+
+Then he unscrewed the bottle top, dropped the bolt inside after replacing
+the nut and screwed the cap on again.
+
+"Yeek," he said, with considerable self-satisfaction.
+
+He had a right to be satisfied with himself. What he'd been doing had been
+generalizing. Bottle tops and nuts belonged to the general class of
+things-that-screwed-onto-things. To take them off, you turned left; to put
+them on again, you turned right, after making sure that the threads
+engaged. And since he could conceive of right- and left-handedness, that
+might mean that he could think of properties apart from objects, and that
+was forming abstract ideas. Maybe that was going a little far, but....
+
+"You know, Pappy Jack's got himself a mighty smart Little Fuzzy. Are you a
+grown-up Little Fuzzy, or are you just a baby Little Fuzzy? Shucks, I'll
+bet you're Professor Doctor Fuzzy."
+
+He wondered what to give the professor, if that was what he was, to work
+on next, and he doubted the wisdom of teaching him too much about taking
+things apart, just at present. Sometime he might come home and find
+something important taken apart, or, worse, taken apart and put together
+incorrectly. Finally, he went to a closet, rummaging in it until he found
+a tin canister. By the time he returned, Little Fuzzy had gotten up on the
+chair, found his pipe in the ashtray and was puffing on it and coughing.
+
+"Hey, I don't think that's good for you!"
+
+He recovered the pipe, wiped the stem on his shirt-sleeve and put it in
+his mouth, then placed the canister on the floor, and put Little Fuzzy on
+the floor beside it. There were about ten pounds of stones in it. When he
+had first settled here, he had made a collection of the local minerals,
+and, after learning what he'd wanted to, he had thrown them out, all but
+twenty or thirty of the prettiest specimens. He was glad, now, that he had
+kept these.
+
+Little Fuzzy looked the can over, decided that the lid was a member of
+the class of things-that-screwed-onto-things and got it off. The inside
+of the lid was mirror-shiny, and it took him a little thought to discover
+that what he saw in it was only himself. He yeeked about that, and looked
+into the can. This, he decided, belonged to the class of
+things-that-can-be-dumped, like wastebaskets, so he dumped it on the
+floor. Then he began examining the stones and sorting them by color.
+
+Except for an interest in colorful views on the screen, this was the first
+real evidence that Fuzzies possessed color perception. He proceeded to
+give further and more impressive proof, laying out the stones by shade, in
+correct spectral order, from a lump of amethystlike quartz to a dark red
+stone. Well, maybe he'd seen rainbows. Maybe he'd lived near a big misty
+waterfall, where there was always a rainbow when the sun was shining. Or
+maybe that was just his natural way of seeing colors.
+
+Then, when he saw what he had to work with, he began making arrangements
+with them, laying them out in odd circular and spiral patterns. Each time
+he finished a pattern, he would yeek happily to call attention to it, sit
+and look at it for a while, and then take it apart and start a new one.
+Little Fuzzy was capable of artistic gratification too. He made useless
+things, just for the pleasure of making and looking at them.
+
+Finally, he put the stones back into the tin, put the lid on and rolled it
+into the bedroom, righting it beside his bed along with his other
+treasures. The new weapon he laid on the blanket beside him when he went
+to bed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning, Jack broke up a whole cake of Extee Three and put it
+down, filled the bowl with water, and, after making sure he had left
+nothing lying around that Little Fuzzy could damage or on which he might
+hurt himself, took the manipulator up to the diggings. He worked all
+morning, cracking nearly a ton and a half of flint, and found nothing.
+Then he set off a string of shots, brought down an avalanche of sandstone
+and exposed more flint, and sat down under a pool-ball tree to eat his
+lunch.
+
+Half an hour after he went back to work, he found the fossil of some
+jellyfish that hadn't eaten the right things in the right combinations,
+but a little later, he found four nodules, one after another, and two of
+them were sunstones; four or five chunks later, he found a third. Why,
+this must be the Dying Place of the Jellyfish! By late afternoon, when he
+had cleaned up all his loose flint, he had nine, including one deep red
+monster an inch in diameter. There must have been some convection current
+in the ancient ocean that had swirled them all into this one place. He
+considered setting off some more shots, decided that it was too late and
+returned to camp.
+
+"Little Fuzzy!" he called, opening the living-room door. "Where are you,
+Little Fuzzy? Pappy Jack's rich; we're going to celebrate!"
+
+Silence. He called again; still no reply or scamper of feet. Probably
+cleaned up all the prawns around the camp and went hunting farther out
+into the woods, thought Jack. Unbuckling his gun and dropping it onto the
+table, he went out to the kitchen. Most of the Extee Three was gone. In
+the bedroom, he found that Little Fuzzy had dumped the stones out of the
+biscuit tin and made an arrangement, and laid the wood chisel in a neat
+diagonal across the blanket.
+
+After getting dinner assembled and in the oven, he went out and called for
+a while, then mixed a highball and took it into the living room, sitting
+down with it to go over his day's findings. Rather incredulously, he
+realized that he had cracked out at least seventy-five thousand sols'
+worth of stones today. He put them into the bag and sat sipping the
+highball and thinking pleasant thoughts until the bell on the stove warned
+him that dinner was ready.
+
+He ate alone--after all the years he had been doing that contentedly, it
+had suddenly become intolerable--and in the evening he dialed through his
+micro-film library, finding only books he had read and reread a dozen
+times, or books he kept for reference. Several times he thought he heard
+the little door open, but each time he was mistaken. Finally he went to
+bed.
+
+As soon as he woke, he looked across at the folded blanket, but the wood
+chisel was still lying athwart it. He put down more Extee Three and
+changed the water in the bowl before leaving for the diggings. That day he
+found three more sunstones, and put them in the bag mechanically and
+without pleasure. He quit work early and spent over an hour spiraling
+around the camp, but saw nothing. The Extee Three in the kitchen was
+untouched.
+
+Maybe the little fellow ran into something too big for him, even with his
+fine new weapon--a hobthrush, or a bush-goblin, or another harpy. Or maybe
+he'd just gotten tired staying in one place, and had moved on.
+
+No; he'd liked it here. He'd had fun, and been happy. He shook his head
+sadly. Once he, too, had lived in a pleasant place, where he'd had fun,
+and could have been happy if he hadn't thought there was something he'd
+had to do. So he had gone away, leaving grieved people behind him. Maybe
+that was how it was with Little Fuzzy. Maybe he didn't realize how much of
+a place he had made for himself here, or how empty he was leaving it.
+
+He started for the kitchen to get a drink, and checked himself. Take a
+drink because you pity yourself, and then the drink pities you and has a
+drink, and then two good drinks get together and that calls for drinks all
+around. No; he'd have one drink, maybe a little bigger than usual, before
+he went to bed.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+He started awake, rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock. Past twenty-two
+hundred; now it really was time for a drink, and then to bed. He rose
+stiffly and went out to the kitchen, pouring the whisky and bringing it in
+to the table desk, where he sat down and got out his diary. He was almost
+finished with the day's entry when the little door behind him opened and a
+small voice said, "Yeeek." He turned quickly.
+
+"Little Fuzzy?"
+
+The small sound was repeated, impatiently. Little Fuzzy was holding the
+door open, and there was an answer from outside. Then another Fuzzy came
+in, and another; four of them, one carrying a tiny, squirming ball of
+white fur in her arms. They all had prawn-killers like the one in the
+drawer, and they stopped just inside the room and gaped about them in
+bewilderment. Then, laying down his weapon, Little Fuzzy ran to him;
+stooping from the chair, he caught him and then sat down on the floor with
+him.
+
+"So that's why you ran off and worried Pappy Jack? You wanted your family
+here, too!"
+
+The others piled the things they were carrying with Little Fuzzy's steel
+weapon and approached hesitantly. He talked to them, and so did Little
+Fuzzy--at least it sounded like that--and finally one came over and
+fingered his shirt, and then reached up and pulled his mustache. Soon all
+of them were climbing onto him, even the female with the baby. It was
+small enough to sit on his palm, but in a minute it had climbed to his
+shoulder, and then it was sitting on his head.
+
+"You people want dinner?" he asked.
+
+Little Fuzzy yeeked emphatically; that was a word he recognized. He took
+them all into the kitchen and tried them on cold roast veldbeest and
+yummiyams and fried pool-ball fruit; while they were eating from a couple
+of big pans, he went back to the living room to examine the things they
+had brought with them. Two of the prawn-killers were wood, like the one
+Little Fuzzy had discarded in the shed. A third was of horn, beautifully
+polished, and the fourth looked as though it had been made from the
+shoulder bone of something like a zebralope. Then there was a small _coup
+de poing_ ax, rather low paleolithic, and a chipped implement of flint the
+shape of a slice of orange and about five inches along the straight edge.
+For a hand the size of his own, he would have called it a scraper. He
+puzzled over it for a while, noticed that the edge was serrated, and
+decided that it was a saw. And there were three very good flake knives,
+and some shells, evidently drinking vessels.
+
+Mamma Fuzzy came in while he was finishing the examination. She seemed
+suspicious, until she saw that none of the family property had been taken
+or damaged. Baby Fuzzy was clinging to her fur with one hand and holding a
+slice of pool-ball fruit, on which he was munching, with the other. He
+crammed what was left of the fruit into his mouth, climbed up on Jack and
+sat down on his head again. Have to do something to break him of that. One
+of these days, he'd be getting too big for it.
+
+In a few minutes, the rest of the family came in, chasing and pummeling
+each other and yeeking happily. Mamma jumped off his lap and joined the
+free-for-all, and then Baby took off from his head and landed on Mamma's
+back. And he thought he'd lost his Little Fuzzy, and, gosh, here he had
+five Fuzzies and a Baby Fuzzy. When they were tired romping, he made beds
+for them in the living room, and brought out Little Fuzzy's bedding and
+his treasures. One Little Fuzzy in the bedroom was just fine; five and a
+Baby Fuzzy were a little too much of a good thing.
+
+They were swarming over the bed, Baby and all, to waken him the next
+morning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning he made a steel chopper-digger for each of them, and half
+a dozen extras for replacements in case more Fuzzies showed up. He also
+made a miniature ax with a hardwood handle, a handsaw out of a piece of
+broken power-saw blade and half a dozen little knives forged in one piece
+from quarter-inch coil-spring material. He had less trouble trading the
+Fuzzies' own things away from them than he had expected. They had a very
+keen property sense, but they knew a good deal when one was offered. He
+put the wooden and horn and bone and stone artifacts away in the desk
+drawer. Start of the Holloway Collection of Zarathustran Fuzzy Weapons and
+Implements. Maybe he'd will it to the Federation Institute of
+Xeno-Sciences.
+
+Of course, the family had to try out the new chopper-diggers on
+land-prawns, and he followed them around with the movie camera. They
+killed a dozen and a half that morning, and there was very little interest
+in lunch, though they did sit around nibbling, just to be doing what he
+was doing. As soon as they finished, they all went in for a nap on his
+bed. He spent the afternoon pottering about camp doing odd jobs that he
+had been postponing for months. The Fuzzies all emerged in the late
+afternoon for a romp in the grass outside.
+
+He was in the kitchen, getting dinner, when they all came pelting in
+through the little door into the living room, making an excited outcry.
+Little Fuzzy and one of the other males came into the kitchen. Little
+Fuzzy squatted, put one hand on his lower jaw, with thumb and little
+finger extended, and the other on his forehead, first finger upright. Then
+he thrust out his right arm stiffly and made a barking noise of a sort he
+had never made before. He had to do it a second time before Jack got it.
+
+There was a large and unpleasant carnivore, called a damnthing--another
+example of zoological nomenclature on uninhabited planets--which had a
+single horn on its forehead and one on either side of the lower jaw. It
+was something for Fuzzies, and even for human-type people, to get excited
+about. He laid down the paring knife and the yummiyam he had been peeling,
+wiped his hands and went into the living room, taking a quick nose count
+and satisfying himself that none of the family were missing as he crossed
+to the gunrack.
+
+This time, instead of the 6-mm he had used on the harpy, he lifted down a
+big 12.7 double express, making sure that it was loaded and pocketing a
+few spare rounds. Little Fuzzy followed him outside, pointing around the
+living hut to the left. The rest of the family stayed indoors.
+
+Stepping out about twenty feet, he started around counter-clockwise. There
+was no damnthing on the north side, and he was about to go around to the
+east side when Little Fuzzy came dashing past him, pointing to the rear.
+He whirled, to see the damnthing charging him from behind, head down, and
+middle horn lowered. He should have thought of that; damnthings would
+double and hunt their hunters.
+
+He lined the sights instinctively and squeezed. The big rifle roared and
+banged his shoulder, and the bullet caught the damnthing and hurled all
+half-ton of it backward. The second shot caught it just below one of the
+fungoid-looking ears, and the beast gave a spasmodic all-over twitch and
+was still. He reloaded mechanically, but there was no need for a third
+shot. The damnthing was as dead as he would have been except for Little
+Fuzzy's warning.
+
+He mentioned that to Little Fuzzy, who was calmly retrieving the empty
+cartridges. Then, rubbing his shoulder where the big rifle had pounded
+him, he went in and returned the weapon to the rack. He used the
+manipulator to carry the damnthing away from the camp and drop it into a
+treetop, where it would furnish a welcome if puzzling treat for the
+harpies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was another alarm in the evening after dinner. The family had come in
+from their sunset romp and were gathered in the living room, where Little
+Fuzzy was demonstrating the principle of things-that-screwed-onto-things
+with the wide-mouthed bottle and the bolt and nut, when something huge
+began hooting directly overhead. They all froze, looking up at the ceiling,
+and then ran over and got under the gunrack. This must be something far
+more serious than a damnthing, and what Pappy Jack would do about it would
+be nothing short of catastrophic. They were startled to see Pappy Jack
+merely go to the door, open it and step outside. After all, none of them
+had ever heard a Constabulary aircar klaxon before.
+
+The car settled onto the grass in front of the camp, gave a slight lurch
+and went off contragravity. Two men in uniform got out, and in the
+moonlight he recognized both of them: Lieutenant George Lunt and his
+driver, Ahmed Khadra. He called a greeting to them.
+
+"Anything wrong?" he asked.
+
+"No; just thought we'd drop in and see how you were making out," Lunt told
+him. "We don't get up this way often. Haven't had any trouble lately, have
+you?"
+
+"Not since the last time." The last time had been a couple of woods
+tramps, out-of-work veldbeest herders from the south, who had heard about
+the little bag he carried around his neck. All the Constabulary had needed
+to do was remove the bodies and write up a report. "Come on in and hang up
+your guns awhile. I have something I want to show you."
+
+Little Fuzzy had come out and was pulling at his trouser leg; he stooped
+and picked him up, setting him on his shoulder. The rest of the family,
+deciding that it must be safe, had come to the door and were looking out.
+
+"Hey! What the devil are those things?" Lunt asked, stopping short halfway
+from the car.
+
+"Fuzzies. Mean to tell me you've never seen Fuzzies before?"
+
+"No, I haven't. What are they?"
+
+The two Constabulary men came closer, and Jack stepped back into the
+house, shooing the Fuzzies out of the way. Lunt and Khadra stopped inside
+the door.
+
+"I just told you. They're Fuzzies. That's all the name I know for them."
+
+A couple of Fuzzies came over and looked up at Lieutenant Lunt; one of
+them said, "Yeek?"
+
+"They want to know what you are, so that makes it mutual."
+
+Lunt hesitated for a moment, then took off his belt and holster and hung
+it on one of the pegs inside the door, putting his beret over it. Khadra
+followed his example promptly. That meant that they considered themselves
+temporarily off duty and would accept a drink if one were offered. A Fuzzy
+was pulling at Ahmed Khadra's trouser leg and asking to be noticed, and
+Mamma Fuzzy was holding Baby up to show to Lunt. Khadra, rather
+hesitantly, picked up the Fuzzy who was trying to attract his attention.
+
+"Never saw anything like them before, Jack," he said. "Where did they
+come from?"
+
+"Ahmed; you don't know anything about those things," Lunt reproved.
+
+"They won't hurt me, Lieutenant; they haven't hurt Jack, have they?" He
+sat down on the floor, and a couple more came to him. "Why don't you get
+acquainted with them? They're cute."
+
+George Lunt wouldn't let one of his men do anything he was afraid to do;
+he sat down on the floor, too, and Mamma brought her baby to him.
+Immediately, the baby jumped onto his shoulder and tried to get onto his
+head.
+
+"Relax, George," Jack told him, "They're just Fuzzies; they want to make
+friends with you."
+
+"I'm always worried about strange life forms," Lunt said. "You've been
+around enough to know some of the things that have happened--"
+
+"They are not a strange life form; they are Zarathustran mammals. The same
+life form you've had for dinner every day since you came here. Their
+biochemistry's identical with ours. Think they'll give you the Polka-Dot
+Plague, or something?" He put Little Fuzzy down on the floor with the
+others. "We've been exploring this planet for twenty-five years, and
+nobody's found anything like that here."
+
+"You said it yourself, Lieutenant," Khadra put in. "Jack's been around
+enough to know."
+
+"Well.... They are cute little fellows." Lunt lifted Baby down off his
+head and gave him back to Mamma. Little Fuzzy had gotten hold of the chain
+of his whistle and was trying to find out what was on the other end. "Bet
+they're a lot of company for you."
+
+"You just get acquainted with them. Make yourselves at home; I'll go
+rustle up some refreshments."
+
+While he was in the kitchen, filling a soda siphon and getting ice out of
+the refrigerator, a police whistle began shrilling in the living room. He
+was opening a bottle of whisky when Little Fuzzy came dashing out, blowing
+on it, a couple more of the family pursuing him and trying to get it away
+from him. He opened a tin of Extee Three for the Fuzzies, as he did,
+another whistle in the living room began blowing.
+
+"We have a whole shoebox full of them at the post," Lunt yelled to him
+above the din. "We'll just write these two off as expended in service."
+
+"Well, that's real nice of you, George. I want to tell you that the
+Fuzzies appreciate that. Ahmed, suppose you do the bartending while I give
+the kids their candy."
+
+By the time Khadra had the drinks mixed and he had distributed the Extee
+Three to the Fuzzies, Lunt had gotten into the easy chair, and the Fuzzies
+were sitting on the floor in front of him, still looking him over
+curiously. At least the Extee Three had taken their minds off the whistles
+for a while.
+
+"What I want to know, Jack, is where they came from," Lunt said, taking
+his drink. "I've been up here for five years, and I never saw anything
+like them before."
+
+"I've been here five years longer, and I never saw them before, either. I
+think they came down from the north, from the country between the
+Cordilleras and the West Coast Range. Outside of an air survey at ten
+thousand feet and a few spot landings here and there, none of that country
+has been explored. For all anybody knows, it could be full of Fuzzies."
+
+He began with his first encounter with Little Fuzzy, and by the time he
+had gotten as far as the wood chisel and the killing of the land-prawn,
+Lunt and Khadra were looking at each other in amazement.
+
+"That's it!" Khadra said. "I've found prawn-shells cracked open and the
+meat picked out, just the way you describe it. I always wondered what did
+that. But they don't all have wood chisels. What do you suppose they used
+ordinarily?"
+
+"Ah!" He pulled the drawer open and began getting things out. "Here's the
+one Little Fuzzy discarded when he found my chisel. The rest of this stuff
+the others brought in when they came."
+
+Lunt and Khadra rose and came over to look at the things. Lunt tried to
+argue that the Fuzzies couldn't have made that stuff. He wasn't even able
+to convince himself. Having finished their Extee Three, the Fuzzies were
+looking expectantly at the viewscreen, and it occurred to him that none of
+them except Little Fuzzy had ever seen it on. Then Little Fuzzy jumped up
+on the chair Lunt had vacated, reached over to the control-panel and
+switched it on. What he got was an empty stretch of moonlit plain to the
+south, from a pickup on one of the steel towers the veldbeest herders
+used. That wasn't very interesting; he twiddled the selector and finally
+got a night soccer game at Mallorysport. That was just fine; he jumped
+down and joined the others in front of the screen.
+
+"I've seen Terran monkeys and Freyan Kholphs that liked to watch screens
+and could turn them on and work the selector," Lunt said. It sounded like
+the token last salvo before the surrender.
+
+"Kholphs are smart," Khadra agreed. "They use tools."
+
+"Do they make tools? Or tools to make tools with, like that saw?" There
+was no argument on that. "No. Nobody does that except people like us and
+the Fuzzies."
+
+It was the first time he had come right out and said that; the first time
+he had even consciously thought it. He realized that he had been convinced
+of it all along, though. It startled the constabulary lieutenant and
+trooper.
+
+"You mean you think--?" Lunt began.
+
+"They don't talk, and they don't build fires," Ahmed Khadra said, as
+though that settled it.
+
+"Ahmed, you know better than that. That talk-and-build-a-fire rule isn't
+any scientific test at all."
+
+"It's a legal test." Lunt supported his subordinate.
+
+"It's a rule-of-thumb that was set up so that settlers on new planets
+couldn't get away with murdering and enslaving the natives by claiming
+they thought they were only hunting and domesticating wild animals," he
+said. "Anything that talks and builds a fire is a sapient being, yes.
+That's the law. But that doesn't mean that anything that doesn't isn't. I
+haven't seen any of this gang building fires, and as I don't want to come
+home sometime and find myself burned out, I'm not going to teach them. But
+I'm sure they have means of communication among themselves."
+
+"Has Ben Rainsford seen them yet?" Lunt asked.
+
+"Ben's off on a trip somewhere. I called him as soon as Little Fuzzy, over
+there, showed up here. He won't be back till Friday."
+
+"Yes, that's right; I did know that." Lunt was still looking dubiously at
+the Fuzzies. "I'd like to hear what he thinks about them."
+
+If Ben said they were safe, Lunt would accept that. Ben was an expert, and
+Lunt respected expert testimony. Until then, he wasn't sure. He'd probably
+order a medical check-up for himself and Khadra the first thing tomorrow,
+to make sure they hadn't picked up some kind of bug.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The Fuzzies took the manipulator quite calmly the next morning. That
+wasn't any horrible monster, that was just something Pappy Jack took rides
+in. He found one rather indifferent sunstone in the morning and two good
+ones in the afternoon. He came home early and found the family in the
+living room; they had dumped the wastebasket and were putting things back
+into it. Another land-prawn seemed to have gotten into the house; its
+picked shell was with the other rubbish in the basket. They had dinner
+early, and he loaded the lot of them into the airjeep and took them for a
+long ride to the south and west.
+
+The following day, he located the flint vein on the other side of the
+gorge and spent most of the morning blasting away the sandstone above it.
+The next time he went into Mallorysport, he decided, he was going to shop
+around for a good power-shovel. He had to blast a channel to keep the
+little stream from damming up on him. He didn't get any flint cracked at
+all that day. There was another harpy circling around the camp when he got
+back; he chased it with the manipulator and shot it down with his pistol.
+Harpies probably found Fuzzies as tasty as Fuzzies found land-prawns. The
+family were all sitting under the gunrack when he entered the living room.
+
+The next day he cracked flint, and found three more stones. It really
+looked as though he had found the Dying Place of the Jellyfish at that. He
+knocked off early that afternoon, and when he came in sight of the camp,
+he saw an airjeep grounded on the lawn and a small man with a red beard in
+a faded Khaki bush-jacket sitting on the bench by the kitchen door,
+surrounded by Fuzzies. There was a camera and some other equipment laid up
+where the Fuzzies couldn't get at it. Baby Fuzzy, of course, was sitting
+on his head. He looked up and waved, and then handed Baby to his mother
+and rose to his feet.
+
+"Well, what do you think of them, Ben?" Jack called down, as he grounded
+the manipulator.
+
+"My God, don't start me on that now!" Ben Rainsford replied, and then
+laughed. "I stopped at the constabulary post on the way home. I thought
+George Lunt had turned into the biggest liar in the known galaxy. Then I
+went home, and found your call on the recorder, so I came over here."
+
+"Been waiting long?"
+
+The Fuzzies had all abandoned Rainsford and come trooping over as soon as
+the manipulator was off contragravity. He climbed down among them, and
+they followed him across the grass, catching at his trouser legs and
+yeeking happily.
+
+"Not so long." Rainsford looked at his watch. "Good Lord, three and half
+hours is all. Well, the time passed quickly. You know, your little fellows
+have good ears. They heard you coming a long time before I did."
+
+"Did you see them killing any prawns?"
+
+"I should say! I got a lot of movies of it." He shook his head slowly.
+"Jack, this is almost incredible."
+
+"You're staying for dinner, of course?"
+
+"You try and chase me away. I want to hear all about this. Want you to
+make a tape about them, if you're willing."
+
+"Glad to. We'll do that after we eat." He sat down on the bench, and the
+Fuzzies began climbing upon and beside him. "This is the original, Little
+Fuzzy. He brought the rest in a couple of days later. Mamma Fuzzy, and
+Baby Fuzzy. And these are Mike and Mitzi. I call this one Ko-Ko, because
+of the ceremonious way he beheads land-prawns."
+
+"George says you call them all Fuzzies. Want that for the official
+designation?"
+
+"Sure. That's what they are, isn't it?"
