Fuzzies and Other People

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

HUGO INGERMANN LOOKED up at the big screen above the empty bench, which showed, like a double-reflecting mirror, a view of the courtroom behind him, filling with spectators. It was jammed, even the balcony above. Well, he’d be playing to a good house, anyhow.

He had nothing to worry about, he told himself. Either way it came out, he’d be safe. If he got his clients acquitted by the faginy and enslavement charges — even a collaboration of Blackstone, Daniel Webster and Clarence Darrow couldn’t do anything with the burglary and larceny charges — that would be that. Of course, he’d be the most execrated man on Zarathustra, with all this publicity about Little Fuzzy and the forest-fire and the rescue, but that wouldn’t last. It wouldn’t alter the fact that he’d accomplished a courtroom masterpiece, and it would bring clients in droves. Well, maybe he’s a crooked son of a Khooghra, but he’s a smart lawyer, you gotta give him that. And people forgot soon; he knew people. It would bring back a lot of his People’s Prosperity Party followers who had defected after he’d been smeared with the gem vault job. And in a few months, the rush of immigrants would come in, all hoping to get rich on what the CZC had lost, and all sore as hell when they found there was nothing to grab. When they heard that he was the man who dared buck Rainsford and Victor Grego together, they’d rally to him, and a year after they landed they’d all be eligible to vote.

If things went sour, he had a line of retreat open. He congratulated himself on the timing that had accomplished that. He didn’t want to have to use it, he wanted to win here in court, but if anything went wrong…

Still, he was tense and jumpy. He wondered if he oughtn’t to take another tranquilizer. No, he’d been eating those damn things like candy. He started to straighten the papers on the table in front of him, then forced his hands to be still. Mustn’t let people see him fidgeting.

A stir in front to the left of the bench; door opened, jury filing in to take their seats. Now there were twelve good cretins and true, total IQ around 250. He’d fought to the death to exclude anybody with brains enough to pour sand out of a boot with printed directions on the bottom of the heel. He looked over to the table where Gus Brannhard was fluffing his whiskers with his left hand and smiling happily at the ceiling, wondering if Brannhard had any idea why he’d dragged out the jury selection for four days.

The other door opened. In came Colonial Marshal Fane, preceded by his rotund tummy, and then Leo Thaxter and Conrad and Rose Evins and Phil Novaes, followed by two uniformed deputies, one of them fondling his pistol-butt hopefully. They were all dressed in the courtroom outfits he had selected: Thaxter in light gray — as long as he kept his mouth shut anybody would take him for a pillar of the community; Conrad Evins in black, with a dark blue neckcloth; Rose Evins also in black, relieved by a few touches of pale blue; Phil Novaes in dark gray, smart but ultraconservative. Who’d think four respectables like this were a bunch of fagins and slavers? He got them seated at the table with him. Thaxter was scowling at the jury.

“Smile, you stupid ape!” he hissed. “Those people have a 10-mm against the back of your head. Don’t make them want to pull the trigger.”

He beamed affectionately at Thaxter. Thaxter’s scowl deepened, then he tried, not too successfully, to beam back. He didn’t have the face for it.

“You know what’s against that back of yours,” he whispered.

Yes, and he wished he hadn’t put himself in front of it in the first place. Ought to have refused to have anything to do with this case, but, my God… !

“Will it start now?” Rose Evins asked.

“Pretty soon. You’ll all be called to the stand for arraignment; you’ll be under veridication. Now, remember, you only give your names, your addresses, and your civil and racial status, that’s Federation citizen, race Terran human. If they ask anything else, refuse to answer. And when they ask how you plead, you say, ‘Not guilty.’ Now remember, that’s only the way you’re pleading. You are not being asked whether you did what you’ve been charged with or not. When you say, ‘Not guilty,’ you are making a true statement.”