+
+"Well, let's call the order Hollowayans," Rainsford said. "Family,
+Fuzzies; genus, Fuzzy. Species, Holloway's Fuzzy--_Fuzzy fuzzy holloway_.
+How'll that be?"
+
+That would be all right, he supposed. At least, they didn't try to
+Latinize things in extraterrestrial zoology any more.
+
+"I suppose our bumper crop of land-prawns is what brought them into this
+section?"
+
+"Yes, of course. George was telling me you thought they'd come down from
+the north; about the only place they could have come from. This is
+probably just the advance guard; we'll be having Fuzzies all over the
+place before long. I wonder how fast they breed."
+
+"Not very fast. Three males and two females in this crowd, and only one
+young one." He set Mike and Mitzi off his lap and got to his feet. "I'll
+go start dinner now. While I'm doing that, you can look at the stuff they
+brought in with them."
+
+When he had placed the dinner in the oven and taken a couple of highballs
+into the living room, Rainsford was still sitting at the desk, looking at
+the artifacts. He accepted his drink and sipped it absently, then raised
+his head.
+
+"Jack, this stuff is absolutely amazing," he said.
+
+"It's better than that. It's unique. Only collection of native weapons and
+implements on Zarathustra."
+
+Ben Rainsford looked up sharply. "You mean what I think you mean?" he
+asked. "Yes; you do." He drank some of his highball, set down the glass
+and picked up the polished-horn prawn-killer. "Anything--pardon,
+anybody--who does this kind of work is good enough native for me." He
+hesitated briefly. "Why, Jack this tape you said you'd make. Can I
+transmit a copy to Juan Jimenez? He's chief mammalogist with the Company
+science division; we exchange information. And there's another Company man
+I'd like to have hear it. Gerd van Riebeek. He's a general
+xeno-naturalist, like me, but he's especially interested in animal
+evolution."
+
+"Why not? The Fuzzies are a scientific discovery. Discoveries ought to be
+reported."
+
+Little Fuzzy, Mike and Mitzi strolled in from the kitchen. Little Fuzzy
+jumped up on the armchair and switched on the viewscreen. Fiddling with
+the selector, he got the Big Blackwater woods-burning. Mike and Mitzi
+shrieked delightedly, like a couple of kids watching a horror show. They
+knew, by now, that nothing in the screen could get out and hurt them.
+
+"Would you mind if they came out here and saw the Fuzzies?"
+
+"Why, the Fuzzies would love that. They like company."
+
+Mamma and Baby and Ko-Ko came in, seemed to approve what was on the screen
+and sat down to watch it. When the bell on the stove rang, they all got
+up, and Ko-Ko jumped onto the chair and snapped the screen off. Ben
+Rainsford looked at him for a moment.
+
+"You know, I have married friends with children who have a hell of a time
+teaching eight-year-olds to turn off screens when they're through watching
+them," he commented.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It took an hour, after dinner, to get the whole story, from the first
+little yeek in the shower stall, on tape. When he had finished, Ben
+Rainsford made a few remarks and shut off the recorder, then looked at his
+watch.
+
+"Twenty hundred; it'll be seventeen hundred in Mallorysport," he said. "I
+could catch Jimenez at Science Center if I called now. He usually works a
+little late."
+
+"Go ahead. Want to show him some Fuzzies?" He moved his pistol and some
+other impedimenta off the table and set Little Fuzzy and Mamma Fuzzy and
+Baby upon it, then drew up a chair beside it, in range of the
+communication screen, and sat down with Mike and Mitzi and Ko-Ko.
+Rainsford punched out a wavelength combination. Then he picked up Baby
+Fuzzy and set him on his head.
+
+In a moment, the screen flickered and cleared, and a young man looked out
+of it, with the momentary upward glance of one who wants to make sure his
+public face is on straight. It was a bland, tranquilized, life-adjusted,
+group-integrated sort of face--the face turned out in thousands of copies
+every year by the educational production lines on Terra.
+
+"Why, Bennett, this is a pleasant surprise," he began. "I never expec--"
+Then he choked; at least, he emitted a sound of surprise. "What in the
+name of Dai-Butsu are those things on the table in front of you?" he
+demanded. "I never saw anything--_And what is that on your head?_"
+
+"Family group of Fuzzies," Rainsford said. "Mature male, mature female,
+immature male." He lifted Baby Fuzzy down and put him in Mamma's arms.
+"Species _Fuzzy fuzzy holloway zarathustra_. The gentleman on my left is
+Jack Holloway, the sunstone operator, who is the original discoverer.
+Jack, Juan Jimenez."
+
+They shook their own hands at one another in the ancient Terran-Chinese
+gesture that was used on communication screens, and assured each
+other--Jimenez rather absently--that it was a pleasure. He couldn't take
+his eyes off the Fuzzies.
+
+"Where did they come from?" he wanted to know. "Are you sure they're
+indigenous?"
+
+"They're not quite up to spaceships, yet, Dr. Jimenez. Fairly early
+Paleolithic, I'd say."
+
+Jimenez thought he was joking, and laughed. The sort of a laugh that could
+be turned on and off, like a light. Rainsford assured him that the Fuzzies
+were really indigenous.
+
+"We have everything that's known about them on tape," he said. "About an
+hour of it. Can you take sixty-speed?" He was making adjustments on the
+recorder as he spoke. "All right, set and we'll transmit to you. And can
+you get hold of Gerd van Riebeek? I'd like him to hear it too; it's as
+much up his alley as anybody's."
+
+When Jimenez was ready, Rainsford pressed the play-off button, and for a
+minute the recorder gave a high, wavering squeak. The Fuzzies all looked
+startled. Then it ended.
+
+"I think, when you hear this, that you and Gerd will both want to come out
+and see these little people. If you can, bring somebody who's a qualified
+psychologist, somebody capable of evaluating the Fuzzies' mentation. Jack
+wasn't kidding about early Paleolithic. If they're not sapient, they only
+miss it by about one atomic diameter."
+
+Jimenez looked almost as startled as the Fuzzies had. "You surely don't
+mean that?" He looked from Rainsford to Jack Holloway and back. "Well,
+I'll call you back, when we've both heard the tape. You're three time
+zones west of us, aren't you? Then we'll try to make it before your
+midnight--that'll be twenty-one hundred."
+
+He called back half an hour short of that. This time, it was from the
+living room of an apartment instead of an office. There was a portable
+record player in the foreground and a low table with snacks and drinks,
+and two other people were with him. One was a man of about Jimenez's age
+with a good-humored, non-life-adjusted, non-group-integrated and slightly
+weather-beaten face. The other was a woman with glossy black hair and a
+Mona Lisa-ish smile. The Fuzzies had gotten sleepy, and had been bribed
+with Extee Three to stay up a little longer. Immediately, they registered
+interest. This was more fun than the viewscreen.
+
+Jimenez introduced his companions as Gerd van Riebeek and Ruth Ortheris.
+"Ruth is with Dr. Mallin's section; she's been working with the school
+department and the juvenile court. She can probably do as well with your
+Fuzzies as a regular xeno-psychologist."
+
+"Well, I have worked with extraterrestrials," the woman said. "I've been
+on Loki and Thor and Shesha."
+
+Jack nodded. "Been on the same planets myself. Are you people coming out
+here?"
+
+"Oh, yes," van Riebeek said. "We'll be out by noon tomorrow. We may stay a
+couple of days, but that won't put you to any trouble; I have a boat
+that's big enough for the three of us to camp on. Now, how do we get to
+your place?"
+
+Jack told him, and gave map coordinates. Van Riebeek noted them down.
+
+"There's one thing, though, I'm going to have to get firm about. I don't
+want to have to speak about it again. These little people are to be
+treated with consideration, and not as laboratory animals. You will not
+hurt them, or annoy them, or force them to do anything they don't want to
+do."
+
+"We understand that. We won't do anything with the Fuzzies without your
+approval. Is there anything you'd want us to bring out?"
+
+"Yes. A few things for the camp that I'm short of; I'll pay you for them
+when you get here. And about three cases of Extee Three. And some toys.
+Dr. Ortheris, you heard the tape, didn't you? Well, just think what you'd
+like to have if you were a Fuzzy, and bring it."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Victor Grego crushed out his cigarette slowly and deliberately.
+
+"Yes, Leonard," he said patiently. "It's very interesting, and doubtless
+an important discovery, but I can't see why you're making such a
+production of it. Are you afraid I'll blame you for letting non-Company
+people beat you to it? Or do you merely suspect that anything Bennett
+Rainsford's mixed up in is necessarily a diabolical plot against the
+Company and, by consequence, human civilization?"
+
+Leonard Kellogg looked pained. "What I was about to say, Victor, is that
+both Rainsford and this man Holloway seem convinced that these things they
+call Fuzzies aren't animals at all. They believe them to be sapient
+beings."
+
+"Well, that's--" He bit that off short as the significance of what Kellogg
+had just said hit him. "Good God, Leonard! I beg your pardon abjectly; I
+don't blame you for taking it seriously. Why, that would make Zarathustra
+a Class-IV inhabited planet."
+
+"For which the Company holds a Class-III charter," Kellogg added. "For an
+uninhabited planet."
+
+Automatically void if any race of sapient beings were discovered on
+Zarathustra.
+
+"You know what will happen if this is true?"
+
+"Well, I should imagine the charter would have to be renegotiated, and now
+that the Colonial Office knows what sort of a planet this is, they'll be
+anything but generous with the Company...."
+
+"They won't renegotiate anything, Leonard. The Federation government will
+simply take the position that the Company has already made an adequate
+return on the original investments, and they'll award us what we can show
+as in our actual possession--I hope--and throw the rest into the public
+domain."
+
+The vast plains on Beta and Delta continents, with their herds of
+veldbeest--all open range, and every 'beest that didn't carry a Company
+brand a maverick. And all the untapped mineral wealth, and the untilled
+arable land; it would take years of litigation even to make the Company's
+claim to Big Blackwater stick. And Terra-Baldur-Marduk Spacelines would
+lose their monopolistic franchise and get sticky about it in the courts,
+and in any case, the Company's import-export monopoly would go out the
+airlock. And the squatters rushing in and swamping everything--
+
+"Why, we won't be any better off than the Yggdrasil Company, squatting on
+a guano heap on one continent!" he burst out. "Five years from now,
+they'll be making more money out of bat dung than we'll be making out of
+this whole world!"
+
+And the Company's good friend and substantial stockholder, Nick Emmert,
+would be out, too, and a Colonial Governor General would move in, with
+regular army troops and a complicated bureaucracy. Elections, and a
+representative parliament, and every Tom, Dick and Harry with a grudge
+against the Company would be trying to get laws passed--And, of course, a
+Native Affairs Commission, with its nose in everything.
+
+"But they couldn't just leave us without any kind of a charter," Kellogg
+insisted. Who was he trying to kid--besides himself? "It wouldn't be
+fair!" As though that clinched it. "It isn't our fault!"
+
+He forced more patience into his voice. "Leonard, please try to realize
+that the Terran Federation government doesn't give one shrill soprano hoot
+on Nifflheim whether it's fair or not, or whose fault what is. The
+Federation government's been repenting that charter they gave the Company
+ever since they found out what they'd chartered away. Why, this planet is
+a better world than Terra ever was, even before the Atomic Wars. Now, if
+they have a chance to get it back, with improvements, you think they won't
+take it? And what will stop them? If those creatures over on Beta
+Continent are sapient beings, our charter isn't worth the parchment it's
+engrossed on, and that's an end of it." He was silent for a moment. "You
+heard that tape Rainsford transmitted to Jimenez. Did either he or
+Holloway actually claim, in so many words, that these things really are
+sapient beings?"
+
+"Well, no; not in so many words. Holloway consistently alluded to them as
+people, but he's just an ignorant old prospector. Rainsford wouldn't come
+out and commit himself one way or another, but he left the door wide open
+for anybody else to."
+
+"Accepting their account, could these Fuzzies be sapient?"
+
+"Accepting the account, yes," Kellogg said, in distress. "They could be."
+
+They probably were, if Leonard Kellogg couldn't wish the evidence out of
+existence.
+
+"Then they'll look sapient to these people of yours who went over to Beta
+this morning, and they'll treat it purely as a scientific question and
+never consider the legal aspects. Leonard, you'll have to take charge of
+the investigation, before they make any reports everybody'll be sorry
+for."
+
+Kellogg didn't seem to like that. It would mean having to exercise
+authority and getting tough with people, and he hated anything like that.
+He nodded very reluctantly.
+
+"Yes. I suppose I will. Let me think about it for a moment, Victor."
+
+One thing about Leonard; you handed him something he couldn't delegate or
+dodge and he'd go to work on it. Maybe not cheerfully, but
+conscientiously.
+
+"I'll take Ernst Mallin along," he said at length. "This man Rainsford has
+no grounding whatever in any of the psychosciences. He may be able to
+impose on Ruth Ortheris, but not on Ernst Mallin. Not after I've talked to
+Mallin first." He thought some more. "We'll have to get these Fuzzies away
+from this man Holloway. Then we'll issue a report of discovery, being
+careful to give full credit to both Rainsford and Holloway--we'll even
+accept the designation they've coined for them--but we'll make it very
+clear that while highly intelligent, the Fuzzies are not a race of sapient
+beings. If Rainsford persists in making any such claim, we will brand it
+as a deliberate hoax."
+
+"Do you think he's gotten any report off to the Institute of Xeno-Sciences
+yet?"
+
+Kellogg shook his head. "I think he wants to trick some of our people into
+supporting his sapience claims; at least, corroborating his and Holloway's
+alleged observations. That's why I'll have to get over to Beta as soon as
+possible."
+
+By now, Kellogg had managed to convince himself that going over to Beta
+had been his idea all along. Probably also convincing himself that
+Rainsford's report was nothing but a pack of lies. Well, if he could work
+better that way, that was his business.
+
+"He will, before long, if he isn't stopped. And a year from now, there'll
+be a small army of investigators here from Terra. By that time, you should
+have both Rainsford and Holloway thoroughly discredited. Leonard, you get
+those Fuzzies away from Holloway and I'll personally guarantee they won't
+be available for investigation by then. Fuzzies," he said reflectively.
+"Fur-bearing animals, I take it?"
+
+"Holloway spoke, on the tape, of their soft and silky fur."
+
+"Good. Emphasize that in your report. As soon as it's published, the
+Company will offer two thousand sols apiece for Fuzzy pelts. By the time
+Rainsford's report brings anybody here from Terra, we may have them all
+trapped out."
+
+Kellogg began to look worried.
+
+"But, Victor, that's genocide!"
+
+"Nonsense! Genocide is defined as the extermination of a race of sapient
+beings. These are fur-bearing animals. It's up to you and Ernst Mallin to
+prove that."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Fuzzies, playing on the lawn in front of the camp, froze into
+immobility, their faces turned to the west. Then they all ran to the bench
+by the kitchen door and scrambled up onto it.
+
+"Now what?" Jack Holloway wondered.
+
+"They hear the airboat," Rainsford told him. "That's the way they acted
+yesterday when you were coming in with your machine." He looked at the
+picnic table they had been spreading under the featherleaf trees.
+"Everything ready?"
+
+"Everything but lunch; that won't be cooked for an hour yet. I see them
+now."
+
+"You have better eyes than I do, Jack. Oh, I see it. I hope the kids put
+on a good show for them," he said anxiously.
+
+He'd been jittery ever since he arrived, shortly after breakfast. It
+wasn't that these people from Mallorysport were so important themselves;
+Ben had a bigger name in scientific circles than any of this Company
+crowd. He was just excited about the Fuzzies.
+
+The airboat grew from a barely visible speck, and came spiraling down to
+land in the clearing. When it was grounded and off contragravity, they
+started across the grass toward it, and the Fuzzies all jumped down from
+the bench and ran along with them.
+
+The three visitors climbed down. Ruth Ortheris wore slacks and a sweater,
+but the slacks were bloused over a pair of ankle boots. Gerd van Riebeek
+had evidently done a lot of field work: his boots were stout, and he wore
+old, faded khakis and a serviceable-looking sidearm that showed he knew
+what to expect up here in the Piedmont. Juan Jimenez was in the same
+sports casuals in which he had appeared on screen last evening. All of
+them carried photographic equipment. They shook hands all around and
+exchanged greetings, and then the Fuzzies began clamoring to be noticed.
+Finally all of them, Fuzzies and other people, drifted over to the table
+under the trees.
+
+Ruth Ortheris sat down on the grass with Mamma and Baby. Immediately Baby
+became interested in a silver charm which she wore on a chain around her
+neck which tinkled fascinatingly. Then he tried to sit on her head. She
+spent some time gently but firmly discouraging this. Juan Jimenez was
+squatting between Mike and Mitzi, examining them alternately and talking
+into a miniature recorder phone on his breast, mostly in Latin. Gerd van
+Riebeek dropped himself into a folding chair and took Little Fuzzy on his
+lap.
+
+"You know, this is kind of surprising," he said. "Not only finding
+something like this, after twenty-five years, but finding something as
+unique as this. Look, he doesn't have the least vestige of a tail, and
+there isn't another tailless mammal on the planet. Fact, there isn't
+another mammal on this planet that has the slightest kinship to him. Take
+ourselves; we belong to a pretty big family, about fifty-odd genera of
+primates. But this little fellow hasn't any relatives at all."
+
+"Yeek?"
+
+"And he couldn't care less, could he?" Van Riebeek pummeled Little Fuzzy
+gently. "One thing, you have the smallest humanoid known; that's one
+record you can claim. Oh-oh, what goes on?"
+
+Ko-Ko, who had climbed upon Rainsford's lap, jumped suddenly to the
+ground, grabbed the chopper-digger he had left beside the chair and
+started across the grass. Everybody got to their feet, the visitors
+getting cameras out. The Fuzzies seemed perplexed by all the excitement.
+It was only another land-prawn, wasn't it?
+
+Ko-Ko got in front of it, poked it on the nose to stop it and then struck
+a dramatic pose, flourishing his weapon and bringing it down on the
+prawn's neck. Then, after flopping it over, he looked at it almost in
+sorrow and hit it a couple of whacks with the flat. He began pulling it
+apart and eating it.
+
+"I see why you call him Ko-Ko," Ruth said, aiming her camera, "Don't the
+others do it that way?"
+
+"Well, Little Fuzzy runs along beside them and pivots and gives them a
+quick chop. Mike and Mitzi flop theirs over first and behead them on their
+backs. And Mamma takes a swipe at their legs first. But beheading and
+breaking the undershell, they all do that."
+
+"Uh-huh; that's basic," she said. "Instinctive. The technique is either
+self-learned or copied. When Baby begins killing his own prawns, see if he
+doesn't do it the way Mamma does!"
+
+"Hey, look!" Jimenez cried. "He's making a lobster pick for himself!"
+
+Through lunch, they talked exclusively about Fuzzies. The subjects of the
+discussion nibbled things that were given to them, and yeeked among
+themselves. Gerd van Riebeek suggested that they were discussing the odd
+habits of human-type people. Juan Jimenez looked at him, slightly
+disturbed, as though wondering just how seriously he meant it.
+
+"You know, what impressed me most in the taped account was the incident of
+the damnthing," said Ruth Ortheris. "Any animal associating with man will
+try to attract attention if something's wrong, but I never heard of one,
+not even a Freyan kholph or a Terran chimpanzee, that would use
+descriptive pantomime. Little Fuzzy was actually making a symbolic
+representation, by abstracting the distinguishing characteristic of the
+damnthing."
+
+"Think that stiff-arm gesture and bark might have been intended to
+represent a rifle?" Gerd van Riebeek asked. "He'd seen you shooting
+before, hadn't he?"
+
+"I don't think it was anything else. He was telling me, 'Big nasty
+damnthing outside; shoot it like you did the harpy.' And if he hadn't run
+past me and pointed back, that damnthing would have killed me."
+
+Jimenez, hesitantly, said, "I know I'm speaking from ignorance. You're the
+Fuzzy expert. But isn't it possible that you're overanthropomorphizing?
+Endowing them with your own characteristics and mental traits?"
+
+"Juan, I'm not going to answer that right now. I don't think I'll answer
+at all. You wait till you've been around these Fuzzies a little longer,
+and then ask it again, only ask yourself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"So you see, Ernst, that's the problem."
+
+Leonard Kellogg laid the words like a paperweight on the other words he
+had been saying, and waited. Ernst Mallin sat motionless, his elbows on
+the desk and his chin in his hands. A little pair of wrinkles, like
+parentheses, appeared at the corners of his mouth.
+
+"Yes. I'm not a lawyer, of course, but...."
+
+"It's not a legal question. It's a question for a psychologist."
+
+That left it back with Ernst Mallin, and he knew it.
+
+"I'd have to see them myself before I could express an opinion. You have
+that tape of Holloway's with you?" When Kellogg nodded, Mallin continued:
+"Did either of them make any actual, overt claim of sapience?"
+
+He answered it as he had when Victor Grego had asked the same question,
+adding:
+
+"The account consists almost entirely of Holloway's uncorroborated
+statements concerning things to which he claims to have been the sole
+witness."
+
+"Ah." Mallin permitted himself a tight little smile. "And he's not a
+qualified observer. Neither, for that matter, is Rainsford. Regardless of
+his position as a xeno-naturalist, he is a complete layman in the
+psychosciences. He's just taken this other man's statements uncritically.
+As for what he claims to have observed for himself, how do we know he
+isn't including a lot of erroneous inferences with his descriptive
+statements?"
+
+"How do we know he's not perpetrating a deliberate hoax?"
+
+"But, Leonard, that's a pretty serious accusation."
+
+"It's happened before. That fellow who carved a Late Upland Martian
+inscription in that cave in Kenya, for instance. Or Hellermann's claim to
+have cross-bred Terran mice with Thoran tilbras. Or the Piltdown Man, back
+in the first century Pre-Atomic?"
+
+Mallin nodded. "None of us like to think of a thing like that, but, as you
+say, it's happened. You know, this man Rainsford is just the type to do
+something like that, too. Fundamentally an individualistic egoist; badly
+adjusted personality type. Say he wants to make some sensational discovery
+which will assure him the position in the scientific world to which he
+believes himself entitled. He finds this lonely old prospector, into whose
+isolated camp some little animals have strayed. The old man has made pets
+of them, taught them a few tricks, finally so projected his own
+personality onto them that he has convinced himself that they are people
+like himself. This is Rainsford's great opportunity; he will present
+himself as the discoverer of a new sapient race and bring the whole
+learned world to his feet." Mallin smiled again. "Yes, Leonard, it is
+altogether possible."
+
+"Then it's our plain duty to stop this thing before it develops into
+another major scientific scandal like Hellermann's hybrids."
+
+"First we must go over this tape recording and see what we have on our
+hands. Then we must make a thorough, unbiased study of these animals, and
+show Rainsford and his accomplice that they cannot hope to foist these
+ridiculous claims on the scientific world with impunity. If we can't
+convince them privately, there'll be nothing to do but expose them
+publicly."
+
+"I've heard the tape already, but let's play if off now. We want to
+analyze these tricks this man Holloway has taught these animals, and see
+what they show."
+
+"Yes, of course. We must do that at once," Mallin said. "Then we'll have
+to consider what sort of statement we must issue, and what sort of
+evidence we will need to support it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After dinner was romptime for Fuzzies on the lawn, but when the dusk came
+creeping into the ravine, they all went inside and were given one of their
+new toys from Mallorysport--a big box of many-colored balls and short
+sticks of transparent plastic. They didn't know that it was a
+molecule-model kit, but they soon found that the sticks would go into
+holes in the balls, and that they could be built into three-dimensional
+designs.
+
+This was much more fun than the colored stones. They made a few
+experimental shapes, then dismantled them and began on a single large
+design. Several times they tore it down, entirely or in part, and began
+over again, usually with considerable yeeking and gesticulation.
+
+"They have artistic sense," Van Riebeek said. "I've seen lots of abstract
+sculpture that wasn't half as good as that job they're doing."
+
+"Good engineering, too," Jack said. "They understand balance and
+center-of-gravity. They're bracing it well, and not making it top-heavy."
+
+"Jack, I've been thinking about that question I was supposed to ask
+myself," Jimenez said. "You know, I came out here loaded with suspicion.
+Not that I doubted your honesty; I just thought you'd let your obvious
+affection for the Fuzzies lead you into giving them credit for more
+intelligence than they possess. Now I think you've consistently
+understated it. Short of actual sapience, I've never seen anything like
+them."
+
+"Why short of it?" van Riebeek asked. "Ruth, you've been pretty quiet this
+evening. What do you think?"
+
+Ruth Ortheris looked uncomfortable. "Gerd, it's too early to form opinions
+like that. I know the way they're working together looks like cooperation
+on an agreed-upon purpose, but I simply can't make speech out of that
+yeek-yeek-yeek."
+
+"Let's keep the talk-and-build-a-fire rule out of it," van Riebeek said.
+"If they're working together on a common project, they must be
+communicating somehow."
+
+"It isn't communication, it's symbolization. You simply can't think
+sapiently except in verbal symbols. Try it. Not something like changing
+the spools on a recorder or field-stripping a pistol; they're just learned
+tricks. I mean ideas."
+
+"How about Helen Keller?" Rainsford asked. "Mean to say she only started
+thinking sapiently after Anna Sullivan taught her what words were?"
+
+"No, of course not. She thought sapiently--And she only thought in
+sense-imagery limited to feeling." She looked at Rainsford reproachfully;
+he'd knocked a breach in one of her fundamental postulates. "Of course,
+she had inherited the cerebroneural equipment for sapient thinking." She
+let that trail off, before somebody asked her how she knew that the
+Fuzzies hadn't.
+
+"I'll suggest, just to keep the argument going, that speech couldn't have
+been invented without pre-existing sapience," Jack said.
+
+Ruth laughed. "Now you're taking me back to college. That used to be one
+of the burning questions in first-year psych students' bull sessions. By
+the time we got to be sophomores, we'd realized that it was only an
+egg-and-chicken argument and dropped it."
+
+"That's a pity," Ben Rainsford said. "It's a good question."
+
+"It would be if it could be answered."
+
+"Maybe it can be," Gerd said. "There's a clue to it, right there. I'll say
+that those fellows are on the edge of sapience, and it's an even-money bet
+which side."
+
+"I'll bet every sunstone in my bag they're over."
+
+"Well, maybe they're just slightly sapient," Jimenez suggested.
+
+Ruth Ortheris hooted at that. "That's like talking about being just
+slightly dead or just slightly pregnant," she said. "You either are or you
+aren't."
+
+Gerd van Riebeek was talking at the same time. "This sapience question is
+just as important in my field as yours, Ruth. Sapience is the result of
+evolution by natural selection, just as much as a physical characteristic,
+and it's the most important step in the evolution of any species, our own
+included."
+
+"Wait a minute, Gerd," Rainsford said. "Ruth, what do you mean by that?
+Aren't there degrees of sapience?"
+
+"No. There are degrees of mentation--intelligence, if you prefer--just as
+there are degrees of temperature. When psychology becomes an exact science
+like physics, we'll be able to calibrate mentation like temperature. But
+sapience is qualitatively different from nonsapience. It's more than just
+a higher degree of mental temperature. You might call it a sort of mental
+boiling point."
+
+"I think that's a damn good analogy," Rainsford said. "But what happens
+when the boiling point is reached?"
+
+"That's what we have to find out," van Riebeek told him. "That's what I
+was talking about a moment ago. We don't know any more about how sapience
+appeared today than we did in the year zero, or in the year 654 Pre-Atomic
+for that matter."
+
+"Wait a minute," Jack interrupted. "Before we go any deeper, let's agree
+on a definition of sapience."
+
+Van Riebeek laughed. "Ever try to get a definition of life from a
+biologist?" he asked. "Or a definition of number from a mathematician?"
+
+"That's about it." Ruth looked at the Fuzzies, who were looking at their
+colored-ball construction as though wondering if they could add anything
+more without spoiling the design. "I'd say: a level of mentation
+qualitatively different from nonsapience in that it includes ability to
+symbolize ideas and store and transmit them, ability to generalize and
+ability to form abstract ideas. There; I didn't say a word about
+talk-and-build-a-fire, did I?"
+
+"Little Fuzzy symbolizes and generalizes," Jack said. "He symbolizes a
+damnthing by three horns, and he symbolizes a rifle by a long thing that
+points and makes noises. Rifles kill animals. Harpies and damnthings are
+both animals. If a rifle will kill a harpy, it'll kill a damnthing too."
+
+Juan Jimenez had been frowning in thought; he looked up and asked, "What's
+the lowest known sapient race?"
+
+"Yggdrasil Khooghras," Gerd van Riebeek said promptly. "Any of you ever
+been on Yggdrasil?"
+
+"I saw a man shot once on Mimir, for calling another man a son of a
+Khooghra," Jack said. "The man who shot him had been on Yggdrasil and knew
+what he was being called."
+
+"I spent a couple of years among them," Gerd said. "They do build fires;
+I'll give them that. They char points on sticks to make spears. And they
+talk. I learned their language, all eighty-two words of it. I taught a few
+of the intelligentsia how to use machetes without maiming themselves, and
+there was one mental giant I could trust to carry some of my equipment, if
+I kept an eye on him, but I never let him touch my rifle or my camera."
+
+"Can they generalize?" Ruth asked.
+
+"Honey, they can't do nothin' else but! Every word in their language is a
+high-order generalization. _Hroosha_, live-thing. _Noosha_, bad-thing.
+_Dhishta_, thing-to-eat. Want me to go on? There are only seventy-nine
+more of them."
+
+Before anybody could stop him, the communication screen got itself into an
+uproar. The Fuzzies all ran over in front of it, and Jack switched it on.
+The caller was a man in gray semiformals; he had wavy gray hair and a face
+that looked like Juan Jimenez's twenty years from now.
+
+"Good evening; Holloway here."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Holloway, good evening." The caller shook hands with himself,
+turning on a dazzling smile. "I'm Leonard Kellogg, chief of the Company's
+science division. I just heard the tape you made about the--the Fuzzies?"
+He looked down at the floor. "Are these some of the animals?"
+
+"These are the Fuzzies." He hoped it sounded like the correction it was
+intended to be. "Dr. Bennett Rainsford's here with me now, and so are Dr.
+Jimenez, Dr. van Riebeek and Dr. Ortheris." Out of the corner of his eye
+he could see Jimenez squirming as though afflicted with ants, van Riebeek
+getting his poker face battened down and Ben Rainsford suppressing a grin.
+"Some of us are out of screen range, and I'm sure you'll want to ask a lot
+of questions. Pardon us a moment, while we close in."
+
+He ignored Kellogg's genial protest that that wouldn't be necessary until
+the chairs were placed facing the screen. As an afterthought, he handed
+Fuzzies around, giving Little Fuzzy to Ben, Ko-Ko to Gerd, Mitzi to Ruth,
+Mike to Jimenez and taking Mamma and Baby on his own lap.
+
+Baby immediately started to climb up onto his head, as expected. It seemed
+to disconcert Kellogg, also as expected. He decided to teach Baby to thumb
+his nose when given some unobtrusive signal.
+
+"Now, about that tape I recorded last evening," he began.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Holloway." Kellogg's smile was getting more mechanical every
+minute. He was having trouble keeping his eyes off Baby. "I must say, I
+was simply astounded at the high order of intelligence claimed for these
+creatures."
+
+"And you wanted to see how big a liar I was. I don't blame you; I had
+trouble believing it myself at first."
+
+Kellogg gave a musically blithe laugh, showing even more dental equipment.
+
+"Oh, no. Mr. Holloway; please don't misunderstand me. I never thought
+anything like that."
+
+"I hope not," Ben Rainsford said, not too pleasantly. "I vouched for Mr.
+Holloway's statements, if you'll recall."
+
+"Of course, Bennett; that goes without saying. Permit me to congratulate
+you upon a most remarkable scientific discovery. An entirely new order of
+mammals--"
+
+"Which may be the ninth extrasolar sapient race," Rainsford added.
+
+"Good heavens, Bennett!" Kellogg jettisoned his smile and slid on a look
+of shocked surprise. "You surely can't be serious?" He looked again at the
+Fuzzies, pulled the smile back on and gave a light laugh.
+
+"I thought you'd heard that tape," Rainsford said.
+
+"Of course, and the things reported were most remarkable. But sapiences!
+Just because they've been taught a few tricks, and use sticks and stones
+for weapons--" He got rid of the smile again, and quick-changed to
+seriousness. "Such an extreme claim must only be made after careful
+study."
+
+"Well, I won't claim they're sapient," Ruth Ortheris told him. "Not till
+day after tomorrow, at the earliest. But they very easily could be. They
+have learning and reasoning capacity equal to that of any eight-year-old
+Terran Human child, and well above that of the adults of some recognizedly
+sapient races. And they have not been taught tricks; they have learned by
+observation and reasoning."
+
+"Well, Dr. Kellogg, mentation levels isn't my subject," Jimenez took it
+up, "but they do have all the physical characteristics shared by other
+sapient races--lower limbs specialized for locomotion and upper limbs for
+manipulation, erect posture, stereoscopic vision, color perception,
+hand with opposing thumb--all the characteristics we consider as
+prerequisite to the development of sapience."
+
+"I think they're sapient, myself," Gerd van Riebeek said, "but that's not
+as important as the fact that they're on the very threshold of sapience.
+This is the first race of this mental level anybody's ever seen. I believe
+that study of the Fuzzies will help us solve the problem of how sapience
+developed in any race."
+
+Kellogg had been laboring to pump up a head of enthusiasm; now he was
+ready to valve it off.
+
+"But this is amazing! This will make scientific history! Now, of course,
+you all realize how pricelessly valuable these Fuzzies are. They must be
+brought at once to Mallorysport, where they can be studied under
+laboratory conditions by qualified psychologists, and--"
+
+"No."
+
+Jack lifted Baby Fuzzy off his head and handed him to Mamma, and set Mamma
+on the floor. That was reflex; the thinking part of his brain knew he
+didn't need to clear for action when arguing with the electronic image of
+a man twenty-five hundred miles away.
+
+"Just forget that part of it and start over," he advised.
+
+Kellogg ignored him. "Gerd, you have your airboat; fix up some nice
+comfortable cages--"
+
+_"Kellogg!_"
+
+The man in the screen stopped talking and stared in amazed indignation. It
+was the first time in years he had been addressed by his naked patronymic,
+and possibly the first time in his life he had been shouted at.
+
+"Didn't you hear me the first time Kellogg? Then stop gibbering about
+cages. These Fuzzies aren't being taken anywhere."
+
+"But Mr. Holloway! Don't you realize that these little beings must be
+carefully studied? Don't you want them given their rightful place in the
+hierarchy of nature?"
+
+"If you want to study them, come out here and do it. That's so long as you
+don't annoy them, or me. As far as study's concerned, they're being
+studied now. Dr. Rainsford's studying them, and so are three of your
+people, and when it comes to that, I'm studying them myself."
+
+"And I'd like you to clarify that remark about qualified psychologists,"
+Ruth Ortheris added, in a voice approaching zero-Kelvin. "You wouldn't be
+challenging my professional qualifications, would you?"
+
+"Oh, Ruth, you know I didn't mean anything like that. Please don't
+misunderstand me," Kellogg begged. "But this is highly specialized work--"
+
+"Yes; how many Fuzzy specialists have you at Science Center, Leonard?"
+Rainsford wanted to know. "The only one I can think of is Jack Holloway,
+here."
+
+"Well, I'd thought of Dr. Mallin, the Company's head psychologist."
+
+"He can come too, just as long as he understands that he'll have to have
+my permission for anything he wants to do with the Fuzzies," Jack said.
+"When can we expect you?"
+
+Kellogg thought some time late the next afternoon. He didn't have to ask
+how to get to the camp. He made a few efforts to restore the conversation
+to its original note of cordiality, gave that up as a bad job and blanked
+out. There was a brief silence in the living room. Then Jimenez said
+reproachfully:
+
+"You certainly weren't very gracious to Dr. Kellogg, Jack. Maybe you don't
+realize it, but he is a very important man."
+
+"He isn't important to me, and I wasn't gracious to him at all. It doesn't
+pay to be gracious to people like that. If you are, they always try to
+take advantage of it."
+
+"Why, I didn't know you knew Len," van Riebeek said.
+
+"I never saw the individual before. The species is very common and widely
+distributed." He turned to Rainsford. "You think he and this Mallin will
+be out tomorrow?"
+
+"Of course they will. This is a little too big for underlings and
+non-Company people to be allowed to monkey with. You know, we'll have to
+watch out or in a year we'll be hearing from Terra about the discovery of
+a sapient race on Zarathustra; _Fuzzy fuzzy Kellogg_. As Juan says, Dr.
+Kellogg is a very important man. That's how he got important."
+
+
+
+
+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 and 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 Greibenfeld, the Exec., turned to Lieutenant
+Ybarra, the chief psychologist.
+
+"How reliable is this stuff?" Ybarra asked.
+
+"Well, I knew Jack Holloway thirty years ago, on Fenris, when I was just
+an ensign. He must be past seventy now," he parenthesized. "If he says he
+saw anything, I'll believe it. And Bennett Rainsford's absolutely
+reliable, of course."
+
+"How about the agent?" Ybarra insisted.
+
+He and Stephen Aelborg, the Intelligence officer, exchanged glances. He
+nodded, and Aelborg 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," Ybarra 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?" Greibenfeld
+asked.
+
+Ybarra looked blankly at him for a moment. "No. No, I meant a case of
+borderline sapience; something 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 Center in Mallorysport late
+Friday night. There seem to be a number of copies of this tape around; our
+agent got hold of one of them and transmitted it to Contact Center, and it
+was relayed on to us, with the agent's comments," Aelborg said. "Contact
+Center 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--Mallorysport time, that is--that Leonard Kellogg had
+played off the copy of the tape that Juan Jimenez 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 Mallin, out to Beta Continent with
+orders to brand Rainsford's 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 Terra to check on Rainsford's story."
+
+"I hadn't heard that last detail before."
+
+"Well, we can prove it," Aelborg assured him.
+
+It sounded like a Victor Grego idea. He lit his pipe slowly. Damnit, he
+didn't want to have to intervene. No Space Navy C.O. did. Justifying
+intervention on a Colonial planet was too much bother--always a board of
+inquiry, often a courtmartial. And supersession 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 Ybarra 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 Psych.D. Why, the best psychological brains in the
+Federation--"
+
+"Aren't on Zarathustra, Pancho. They're on Terra, 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 Riebeek's suggestion 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 Ortheris 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 airjeep 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 new 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.
+Mamma Fuzzy and Baby were poking about in the tall grass. Suddenly Mamma
+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
+Extee Three. 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 Extee Three
+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 high port. Now they've stopped, about thirty feet behind you."
+
+He broke off a piece of Extee Three, 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, threw a piece to her companion and
+then snatched the other piece and ran back with it. They stood together,
+nibbling 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 yeeking 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 Ko-Ko advanced, dragging his
+chopper-digger in an obviously pacific manner, and approached the two
+females, yeeking 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 Ko-Ko and the two females rose, picked up their
+weapons and started for the woods.
+
+"Jack, stop them," Ruth called out. "They're going away."
+
+"If they want to go, I have no right to stop them."
+
+When they were almost at the edge of the woods, Ko-Ko 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 yeeking. 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, Mamma Fuzzy, Mike and Mitzi came running back. For a while,
+all the Fuzzies embraced one another, yeeking happily. Then they all
+trooped across the grass and went into the house.
+
+"Get that all, 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, Zarathustran 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 Ko-Ko 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 Ko-Ko
+good-bye. Then Ko-Ko 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
+Pappy Jack is, so now I should imagine they're showing the girls the
+family treasures. You know, they married into a mighty well-to-do family."
+
+The girls were named Goldilocks and Cinderella. When lunch was ready, they
+were all in the living room, with the viewscreen on; after lunch, the
+whole gang went into the bedroom for a nap on Pappy Jack'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 prawn hunt.
+
+They all heard the aircar 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 till we can
+get here," 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."
+
+"Aah, 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 aircar and called attention
+to it. This time, it was Ben Rainsford and Juan Jimenez. They piled out as
+soon as they were off contragravity, 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
+_Volkerwanderung_. We saw over fifty of them--four families, and
+individuals and pairs. I'm sure we missed ten for every one we saw."
+
+"We better get up there with a car tomorrow," 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 airboat down onto it, and put his
+airjeep alongside with the canopy up. There were two men on the forward
+deck of the boat, Kellogg and another man who would be Ernst Mallin. A
+third man came out of the control cabin after the boat was off
+contragravity. Jack didn't like Mallin. 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, Mallin introduced him as Kurt
+Borch, his assistant.
+
+Mallin had to introduce Borch again at the camp, not only to Ben Rainsford
+but also to van Riebeek, to Jimenez and even to Ruth Ortheris, which
+seemed a little odd. Ruth seemed to think so, too, and Mallin hastened to
+tell her that Borch 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 Mallin, who compressed his lips and shook his
+head, saying:
+
+"We simply cannot assume sapience until we find something in their
+behavior which cannot be explained under any other hypothesis. We would be
+much safer to assume nonsapience and proceed to test that assumption."
+
+That seemed to establish the keynote. Kellogg straightened, and he and
+Mallin 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. Jimenez got
+into it to the extent of agreeing with everything Kellogg said, and
+differing politely with everything Mallin said that he thought Kellogg
+would differ with. Borch 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
+interestedly. Kellogg and Mallin 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 manner, 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 Goldilocks and Cinderella watched interestedly, 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 nonqualified 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 Terra."
+
+"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 Riebeek
+chimed in. "A camera is not a nonqualified observer. We have quite a bit
+of film of the Fuzzies."
+
+"Oh, yes; there was some mention of movies," Mallin 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 gunrack, got the film and loaded
+his projector. The Fuzzies, who had 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 had
+come in, hunting and at play. Finally, there was the film of the adoption
+of Goldilocks and Cinderella.
+
+"What Juan 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 it's 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."
+
+Mallin and Kellogg looked at one another in what seemed oddly like
+consternation.
+
+"You didn't tell us there were more of them around," Mallin 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 landgrant 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'll get prefab huts--Red Hill's 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 had only intended staying tonight on our boat,
+and returning to Mallorysport 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, the three of them could 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 maze 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," Mallin said.
+
+"You won't hurt any Fuzzies. Not more than once, anyhow."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning, during breakfast, Kellogg and Kurt Borch put in an
+appearance, Borch 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."
+
+Somewhat to his surprise, neither of them gave him any argument. Gerd and
+Ruth and Kellogg borrowed his airjeep and started north; he and Borch went
+across the run to make measurements after Rainsford and Jimenez arrived
+and picked up Mallin. Borch took off soon after with the boat for Red
+Hill. Left alone, he loafed around the camp, and developed the rest of the
+movie film, making three copies of everything. Toward noon, Borch brought
+the boat back, followed by a couple of scowlike farmboats. 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. Kellogg 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 leg 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 pot. 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 he'd had in a couple of
+days. He said so while Ben was distributing Extee Three 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 Mallin are straining to talk me out of sending a report back to
+Terra before he can investigate the Fuzzies? He wants to get his own
+report in first. Well, the hell 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 Mallorysport in the constabulary mail pouch. It'll be on a ship
+for Terra 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
+Juan are bunking at the other camp now; suppose I move in here with you
+tomorrow. 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 tomorrow, after I stop at the
+constabulary post."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The people across the run--Kellogg, Mallin and Borch, and van Riebeek,
+Jimenez and Ruth Ortheris--were still up when Rainsford went out to his
+airjeep. 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 Jimenez leave in one jeep and,
+shortly after, Mallin and van Riebeek in the other. Kellogg didn't seem to
+be willing to let the three who had come to the camp first wander around
+unchaperoned. He wondered about that.
+
+Ben Rainsford's airjeep came over the mountains from the south in the late
+morning and settled onto the grass. Jack helped him inside with his
+luggage, and then they sat down under the big featherleaf trees to smoke
+their pipes and watch the Fuzzies playing in the grass. Occasionally they
+saw Kurt Borch pottering around outside the other camp.
+
+"I sent the report off," Rainsford said, then looked at his watch. "It
+ought to be on the mail boat for Mallorysport by now; this time tomorrow
+it'll be in hyperspace for Terra. We won't say anything about it; just sit
+back and watch Len Kellogg and Ernst Mallin 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 hope that there might be goodies for them. "Uncle Ben says
+you're sapient."
+
+"Yeek?"
+
+"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'll
+send somebody, too. After all, subcivilized natives on colonized 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 Pappy Jack 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
+recognized 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 airjeeps returned in the middle of the afternoon, first Mallin's, and
+then Kellogg's. Everybody went inside. An hour later, a constabulary car
+landed in front of the Kellogg camp. George Lunt and Ahmed Khadra 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 Khadra took off their berets, but made no move
+to unbuckle their gun belts.
+
+"We 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 got that, too?"
+
+"You can smell it on them for a mile, against the wind. In the first
+place, that Borch. 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.
+When 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," Rainsford said. "They
+don't want outsiders discovering things on this planet. It wouldn't make
+them look good to the home office on Terra. Remember, it was some
+non-Company people who discovered the first sunstones, 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 Terra or Baldur, wearing the skins of Little Fuzzy and Mamma
+Fuzzy and Mike and Mitzi and Ko-Ko and Cinderella and Goldilocks wrapped
+around her adipose carcass. It made him feel sick.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+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 today
+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 rifle's one," 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 Mallin were walking back and forth in front of the camp,
+talking earnestly. When Ruth Ortheris and Gerd van Riebeek 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
+Ko-Ko and Goldilocks ran to meet them; Ruth picked Goldilocks up and
+carried her, and Ko-Ko and Little Fuzzy ran on ahead. They greeted Jack,
+declining coffee; Ruth sat down in 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 Ko-Ko sat down on his chest.
+
+"Goldilocks is my favorite Fuzzy," Ruth was saying. "She is 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, animal 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 had his choice of
+getting sapient or getting exterminated."
+
+Ruth seemed troubled. "Gerd, Dr. Mallin has found absolutely nothing about
+them that indicates true sapience."
+
+"Oh, Mallin 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. Mallin'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 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'd 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 airjeep rose from the other side and floated across. Juan Jimenez was
+piloting it; Ernst Mallin 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 Ko-Ko 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 Ben Rainsford 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 till after lunch. Kurt Borch 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
+Rainsford hadn't returned by lunchtime, but zebralope hunting took a
+little time, even from the air. While he was eating, outside, one of the
+rented airjeeps returned from the northeast in a hurry, disgorging Ernst
+Mallin, Juan Jimenez and Ruth Ortheris. Kurt Borch 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 Riebeek
+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 Gerd van Riebeek
+knocked on the open door.
+
+"Jack, can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked.
+
+"Sure. Come in."
+
+Van Riebeek 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 Khooghra's doing?" Gerd asked. "He and
+that--" He used a couple of Sheshan words, viler than anything in Lingua
+Terra. "--that quack headshrinker, Mallin, 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 are 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 onto the high flat to a spring and 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 bury their dead? What was the grave like?"
+
+"A little stone cairn, 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 cairn, and then filled-in earth, and then a
+dead Fuzzy 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 bury 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 Mallin to get to camp
+immediately, and Mallin and Ruth and Juan were there when we got in. As
+soon as Kellogg told them what we'd found, Mallin 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 Riebeek 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 Kellogg but himself.
+
+"I am a senile old dotard! Good Lord, I know colonial law; I've been
+skating on the edge of it on more planets than you're 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 Terra, 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 Terra, 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 Riebeek 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. Borch is probably the only one we'll
+need a gun for, but--"
+
+Van Riebeek 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 communication 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." Ko-Ko 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 Gerd were wearing their guns in the house. His eyes narrowed
+slightly.
+
+"You 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. "Calderon 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 Lovin'
+Jack Holloway, that's him. Well, go chase his squatters 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's 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 awhile."
+
+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 back yard."
+
+"Well, he told us he was staying for a couple of weeks."
+
+"He got his mind changed for him. He's 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. You'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?"
+
+Gerd supplied it, and he punched it out. One of those tricky special
+Company combinations. Kurt Borch appeared in the screen immediately.
+
+"I want to talk to Kellogg."
+
+"Doctor Kellogg is very busy, at present."
+
+"He's going to be a damned sight busier; this is moving day. The whole
+gang of you have till eighteen hundred to get off my grant."
+
+Borch was shoved aside, 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 Riebeek
+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 Hennen in Red Hill; he's sending
+his scows 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. Then 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 Hennen and
+the constabulary post for verification, and there would be a lot of
+gathering up and packing to do. Finally, Kurt Borch emerged with a
+contragravity lifter piled with boxes and luggage, and Jimenez walking
+beside to steady the load. Jimenez climbed up onto the airboat and Borch
+floated the load up to him and then went back into the huts. This was
+repeated several times. In the meantime, Kellogg and Mallin 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, Gerd, and I'll bring her back."
+
+He started down the path; by the time he had reached the bridge,
+Goldilocks was across and had vanished behind one of the airjeeps parked
+in front of the Kellogg camp. When he was across and within twenty feet of
+the vehicle, he heard a sound across and within twenty feet of the
+vehicle, he heard a sound he had never heard before--a shrill, thin
+shriek, like a file on saw teeth. At the same time, Ruth's voice screamed.
+
+"Don't! Leonard, 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 Ortheris' voice:
+
+"Jack! Watch out! Behind you!"
+
+He let go of Kellogg's shirt and jumped aside, turning and reaching for
+his gun. Kurt Borch, 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
+Borch's shirt that gave him an aiming point for the third. Borch 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 Riebeek'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 stanch it on the sleeve of his jacket. As he
+stumbled toward his companions, he blundered into Ruth Ortheris, who
+pushed him angrily away from her. Then she went to the little crushed
+body, dropping to her knees beside it and touching it. The silver charm
+bell on the neck chain jingled faintly. Ruth began to cry.
+
+Juan Jimenez had climbed down from the airboat; he was looking at the body
+of Kurt Borch 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 Riebeek fired a bullet into the ground ahead of him, bringing him
+up short.
+
+"You'll stop the next one, Juan," he said. "Go help Dr. Kellogg; he got
+himself hurt."
+
+"Call the constabulary," Mallin was saying. "Ruth, you go; they won't
+shoot at you."
+
+"Don't bother. I called them. Remember?"