He went over that again; this had to be hammered in as hard as he could hammer it. He was repeating the caution when there was a stir behind. Looking up at the screen, he saw a procession coming down the aisle. Leslie Coombes and Victor Grego in front — holy God, maybe Grego’d take the stand; just give him a chance to cross-examine! — and Jack Holloway, Gerd and Ruth van Riebeek, George Lunt in uniform, Pancho Ybarra in civvies, Ahmed Khadra, Sandra Glenn — no, Ahmed and Sandra Khadra now — Fitz Morlake, Ernst Mallin… the whole damn gang. What a spot to lob a hand-grenade! And six Fuzzies. One wore a light-yellow plastic shoulder bag to match his fur, and the others had blue canvas bags lettered CZC Police, and little police shields on their shoulder-straps. Just as they were getting seated, the crier began chanting, “Rise for the Honorable Court!” and Yves Janiver came in, gray hair and black mustache — must dye the damn thing three times a day, made him look like a villain.

Janiver bowed to the screen and to everybody on Zarathustra who wasn’t here in the courtroom, and sat down. The opening formalities were rushed through. Janiver tapped with his gavel.

“A jury having been selected to the mutual satisfaction of the defense and prosecution — you are satisfied with the jury, aren’t you, gentlemen? — we will proceed with arraignment of the defendants. As this is in Native Cases Court, we will give the visiting team the courtesy of precedence.”

The court clerk rose and called Leo Thaxter. Thaxter sat in the witness-chair and had the veridicator helmet let down on this head.

The globe was cerulean blue; it stayed that way, and didn’t even flicker on “Not guilty.” Thaxter was an old hand, probably had his first arraignment at age ten on JD charge. Rose Evins swirled the blue a little; her husband got a few quick stabs of red, trying to avoid some truth he wasn’t being asked to tell. The Fuzzies were all sitting on the edge of a table across the room, smoking little cigarette-size cigars and yeek-yeeking among themselves, making ultrasonic comments. Fuzzies were entitled to smoke in court; that was an ancient custom — of all of four months old. Phil Novaes went up to the stand. For him, the globe was a dirty mauve. When he was asked to plead, it blazed like a fire-alarm light. “Not guilty,” he said.

“Now, what the hell did you do that for?” Ingermann hissed when Novaes came back.

Everybody in the courtroom was laughing.

“Diamond. Native registration number twenty.”

There was an argument among the Fuzzies. The one with the plastic shoulder bag jumped down, ran over to the witness chair, and climbed into it. The human-size helmet was swung aside and a little one swung over and let down. As soon as it touched Diamond’s head, he was on his feet.

“Your Honor, I object!”

“And to what, Mr. Ingermann?” the judge asked.

“Your Honor, this Fuzzy is being placed under veridication. It is a known scientific fact that the polyencephalographic veridicator will not detect the difference between true and false statements when made by members of that race.” The jury wouldn’t know what the hell he was talking about. “A veridicator will not work with a Fuzzy,” he added for their benefit.

“You’ll have to pardon my abysmal ignorance, Mr. Ingermann, but this alleged scientific fact isn’t known to this court.”

“It’s known to everybody else. Your Honor,” he added insultingly. No use trying to avoid antagonizing the court; this court was pre-antagonized already. Maybe he could needle Janiver into saying something exceptionable. “And it is specifically known to the leading specialist in Fuzzy psychology, Dr. Ernst Mallin.”

“I seem to see Dr. Mallin here present,” Janiver said. “Is that a fact, Doctor Mallin?”

“I must object unless Dr. Mallin veridicates his reply.”

Mallin winced. He had a thing about being veridicated in court; he ought to, after what he went through in People versus Kellogg and Holloway.

“Bloody-go-hell, what you want me make do?” the Fuzzy on the stand demanded.

Everybody ignored that. Janiver said:

“I see no reason why Dr. Mallin should veridicate a simple answer to a simple question; nobody is asking him to give testimony at this time.”

“Nobody can give testimony at this time, Your Honor,” Coombes said. “The defendants have not all been arraigned.”

“What are you trying to do, Ingermann; get a mistrial out of this?” Brannhard said.

“Certainly not!” He was righteously indignant. That was something he hadn’t thought of; should have, but too late now. “If the learned court, in what it describes as its abysmal ignorance, seeks enlightenment…”

“Doctor Mallin, is it true that, as the learned counsel for the defense states, it is a known fact that Fuzzies cannot be veridicated?”

“Not at all.” Mallin was smirking in superiority. “Mr. Ingermann has been listening to mere layman’s folklore. As sapient beings, Fuzzies have the same neuro-cerebral system as, say, Terran humans. when they attempt to suppress a true statement and substitute a false one, it is accompanied by the same detectable electromagnetic events.”