+
+Jimenez had gotten a wad of handkerchief tissue out of his pocket and was
+trying to stop his superior's nosebleed. Through it, Kellogg was trying to
+tell Mallin that he hadn't been able to help it.
+
+"The little beast attacked me; it cut me with that spear it was carrying."
+
+Ruth Ortheris looked up. The other Fuzzies were with her by the body of
+Goldilocks; they must have come as soon as they had 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!" Mallin 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. And 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," Mallin was saying.
+"Let me do the talking."
+
+"Intimidating witnesses, Mallin?" Gerd inquired. "Don't you know
+everybody'll have to testify at the constabulary post under veridication?
+And you're drawing pay for being a psychologist, too." Then he saw some of
+the Fuzzies raise their heads and look toward the southeastern horizon.
+"Here come the cops, now."
+
+However, it was Ben Rainsford's airjeep, with a zebralope carcass lashed
+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, then glanced around, from Goldilocks to
+Kellogg to Borch to the pistol beside Borch's body. "I get it. Last 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 Borch, 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 holstered his pistol and went back to his
+jeep, returning with a camera. Mallin began insisting that, as a licensed
+M.D., he had a right to treat Kellogg's injuries. Gerd van Riebeek
+followed him into the living hut for a first-aid kit. They were just
+emerging, van Riebeek's automatic in the small of Mallin's back, when a
+constabulary car grounded beside Rainsford's airjeep. It wasn't Car Three.
+George Lunt jumped out, unsnapping the flap of his holster, while Ahmed
+Khadra was talking into the radio.
+
+"What's happened, Jack? Why didn't you wait till we got here?"
+
+"This maniac assaulted me and murdered that man over there!" Kellogg began
+vociferating.
+
+"Is your name Jack too?" Lunt demanded.
+
+"My name's Leonard Kellogg, and I'm a chief of division with the
+Company--"
+
+"Then keep quiet till I ask you something. Ahmed, call the post; get
+Knabber and Yorimitsu, with investigative equipment, and find out what's
+tying up Car Three."
+
+Mallin 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 happen first?"
+
+"Watch out, Lieutenant! He still has his pistol!" Mallin shouted
+warningly.
+
+They went over and sat down on the contragravity-field generator housing
+of one of the rented airjeeps. Jack started with Gerd van Riebeek's visit
+immediately after noon.
+
+"Yes, I thought of that angle myself," Lunt said disgustedly. "I didn't
+think of it till 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 Borch 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-defense. Think any of
+this gang will tell the truth here, without taking them in and putting
+them under veridication?"
+
+"Ruth Ortheris 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 yeeking plaintively.
+She 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 toward van Riebeek, standing guard over Kellogg and
+Mallin, his thumbs in his pistol belt.
+
+"Ours. He's quit the Company."
+
+Just as he was finishing, Car Three put in an appearance; he had to tell
+the same story over again. The area in front of the Kellogg camp was
+getting congested; he hoped Mike Hennen's labor gang would stay away for a
+while. Lunt talked to van Riebeek when he had finished with Ruth, and then
+with Jimenez and Mallin and Kellogg. Then he and one of the men from Car
+Three came over to where Jack and Rainsford were standing. Gerd van
+Riebeek joined them just as Lunt was saying:
+
+"Jack, Kellogg's made a murder complaint against you. I told him it was
+self-defense, 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 are sapient beings," Rainsford said. "That's the opinion of a
+qualified xeno-naturalist."
+
+"Two of them," Gerd 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. Ben 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 cairn was finished, he replaced it, drew his pistol and
+checked the chamber.
+
+"That does it, Jack," he said. "I am now going to arrest Leonard Kellogg
+for the murder of a sapient being."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Jack Holloway had been out on bail before, but never for quite so much. It
+was almost worth it, though, to see Leslie Coombes's eyes widen and
+Mohammed Ali O'Brien's jaw drop when he dumped the bag of sunstones,
+blazing with the heat of the day and of his body, on George Lunt's
+magisterial bench and invited George to pick out twenty-five thousand
+sols' worth. Especially after the production Coombes had made of posting
+Kellogg's bail with one of those precertified Company checks.
+
+He looked at the whisky bottle in his hand, and then reached into the
+cupboard for another one. One for Gus Brannhard, and one for the rest of
+them. There was a widespread belief that that was why Gustavus Adolphus
+Brannhard was practicing sporadic law out here in the boondocks of a
+boondock planet, defending gun fighters and veldbeest rustlers. It
+wasn't. Nobody on Zarathustra knew the reason, but it wasn't whisky.
+Whisky was only the weapon with which Gus Brannhard 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 gray-brown hair, his broad face
+masked in a tangle of gray-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 gray-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 Mamma Fuzzy was
+on his lap. Mike and Mitzi sat one on either knee. The Fuzzies had taken
+instantly to Gus. Bet they thought he was a Big Fuzzy.
+
+"Aaaah!" he rumbled, as the bottle and glass were placed beside him. "Been
+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 dipsos in the family, too."
+
+Gus filled the glass. To be on the safe side, he promptly emptied it into
+himself.
+
+"You 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 Ortheris girl's story will acquit you from the box,
+with a vote of censure 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."
+
+Leslie Coombes, the Company's top attorney, had come out from Mallorysport
+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 Mohammed 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?" Brannhard 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 Riebeek demanded.
+
+"Who's going to define sapience? And how?" Rainsford asked. "Why,
+between them, Coombes and O'Brien can even agree to accept the
+talk-and-build-a-fire rule."
+
+"Huh-uh!" Brannhard was positive. "Court ruling on that, about forty years
+ago, on Vishnu. Infanticide case, woman charged with murder in the death
+of her infant child. Her lawyer moved for dismissal on the grounds that
+murder is defined as the killing of a sapient being, a 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 nonsapience. If O'Brien doesn't know
+that, and I doubt if he does, Coombes will." Brannhard 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 Ham O'Brien does when he gets back to Mallorysport will be
+to enter _nolle prosequi_ on both charges. What I'd like would be for him
+to _nol. pros._ Kellogg and let the charge against Jack go to court. He
+would be dumb enough to do that himself, but Leslie Coombes wouldn't let
+him."
+
+"But if he throws out the Kellogg case, that's it," Gerd van Riebeek said.
+"When Jack comes to trial, nobody'll say a mumblin' 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 Borch
+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 contention 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."
+
+"_Huh!_" Mamma Fuzzy looked up, startled by the exclamation. "What do you
+think Victor Grego's wishing, right now?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Victor Grego replaced the hand-phone. "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 canape. He had reddish hair, pale eyes and a wide,
+bovine face.
+
+"Holloway must have done him up pretty badly," he said.
+
+"I wish Holloway'd 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 only a teaser to what'll come out at the trial. You
+know what the Company's epitaph will be? _Kicked to death, along with a
+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 Borch, 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
+Riebeek, who had touched off the explosion in the first place. He didn't
+know van Riebeek himself, but Kellogg should have, and he had handled him
+the wrong way. He should have known what van Riebeek would go along with
+and what he wouldn't.
+
+"But, Victor, they won't convict Leonard of murder," Emmert 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 sols' bond
+could be written off; that was pennies 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?" Emmert asked,
+popping another canape 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," Emmert 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 to
+salvage something out of the wreckage--if not for the Company, then for
+Victor Grego. But 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 counted 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 Borch. That angered him, too; hell of a gunman!
+Clear shot at the broad of a man's back, and still got himself killed.
+Borch 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
+Emmert's boys. And he hadn't picked Nick, either.
+
+The squawk-box on the desk made a premonitory noise, and a feminine voice
+advised him that Mr. Coombes and his party had arrived.
+
+"All right; show them in."
+
+Coombes entered first, tall suavely elegant, with a calm, untroubled face.
+Leslie Coombes would wear the same serene expression in the midst of a
+bombardment or an earthquake. He had chosen Coombes for chief attorney,
+and thinking of that made him feel better. Mohammed Ali O'Brien was
+neither tall, elegant nor calm. His skin was almost black--he'd been born
+on Agni, under a hot B3 sun. His bald head glistened, and a big nose
+peeped over the ambuscade of a bushy white mustache. What was it they said
+about him? Only man on Zarathustra who could strut sitting down. And
+behind them, the remnant of the expedition to Beta Continent--Ernst
+Mallin, Juan Jimenez and Ruth Ortheris. Mallin 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 Frederic Pendarvis moved the ashtray a few inches to the
+right and the slender vase with the spray of starflowers 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 toward
+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. Shoveling all this stuff onto Central Courts had been all right
+when Mallorysport had had 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 veldbeest calf or who'd taken a shot at whom in a barroom. 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 Fifteen, 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 wit Kurt Borch,
+Mallorysport, Federation citizen, race Terran human. Complainant, Leonard
+Kellogg, the same. Attorney of record for the defendant, Gustavus Adolphus
+Brannhard. The last time Jack Holloway had killed anybody, it had been a
+couple of thugs who'd tried to steal his sunstones; 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 Fifteen. He
+read it and blinked. Leonard Kellogg, willful killing of a sapient being,
+to wit, Jane Doe alias Goldilocks, aborigine, race Zarathustran Fuzzy,
+complainant, Jack Holloway, defendant's attorney of record, Leslie
+Coombes. 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
+Brannhard to liven 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.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Wilkins," he replied. "A couple of homicides at the
+head of this morning's docket--Holloway and Kellogg, both from Beta
+Fifteen. What is known about them?"
+
+The young man began to laugh. "Oh, your Honor, 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 Borch, 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 _nolle prosequi_
+on both of them, so the whole thing can be disregarded."
+
+Mohammed 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 _nolle prosequi_ 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 Courts, 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 dinnertime 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 Mallin, and Ruth Ortheris, and even Juan
+Jimenez. At the constabulary post, Coombes and O'Brien had treated him
+like an idiot child who has to be hushed in front of company and coming
+back to Mallorysport they had ignored him completely. He drank quickly,
+and then there was too much ice in the glass again. Victor Grego had told
+him he'd better take a vacation till the trial was over, and put Mallin in
+charge of the division. Said he oughtn't to be in charge while the
+division was working on defense evidence. Well, maybe; it looked like the
+first step toward 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 had pushed it away--well, kicked it maybe--and it had struck at him
+with the little spear it was carrying. Nobody but a lunatic would give a
+thing like that to an animal anyhow. And he had 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 Coombes, 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 Pendarvis has denied
+the _nolle prosequi_ he entered 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'll want to talk to you about
+your defense, 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 would take him out and shoot him for just killing a
+silly little animal he had 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 to the couch and threw himself
+onto it, face down, among the cushions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Leslie Coombes found Nick Emmert 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."
+
+"Pendarvis is going to try the case himself," Emmert 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-IV
+planet, and has to have a Class-IV colonial government. If Zarathustra is
+a Class-IV planet, he wants it established, and the proper laws applied.
+If it's a Class-IV planet, the Zarathustra Company is illegally chartered.
+It's his job to put a stop to illegality. Frederic Pendarvis' 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 Emmert was just afraid.
+
+"You were right yesterday, Victor. I wish Holloway'd killed that son of a
+Khooghra. 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. "Ernest Mallin's studying all the
+filmed evidence 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 nonsapient, 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 Jimenez
+is studying mentation of Terran dogs, cats and primates, and Freyan
+kholphs and Mimir black slinkers."
+
+"He hasn't turned up any simian or canine parallels to that funeral, has
+he?"
+
+Grego said nothing, merely shook his head. Emmert muttered something
+inaudible and probably indecent.
+
+"I didn't think he had. I only hope those Fuzzies don't get up in court,
+build a bonfire and start making speeches in Lingua Terra."
+
+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. _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 on 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 _Emily
+Morrosh_, 612 A.E." He told them about the infanticide case. "I was
+looking up rulings on sapience; I passed the word on to Ham O'Brien. You
+know, what your people will have to do will be to produce a 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's," 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."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Jack Holloway saw Little Fuzzy eying 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 Jack
+was mean; didn't he think a Fuzzy might want to smoke a pipe, too? Well,
+maybe it wouldn't hurt him. He picked Little Fuzzy up and set him back on
+his lap, offering the pipestem. Little Fuzzy took a puff. He didn't cough
+over it; evidently he had learned how to avoid inhaling.
+
+"They scheduled the Kellogg trial first," Gus Brannhard 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 Coombes running both the prosecution and the
+defense, and if they can get him acquitted, it'll prejudice the sapience
+evidence we introduce in your trial."
+
+Mamma 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'll 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 demanded.
+"Nuclear energy and contragravity and 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 Khooghras. Gerd, do the Khooghras
+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 Khooghras
+don't do," Rainsford said. "We'll 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."
+
+"That'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
+interestedly. They knew what that was. Pappy 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. Khadra came in first, placing himself beside
+and a little behind him. Lunt followed, glancing quickly around and
+placing himself between Jack and the gunrack 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 a scrubby black mustache, and a smaller
+one with a thin, saturnine face--were looking expectantly at Lunt.
+Rainsford and van Riebeek were on their feet. Gus Brannhard 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 Borch; 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 yakking 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
+Mallorysport."
+
+"Let me see the order, Jack," Brannhard said, still remaining seated.
+
+Lunt handed it to Jack, and he handed it across to Brannhard. 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.
+
+"Court 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 thumbprinted receipt.
+Type 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,
+yeeking frantically; it 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. Khadra was catching Cinderella. Ko-Ko 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
+Khooghra. 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 aircar, 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 Pappy Jack let them down."
+
+"Have they gone, Jack?" Brannhard asked. "Sure?" Then he rose, reaching
+behind him, and took up a little ball of white fur. Baby Fuzzy caught his
+beard with both tiny hands, yeeking happily.
+
+"Baby! They didn't get him!"
+
+Brannhard disengaged the little hands from his beard and handed him over.
+
+"No, and they signed for him, too." Brannhard downed what was left of his
+drink, got a cigar out of his pocket and lit it. "Now, we're going to go
+to Mallorysport and get the rest of them back."
+
+"But.... But the Chief Justice signed that order. He won't give them back
+just because we ask him to."
+
+Brannhard made an impolite noise. "I'll bet everything I own Pendarvis
+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 the
+judges to sign an order every time they wanted to subpoena a witness or
+impound physical evidence, they'd never get anything done. If Ham O'Brien
+didn't think this up for himself, Leslie Coombes 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 shown 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 called to them. Then he felt the edge of the little
+knife Pappy Jack had made. He could cut his way out of this 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?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gus Brannhard was nervous, showing it by being overtalkative, and that
+worried Jack. He'd stopped twice at mirrors along the hallway to make sure
+that his gold-threaded gray neckcloth 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. Pendarvis he
+had seen once or twice, but their paths had never crossed. He had a good
+face, thin and ascetic, the face of a man at peace with himself. With him
+was Mohammed Ali O'Brien, who seemed surprised to see them enter, 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 are making complaint against an action by Mr. O'Brien here."
+
+"We are indeed, your Honor." Brannhard opened his briefcase and produced
+two papers--the writ, and the receipt for the Fuzzies, handing them across
+the desk. "My client and I wish to know upon what basis of legality your
+Honor 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. Brannhard, 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 only been used when there was no question that I or any other judge
+would approve. Such a question should 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
+veldbeest calf in a brand-alteration case. The fact that the sapience of
+these Fuzzies is still _sub judice_ 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 Honor," Brannhard leaped 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 Honor!" O'Brien's face turned even blacker than the hot sun of Agni
+had made it. "I cannot hear officers of the court so characterized 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 defense, Mr. O'Brien, the court will
+defend them. I believe that you should presently consider a defense of
+your own actions."
+
+"Your Honor, 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," Brannhard demanded, "did you endanger them in this criminally
+reckless manner?"
+
+"Endanger them?" O'Brien was horrified. "Your Honor, I acted only to
+insure 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. Brannhard, that you have
+overstated the case. Mr. O'Brien, I take a very unfavorable 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. Brannhard's characterization
+of your conduct as criminally reckless. Now, speaking judicially, I order
+you to produce those Fuzzies immediately and return them to the custody of
+Mr. Holloway."
+
+"Well, of course, your Honor." O'Brien had been growing progressively
+distraught, and his face now had the gray-over-brown hue of a walnut
+gunstock 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 Honor, there are no facilities here. I had them taken to
+Science Center--"
+
+"_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 Brannhard 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 Zarathustra Company?"
+
+"Why, yes; they have facilities for keeping all kinds of live animals, and
+they do all the scientific work for--"
+
+Pendarvis cursed blasphemously. Brannhard 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 Ham 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 Zarathustra Company isn't the defendant," O'Brien argued sullenly.
+
+"Not of record, no," Brannhard agreed. "But isn't the Zarathustra
+Company's scientific division headed by one Leonard Kellogg?"
+
+"Dr. Kellogg's been relieved of his duties, pending the outcome of the
+trial. The division is now headed by Dr. Ernst Mallin."
+
+"Chief scientific witness for the defense; I fail to see any practical
+difference."
+
+"Well, Mr. Emmert said it would be all right," O'Brien mumbled.
+
+"Jack, did you hear that?" Brannhard asked. "Treasure it in your memory.
+You may have to testify to it in court sometime." He turned to the Chief
+Justice. "Your Honor, may I suggest the recovery of these Fuzzies be
+entrusted to Colonial Marshal 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. Brannhard. 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 Orphans' 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.
+
+Pendarvis 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."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Colonial Marshal Max Fane was as heavy as Gus Brannhard 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. Going to get his Fuzzies
+back. Little Fuzzy, and Ko-Ko, and Mike, and Mamma 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 landing stage of the Company's Science
+Center, 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!"
+
+Max 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 Ernst Mallin'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,
+gabbling 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 shooed out into the hall, and one of the deputies was dropped
+there with the prisoner. The middle office was empty. Fane took his
+badgeholder in his left hand as he pushed through the door to the inner
+office.
+
+Kellogg's--temporarily Mallin's--secretary seemed to have preceded them by
+a few seconds; she was standing in front of the desk sputtering
+incoherently. Mallin, starting to rise from his chair, froze, hunched
+forward over the desk. Juan Jimenez, 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 Mallin his
+badge and then serving the papers. Mallin looked at him in bewilderment.
+
+"But we're keeping those Fuzzies for Mr. O'Brien, the Chief Prosecutor,"
+he said. "We can't turn them over without his authorization."
+
+"This," Max Fane said gently, "is an order of the court, issued by Chief
+Justice Pendarvis. As for Mr. O'Brien, I doubt if he's 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 metamorphosed himself into a damnthing, it couldn't
+have shaken Mallin 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 tailored costume, appeared in it.
+
+"Dr. Mallin, 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, Mallin 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 Mallin. "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!" Mallin wailed. "Juan, 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
+Borch before I'm through with you," he said.
+
+"All right, how about it?" Fane asked Jimenez. "Start with when you and
+Ham O'Brien picked up the Fuzzies at Central Courts 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 sometime, and sat down.
+
+"What happened, Marshal?" she asked. "Why are you here with these
+gentlemen?"
+
+"The court's ordered the Fuzzies returned to Mr. Holloway." Mallin was in
+a dither. "He has some kind 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 o-seven-hundred," Jimenez 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 Mallin had come to the camp, Mallin had been hypnotizing
+himself into the just-silly-little-animals doctrine. He must have
+succeeded; last night he'd acted accordingly.
+
+"We want to see the cages," Jack said.
+
+"Yeah." 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. Piet, 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. Mallin here when Mr. Grego--I mean, Mr.
+O'Brien--called to tell us that the Fuzzies were going to be kept here
+till the trial. We were going to fix up a room for them, but till that
+could be done, Juan got some cages to put them in. That was all I knew
+about it till o-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 Brannhard 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 hunt."
+
+"Good idea. Piet, tell our re-enforcements to stop at the Mallory on the
+way and pick him up." Fane turned to Jimenez. "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 Jimenez as they were going down on the escalator. "Do you
+know which one it was?"
+
+Jimenez 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
+poisons 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 Jimenez 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 a
+cover-up for the murder of the Fuzzies.
+
+Jimenez took them down a narrow hall beyond to an open door at the end.
+Inside, the permanent night light made a blue-white glow; a swivel chair
+stood just inside the door. Jimenez pointed to it.
+
+"They must have gotten up on 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 fellows 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," Jimenez 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 like you,
+Juan."
+
+"Wouldn't blame them," Fane said. "Let's see what kind of a houdini they
+did on these cages now."
+
+The cages were in a room--file room, storeroom, junk room--behind
+Jimenez'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 hasps, 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," Jimenez 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 Ko-Ko had
+burrowed into the bedding in apparently unreasoning panic, and explained
+about the little spring-steel knives he had 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's soft enough to cut easily." He turned to
+Jimenez. "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?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gerd van Riebeek 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 on the carpet about that land-prawn business. Now Ernst Mallin
+was sitting in Kellogg's chair, trying to look unconcerned and not making
+a very good job of it. Gus Brannhard sprawled in an armchair, smoking a
+cigar and looking at Mallin as he would look at a river pig 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 Brannhard.
+
+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. "Gerd, we didn't hurt them. We weren't going to hurt them at
+all. Juan 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. Mallin, 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, Gerd?" Brannhard 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'd 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. "Gerd, I...." she began. Then
+she went out. Gus Brannhard looked after her, and dropped the ash of his
+cigar on Leonard Kellogg's--now Ernst Mallin's--floor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gerd 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 Center right away. Marshal Fane was
+questioning people under veridication; 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 recognized 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 recognized 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. Ortheris."
+
+"Well, it was a perfectly natural mistake. You see, we're all at our wits'
+end here. Mr. Holloway and his lawyer and the Colonial Marshal are here
+with an order from Judge Pendarvis 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. Ortheris." The old instrument maker looked worried. "But I'm
+afraid the apparatus has already gone to the workroom. Mr. Stephenson 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 synthesist, 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 Riebeek; it was noisy with voices, and the ventilators were
+laboring to get rid of the tobacco smoke. Gus Brannhard, 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 Science Center 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
+level's 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."
+
+"Well, 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 there 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 Mallorysport
+until I either find them or am convinced that they aren't in the city. And
+I am offering a reward of two thousand sols apiece for their return to me.
+If you'll wait a moment, I'll have descriptions ready for you...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Victor Grego unstoppered the refrigerated cocktail jug. "More?" he asked
+Leslie Coombes.
+
+"Yes, thank you." Coombes 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 Ham O'Brien had mishandled his end of it, he could have
+done so quite plausibly.
+
+"I used bad judgment," Coombes said dispassionately, as though discussing
+some mistake Hitler had made, or Napoleon. "I thought O'Brien wouldn't try
+to use one of those presigned writs, and I didn't think Pendarvis would
+admit, publicly, that he signed court orders in blank. He's been severely
+criticized by the press about that."
+
+He hadn't thought Brannhard 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 Borch had
+thought all he needed to do with a 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," Coombes was saying. "I understand they
+couldn't be found at all in the building."
+
+"Ruth Ortheris has an idea. She got away from Science Center before Fane
+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 Center,
+that's sure." His own glass was empty; he debated a refill and voted
+against it. "O'Brien's definitely out, I take it?"
+
+"Completely. Pendarvis gave him his choice of resigning or facing
+malfeasance charges."
+
+"They couldn't really convict him of malfeasance for that, could they?
+Misfeasance, maybe, 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," Coombes 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 Brannhard is talking about bringing suit against the Company, and
+he's 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 Pendarvis 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 Brannhard and myself for tomorrow
+afternoon; I don't know what that's going to be like."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+The two lawyers had risen hastily when Chief Justice Pendarvis entered; he
+responded to their greetings and seated himself at his desk, reaching for
+the silver cigar box and taking out a panatela. Gustavus Adolphus
+Brannhard picked up the cigar he had laid aside and began puffing on it;
+Leslie Coombes took a cigarette from his case. They both looked at him,
+waiting like two drawn weapons--a battle ax and a rapier.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, as you know, we have a couple of homicide cases and
+nobody to prosecute them," he began.
+
+"Why bother, your Honor?" Coombes asked. "Both charges are completely
+frivolous. One man killed a wild animal, and the other killed a man who
+was trying to kill him."
+
+"Well, your Honor, I don't believe my client is guilty of anything,
+legally or morally," Brannhard said. "I want that established by an
+acquittal." He looked at Coombes. "I should think Mr. Coombes would be
+just as anxious to have his client cleared of any stigma of murder, too."
+
+"I am quite agreed. People who have been charged with crimes ought to have
+public vindication if they are innocent. Now, in the first place, I
+planned to hold the Kellogg trial first, and then the Holloway trial. Are
+you both satisfied with that arrangement?"
+
+"Absolutely not, your Honor," Brannhard said promptly. "The whole basis of
+the Holloway defense is that this man Borch was killed in commission of a
+felony. We're prepared to prove that, but we don't want our case
+prejudiced by an earlier trial."
+
+Coombes laughed. "Mr. Brannhard wants to clear his client by preconvicting
+mine. We can't agree to anything like that."
+
+"Yes, and he is making the same objection to trying your client first.
+Well, I'm going to remove both objections. I'm going to order the two
+cases combined, and both defendants tried together."
+
+A momentary glow of unholy glee on Gus Brannhard's face; Coombes didn't
+like the idea at all.
+
+"Your Honor, I trust that that suggestion was only made facetiously," he
+said.
+
+"It wasn't, Mr. Coombes."
+
+"Then if your Honor will not hold me in contempt for saying so, it is the
+most shockingly irregular--I won't go so far as to say improper--trial
+procedure I've ever heard of. This is not a case of accomplices charged
+with the same crime; this is a case of two men charged with different
+criminal acts, and the conviction of either would mean the almost
+automatic acquittal of the other. I don't know who's going to be named to
+take Mohammed O'Brien's place, but I pity him from the bottom of my heart.
+Why, Mr. Brannhard and I could go off somewhere and play poker while the
+prosecutor would smash the case to pieces."
+
+"Well, we won't have just one prosecutor, Mr. Coombes, we will have two.
+I'll swear you and Mr. Brannhard in as special prosecutors, and you can
+prosecute Mr. Brannhard's client, and he yours. I think that would remove
+any further objections."
+
+It was all he could do to keep his face judicially grave and unmirthful.
+Brannhard was almost purring, like a big tiger that had just gotten the
+better of a young goat; Leslie Coombes's suavity was beginning to crumble
+slightly at the edges.
+
+"Your Honor, that is a most excellent suggestion," Brannhard declared. "I
+will prosecute Mr. Coombes's client with the greatest pleasure in the
+universe."
+
+"Well, all I can say, your Honor, is that if the first proposal was the
+most irregular I had ever heard, the record didn't last long!"
+
+"Why, Mr. Coombes, I went over the law and the rules of jurisprudence very
+carefully, and I couldn't find a word that could be construed as
+disallowing such a procedure."
+
+"I'll bet you didn't find any precedent for it either!"
+
+Leslie Coombes should have known better than that; in colonial law, you
+can find a precedent for almost anything.
+
+"How much do you bet, Leslie?" Brannhard asked, a larcenous gleam in his
+eye.
+
+"Don't let him take your money away from you. I found, inside an hour,
+sixteen precedents, from twelve different planetary jurisdictions."
+
+"All right, your Honor," Coombes capitulated. "But I hope you know what
+you're doing. You're turning a couple of cases of the People of the Colony
+into a common civil lawsuit."
+
+Gus Brannhard laughed. "What else is it?" he demanded. "_Friends of Little
+Fuzzy_ versus _The chartered Zarathustra Company_; I'm bringing action as
+friend of incompetent aborigines for recognition of sapience, and Mr.
+Coombes, on behalf of the Zarathustra Company, is contesting to preserve
+the Company's charter, and that's all there is or ever was to this case."
+
+That was impolite of Gus. Leslie Coombes had wanted to go on to the end
+pretending that the Company charter had absolutely nothing to do with it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was an unending stream of reports of Fuzzies seen here and there,
+often simultaneously in impossibly distant parts of the city. Some were
+from publicity seekers and pathological liars and crackpots; some were the
+result of honest mistakes or overimaginativeness. There was some reason to
+suspect that not a few had originated with the Company, to confuse the
+search. One thing did come to light which heartened Jack Holloway. An
+intensive if concealed search was being made by the Company police, and by
+the Mallorysport police department, which the Company controlled.
+
+Max Fane was giving every available moment to the hunt. This wasn't
+because of ill will for the Company, though that was present, nor because
+the Chief Justice was riding him. The Colonial Marshal was pro-Fuzzy. So
+were the Colonial Constabulary, over whom Nick Emmert's administration
+seemed to have little if any authority. Colonel Ian Ferguson, the
+commandant, had his appointment direct from the Colonial Office on Terra.
+He had called by screen to offer his help, and George Lunt, over on Beta,
+screened daily to learn what progress was being made.
+
+Living at the Hotel Mallory was expensive, and Jack had to sell some
+sunstones. The Company gem buyers were barely civil to him; he didn't try
+to be civil at all. There was also a noticeable coolness toward him at the
+bank. On the other hand, on several occasions, Space Navy officers and
+ratings down from Xerxes Base went out of their way to accost him,
+introduce themselves, shake hands with him and give him their best wishes.
+
+Once, in one of the weather-domed business centers, an elderly man with
+white hair showing under his black beret greeted him.
+
+"Mr. Holloway I want to tell you how grieved I am to learn about the
+disappearance of those little people of yours," he said. "I'm afraid
+there's nothing I can do to help you, but I hope they turn up safely."
+
+"Why, thank you, Mr. Stenson." He shook hands with the old master
+instrument maker. "If you could make me a pocket veridicator, to use on
+some of these people who claim they saw them, it would be a big help."
+
+"Well, I do make rather small portable veridicators for the constabulary,
+but I think what you need is an instrument for detection of psychopaths,
+and that's slightly beyond science at present. But if you're still
+prospecting for sunstones, I have an improved micro-ray scanner I just
+developed, and...."
+
+He walked with Stenson to his shop, had a cup of tea and looked at the
+scanner. From Stenson's screen, he called Max Fane. Six more people had
+claimed to have seen the Fuzzies.
+
+Within a week, the films taken at the camp had been shown so frequently on
+telecast as to wear out their interest value. Baby, however, was still
+available for new pictures, and in a few days a girl had to be hired to
+take care of his fan mail. Once, entering a bar, Jack thought he saw Baby
+sitting on a woman's head. A second look showed that it was only a
+life-sized doll, held on with an elastic band. Within a week, he was
+seeing Baby Fuzzy hats all over town, and shop windows were full of
+life-sized Fuzzy dolls.
+
+In the late afternoon, two weeks after the Fuzzies had vanished, Marshal
+Fane dropped him at the hotel. They sat in the car for a moment, and Fane
+said:
+
+"I think this is the end of it. We're all out of cranks and exhibitionists
+now."
+
+He nodded. "That woman we were talking to. She's crazy as a bedbug."
+
+"Yeah. In the past ten years she's confessed to every unsolved crime on
+the planet. It shows you how hard up we are that I waste your time and
+mine listening to her."
+
+"Max, nobody's seen them. You think they just aren't, any more, don't
+you?"
+
+The fat man looked troubled. "Well, Jack, it isn't so much that nobody's
+seen them. Nobody's seen any trace of them. There are land-prawns all
+around, but nobody's found a cracked shell. And six active, playful,
+inquisitive Fuzzies ought to be getting into things. They ought to be
+raiding food markets, and fruit stands, getting into places and
+ransacking. But there hasn't been a thing. The Company police have stopped
+looking for them now."
+
+"Well, I won't. They must be around somewhere." He shook Fane's hand, and
+got out of the car. "You've been awfully helpful, Max. I want you to know
+how much I thank you."
+
+He watched the car lift away, and then looked out over the city--a vista
+of treetop green, with roofs and the domes of shopping centers and
+business centers and amusement centers showing through, and the angular
+buttes of tall buildings rising above. The streetless contragravity city
+of a new planet that had never known ground traffic. The Fuzzies could be
+hiding anywhere among those trees--or they could all be dead in some
+man-made trap. He thought of all the deadly places into which they could
+have wandered. Machinery, dormant and quiet, until somebody threw a
+switch. Conduits, which could be flooded without warning, or filled with
+scalding steam or choking gas. Poor little Fuzzies, they'd think a city
+was as safe as the woods of home, where there was nothing worse than
+harpies and damnthings.
+
+Gus Brannhard was out when he went down to the suite; Ben Rainsford was at
+a reading screen, studying a psychology text, and Gerd was working at a
+desk that had been brought in. Baby was playing on the floor with the
+bright new toys they had gotten for him. When Pappy Jack came in, he
+dropped them and ran to be picked up and held.
+
+"George called," Gerd said. "They have a family of Fuzzies at the post
+now."
+
+"Well, that's great." He tried to make it sound enthusiastic. "How many?"
+
+"Five, three males and two females. They call them Dr. Crippen, Dillinger,
+Ned Kelly, Lizzie Borden and Calamity Jane."
+
+Wouldn't it be just like a bunch of cops to hang names like that on
+innocent Fuzzies?
+
+"Why don't you call the post and say hello to them?" Ben asked.
+
+"Baby likes them; he'd think it was fun to talk to them again."
+
+He let himself be urged into it, and punched out the combination. They
+were nice Fuzzies; almost, but of course not quite, as nice as his own.
+
+"If your family doesn't turn up in time for the trial, have Gus subpoena
+ours," Lunt told him. "You ought to have some to produce in court. Two
+weeks from now, this mob of ours will be doing all kinds of things. You
+ought to see them now, and we only got them yesterday afternoon."
+
+He said he hoped he'd have his own by then; he realized that he was saying
+it without much conviction.
+
+They had a drink when Gus came in. He was delighted with the offer from
+Lunt. Another one who didn't expect to see Pappy Jack's Fuzzies alive
+again.
+
+"I'm not doing a damn thing here," Rainsford said. "I'm going back to Beta
+till the trial. Maybe I can pick up some ideas from George Lunt's Fuzzies.
+I'm damned if I'm getting away from this crap!" He gestured at the reading
+screen. "All I have is a vocabulary, and I don't know what half the words
+mean." He snapped it off. "I'm beginning to wonder if maybe Jimenez
+mightn't have been right and Ruth Ortheris is wrong. Maybe you can be just
+a little bit sapient."
+
+"Maybe it's possible to be sapient and not know it," Gus said. "Like the
+character in the old French play who didn't know he was talking prose."
+
+"What do you mean, Gus?" Gerd asked.
+
+"I'm not sure I know. It's just an idea that occurred to me today. Kick it
+around and see if you can get anything out of it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I believe the difference lies in the area of consciousness," Ernst Mallin
+was saying. "You all know, of course, the axiom that only one-tenth, never
+more than one-eighth, of our mental activity occurs above the level of
+consciousness. Now let us imagine a hypothetical race whose entire
+mentation is conscious."
+
+"I hope they stay hypothetical," Victor Grego, in his office across the
+city, said out of the screen. "They wouldn't recognize us as sapient at
+all."
+
+"We wouldn't be sapient, as they'd define the term," Leslie Coombes, in
+the same screen with Grego, said. "They'd have some equivalent of the
+talk-and-build-a-fire rule, based on abilities of which we can't even
+conceive."
+
+Maybe, Ruth thought, they might recognize us as one-tenth to as much as
+one-eighth sapient. No, then we'd have to recognize, say, a chimpanzee as
+being one-one-hundredth sapient, and a flatworm as being sapient to the
+order of one-billionth.
+
+"Wait a minute," she said. "If I understand, you mean that nonsapient
+beings think, but only subconsciously?"
+
+"That's correct, Ruth. When confronted by some entirely novel situation, a
+nonsapient animal will think, but never consciously. Of course, familiar
+situations are dealt with by pure habit and memory-response."
+
+"You know, I've just thought of something," Grego said. "I think we can
+explain that funeral that's been bothering all of us in nonsapient terms."
+He lit a cigarette, while they all looked at him expectantly. "Fuzzies,"
+he continued, "bury their ordure: they do this to avoid an unpleasant
+sense-stimulus, a bad smell. Dead bodies quickly putrefy and smell badly;
+they are thus equated, subconsciously, with ordure and must be buried. All
+Fuzzies carry weapons. A Fuzzy's weapon is--still subconsciously--regarded
+as a part of the Fuzzy, hence it must also be buried."
+
+Mallin frowned portentously. The idea seemed to appeal to him, but of
+course he simply couldn't agree too promptly with a mere layman, even the
+boss.
+
+"Well, so far you're on fairly safe ground, Mr. Grego," he admitted.
+"Association of otherwise dissimilar things because of some apparent
+similarity is a recognized element of nonsapient animal behavior." He
+frowned again. "That _could_ be an explanation. I'll have to think of it."
+
+About this time tomorrow, it would be his own idea, with grudging
+recognition of a suggestion by Victor Grego. In time, that would be
+forgotten; it would be the Mallin Theory. Grego was apparently agreeable,
+as long as the job got done.
+
+"Well, if you can make anything out of it, pass it on to Mr. Coombes as
+soon as possible, to be worked up for use in court," he said.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+Ben Rainsford went back to Beta Continent, and Gerd van Riebeek remained
+in Mallorysport. The constabulary at Post Fifteen had made steel
+chopper-diggers for their Fuzzies, and reported a gratifying abatement of
+the land-prawn nuisance. They also made a set of scaled-down carpenter
+tools, and their Fuzzies were building themselves a house out of scrap
+crates and boxes. A pair of Fuzzies showed up at Ben Rainsford's camp, and
+he adopted them, naming them Flora and Fauna.
+
+Everybody had Fuzzies now, and Pappy Jack only had Baby. He was lying on
+the floor of the parlor, teaching Baby to tie knots in a piece of string.
+Gus Brannhard, who spent most of the day in the office in the Central
+Courts building which had been furnished to him as special prosecutor, was
+lolling in an armchair in red-and-blue pajamas, smoking a cigar, drinking
+coffee--his whisky consumption was down to a couple of drinks a day--and
+studying texts on two reading screens at once, making an occasional remark
+into a stenomemophone. Gerd was at the desk, spoiling notepaper in an
+effort to work something out by symbolic logic. Suddenly he crumpled a
+sheet and threw it across the room, cursing. Brannhard looked away from
+his screens.
+
+"Trouble, Gerd?"
+
+Gerd cursed again. "How the devil can I tell whether Fuzzies generalize?"
+he demanded. "How can I tell whether they form abstract ideas? How can I
+prove, even, that they have ideas at all? Hell's blazes, how can I even
+prove, to your satisfaction, that I think consciously?"
+
+"Working on that idea I mentioned?" Brannhard asked.
+
+"I was. It seemed like a good idea but...."
+
+"Suppose we go back to specific instances of Fuzzy behavior, and present
+them as evidence of sapience?" Brannhard asked. "That funeral, for
+instance."
+
+"They'll still insist that we define sapience."
+
+The communication screen began buzzing. Baby Fuzzy looked up
+disinterestedly, and then went back to trying to untie a figure-eight knot
+he had tied. Jack shoved himself to his feet and put the screen on. It was
+Max Fane, and for the first time that he could remember, the Colonial
+Marshal was excited.
+
+"Jack, have you had any news on the screen lately?"
+
+"No. Something turn up?"
+
+"God, yes! The cops are all over the city hunting the Fuzzies; they have
+orders to shoot on sight. Nick Emmert was just on the air with a reward
+offer--five hundred sols apiece, dead or alive."
+
+It took a few seconds for that to register. Then he became frightened. Gus
+and Gerd were both on their feet and crowding to the screen behind him.
+
+"They have some bum from that squatters' camp over on the East Side who
+claims the Fuzzies beat up his ten-year-old daughter," Fane was saying.
+"They have both of them at police headquarters, and they've handed the
+story out to Zarathustra News, and Planetwide Coverage. Of course, they're
+Company-controlled; they're playing it for all it's worth."
+
+"Have they been veridicated?" Brannhard demanded.
+
+"No, and the city cops are keeping them under cover. The girl says she was
+playing outdoors and these Fuzzies jumped her and began beating her with
+sticks. Her injuries are listed as multiple bruises, fractured wrist and
+general shock."
+
+"I don't believe it! They wouldn't attack a child."
+
+"I want to talk to that girl and her father," Brannhard was saying. "And
+I'm going to demand that they make their statements under veridication.
+This thing's a frameup, Max; I'd bet my ears on it. Timing's just right;
+only a week till the trial."
+
+Maybe the Fuzzies had wanted the child to play with them, and she'd gotten
+frightened and hurt one of them. A ten-year-old human child would look
+dangerously large to a Fuzzy, and if they thought they were menaced they
+would fight back savagely.
+
+They were still alive and in the city. That was one thing. But they were
+in worse danger than they had ever been; that was another. Fane was asking
+Brannhard how soon he could be dressed.
+
+"Five minutes? Good, I'll be along to pick you up," he said. "Be seeing
+you."
+
+Jack hurried into the bedroom he and Brannhard shared; he kicked off his
+moccasins and began pulling on his boots. Brannhard, pulling his trousers
+up over his pajama pants, wanted to know where he thought he was going.
+
+"With you. I've got to find them before some dumb son of a Khooghra shoots
+them."
+
+"You stay here," Gus ordered. "Stay by the communication screen, and keep
+the viewscreen on for news. But don't stop putting your boots on; you may
+have to get out of here fast if I call you and tell you they've been
+located. I'll call you as soon as I get anything definite."
+
+Gerd had the screen on for news, and was getting Planetwide, openly owned
+and operated by the Company. The newscaster was wrought up about the
+brutal attack on the innocent child, but he was having trouble focusing
+the blame. After all, who'd let the Fuzzies escape in the first place? And
+even a skilled semanticist had trouble in making anything called a Fuzzy
+sound menacing. At least he gave particulars, true or not.
+
+The child, Lolita Lurkin, had been playing outside her home at about
+twenty-one hundred when she had suddenly been set upon by six Fuzzies,
+armed with clubs. Without provocation, they had dragged her down and
+beaten her severely. Her screams had brought her father, and he had driven
+the Fuzzies away. Police had brought both the girl and her father, Oscar
+Lurkin, to headquarters, where they had told their story. City police,
+Company police and constabulary troopers and parties of armed citizens
+were combing the eastern side of the city; Resident General Emmert had
+acted at once to offer a reward of five thousand sols apiece....
+
+"The kid's lying, and if they ever get a veridicator on her, they'll prove
+it", he said. "Emmert, or Grego, or the two of them together, bribed those
+people to tell that story."
+
+"Oh, I take that for granted," Gerd said. "I know that place. Junktown.
+Ruth does a lot of work there for juvenile court." He stopped briefly,
+pain in his eyes, and then continued: "You can hire anybody to do anything
+over there for a hundred sols, especially if the cops are fixed in
+advance."
+
+He shifted to the Interworld News frequency; they were covering the Fuzzy
+hunt from an aircar. The shanties and parked airjalopies of Junktown were
+floodlighted from above; lines of men were beating the brush and poking
+among them. Once a car passed directly below the pickup, a man staring at
+the ground from it over a machine gun.
+
+"Wooo! Am I glad I'm not in that mess!" Gerd exclaimed. "Anybody sees
+something he thinks is a Fuzzy and half that gang'll massacre each other
+in ten seconds."
+
+"I hope they do!"
+
+Interworld News was pro-Fuzzy; the commentator in the car was being
+extremely sarcastic about the whole thing. Into the middle of one view of
+a rifle-bristling line of beaters somebody in the studio cut a view of the
+Fuzzies, taken at the camp, looking up appealingly while waiting for
+breakfast. "These," a voice said, "are the terrible monsters against whom
+all these brave men are protecting us."
+
+A few moments later, a rifle flash and a bang, and then a fusillade
+brought Jack's heart into his throat. The pickup car jetted toward it; by
+the time it reached the spot, the shooting had stopped, and a crowd was
+gathering around something white on the ground. He had to force himself to
+look, then gave a shuddering breath of relief. It was a zaragoat, a
+three-horned domesticated ungulate.
+
+"Oh-Oh! Some squatter's milk supply finished." The commentator laughed.
+"Not the first one tonight either. Attorney General--former Chief
+Prosecutor--O'Brien's going to have quite a few suits against the
+administration to defend as a result of this business."
+
+"He's going to have a goddamn thundering big one from Jack Holloway!"
+
+The communication screen buzzed; Gerd snapped it on.
+
+"I just talked to Judge Pendarvis," Gus Brannhard reported out of it.
+"He's issuing an order restraining Emmert from paying any reward except
+for Fuzzies turned over alive and uninjured to Marshal Fane. And he's
+issuing a warning that until the status of the Fuzzies is determined,
+anybody killing one will face charges of murder."
+
+"That's fine, Gus! Have you seen the girl or her father yet?"
+
+Brannhard snarled angrily. "The girl's in the Company hospital, in a
+private room. The doctors won't let anybody see her. I think Emmert's
+hiding the father in the Residency. And I haven't seen the two cops who
+brought them in, or the desk sergeant who booked the complaint, or the
+detective lieutenant who was on duty here. They've all lammed out. Max has
+a couple of men over in Junktown, trying to find out who called the cops
+in the first place. We may get something out of that."
+
+The Chief Justice's action was announced a few minutes later; it got to
+the hunters a few minutes after that and the Fuzzy hunt began falling
+apart. The City and Company police dropped out immediately. Most of the
+civilians, hoping to grab five thousand sols' worth of live Fuzzy, stayed
+on for twenty minutes, and so, apparently to control them, did the
+constabulary. Then the reward was cancelled, the airborne floodlights went
+off and the whole thing broke up.
+
+Gus Brannhard came in shortly afterward, starting to undress as soon as he
+heeled the door shut after him. When he had his jacket and neckcloth off,
+he dropped into a chair, filled a water tumbler with whisky, gulped half
+of it and then began pulling off his boots.
+
+"If that drink has a kid sister, I'll take it," Gerd muttered. "What
+happened, Gus?"
+
+Brannhard began to curse. "The whole thing's a fake; it stinks from here
+to Nifflheim. It would stink _on_ Nifflheim." He picked up a cigar butt he
+had laid aside when Fane's call had come in and relighted it. "We found
+the woman who called the police. Neighbor; she says she saw Lurkin come
+home drunk, and a little later she heard the girl screaming. She says he
+beats her up every time he gets drunk, which is about five times a week,
+and she'd made up her mind to stop it the next chance she got. She denied
+having seen anything that even looked like a Fuzzy anywhere around."
+
+The excitement of the night before had incubated a new brood of Fuzzy
+reports; Jack went to the marshal's office to interview the people making
+them. The first dozen were of a piece with the ones that had come in
+originally. Then he talked to a young man who had something of different
+quality.
+
+"I saw them as plain as I'm seeing you, not more than fifty feet away," he
+said. "I had an autocarbine, and I pulled up on them, but gosh, I couldn't
+shoot them. They were just like little people, Mr. Holloway, and they
+looked so scared and helpless. So I held over their heads and let off a
+two-second burst to scare them away before anybody else saw them and shot
+them."
+
+"Well, son, I'd like to shake your hand for that. You know, you thought
+you were throwing away a lot of money there. How many did you see?"
+
+"Well, only four. I'd heard that there were six, but the other two could
+have been back in the brush where I didn't see them."
+
+He pointed out on the map where it had happened. There were three other
+people who had actually seen Fuzzies; none were sure how many, but they
+were all positive about locations and times. Plotting the reports on the
+map, it was apparent that the Fuzzies were moving north and west across
+the outskirts of the city.
+
+Brannhard showed up for lunch at the hotel, still swearing, but half
+amusedly.
+
+"They've exhumed Ham O'Brien, and they've put him to work harassing us,"
+he said. "Whole flock of civil suits and dangerous-nuisance complaints and
+that sort of thing; idea's to keep me amused with them while Leslie
+Coombes is working up his case for the trial. Even tried to get the
+manager here to evict Baby; I threatened him with a racial-discrimination
+suit, and that stopped that. And I just filed suit against the Company for
+seven million sols on behalf of the Fuzzies--million apiece for them and a
+million for their lawyer."
+
+"This evening," Jack said, "I'm going out in a car with a couple of Max's
+deputies. We're going to take Baby, and we'll have a loud-speaker on the
+car." He unfolded the city map. "They seem to be traveling this way; they
+ought to be about here, and with Baby at the speaker, we ought to attract
+their attention."
+
+They didn't see anything, though they kept at it till dusk. Baby had a
+wonderful time with the loud-speaker; when he yeeked into it, he produced
+an ear-splitting noise, until the three humans in the car flinched every
+time he opened his mouth. It affected dogs too; as the car moved back and
+forth, it was followed by a chorus of howling and baying on the ground.
+
+The next day, there were some scattered reports, mostly of small thefts. A
+blanket spread on the grass behind a house had vanished. A couple of
+cushions had been taken from a porch couch. A frenzied mother reported
+having found her six-year-old son playing with some Fuzzies; when she had
+rushed to rescue him, the Fuzzies had scampered away and the child had
+begun weeping. Jack and Gerd rushed to the scene. The child's story,
+jumbled and imagination-colored, was definite on one point--the Fuzzies
+had been nice to him and hadn't hurt him. They got a recording of that on
+the air at once.
+
+When they got back to the hotel, Gus Brannhard was there, bubbling with
+glee.
+
+"The Chief Justice gave me another job of special prosecuting," he said.
+"I'm to conduct an investigation into the possibility that this thing, the
+other night, was a frame-up, and I'm to prepare complaints against anybody
+who's done anything prosecutable. I have authority to hold hearings, and
+subpoena witnesses, and interrogate them under veridication. Max Fane has
+specific orders to cooperate. We're going to start, tomorrow, with Chief
+of Police Dumont and work down. And maybe we can work up, too, as far as
+Nick Emmert and Victor Grego." He gave a rumbling laugh. "Maybe that'll
+give Leslie Coombes something to worry about."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gerd brought the car down beside the rectangular excavation. It was fifty
+feet square and twenty feet deep, and still going deeper, with a power
+shovel in it and a couple of dump scows beside. Five or six men in
+coveralls and ankle boots advanced to meet them as they got out.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Holloway," one of them said. "It's right down over the
+edge of the hill. We haven't disturbed anything."
+
+"Mind running over what you saw again? My partner here wasn't in when you
+called."