Whatever that meant to these twelve failed-apprentice morons.

“Dr. Mallin is giving expert testimony, Your Honor. He should be duly qualified as an expert.”

“In this court, Mr. Ingermann, Dr. Mallin has long ago been so qualified.”

“Your Honor, Mr. Ingermann may get a lot of fun out of this, but I don’t,” Coombes said. “Let’s get these defendants arraigned and get on with the trial.”

“It is illegal to place anybody under veridication unless the veridicator has been properly tested.”

“This veridicator has been properly tested,” Gus Brannhard said. “It red-lighted when your client, Novaes, made the false statement that he was not guilty.”

That got a laugh, a real, order-in-the-court laugh; even some of the jury got it. When it subsided, Janiver rapped with his gavel.

“Gentlemen, I seem recall a law once enacted in some Old Terran jurisdiction, first century PreAtomic, to the effect that when two self-propelled ground-vehicles approached an intersection, both should stop and neither start until the other had gone on. That seems to be the situation Mr. Ingermann is trying here to create. He wants to argue that the defendants cannot be arraigned until Dr. Mallin has testified that they can be veridicated, and that Dr. Mallin cannot testify until the defendants have been arraigned. And by that time his clients will have died of old age. Well, I herewith rule that the defendant on the stand, and the other Fuzzy defendants, be arraigned herewith, on the supposition that a veridicator which will work with a human will work with a Fuzzy.”

“Exception!”

“Exception noted. Proceed with the arraignment.”

“I warn the court that I will not consider this a precedent for allowing these Fuzzies to testify against my clients.”

“That is also to be noted. Proceed, Mr. Clerk.”

“What name you?” the clerk asked. “What Big Ones call you?”

“Diamond.”

The blue globe over his head became blood-red. Red! Oh, holy God, no!

“You said they couldn’t be veridicated; you said no Fuzzy would redlight—” Evins was jabbering, and Thaxter was saying, “You double-crossing bastard!”

“Shut up, both of you!”

“How I do, Pappy Lessee?” the Fuzzy, whose name was not Diamond, was asking. “I do like you say?”

“Who is Pappy for you?” the clerk asked.

The Fuzzy thought briefly, said, “Pappy Jack,” and got a red light, and then another when he corrected himself and said, “Pappy Vic.”

“You do very good; you good Fuzzy,” Leslie Coombes said. “Now, say for is-so what your name.”

The Fuzzy said, “Toshi-Sosso. Mean Wise One in Big One talk.”

Those damn forest-fire Fuzzies; he was one of them. The veridicator was blue. Rose Evins was saying, “Well. It looks as though you didn’t do it, Mister Ingermann.”

The next Fuzzy, called under the name of Allan Pinkerton, made an equally spectacular redlighting, and then admitted to being called something that meant Stabber. That was good; and just call me Stabbed, Ingermann thought.

“Well, Mr. Ingermann; do I hear any more objections to the veridicated testimony of the Fuzzies, or are you willing to be convinced by this demonstration?” Janiver asked. “If so, we will have the real defendants in for arraignment now.”

“Well, naturally, Your Honor.” What in Nifflheim else could he say? “I must confess myself much deceived. By all means, let the real defendants be arraigned, and after that may I pray the court to recess until 0900 Monday?” That would give him all Saturday, and Sunday… “I must confer with my clients and replan the entire defense…”

“What he means, Your Honor, is that now it seems these Fuzzies are going to be allowed to tell the truth, and he doesn’t know what to do about it,” Brannhard said.

“What the hell are you trying to do, ditch us?” Thaxter wanted to know. “You better not…”

“No, no! Don’t worry, Leo; this whole thing’s a big fake. I don’t know how they did it, but it’d stink on Nifflheim, and by Monday I’ll be able to prove it. Just sit tight; everything will be all right if you keep your mouths shut in the meantime.”

He looked at his watch. He shouldn’t have done that. He shouldn’t have given any indication of how vital time was now.

“Well, it’s now 1500,” Janiver was saying, “and tomorrow’s Saturday. There’ll be no court, in any case. Yes, Mr. Ingermann; I see no reason for not granting that request.”