+
+The foreman turned to Gerd. "We put off a couple of shots about an hour
+ago. Some of the men, who'd gone down over the edge of the hill, saw these
+Fuzzies run out from under that rock ledge down there, and up the hollow,
+that way." He pointed. "They called me, and I went down for a look, and
+saw where they'd been camping. The rock's pretty hard here, and we used
+pretty heavy charges. Shock waves in the ground was what scared them."
+
+They started down a path through the flower-dappled tall grass toward the
+edge of the hill, and down past the gray outcropping of limestone that
+formed a miniature bluff twenty feet high and a hundred in length. Under
+an overhanging ledge, they found two cushions, a red-and-gray blanket, and
+some odds and ends of old garments that looked as though they had once
+been used for polishing rags. There was a broken kitchen spoon, and a cold
+chisel, and some other metal articles.
+
+"That's it, all right. I talked to the people who lost the blanket and the
+cushions. They must have made camp last night, after your gang stopped
+work; the blasting chased them out. You say you saw them go up that way?"
+he asked, pointing up the little stream that came down from the mountains
+to the north.
+
+The stream was deep and rapid, too much so for easy fording by Fuzzies;
+they'd follow it back into the foothills. He took everybody's names and
+thanked them. If he found the Fuzzies himself and had to pay off on an
+information-received basis, it would take a mathematical genius to decide
+how much reward to pay whom.
+
+"Gerd, if you were a Fuzzy, where would you go up there?" he asked.
+
+Gerd looked up the stream that came rushing down from among the wooded
+foothills.
+
+"There are a couple more houses farther up," he said. "I'd get above them.
+Then I'd go up one of those side ravines, and get up among the rocks,
+where the damnthings couldn't get me. Of course, there are no damnthings
+this close to town, but they wouldn't know that."
+
+"We'll need a few more cars. I'll call Colonel Ferguson and see what he
+can do for me. Max is going to have his hands full with this investigation
+Gus started."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Piet Dumont, the Mallorysport chief of police, might have been a good cop
+once, but for as long as Gus Brannhard had known him, he had been what he
+was now--an empty shell of unsupported arrogance, with a sagging waistline
+and a puffy face that tried to look tough and only succeeded in looking
+unpleasant. He was sitting in a seat that looked like an old fashioned
+electric chair, or like one of those instruments of torture to which
+beauty-shop customers submit themselves. There was a bright conical helmet
+on his head, and electrodes had been clamped to various portions of his
+anatomy. On the wall behind him was a circular screen which ought to have
+been a calm turquoise blue, but which was flickering from dark blue
+through violet to mauve. That was simple nervous tension and guilt and
+anger at the humiliation of being subjected to veridicated interrogation.
+Now and then there would be a stabbing flicker of bright red as he toyed
+mentally with some deliberate misstatement of fact.
+
+"You know, yourself, that the Fuzzies didn't hurt that girl," Brannhard
+told him.
+
+"I don't know anything of the kind," the police chief retorted. "All I
+know's what was reported to me."
+
+That had started out a bright red; gradually it faded into purple.
+Evidently Piet Dumont was adopting a rules-of-evidence definition of
+truth.
+
+"Who told you about it?"
+
+"Luther Woller. Detective lieutenant on duty at the time."
+
+The veridicator agreed that that was the truth and not much of anything
+but the truth.
+
+"But you know that what really happened was that Lurkin beat the girl
+himself, and Woller persuaded them both to say the Fuzzies did it," Max
+Fane said.
+
+"I don't know anything of the kind!" Dumont almost yelled. The screen
+blazed red. "All I know's what they told me; nobody said anything else."
+Red and blue, juggling in a typical quibbling pattern. "As far as I know,
+it was the Fuzzies done it."
+
+"Now, Piet," Fane told him patiently. "You've used this same veridicator
+here often enough to know you can't get away with lying on it. Woller's
+making you the patsy for this, and you know that, too. Isn't it true, now,
+that to the best of your knowledge and belief those Fuzzies never touched
+that girl, and it wasn't till Woller talked to Lurkin and his daughter at
+headquarters that anybody even mentioned Fuzzies?"
+
+The screen darkened to midnight blue, and then, slowly, it lightened.
+
+"Yeah, that's true," Dumont admitted. He avoided their eyes, and his voice
+was surly. "I thought that was how it was, and I asked Woller. He just
+laughed at me and told me to forget it." The screen seethed momentarily
+with anger. "That son of a Khooghra thinks he's chief, not me. One word
+from me and he does just what he damn pleases!"
+
+"Now you're being smart, Piet," Fane said. "Let's start all over...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A constabulary corporal was at the controls of the car Jack had rented
+from the hotel: Gerd had taken his place in one of the two constabulary
+cars. The third car shuttled between them, and all three talked back and
+forth by radio.
+
+"Mr. Holloway." It was the trooper in the car Gerd had been piloting.
+"Your partner's down on the ground; he just called me with his portable.
+He's found a cracked prawn-shell."
+
+"Keep talking; give me direction," the corporal at the controls said,
+lifting up.
+
+In a moment, they sighted the other car, hovering over a narrow ravine on
+the left bank of the stream. The third car was coming in from the north.
+Gerd was still squatting on the ground when they let down beside him. He
+looked up as they jumped out.
+
+"This is it, Jack" he said. "Regular Fuzzy job."
+
+So it was. Whatever they had used, it hadn't been anything sharp; the head
+was smashed instead of being cleanly severed. The shell, however, had been
+broken from underneath in the standard manner, and all four mandibles had
+been broken off for picks. They must have all eaten at the prawn, share
+alike. It had been done quite recently.
+
+They sent the car up, and while all three of them circled about, they went
+up the ravine on foot, calling: "Little Fuzzy! Little Fuzzy!" They found a
+footprint, and then another, where seepage water had moistened the ground.
+Gerd was talking excitedly into the portable radio he carried slung on his
+chest.
+
+"One of you, go ahead a quarter of a mile, and then circle back. They're
+in here somewhere."
+
+"I see them! I see them!" a voice whooped out of the radio. "They're going
+up the slope on your right, among the rocks!"
+
+"Keep them in sight; somebody come and pick us up, and we'll get above
+them and head them off."
+
+The rental car dropped quickly, the corporal getting the door open. He
+didn't bother going off contragravity; as soon as they were in and had
+pulled the door shut behind them, he was lifting again. For a moment, the
+hill swung giddily as the car turned, and then Jack saw them, climbing the
+steep slope among the rocks. Only four of them, and one was helping
+another. He wondered which ones they were, what had happened to the other
+two and if the one that needed help had been badly hurt.
+
+The car landed on the top, among the rocks, settling at an awkward angle.
+He, Gerd and the pilot piled out and started climbing and sliding down the
+declivity. Then he found himself within reach of a Fuzzy and grabbed. Two
+more dashed past him, up the steep hill. The one he snatched at had
+something in his hand, and aimed a vicious blow at his face with it; he
+had barely time to block it with his forearm. Then he was clutching the
+Fuzzy and disarming him; the weapon was a quarter-pound ballpeen hammer.
+He put it in his hip pocket and then picked up the struggling Fuzzy with
+both hands.
+
+"You hit Pappy Jack!" he said reproachfully. "Don't you know Pappy any
+more? Poor scared little thing!"
+
+The Fuzzy in his arms yeeked angrily. Then he looked, and it was no Fuzzy
+he had ever seen before--not Little Fuzzy, nor funny, pompous Ko-Ko, nor
+mischievous Mike. It was a stranger Fuzzy.
+
+"Well, no wonder; of course you didn't know Pappy Jack. You aren't one of
+Pappy Jack's Fuzzies at all!"
+
+At the top, the constabulary corporal was sitting on a rock, clutching two
+Fuzzies, one under each arm. They stopped struggling and yeeked piteously
+when they saw their companion also a captive.
+
+"Your partner's down below, chasing the other one," the corporal said.
+"You better take these too; you know them and I don't."
+
+"Hang onto them; they don't know me any better than they do you."
+
+With one hand, he got a bit of Extee Three out of his coat and offered it;
+the Fuzzy gave a cry of surprised pleasure, snatched it and gobbled it. He
+must have eaten it before. When he gave some to the corporal, the other
+two, a male and a female, also seemed familiar with it. From below, Gerd
+was calling:
+
+"I got one, It's a girl Fuzzy; I don't know if it's Mitzi or Cinderella.
+And, my God, wait till you see what she was carrying."
+
+Gerd came into sight, the fourth Fuzzy struggling under one arm and a
+little kitten, black with a white face, peeping over the crook of his
+other elbow. He was too stunned with disappointment to look at it with
+more than vague curiosity.
+
+"They aren't our Fuzzies, Gerd. I never saw any of them before."
+
+"Jack, are you sure?"
+
+"Of course I'm sure!" He was indignant. "Don't you think I know my own
+Fuzzies? Don't you think they'd know me?"
+
+"Where'd the pussy come from?" the corporal wanted to know.
+
+"God knows. They must have picked it up somewhere. She was carrying it in
+her arms, like a baby."
+
+"They're somebody's Fuzzies. They've been fed Extee Three. We'll take them
+to the hotel. Whoever it is, I'll bet he misses them as much as I do
+mine."
+
+His own Fuzzies, whom he would never see again. The full realization
+didn't hit him until he and Gerd were in the car again. There had been no
+trace of his Fuzzies from the time they had broken out of their cages at
+Science Center. This quartet had appeared the night the city police had
+manufactured the story of the attack on the Lurkin girl, and from the
+moment they had been seen by the youth who couldn't bring himself to fire
+on them, they had left a trail that he had been able to pick up at once
+and follow. Why hadn't his own Fuzzies attracted as much notice in the
+three weeks since they had vanished?
+
+Because his own Fuzzies didn't exist any more. They had never gotten out
+of Science Center alive. Somebody Max Fane hadn't been able to question
+under veridication had murdered them. There was no use, any more, trying
+to convince himself differently.
+
+"We'll stop at their camp and pick up the blanket and the cushions and the
+rest of the things. I'll send the people who lost them checks," he said.
+"The Fuzzies ought to have those things."
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+The management of the Hotel Mallory appeared to have undergone a change of
+heart, or of policy, toward Fuzzies. It might have been Gus Brannhard's
+threats of action for racial discrimination and the possibility that the
+Fuzzies might turn out to be a race instead of an animal species after
+all. The manager might have been shamed by the way the Lurkin story had
+crumbled into discredit, and influenced by the revived public sympathy for
+the Fuzzies. Or maybe he just decided that the chartered Zarathustra
+Company wasn't as omnipotent as he'd believed. At any rate, a large room,
+usually used for banquets, was made available for the Fuzzies George Lunt
+and Ben Rainsford were bringing in for the trial, and the four strangers
+and their black-and-white kitten were installed there. There were a lot of
+toys of different sorts, courtesy of the management, and a big view
+screen. The four strange Fuzzies dashed for this immediately and turned it
+on, yeeking in delight as they watched landing craft coming down and
+lifting out at the municipal spaceport. They found it very interesting. It
+only bored the kitten.
+
+With some misgivings, Jack brought Baby down and introduced him. They were
+delighted with Baby, and Baby thought the kitten was the most wonderful
+thing he had ever seen. When it was time to feed them, Jack had his own
+dinner brought in, and ate with them. Gus and Gerd came down and joined
+him later.
+
+"We got the Lurkin kid and her father," Gus said, and then falsettoed:
+"'Naw, Pop gimme a beatin', and the cops told me to say it was the
+Fuzzies.'"
+
+"She say that?"
+
+"Under veridication, with the screen blue as a sapphire, in front of half
+a dozen witnesses and with audiovisuals on. Interworld's putting it on the
+air this evening. Her father admitted it, too; named Woller and the desk
+sergeant. We're still looking for them; till we get them, we aren't any
+closer to Emmert or Grego. We did pick up the two car cops, but they don't
+know anything on anybody but Woller."
+
+That was good enough, as far as it went, Brannhard thought, but it didn't
+go far enough. There were those four strange Fuzzies showing up out of
+nowhere, right in the middle of Nick Emmert's drive-hunt. They'd been kept
+somewhere by somebody--that was how they'd learned to eat Extee Three and
+found out about viewscreens. Their appearance was too well synchronized to
+be accidental. The whole thing smelled to him of a booby trap.
+
+One good thing had happened. Judge Pendarvis had decided that it would be
+next to impossible, in view of the widespread public interest in the case
+and the influence of the Zarathustra Company, to get an impartial jury,
+and had proposed a judicial trial by a panel of three judges, himself one
+of them. Even Leslie Coombes had felt forced to agree to that.
+
+He told Jack about the decision. Jack listened with apparent
+attentiveness, and then said:
+
+"You know, Gus, I'll always be glad I let Little Fuzzy smoke my pipe when
+he wanted to, that night out at camp."
+
+The way he was feeling, he wouldn't have cared less if the case was going
+to be tried by a panel of three zaragoats.
+
+Ben Rainsford, his two Fuzzies, and George Lunt, Ahmed Khadra and the
+other constabulary witnesses and their family, arrived shortly before noon
+on Saturday. The Fuzzies were quartered in the stripped-out banquet room,
+and quickly made friends with the four already there, and with Baby. Each
+family bedded down apart, but they ate together and played with each
+others' toys and sat in a clump to watch the viewscreen. At first, the
+Ferny Creek family showed jealousy when too much attention was paid to
+their kitten, until they decided that nobody was trying to steal it.
+
+It would have been a lot of fun, eleven Fuzzies and a Baby Fuzzy and a
+black-and-white kitten, if Jack hadn't kept seeing his own family, six
+quiet little ghosts watching but unable to join the frolicking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Max Fane brightened when he saw who was on his screen.
+
+"Well, Colonel Ferguson, glad to see you."
+
+"Marshal," Ferguson was smiling broadly. "You'll be even gladder in a
+minute. A couple of my men, from Post Eight, picked up Woller and that
+desk sergeant, Fuentes."
+
+"Ha!" He started feeling warm inside, as though he had just downed a slug
+of Baldur honey-rum. "How?"
+
+"Well, you know Nick Emmert has a hunting lodge down there. Post Eight
+keeps an eye on it for him. This afternoon, one of Lieutenant Obefemi's
+cars was passing over it, and they picked up some radiation and infrared
+on their detectors, as though the power was on inside. When they went down
+to investigate, they found Woller and Fuentes making themselves at home.
+They brought them in, and both of them admitted under veridication that
+Emmert had given them the keys and sent them down there to hide out till
+after the trial.
+
+"They denied that Emmert had originated the frameup. That had been one of
+Woller's own flashes of genius, but Emmert knew what the score was and
+went right along with it. They're being brought up here the first thing
+tomorrow morning."
+
+"Well, that's swell, Colonel! Has it gotten out to the news services yet?"
+
+"No. We would like to have them both questioned here in Mallorysport, and
+their confessions recorded, before we let the story out. Otherwise,
+somebody might try to take steps to shut them up for good."
+
+That had been what he had been thinking of. He said so, and Ferguson
+nodded. Then he hesitated for a moment, and said:
+
+"Max, do you like the situation here in Mallorysport? Be damned if I do."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"There are too many strangers in town," Ian Ferguson said. "All the same
+kind of strangers--husky-looking young men, twenty to thirty, going around
+in pairs and small groups. I've been noticing it since day before last,
+and there seem to be more of them every time I look around."
+
+"Well, Ian, it's a young man's planet, and we can expect a big crowd in
+town for the trial...."
+
+He didn't really believe that. He just wanted Ian Ferguson to put a name
+on it first. Ferguson shook his head.
+
+"No, Max. This isn't a trial-day crowd. We both know what they're like;
+remember when they tried the Gawn brothers? No whooping it up in bars, no
+excitement, no big crap games; this crowd's just walking around, keeping
+quiet, as though they expected a word from somebody."
+
+"Infiltration." Goddamit, he'd said it first, himself after all! "Victor
+Grego's worried about this."
+
+"I know it, Max. And Victor Grego's like a veldbeest bull; he isn't
+dangerous till he's scared, and then watch out. And against the gang
+that's moving in here, the men you and I have together would last about as
+long as a pint of trade-gin at a Sheshan funeral."
+
+"You thinking of pushing the panic-button?"
+
+The constabulary commander frowned. "I don't want to. A dim view would be
+taken back on Terra if I did it without needing to. Dimmer view would be
+taken of needing to without doing it, though. I'll make another check,
+first."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gerd van Riebeek sorted the papers on the desk into piles, lit a cigarette
+and then started to mix himself a highball.
+
+"Fuzzies are members of a sapient race," he declared. "They reason
+logically, both deductively and inductively. They learn by experiment,
+analysis and association. They formulate general principles, and apply
+them to specific instances. They plan their activities in advance. They
+make designed artifacts, and artifacts to make artifacts. They are able to
+symbolize, and convey ideas in symbolic form, and form symbols by
+abstracting from objects.
+
+"They have aesthetic sense and creativity," he continued. "They become
+bored in idleness, and they enjoy solving problems for the pleasure of
+solving them. They bury their dead ceremoniously, and bury artifacts with
+them."
+
+He blew a smoke ring, and then tasted his drink. "They do all these
+things, and they also do carpenter work, blow police whistles, make eating
+tools to eat land-prawns with and put molecule-model balls together.
+Obviously they are sapient beings. But don't please don't ask me to define
+sapience, because God damn it to Nifflheim, I still can't!"
+
+"I think you just did," Jack said.
+
+"No, that won't do. I need a definition."
+
+"Don't worry, Gerd," Gus Brannhard told him. "Leslie Coombes will bring a
+nice shiny new definition into court. We'll just use that."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+They walked together, Frederic and Claudette Pendarvis, down through the
+roof garden toward the landing stage, and, as she always did, Claudette
+stopped and cut a flower and fastened it in his lapel.
+
+"Will the Fuzzies be in court?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, they'll have to be. I don't know about this morning; it'll be mostly
+formalities." He made a grimace that was half a frown and half a smile. "I
+really don't know whether to consider them as witnesses or as exhibits,
+and I hope I'm not called on to rule on that, at least at the start.
+Either way, Coombes or Brannhard would accuse me of showing prejudice."
+
+"I want to see them. I've seen them on screen, but I want to see them for
+real."
+
+"You haven't been in one of my courts for a long time, Claudette. If I
+find that they'll be brought in today, I'll call you. I'll even abuse my
+position to the extent of arranging for you to see them outside the
+courtroom. Would you like that?"
+
+She'd love it. Claudette had a limitless capacity for delight in things
+like that. They kissed good-bye, and he went to where his driver was
+holding open the door of the aircar and got in. At a thousand feet he
+looked back; she was still standing at the edge of the roof garden,
+looking up.
+
+He'd have to find out whether it would be safe for her to come in. Max
+Fane was worried about the possibility of trouble, and so was Ian
+Ferguson, and neither was given to timorous imaginings. As the car began
+to descend toward the Central Courts buildings, he saw that there were
+guards on the roof, and they weren't just carrying pistols--he caught the
+glint of rifle barrels, and the twinkle of steel helmets. Then, as he came
+in, he saw that their uniforms were a lighter shade of blue than the
+constabulary wore. Ankle boots and red-striped trousers; Space Marines in
+dress blues. So Ian Ferguson had pushed the button. It occurred to him
+that Claudette might be safer here than at home.
+
+A sergeant and a couple of men came up as he got out; the sergeant touched
+the beak of his helmet in the nearest thing to a salute a Marine ever gave
+anybody in civilian clothes.
+
+"Judge Pendarvis? Good morning, sir."
+
+"Good morning, sergeant. Just why are Federation Marines guarding the
+court building?"
+
+"Standing by, sir. Orders of Commodore Napier. You'll find that Marshal
+Fane's people are in charge below-decks, but Marine Captain Casagra and
+Navy Captain Greibenfeld are waiting to see you in your office."
+
+As he started toward the elevators, a big Zarathustra Company car was
+coming in. The sergeant turned quickly, beckoned a couple of his men and
+went toward it on the double. He wondered what Leslie Coombes would think
+about those Marines.
+
+The two officers in his private chambers were both wearing sidearms. So,
+also, was Marshal Fane, who was with them. They all rose to greet him,
+sitting down when he was at his desk. He asked the same question he had of
+the sergeant above.
+
+"Well, Constabulary Colonel Ferguson called Commodore Napier last evening
+and requested armed assistance, your Honor," the officer in Space Navy
+black said. "He suspected, he said, that the city had been infiltrated. In
+that, your Honor, he was perfectly correct; beginning Wednesday afternoon,
+Marine Captain Casagra, here, on Commodore Napier's orders, began landing
+a Marine infiltration force, preparatory to taking over the Residency.
+That's been accomplished now; Commodore Napier is there, and both Resident
+General Emmert and Attorney General O'Brien are under arrest, on a variety
+of malfeasance and corrupt-practice charges, but that won't come into your
+Honor's court. They'll be sent back to Terra for trial."
+
+"Then Commodore Napier's taken over the civil government?"
+
+"Well, say he's assumed control of it, pending the outcome of this trial.
+We want to know whether the present administration's legal or not."
+
+"Then you won't interfere with the trial itself?"
+
+"That depends, your Honor. We are certainly going to participate." He
+looked at his watch. "You won't convene court for another hour? Then
+perhaps I'll have time to explain."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Max Fane met them at the courtroom door with a pleasant greeting. Then he
+saw Baby Fuzzy on Jack's shoulder and looked dubious.
+
+"I don't know about him, Jack. I don't think he'll be allowed in the
+courtroom."
+
+"Nonsense!" Gus Brannhard told him. "I admit, he is both a minor child and
+an incompetent aborigine, but he is the only surviving member of the
+family of the decedent Jane Doe alias Goldilocks, and as such has an
+indisputable right to be present."
+
+"Well, just as long as you keep him from sitting on people's heads. Gus,
+you and Jack sit over there; Ben, you and Gerd find seats in the witness
+section."
+
+It would be half an hour till court would convene, but already the
+spectators' seats were full, and so was the balcony. The jury box, on the
+left of the bench, was occupied by a number of officers in Navy black and
+Marine blue. Since there would be no jury, they had apparently
+appropriated it for themselves. The press box was jammed and bristling
+with equipment.
+
+Baby was looking up interestedly at the big screen behind the judges'
+seats; while transmitting the court scene to the public, it also showed,
+like a nonreversing mirror, the same view to the spectators. Baby wasn't
+long in identifying himself in it, and waved his arms excitedly. At that
+moment, there was a bustle at the door by which they had entered, and
+Leslie Coombes came in, followed by Ernst Mallin and a couple of his
+assistants, Ruth Ortheris, Juan Jimenez--and Leonard Kellogg. The last
+time he had seen Kellogg had been at George Lunt's complaint court, his
+face bandaged and his feet in a pair of borrowed moccasins because his
+shoes, stained with the blood of Goldilocks, had been impounded as
+evidence.
+
+Coombes glanced toward the table where he and Brannhard were sitting,
+caught sight of Baby waving to himself in the big screen and turned to
+Fane with an indignant protest. Fane shook his head. Coombes protested
+again, and drew another headshake. Finally he shrugged and led Kellogg to
+the table reserved for them, where they sat down.
+
+Once Pendarvis and his two associates--a short, roundfaced man on his
+right, a tall, slender man with white hair and a black mustache on his
+left--were seated, the trial got underway briskly. The charges were read,
+and then Brannhard, as the Kellogg prosecutor, addressed the court--"being
+known as Goldilocks ... sapient member of a sapient race ... willful and
+deliberate act of the said Leonard Kellogg ... brutal and unprovoked
+murder." He backed away, sat on the edge of the table and picked up Baby
+Fuzzy, fondling him while Leslie Coombes accused Jack Holloway of brutally
+assaulting the said Leonard Kellogg and ruthlessly shooting down Kurt
+Borch.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, I believe we can now begin hearing the witnesses," the
+Chief Justice said. "Who will start prosecuting whom?"
+
+Gus handed Baby to Jack and went forward: Coombes stepped up beside him.
+
+"Your Honor, this entire trial hinges upon the question of whether a
+member of the species _Fuzzy fuzzy holloway zarathustra_ is or is not a
+sapient being," Gus said. "However, before any attempt is made to
+determine this question, we should first establish, by testimony, just
+what happened at Holloway's Camp, in Cold Creek Valley, on the afternoon
+of June 19, Atomic Era Six Fifty-Four, and once this is established, we
+can then proceed to the question of whether or not the said Goldilocks was
+truly a sapient being."
+
+"I agree," Coombes said equably. "Most of these witnesses will have to be
+recalled to the stand later, but in general I think Mr. Brannhard's
+suggestion will be economical of the court's time."
+
+"Will Mr. Coombes agree to stipulate that any evidence tending to prove or
+disprove the sapience of Fuzzies in general be accepted as proving or
+disproving the sapience of the being referred to as Goldilocks?"
+
+Coombes looked that over carefully, decided that it wasn't booby-trapped
+and agreed. A deputy marshal went over to the witness stand, made some
+adjustments and snapped on a switch at the back of the chair. Immediately
+the two-foot globe in a standard behind it lit, a clear blue. George
+Lunt's name was called; the lieutenant took his seat and the bright helmet
+was let down over his head and the electrodes attached.
+
+The globe stayed a calm, untroubled blue while he stated his name and
+rank. Then he waited while Coombes and Brannhard conferred. Finally
+Brannhard took a silver half-sol piece from his pocket, shook it between
+cupped palms and slapped it onto his wrist. Coombes said, "Heads," and
+Brannhard uncovered it, bowed slightly and stepped back.
+
+"Now, Lieutenant Lunt," Coombes began, "when you arrived at the temporary
+camp across the run from Holloway's camp, what did you find there?"
+
+"Two dead people," Lunt said. "A Terran human, who had been shot three
+times through the chest, and a Fuzzy, who had been kicked or trampled to
+death."
+
+"Your Honors!" Coombes expostulated, "I must ask that the witness be
+requested to rephrase his answer, and that the answer he has just made be
+stricken from the record. The witness, under the circumstances, has no
+right to refer to the Fuzzies as 'people.'"
+
+"Your Honors," Brannhard caught it up, "Mr. Coombes's objection is no less
+prejudicial. He has no right, under the circumstances, to deny that the
+Fuzzies be referred to as 'people.' This is tantamount to insisting that
+the witness speak of them as nonsapient animals."
+
+It went on like that for five minutes. Jack began doodling on a notepad.
+Baby picked up a pencil with both hands and began making doodles too. They
+looked rather like the knots he had been learning to tie. Finally, the
+court intervened and told Lunt to tell, in his own words, why he went to
+Holloway's camp, what he found there, what he was told and what he did.
+There was some argument between Coombes and Brannhard, at one point, about
+the difference between hearsay and _res gestae_. When he was through,
+Coombes said, "No questions."
+
+"Lieutenant, you placed Leonard Kellogg under arrest on a complaint of
+homicide by Jack Holloway. I take it that you considered this complaint a
+valid one?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I believed that Leonard Kellogg had killed a sapient being.
+Only sapient beings bury their dead."
+
+Ahmed Khadra testified. The two troopers who had come in the other car,
+and the men who had brought the investigative equipment and done the
+photographing at the scene testified. Brannhard called Ruth Ortheris to
+the stand, and, after some futile objections by Coombes, she was allowed
+to tell her own story of the killing of Goldilocks, the beating of Kellogg
+and the shooting of Borch. When she had finished, the Chief Justice rapped
+with his gavel.
+
+"I believe that this testimony is sufficient to establish the fact that
+the being referred to as Jane Doe alias Goldilocks was in fact kicked and
+trampled to death by the defendant Leonard Kellogg, and that the Terran
+human known as Kurt Borch was in fact shot to death by Jack Holloway. This
+being the case, we may now consider whether or not either or both of these
+killings constitute murder within the meaning of the law. It is now eleven
+forty. We will adjourn for lunch, and court will reconvene at fourteen
+hundred. There are a number of things, including some alterations to the
+courtroom, which must be done before the afternoon session.... Yes, Mr.
+Brannhard?"
+
+"Your Honors, there is only one member of the species _Fuzzy fuzzy
+holloway zarathustra_ at present in court, an immature and hence
+nonrepresentative individual." He picked up Baby and exhibited him. "If we
+are to take up the question of the sapience of this species, or race,
+would it not be well to send for the Fuzzies now staying at the Hotel
+Mallory and have them on hand?"
+
+"Well, Mr. Brannhard," Pendarvis said, "we will certainly want Fuzzies in
+court, but let me suggest that we wait until after court reconvenes before
+sending for them. It may be that they will not be needed this afternoon.
+Anything else?" He tapped with his gavel. "Then court is adjourned until
+fourteen hundred."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some alterations in the courtroom had been a conservative way of putting
+it. Four rows of spectators' seats had been abolished, and the dividing
+rail moved back. The witness chair, originally at the side of the bench,
+had been moved to the dividing rail and now faced the bench, and a large
+number of tables had been brought in and ranged in an arc with the witness
+chair in the middle of it. Everybody at the tables could face the judges,
+and also see everybody else by looking into the big screen. A witness on
+the chair could also see the veridicator in the same way.
+
+Gus Brannhard looked around, when he entered with Jack, and swore softly.
+
+"No wonder they gave us two hours for lunch. I wonder what the idea is."
+Then he gave a short laugh. "Look at Coombes; he doesn't like it a bit."
+
+A deputy with a seating diagram came up to them.
+
+"Mr. Brannhard, you and Mr. Holloway over here, at this table." He pointed
+to one a little apart from the others, at the extreme right facing the
+bench. "And Dr. van Riebeek, and Dr. Rainsford over here, please."
+
+The court crier's loud-speaker, overhead, gave two sharp whistles and
+began:
+
+"Now hear this! Now hear this! Court will convene in five minutes--"
+
+Brannhard's head jerked around instantly, and Jack's eyes followed his.
+The court crier was a Space Navy petty officer.
+
+"What the devil is this?" Brannhard demanded. "A Navy court-martial?"
+
+"That's what I've been wondering, Mr. Brannhard," the deputy said.
+"They've taken over the whole planet, you know."
+
+"Maybe we're in luck, Gus. I've always heard that if you're innocent
+you're better off before a court-martial and if you're guilty you're
+better off in a civil court."
+
+He saw Leslie Coombes and Leonard Kellogg being seated at a similar table
+at the opposite side of the bench. Apparently Coombes had also heard that.
+The seating arrangements at the other tables seemed a little odd too. Gerd
+van Riebeek was next to Ruth Ortheris, and Ernst Mallin was next to Ben
+Rainsford, with Juan Jimenez on his other side. Gus was looking up at the
+balcony.
+
+"I'll bet every lawyer on the planet's taking this in," he said. "Oh-oh!
+See the white-haired lady in the blue dress, Jack? That's the Chief
+Justice's wife. This is the first time she's been in court for years."
+
+"Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! Rise for the Honorable Court!"
+
+Somebody must have given the petty officer a quick briefing on courtroom
+phraseology. He stood up, holding Baby Fuzzy, while the three judges filed
+in and took their seats. As soon as they sat down, the Chief Justice
+rapped briskly with his gavel.
+
+"In order to forestall a spate of objections, I want to say that these
+present arrangements are temporary, and so will be the procedures which
+will be followed. We are not, at the moment, trying Jack Holloway or
+Leonard Kellogg. For the rest of this day, and, I fear, for a good many
+days to come, we will be concerned exclusively with determining the level
+of mentation of _Fuzzy fuzzy holloway zarathustra_.
+
+"For this purpose, we are temporarily abandoning some of the traditional
+trial procedures. We will call witnesses; statements of purported fact
+will be made under veridication as usual. We will also have a general
+discussion, in which all of you at these tables will be free to
+participate. I and my associates will preside; as we can't have everybody
+shouting disputations at once, anyone wishing to speak will have to be
+recognized. At least, I hope we will be able to conduct the discussion in
+this manner.
+
+"You will all have noticed the presence of a number of officers from
+Xerxes Naval Base, and I suppose you have all heard that Commodore Napier
+has assumed control of the civil government. Captain Greibenfeld, will you
+please rise and be seen? He is here participating as _amicus curiae_, and
+I have given him the right to question witnesses and to delegate that
+right to any of his officers he may deem proper. Mr. Coombes and Mr.
+Brannhard may also delegate that right as they see fit."
+
+Coombes was on his feet at once. "Your Honors, if we are now to discuss
+the sapience question, I would suggest that the first item on our order of
+business be the presentation of some acceptable definition of sapience. I
+should, for my part, very much like to know what it is that the Kellogg
+prosecution and the Holloway defense mean when they use that term."
+
+That's it. They want us to define it. Gerd van Riebeek was looking
+chagrined; Ernst Mallin was smirking. Gus Brannhard, however, was pleased.
+
+"Jack, they haven't any more damn definition than we do," he whispered.
+
+Captain Greibenfeld, who had seated himself after rising at the request of
+the court, was on his feet again.
+
+"Your Honors, during the past month we at Xerxes Naval Base have been
+working on exactly that problem. We have a very considerable interest in
+having the classification of this planet established, and we also feel
+that this may not be the last time a question of disputable sapience may
+arise. I believe, your Honors, that we have approached such a definition.
+However, before we begin discussing it, I would like the court's
+permission to present a demonstration which may be of help in
+understanding the problems involved."
+
+"Captain Greibenfeld has already discussed this demonstration with me, and
+it has my approval. Will you please proceed, Captain," the Chief Justice
+said.
+
+Greibenfeld nodded, and a deputy marshal opened the door on the right of
+the bench. Two spacemen came in, carrying cartons. One went up to the
+bench; the other started around in front of the tables, distributing small
+battery-powered hearing aids.
+
+"Please put them in your ears and turn them on," he said. "Thank you."
+
+Baby Fuzzy tried to get Jack's. He put the plug in his ear and switched on
+the power. Instantly he began hearing a number of small sounds he had
+never heard before, and Baby was saying to him: "_He-inta sa-wa'aka; igga
+sa geeda?_"
+
+"Muhgawd, Gus, he's talking!"
+
+"Yes, I hear him; what do you suppose--?"
+
+"Ultrasonic; God, why didn't we think of that long ago?"
+
+He snapped off the hearing aid. Baby Fuzzy was saying, "Yeeek." When he
+turned it on again, Baby was saying, "_Kukk-ina za zeeva._"
+
+"No, Baby, Pappy Jack doesn't understand. We'll have to be awfully
+patient, and learn each other's language."
+
+"_Pa-pee Jaaak!_" Baby cried. "_Ba-bee za-hinga; Pa-pee Jaak za zag ga
+he-izza!_"
+
+"That yeeking is just the audible edge of their speech; bet we have a lot
+of transsonic tones in our voices, too."
+
+"Well, he can hear what we say; he's picked up his name and yours."
+
+"Mr. Brannhard, Mr. Holloway," Judge Pendarvis was saying, "may we please
+have your attention? Now, have you all your earplugs in and turned on?
+Very well; carry on, Captain."
+
+This time, an ensign went out and came back with a crowd of enlisted men,
+who had six Fuzzies with them. They set them down in the open space
+between the bench and the arc of tables and backed away. The Fuzzies drew
+together into a clump and stared around them, and he stared,
+unbelievingly, at them. They couldn't be; they didn't exist any more. But
+they were--Little Fuzzy and Mamma Fuzzy and Mike and Mitzi and Ko-Ko and
+Cinderella. Baby whooped something and leaped from the table, and Mamma
+came stumbling to meet him, clasping him in her arms. Then they all saw
+him and began clamoring: "_Pa-pee Jaaak! Pa-pee Jaaak!_"
+
+He wasn't aware of rising and leaving the table; the next thing he
+realized, he was sitting on the floor, his family mobbing him and hugging
+him, gabbling with joy. Dimly he heard the gavel hammering, and the voice
+of Chief Justice Pendarvis: "Court is recessed for ten minutes!" By that
+time, Gus was with him; gathering the family up, they carried them over to
+their table.
+
+They stumbled and staggered when they moved, and that frightened him for a
+moment. Then he realized that they weren't sick or drugged. They'd just
+been in low-G for a while and hadn't become reaccustomed to normal weight.
+Now he knew why he hadn't been able to find any trace of them. He noticed
+that each of them was wearing a little shoulder bag--a Marine Corps
+first-aid pouch--slung from a webbing strap. Why the devil hadn't he
+thought of making them something like that? He touched one and commented,
+trying to pitch his voice as nearly like theirs as he could. They all
+babbled in reply and began opening the little bags and showing him what
+they had in them--little knives and miniature tools and bits of bright or
+colored junk they had picked up. Little Fuzzy produced a tiny pipe with a
+hardwood bowl, and a little pouch of tobacco from which he filled it.
+Finally, he got out a small lighter.
+
+"Your Honors!" Gus shouted, "I know court is recessed, but please observe
+what Little Fuzzy is doing."
+
+While they watched, Little Fuzzy snapped the lighter and held the flame to
+the pipe bowl, puffing.
+
+Across on the other side, Leslie Coombes swallowed once or twice and
+closed his eyes.
+
+When Pendarvis rapped for attention and declared court reconvened, he
+said:
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, you have all seen and heard this demonstration of
+Captain Greibenfeld's. You have heard these Fuzzies uttering what
+certainly sounds like meaningful speech, and you have seen one of them
+light a pipe and smoke. Incidentally, while smoking in court is
+discountenanced, we are going to make an exception, during this trial, in
+favor of Fuzzies. Other people will please not feel themselves
+discriminated against."
+
+That brought Coombes to his feet with a rush. He started around the table
+and then remembered that under the new rules he didn't have to.
+
+"Your Honors, I objected strongly to the use of that term by a witness
+this morning; I must object even more emphatically to its employment from
+the bench. I have indeed heard these Fuzzies make sounds which might be
+mistaken for words, but I must deny that this is true speech. As to this
+trick of using a lighter, I will undertake, in not more than thirty days,
+to teach it to any Terran primate or Freyan kholph."
+
+Greibenfeld rose immediately. "Your Honors, in the past thirty days, while
+these Fuzzies were at Xerxes Naval Base, we have compiled a vocabulary of
+a hundred-odd Fuzzy words, for all of which definite meanings have been
+established, and a great many more for which we have not as yet learned
+the meanings. We even have the beginning of a Fuzzy grammar. As for this
+so-called trick of using a lighter, Little Fuzzy--we didn't know his name
+then and referred to him as M2--learned that for himself, by observation.
+We didn't teach him to smoke a pipe either; he knew that before we had
+anything to do with him."
+
+Jack rose while Greibenfeld was still speaking. As soon as the Space Navy
+captain had finished, he said:
+
+"Captain Greibenfeld, I want to thank you and your people for taking care
+of the Fuzzies, and I'm very glad you learned how to hear what they're
+saying, and thank you for all the nice things you gave them, but why
+couldn't you have let me know they were safe? I haven't been very happy
+the last month, you know."
+
+"I know that, Mr. Holloway, and if it's any comfort to you, we were all
+very sorry for you, but we could not take the risk of compromising our
+secret intelligence agent in the Company's Science Center, the one who
+smuggled the Fuzzies out the morning after their escape." He looked
+quickly across in front of the bench to the table at the other end of the
+arc. Kellogg was sitting with his face in his hands, oblivious to
+everything that was going on, but Leslie Coombes's well-disciplined face
+had broken, briefly, into a look of consternation. "By the time you and
+Mr. Brannhard and Marshal Fane arrived with an order of the court for the
+Fuzzies' recovery, they had already been taken from Science Center and
+were on a Navy landing craft for Xerxes. We couldn't do anything without
+exposing our agent. That, I am glad to say, is no longer a consideration."
+
+"Well, Captain Greibenfeld," the Chief Justice said, "I assume you mean to
+introduce further testimony about the observations and studies made by
+your people on Xerxes. For the record, we'd like to have it established
+that they were actually taken there, and when, and how."
+
+"Yes, your Honor. If you will call the fourth name on the list I gave you,
+and allow me to do the questioning, we can establish that."
+
+The Chief Justice picked up a paper. "Lieutenant j.g. Ruth Ortheris, TFN
+Reserve," he called out.
+
+This time, Jack Holloway looked up into the big screen, in which he could
+see everybody. Gerd van Riebeek, who had been trying to ignore the
+existence of the woman beside him, had turned to stare at her in
+amazement. Coombes's face was ghastly for an instant, then froze into
+corpselike immobility: Ernst Mallin was dithering in incredulous anger;
+beside him Ben Rainsford was grinning in just as incredulous delight. As
+Ruth came around in front of the bench, the Fuzzies gave her an ovation;
+they remembered and liked her. Gus Brannhard was gripping his arm and
+saying: "Oh, brother! This is it, Jack; it's all over but shooting the
+cripples!"
+
+Lieutenant j.g. Ortheris, under a calmly blue globe, testified to coming
+to Zarathustra as a Federation Naval Reserve officer recalled to duty with
+Intelligence, and taking a position with the Company.
+
+"As a regularly qualified doctor of psychology, I worked under Dr. Mallin
+in the scientific division, and also with the school department and the
+juvenile court. At the same time I was regularly transmitting reports to
+Commander Aelborg, the chief of Intelligence on Xerxes. The object of this
+surveillance was to make sure that the Zarathustra Company was not
+violating the provisions of their charter or Federation law. Until the
+middle of last month, I had nothing to report beyond some rather irregular
+financial transactions involving Resident General Emmert. Then, on the
+evening of June fifteen--"
+
+That was when Ben had transmitted the tape to Juan Jimenez; she described
+how it had come to her attention.
+
+"As soon as possible, I transmitted a copy of this tape to Commander
+Aelborg. The next night, I called Xerxes from the screen on Dr. van
+Riebeek's boat and reported what I'd learned about the Fuzzies. I was then
+informed that Leonard Kellogg had gotten hold of a copy of the
+Holloway-Rainsford tape and had alerted Victor Grego; that Kellogg and
+Ernst Mallin were being sent to Beta Continent with instructions to
+prevent publication of any report claiming sapience for the Fuzzies and to
+fabricate evidence to support an accusation that Dr. Rainsford and Mr.
+Holloway were perpetrating a deliberate scientific hoax."
+
+"Here, I'll have to object to this, your Honor," Coombes said, rising.
+"This is nothing but hearsay."
+
+"This is part of a Navy Intelligence situation estimate given to
+Lieutenant Ortheris, based on reports we had received from other agents,"
+Captain Greibenfeld said. "She isn't the only one we have on Zarathustra,
+you know. Mr. Coombes, if I hear another word of objection to this
+officer's testimony from you, I am going to ask Mr. Brannhard to subpoena
+Victor Grego and question him under veridication about it."
+
+"Mr. Brannhard will be more than happy to oblige, Commander," Gus said
+loudly and distinctly.
+
+Coombes sat down hastily.
+
+"Well, Lieutenant Ortheris, this is most interesting, but at the moment,
+what we're trying to establish is how these Fuzzies got to Xerxes Naval
+Base," the chubby associate justice, Ruiz, put in.
+
+"I'll try to get them there as quickly as possible, your Honor," she said.
+"On the night of Friday the twenty-second, the Fuzzies were taken from Mr.
+Holloway and brought into Mallorysport; they were turned over by Mohammed
+O'Brien to Juan Jimenez, who took them to Science Center and put them in
+cages in a room back of his office. They immediately escaped. I found
+them, the next morning, and was able to get them out of the building, and
+to turn them over to Commander Aelborg, who had come down from Xerxes to
+take personal charge of the Fuzzy operation. I will not testify as to how
+I was able to do this. I am at present and was then an officer of the
+Terran Federation Armed Forces; the courts have no power to compel a
+Federation officer to give testimony involving breach of military
+security. I was informed, through my contact in Mallorysport, from time to
+time, of the progress of the work of measuring the Fuzzies' mental level
+there; I was able to pass on suggestions occasionally. Any time any of
+these suggestions was based on ideas originating with Dr. Mallin, I was
+careful to give him full credit."
+
+Mallin looked singularly unappreciative.
+
+Brannhard got up. "Before this witness is excused, I'd like to ask if she
+knows anything about four other Fuzzies, the ones found by Jack Holloway
+up Ferny Creek on Friday."
+
+"Why, yes; they're my Fuzzies, and I was worried about them. Their names
+are Complex, Syndrome, Id and Superego."
+
+"Your Fuzzies, Lieutenant?"
+
+"Well, I took care of them and worked with them; Juan Jimenez and some
+Company hunters caught them over on Beta Continent. They were kept at a
+farm center about five hundred miles north of here, which had been vacated
+for the purpose. I spent all my time with them, and Dr. Mallin was with
+them most of the time. Then, on Monday night, Mr. Coombes came and got
+them."
+
+"Mr. Coombes, did you say?" Gus Brannhard asked.
+
+"Mr. Leslie Coombes, the Company attorney. He said they were needed in
+Mallorysport. It wasn't till the next day that I found out what they were
+needed for. They'd been turned loose in front of that Fuzzy hunt, in the
+hope that they would be killed."
+
+She looked across at Coombes; if looks were bullets, he'd have been deader
+than Kurt Borch.
+
+"Why would they sacrifice four Fuzzies merely to support a story that was
+bound to come apart anyhow?" Brannhard asked.
+
+"That was no sacrifice. They had to get rid of those Fuzzies, and they
+were afraid to kill them themselves for fear they'd be charged with murder
+along with Leonard Kellogg. Everybody, from Ernst Mallin down, who had
+anything to do with them was convinced of their sapience. For one thing,
+we'd been using those hearing aids ourselves; I suggested it, after
+getting the idea from Xerxes. Ask Dr. Mallin about it, under veridication.
+Ask him about the multiordinal polyencephalograph experiments, too."
+
+"Well, we have the Holloway Fuzzies placed on Xerxes," the Chief Justice
+said. "We can hear the testimony of the people who worked with them there
+at any time. Now, I want to hear from Dr. Ernst Mallin."
+
+Coombes was on his feet again. "Your Honors, before any further testimony
+is heard, I would like to confer with my client privately."
+
+"I fail to see any reason why we should interrupt proceedings for that
+purpose, Mr. Coombes. You can confer as much as you wish with your client
+after this session, and I can assure you that you will be called upon to
+do nothing on his behalf until then." He gave a light tap with his gavel
+and then said: "Dr. Ernst Mallin will please take the stand."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Ernst Mallin shrank, as though trying to pull himself into himself, when
+he heard his name. He didn't want to testify. He had been dreading this
+moment for days. Now he would have to sit in that chair, and they would
+ask him questions, and he couldn't answer them truthfully and the globe
+over his head--
+
+When the deputy marshal touched his shoulder and spoke to him, he didn't
+think, at first, that his legs would support him. It seemed miles, with
+all the staring faces on either side of him. Somehow, he reached the chair
+and sat down, and they fitted the helmet over his head and attached the
+electrodes. They used to make a witness take some kind of an oath to tell
+the truth. They didn't any more. They didn't need to.
+
+As soon as the veridicator was on, he looked up at the big screen behind
+the three judges; the globe above his head was a glaring red. There was a
+titter of laughter. Nobody in the Courtroom knew better than he what was
+happening. He had screens in his laboratory that broke it all down into
+individual patterns--the steady pulsing waves from the cortex, the alpha
+and beta waves; beta-aleph and beta-beth and beta-gimel and beta-daleth.
+The thalamic waves. He thought of all of them, and of the electromagnetic
+events which accompanied brain activity. As he did, the red faded and the
+globe became blue. He was no longer suppressing statements and
+substituting other statements he knew to be false. If he could keep it
+that way. But, sooner or later, he knew, he wouldn't be able to.
+
+The globe stayed blue while he named himself and stated his professional
+background. There was a brief flicker of red while he was listing his
+publication--that paper, entirely the work of one of his students, which
+he had published under his own name. He had forgotten about that, but his
+conscience hadn't.
+
+"Dr. Mallin," the oldest of the three judges, who sat in the middle,
+began, "what, in your professional opinion, is the difference between
+sapient and nonsapient mentation?"
+
+"The ability to think consciously," he stated. The globe stayed blue.
+
+"Do you mean that nonsapient animals aren't conscious, or do you mean they
+don't think?"
+
+"Well, neither. Any life form with a central nervous system has some
+consciousness--awareness of existence and of its surroundings. And
+anything having a brain thinks, to use the term at its loosest. What I
+meant was that only the sapient mind thinks and knows that it is
+thinking."
+
+He was perfectly safe so far. He talked about sensory stimuli and
+responses, and about conditioned reflexes. He went back to the first
+century Pre-Atomic, and Pavlov and Korzybski and Freud. The globe never
+flickered.
+
+"The nonsapient animal is conscious only of what is immediately present to
+the senses and responds automatically. It will perceive something and make
+a single statement about it--this is good to eat, this sensation is
+unpleasant, this is a sex-gratification object, this is dangerous. The
+sapient mind, on the other hand, is conscious of thinking about these
+sense stimuli, and makes descriptive statements about them, and then makes
+statements about those statements, in a connected chain. I have a
+structural differential at my seat; if somebody will bring it to me--"
+
+"Well, never mind now, Dr. Mallin. When you're off the stand and the
+discussion begins you can show what you mean. We just want your opinion in
+general terms, now."
+
+"Well, the sapient mind can generalize. To the nonsapient animal, every
+experience is either totally novel or identical with some remembered
+experience. A rabbit will flee from one dog because to the rabbit mind it
+is identical with another dog that has chased it. A bird will be attracted
+to an apple, and each apple will be a unique red thing to peck at. The
+sapient being will say, 'These red objects are apples; as a class, they
+are edible and flavorsome.' He sets up a class under the general label of
+apples. This, in turn, leads to the formation of abstract ideas--redness,
+flavor, et cetera--conceived of apart from any specific physical object,
+and to the ordering of abstractions--'fruit' as distinguished from apples,
+'food' as distinguished from fruit."
+
+The globe was still placidly blue. The three judges waited, and he
+continued:
+
+"Having formed these abstract ideas, it becomes necessary to symbolize
+them, in order to deal with them apart from the actual object. The sapient
+being is a symbolizer, and a symbol communicator; he is able to convey to
+other sapient beings his ideas in symbolic form."
+
+"Like '_Pa-pee Jaak_'?" the judge on his right, with the black mustache,
+asked.
+
+The globe flashed red at once.
+
+"Your Honors, I cannot consider words picked up at random and learned by
+rote speech. The Fuzzies have merely learned to associate that sound with
+a specific human, and use it as a signal, not as a symbol."
+
+The globe was still red. The Chief Justice, in the middle, rapped with his
+gavel.
+
+"Dr. Mallin! Of all the people on this planet, you at least should know
+the impossibility of lying under veridication. Other people just know it
+can't be done; you know why. Now I'm going to rephrase Judge Janiver's
+question, and I'll expect you to answer truthfully. If you don't I'm going
+to hold you in contempt. When those Fuzzies cried out, 'Pappy Jack!' do
+you or do you not believe that they were using a verbal expression which
+stood, in their minds, for Mr. Holloway?"
+
+He couldn't say it. This sapience was all a big fake; he had to believe
+that. The Fuzzies were only little mindless animals.
+
+But he didn't believe it. He knew better. He gulped for a moment.
+
+"Yes, your Honor. The term 'Pappy Jack' is, in their minds, a symbol
+standing for Mr. Jack Holloway."
+
+He looked at the globe. The red had turned to mauve, the mauve was
+becoming violet, and then clear blue. He felt better than he had felt
+since the afternoon Leonard Kellogg had told him about the Fuzzies.
+
+"Then Fuzzies do think consciously, Dr. Mallin?" That was Pendarvis.
+
+"Oh, yes. The fact that they use verbal symbols indicates that, even
+without other evidence. And the instrumental evidence was most impressive.
+The mentation pictures we got by encephalography compare very favorably
+with those of any human child of ten or twelve years old, and so does
+their learning and puzzle-solving ability. On puzzles, they always think
+the problem out first, and then do the mechanical work with about the same
+mental effort, say, as a man washing his hands or tying his neckcloth."
+
+The globe was perfectly blue. Mallin had given up trying to lie; he was
+simply gushing out everything he thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Leonard Kellogg slumped forward, his head buried in his elbows on the
+table, and misery washed over him in tides.
+
+_I am a murderer; I killed a person. Only a funny little person with fur,
+but she was a person, and I knew it when I killed her, I knew it when I
+saw that little grave out in the woods, and they'll put me in that chair
+and make me admit it to everybody, and then they'll take me out in the
+jail yard and somebody will shoot me through the head with a pistol,
+and--_
+
+_And all the poor little thing wanted was to show me her new jingle!_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Does anybody want to ask the witness any questions?" the Chief Justice
+was asking.
+
+"I don't," Captain Greibenfeld said. "Do you, Lieutenant?"
+
+"No, I don't think so," Lieutenant Ybarra said. "Dr. Mallin's given us a
+very lucid statement of his opinions."
+
+He had, at that, after he'd decided he couldn't beat the veridicator. Jack
+found himself sympathizing with Mallin. He'd disliked the man from the
+first, but he looked different now--sort of cleaned and washed out inside.
+Maybe everybody ought to be veridicated, now and then, to teach them that
+honesty begins with honesty to self.
+
+"Mr. Coombes?" Mr. Coombes looked as though he never wanted to ask another
+witness another question as long as he lived. "Mr. Brannhard?"
+
+Gus got up, holding a sapient member of a sapient race who was hanging
+onto his beard, and thanked Ernst Mallin fulsomely.
+
+"In that case, we'll adjourn until o-nine-hundred tomorrow. Mr. Coombes, I
+have here a check on the chartered Zarathustra Company for twenty-five
+thousand sols. I am returning it to you and I am canceling Dr. Kellogg's
+bail," Judge Pendarvis said, as a couple of attendants began getting
+Mallin loose from the veridicator.
+
+"Are you also canceling Jack Holloway's?"
+
+"No, and I would advise you not to make an issue of it, Mr. Coombes. The
+only reason I haven't dismissed the charge against Mr. Holloway is that I
+don't want to handicap you by cutting off your foothold in the
+prosecution. I do not consider Mr. Holloway a bail risk. I do so consider
+your client, Dr. Kellogg."
+
+"Frankly, your Honor, so do I," Coombes admitted. "My protest was merely
+an example of what Dr. Mallin would call conditioned reflex."
+
+Then a crowd began pushing up around the table; Ben Rainsford, George Lunt
+and his troopers, Gerd and Ruth, shoving in among them, their arms around
+each other.
+
+"We'll be at the hotel after a while, Jack," Gerd was saying. "Ruth and I
+are going out for a drink and something to eat; we'll be around later to
+pick up her Fuzzies."
+
+Now his partner had his girl back, and his partner's girl had a Fuzzy
+family of her own. This was going to be real fun. What were their names
+now? Syndrome, Complex, Id and Superego. The things some people named
+Fuzzies!
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+They stopped whispering at the door, turned right, and ascended to the
+bench, bearing themselves like images in a procession, Ruiz first, then
+himself and then Janiver. They turned to the screen so that the public
+whom they served might see the faces of the judges, and then sat down. The
+court crier began his chant. They could almost feel the tension in the
+courtroom. Yves Janiver whispered to them:
+
+"They all know about it."
+
+As soon as the crier had stopped, Max Fane approached the bench, his face
+blankly expressionless.
+
+"Your Honors, I am ashamed to have to report that the defendant, Leonard
+Kellogg, cannot be produced in court. He is dead; he committed suicide in
+his cell last night. While in my custody," he added bitterly.
+
+The stir that went through the courtroom was not shocked surprise, it was
+a sigh of fulfilled expectation. They all knew about it.
+
+"How did this happen, Marshal?" he asked, almost conversationally.
+
+"The prisoner was put in a cell by himself; there was a pickup eye, and
+one of my deputies was keeping him under observation by screen." Fane
+spoke in a toneless, almost robotlike voice. "At twenty-two thirty, the
+prisoner went to bed, still wearing his shirt. He pulled the blankets up
+over his head. The deputy observing him thought nothing of that; many
+prisoners do that, on account of the light. He tossed about for a while,
+and then appeared to fall asleep.
+
+"When a guard went in to rouse him this morning, the cot, under the
+blanket, was found saturated with blood. Kellogg had cut his throat, by
+sawing the zipper track of his shirt back and forth till he severed his
+jugular vein. He was dead."
+
+"Good heavens, Marshal!" He was shocked. The way he'd heard it, Kellogg
+had hidden a penknife, and he was prepared to be severe with Fane about
+it. But a thing like this! He found himself fingering the toothed track of
+his own jacket zipper. "I don't believe you can be at all censured for not
+anticipating a thing like that. It isn't a thing anybody would expect."
+
+Janiver and Ruiz spoke briefly in agreement. Marshal Fane bowed slightly
+and went off to one side.
+
+Leslie Coombes, who seemed to be making a very considerable effort to look
+grieved and shocked, rose.
+
+"Your Honors, I find myself here without a client," he said. "In fact, I
+find myself here without any business at all; the case against Mr.
+Holloway is absolutely insupportable. He shot a man who was trying to kill
+him, and that's all there is to it. I therefore pray your Honors to
+dismiss the case against him and discharge him from custody."
+
+Captain Greibenfeld bounded to his feet.
+
+"Your Honors, I fully realize that the defendant is now beyond the
+jurisdiction of this court, but let me point out that I and my associates
+are here participating in this case in the hope that the classification of
+this planet may be determined, and some adequate definition of sapience
+established. These are most serious questions, your Honors."
+
+"But, your Honors," Coombes protested, "we can't go through the farce of
+trying a dead man."
+
+"_People of the Colony of Baphomet_ versus _Jamshar Singh, Deceased_,
+charge of arson and sabotage, A.E. 604," the Honorable Gustavus Adolphus
+Brannhard interrupted.
+
+Yes, you could find a precedent in colonial law for almost anything.
+
+Jack Holloway was on his feet, a Fuzzy cradled in the crook of his left
+arm, his white mustache bristling truculently.
+
+"I am not a dead man, your Honors, and I am on trial here. The reason I'm
+not dead is why I am on trial. My defense is that I shot Kurt Borch while
+he was aiding and abetting in the killing of a Fuzzy. I want it
+established in this court that it is murder to kill a Fuzzy."
+
+The judge nodded slowly. "I will not dismiss the charges against Mr.
+Holloway," he said. "Mr. Holloway had been arraigned on a charge of
+murder; if he is not guilty, he is entitled to the vindication of an
+acquittal. I am afraid, Mr. Coombes, that you will have to go on
+prosecuting him."
+
+Another brief stir, like a breath of wind over a grain field, ran through
+the courtroom. The show was going on after all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All the Fuzzies were in court this morning; Jack's six, and the five from
+the constabulary post, and Ben's Flora and Fauna, and the four Ruth
+Ortheris claimed. There was too much discussion going on for anybody to
+keep an eye on them. Finally one of the constabulary Fuzzies, either
+Dillinger or Dr. Crippen, and Ben Rainsford's Flora and Fauna, came
+sauntering out into the open space between the tables and the bench
+dragging the hose of a vacuum-duster. Ahmed Khadra ducked under a table
+and tried to get it away from them. This was wonderful; screaming in
+delight, they all laid hold of the other end, and Mike and Mitzi and
+Superego and Complex ran to help them. The seven of them dragged Khadra
+about ten feet before he gave up and let go. At the same time, an
+incipient fight broke out on the other side of the arc of tables between
+the head of the language department at Mallorysport Academy and a
+spinsterish amateur phoneticist. At this point, Judge Pendarvis, deciding
+that if you can't prevent it, relax and enjoy it, rapped a few times with
+his gavel, and announced that court was recessed.
+
+"You will all please remain here; this is not an adjournment, and if any
+of the various groups who seem to be discussing different aspects of the
+problem reach any conclusion they feel should be presented in evidence,
+will they please notify the bench so that court can be reconvened. In any
+case, we will reconvene at eleven thirty."
+
+Somebody wanted to know if smoking would be permitted during the recess.
+The Chief Justice said that it would. He got out a cigar and lit it. Mamma
+Fuzzy wanted a puff: she didn't like it. Out of the corner of his eye, he
+saw Mike and Mitzi, Flora and Fauna scampering around and up the steps
+behind the bench. When he looked again, they were all up on it, and Mitzi
+was showing the court what she had in her shoulder bag.
+
+He got up, with Mamma and Baby, and crossed to where Leslie Coombes was
+sitting. By this time, somebody was bringing in a coffee urn from the
+cafeteria. Fuzzies ought to happen oftener in court.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The gavel tapped slowly. Little Fuzzy scrambled up onto Jack Holloway's
+lap. After five days in court, they had all learned that the gavel meant
+for Fuzzies and other people to be quiet. It might be a good idea, Jack
+thought, to make a little gavel, when he got home, and keep it on the
+table in the living room for when the family got too boisterous. Baby, who
+wasn't gavel-trained yet, started out onto the floor; Mamma dashed after
+him and brought him back under the table.
+
+The place looked like a courtroom again. The tables were ranged in a neat
+row facing the bench, and the witness chair and the jury box were back
+where they belonged. The ashtrays and the coffee urn and the ice tubs for
+beer and soft drinks had vanished. It looked like the party was over. He
+was almost regretful; it had been fun. Especially for seventeen Fuzzies
+and a Baby Fuzzy and a little black-and-white kitten.
+
+There was one unusual feature; there was now a fourth man on the bench, in
+gold-braided Navy black; sitting a little apart from the judges, trying to
+look as though he weren't there at all--Space Commodore Alex Napier.
+
+Judge Pendarvis laid down his gavel. "Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready
+to present the opinions you have reached?" he asked.
+
+Lieutenant Ybarra, the Navy psychologist, rose. There was a reading screen
+in front of him; he snapped it on.
+
+"Your Honors," he began, "there still exists considerable difference of
+opinion on matters of detail but we are in agreement on all major points.
+This is quite a lengthy report, and it has already been incorporated into
+the permanent record. Have I the court's permission to summarize it?"
+
+The court told him he had. Ybarra glanced down at the screen in front of
+him and continued:
+
+"It is our opinion," he said, "that sapience may be defined as differing
+from nonsapience in that it is characterized by conscious thought, by
+ability to think in logical sequence and by ability to think in terms
+other than mere sense data. We--meaning every member of every sapient
+race--think consciously, and we know what we are thinking. This is not to
+say that all our mental activity is conscious. The science of psychology
+is based, to a large extent, upon our realization that only a small
+portion of our mental activity occurs above the level of consciousness,
+and for centuries we have been diagraming the mind as an iceberg,
+one-tenth exposed and nine-tenths submerged. The art of psychiatry
+consists largely in bringing into consciousness some of the content of
+this submerged nine-tenths, and as a practitioner I can testify to its
+difficulty and uncertainty.
+
+"We are so habituated to conscious thought that when we reach some
+conclusion by any nonconscious process, we speak of it as a 'hunch,' or an
+'intuition,' and question its validity. We are so habituated to acting
+upon consciously formed decisions that we must laboriously acquire, by
+systematic drill, those automatic responses upon which we depend for
+survival in combat or other emergencies. And we are by nature so unaware
+of this vast submerged mental area that it was not until the first century
+Pre-Atomic that its existence was more than vaguely suspected, and its
+nature is still the subject of acrimonious professional disputes."
+
+There had been a few of those, off and on, during the past four days, too.
+
+"If we depict sapient mentation as an iceberg, we might depict nonsapient
+mentation as the sunlight reflected from its surface. This is a
+considerably less exact analogy; while the nonsapient mind deals,
+consciously, with nothing but present sense data, there is a considerable
+absorption and re-emission of subconscious memories. Also, there are
+occasional flashes of what must be conscious mental activity, in dealing
+with some novel situation. Dr. van Riebeek, who is especially interested
+in the evolutionary aspect of the question, suggests that the introduction
+of novelty because of drastic environmental changes may have forced
+nonsapient beings into more or less sustained conscious thinking and so
+initiated mental habits which, in time, gave rise to true sapience.
+
+"The sapient mind not only thinks consciously by habit, but it thinks in
+connected sequence. It associates one thing with another. It reasons
+logically, and forms conclusions, and uses those conclusions as premises
+from which to arrive at further conclusions. It groups associations
+together, and generalizes. Here we pass completely beyond any comparison
+with nonsapience. This is not merely more consciousness, or more thinking;
+it is thinking of a radically different kind. The nonsapient mind deals
+exclusively with crude sensory material. The sapient mind translates sense
+impressions into ideas, and then forms ideas of ideas, in ascending orders
+of abstraction, almost without limit.
+
+"This, finally, brings us to one of the recognized overt manifestations of
+sapience. The sapient being is a symbol user. The nonsapient being cannot
+symbolize, because the nonsapient mind is incapable of concepts beyond
+mere sense images."
+
+Ybarra drank some water, and twisted the dial of his reading screen with
+the other hand.
+
+"The sapient being," he continued, "can do one other thing. It is a
+combination of the three abilities already enumerated, but combining them
+creates something much greater than the mere sum of the parts. The sapient
+being can imagine. He can conceive of something which has no existence
+whatever in the sense-available world of reality, and then he can work and
+plan toward making it a part of reality. He can not only imagine, but he
+can also create."
+
+He paused for a moment. "This is our definition of sapience. When we
+encounter any being whose mentation includes these characteristics, we may
+know him for a sapient brother. It is the considered opinion of all of us
+that the beings called Fuzzies are such beings."
+
+Jack hugged the small sapient one on his lap, and Little Fuzzy looked up
+and murmured, "_He-inta?_"
+
+"You're in, kid," he whispered. "You just joined the people."
+
+Ybarra was saying, "They think consciously and continuously. We know that
+by instrumental analysis of their electroencephalographic patterns, which
+compare closely to those of an intelligent human child of ten. They think
+in connected sequence; I invite consideration of all the different logical
+steps involved in the invention, designing and making of their
+prawn-killing weapons, and in the development of tools with which to make
+them. We have abundant evidence of their ability to think beyond present
+sense data, to associate, to generalize, to abstract and to symbolize.
+
+"And above all, they can imagine, not only a new implement, but a new way
+of life. We see this in the first human contact with the race which, I
+submit, should be designated as _Fuzzy sapiens_. Little Fuzzy found a
+strange and wonderful place in the forest, a place unlike anything he had
+ever seen, in which lived a powerful being. He imagined himself living in
+this place, enjoying the friendship and protection of this mysterious
+being. So he slipped inside, made friends with Jack Holloway and lived
+with him. And then he imagined his family sharing this precious comfort
+and companionship with him, and he went and found them and brought them
+back with him. Like so many other sapient beings, Little Fuzzy had a
+beautiful dream; like a fortunate few, he made it real."
+
+The Chief Justice allowed the applause to run on for a few minutes before
+using his gavel to silence it. There was a brief colloquy among the three
+judges, and then the Chief Justice rapped again. Little Fuzzy looked
+perplexed. Everybody had been quiet after he did it the first time, hadn't
+they?
+
+"It is the unanimous decision of the court to accept the report already
+entered into the record and just summarized by Lieutenant Ybarra, TFN, and
+to thank him and all who have been associated with him.
+
+"It is now the ruling of this court that the species known as _Fuzzy fuzzy
+holloway zarathustra_ is in fact a race of sapient beings, entitled to the
+respect of all other sapient beings and to the full protection of the law
+of the Terran Federation." He rapped again, slowly, pounding the decision
+into the legal framework.
+
+Space Commodore Napier leaned over and whispered; all three of the judges
+nodded emphatically. The naval officer rose.
+
+"Lieutenant Ybarra, on behalf of the Service and of the Federation, I
+thank you and those associated with you for a lucid and excellent report,
+the culmination of work which reflects credit upon all who participated in
+it. I also wish to state that a suggestion made to me by Lieutenant Ybarra
+regarding possible instrumental detection of sapient mentation is being
+credited to him in my own report, with the recommendation that it be given
+important priority by the Bureau of Research and Development. Perhaps the
+next time we find people who speak beyond the range of human audition, who
+have fur and live in a mild climate, and who like their food raw, we'll
+know what they are from the beginning."
+
+Bet Ybarra gets another stripe, and a good job out of this. Jack hoped so.
+Then Pendarvis was pounding again.
+
+"I had almost forgotten; this is a criminal trial," he confessed. "It is
+the verdict of this court that the defendant, Jack Holloway, is not guilty
+as here charged. He is herewith discharged from custody. If he or his
+attorney will step up here, the bail bond will be refunded." He puzzled
+Little Fuzzy by hammering again with his gavel to adjourn court.
+
+This time, instead of keeping quiet, everybody made all the noise they
+could, and Uncle Gus was holding him high over his head and shouting:
+
+"The _winnah_! By unanimous decision!"
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+Ruth Ortheris sipped at the tart, cold cocktail. It was good; oh, it was
+good, all good! The music was soft, the lights were dim, the tables were
+far apart; just she and Gerd, and nobody was paying any attention to them.
+And she was clear out of the business, too. An agent who testified in
+court always was expended in service like a fired round. They'd want her
+back, a year from now, to testify when the board of inquiry came out from
+Terra, but she wouldn't be Lieutenant j.g. Ortheris then, she'd be Mrs.
+Gerd van Riebeek. She set down the glass and rubbed the sunstone on her
+finger. It was a lovely sunstone, and it meant such a lovely thing.
+
+And we're getting married with a ready-made family, too. Four Fuzzies and
+a black-and-white kitten.
+
+"You're sure you really want to go to Beta?" Gerd asked. "When Napier gets
+this new government organized, it'll be taking over Science Center. We
+could both get our old jobs back. Maybe something better."
+
+"You don't want to go back?" He shook his head. "Neither do I. I want to
+go to Beta and be a sunstone digger's wife."
+
+"And a Fuzzyologist."
+
+"And a Fuzzyologist. I couldn't drop that now. Gerd, we're only beginning
+with them. We know next to nothing about their psychology."
+
+He nodded seriously. "You know, they may turn out to be even wiser than we
+are."
+
+She laughed. "Oh, Gerd! Let's don't get too excited about them. Why,
+they're like little children. All they think about is having fun."
+
+"That's right. I said they were wiser than we are. They stick to important
+things." He smoked silently for a moment. "It's not just their psychology;
+we don't know anything much about their physiology, or biology either." He
+picked up his glass and drank. "Here; we had eighteen of them in all.
+Seventeen adults and one little one. Now what kind of ratio is that? And
+the ones we saw in the woods ran about the same. In all, we sighted about
+a hundred and fifty adults and only ten children."
+
+"Maybe last year's crop have grown up," she began.
+
+"You know any other sapient races with a one-year maturation period?" he
+asked. "I'll bet they take ten or fifteen years to mature. Jack's Baby
+Fuzzy hasn't gained a pound in the last month. And another puzzle; this
+craving for Extee Three. That's not a natural food; except for the cereal
+bulk matter, it's purely synthetic. I was talking to Ybarra; he was
+wondering if there mightn't be something in it that caused an addiction."
+
+"Maybe it satisfies some kind of dietary deficiency."
+
+"Well, we'll find out." He inverted the jug over his glass. "Think we
+could stand another cocktail before dinner?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Space Commodore Napier sat at the desk that had been Nick Emmert's and
+looked at the little man with the red whiskers and the rumpled suit, who
+was looking back at him in consternation.
+
+"Good Lord, Commodore; you can't be serious?"
+
+"But I am. Quite serious, Dr. Rainsford."
+
+"Then you're nuts!" Rainsford exploded. "I'm no more qualified to be
+Governor General than I'd be to command Xerxes Base. Why, I never held an
+administrative position in my life."
+
+"That might be a recommendation. You're replacing a veteran
+administrator."
+
+"And I have a job. The Institute of Zeno-Sciences--"
+
+"I think they'll be glad to give you leave, under the circumstances.
+Doctor, you're the logical man for this job. You're an ecologist; you know
+how disastrous the effects of upsetting the balance of nature can be. The
+Zarathustra Company took care of this planet, when it was their property,
+but now nine-tenths of it is public domain, and people will be coming in
+from all over the Federation, scrambling to get rich overnight. You'll
+know how to control things."
+
+"Yes, as Commissioner of Conservation, or something I'm qualified for."
+
+"As Governor General. Your job will be to make policy. You can appoint the
+administrators."
+
+"Well, who, for instance?"
+
+"Well, you're going to need an Attorney General right away. Who will you
+appoint for that position?"
+
+"Gus Brannhard," Rainsford said instantly.
+
+"Good. And who--this question is purely rhetorical--will you appoint as
+Commissioner of Native Affairs?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jack Holloway was going back to Beta Continent on the constabulary
+airboat. Official passenger: Mr. Commissioner Jack Holloway. And his
+staff: Little Fuzzy, Mamma Fuzzy, Baby Fuzzy, Mike, Mitzi, Ko-Ko and
+Cinderella. Bet they didn't know they had official positions!
+
+Somehow he wished he didn't have one himself.
+
+"Want a good job, George?" he asked Lunt.
+
+"I have a good job."
+
+"This'll be a better one. Rank of major, eighteen thousand a year.
+Commandant, Native Protection Force. And you won't lose seniority in the
+constabulary; Colonel Ferguson'll give you indefinite leave."
+
+"Well, cripes, Jack, I'd like to, but I don't want to leave the kids. And
+I can't take them away from the rest of the gang."
+
+"Bring the rest of the gang along. I'm authorized to borrow twenty men
+from the constabulary as a training cadre, and you only have sixteen. Your
+sergeants'll get commissions, and all your men will be sergeants. I'm
+going to have a force of a hundred and fifty for a start."
+
+"You must think the Fuzzies are going to need a lot of protection."
+
+"They will. The whole country between the Cordilleras and the West Coast
+Range will be Fuzzy Reservation and that'll have to be policed. Then the
+Fuzzies outside that will have to be protected. You know what's going to
+happen. Everybody wants Fuzzies; why, even Judge Pendarvis approached me
+about getting a pair for his wife. There'll be gangs hunting them to sell,
+using stun-bombs and sleepgas and everything. I'm going to have to set up
+an adoption bureau; Ruth will be in charge of that. And that'll mean a lot
+of investigators--"
+
+Oh, it was going to be one hell of a job! Fifty thousand a year would be
+chicken feed to what he'd lose by not working his diggings. But somebody
+would have to do it, and the Fuzzies were his responsibility.
+
+Hadn't he gone to law to prove their sapience?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were going home, home to the Wonderful Place. They had seen many
+wonderful places, since the night they had been put in the bags: the place
+where everything had been light and they had been able to jump so high and
+land so gently, and the place where they had met all the others of their
+people and had so much fun. But now they were going back to the old
+Wonderful Place in the woods, where it had all started.
+
+And they had met so many Big Ones, too. Some Big Ones were bad, but only a
+few; most Big Ones were good. Even the one who had done the killing had
+felt sorry for what he had done; they were all sure of that. And the other
+Big Ones had taken him away, and they had never seen him again.
+
+He had talked about that with the others--with Flora and Fauna, and Dr.
+Crippen, and Complex, and Superego, and Dillinger and Lizzie Borden. Now
+that they were all going to live with the Big Ones, they would have to use
+those funny names. Someday they would find out what they meant, and that
+would be fun, too. And they could; now the Big Ones could put things in
+their ears and hear what they were saying, and Pappy Jack was learning
+some of their words, and teaching them some of his.
+
+And soon all the people would find Big Ones to live with, who would take
+care of them and have fun with them and love them, and give them the
+Wonderful Food. And with the Big Ones taking care of them, maybe more of
+their babies would live and not die so soon. And they would pay the Big
+Ones back. First they would give their love and make them happy. Later,
+when they learned how, they would give their help, too.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Numerous typographical errors have been corrected.
+  
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE FUZZY***
+
+
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