Fuzzy Sapiens

CHAPTER SEVEN

JACK HOLLOWAY LEANED back in his chair, resting one ankle across the corner of the desk and propping the other foot on a partly open bottom drawer. If he had to work in an office, it was nice working in a real one, and it was a big improvement to be able to use his living quarters exclusively for living in again. The wide doors at either end of the arched prefab hut were open and a little breeze was drawing through, just enough to keep the place cool and carry off his pipe smoke. There wasn’t so much noise outside anymore; most of the new buildings were up now. He could hear a distant popping of small arms as the dozen and a half ZNPF recruits fired for qualification.

A hundred yards away, at the other end, Sergeant Yorimitsu was monitoring screen-views transmitted in from a couple of cars up on patrol, and Lieutenant Ahmed Khadra and Sergeant Knabber were taking the fingerprints of a couple of Fuzzies that had come in an hour ago. Little Fuzzy, resting the point of his chopper-digger on the floor with his hands on the knob pommel, watched boredly. Fingerprinting was old stuff, now. The space between was mostly vacant; a few unoccupied desks and idle business machines scattered about. Some of these days they’d have a real office force, and then he’d be able to get out and move around among the natives, the way a Commissioner ought to.

One thing, they had the Fuzzy Reservation question settled, at least for now. Ben Rainsford was closing everything north of the Little Blackwater and the East Fork of the Snake to settlement; that country all belonged to the Fuzzies and nobody else. Now if the Fuzzies could only be persuaded to stay there. And Gerd and Ruth and Pancho Ybarra and the Andrews girl were here, now, and set up. Maybe they’d begin to find out a few of the things they had to know.

The stamp machine banged twice, putting numbers on the ID discs for the two newcomers. Khadra brought the discs back and squatted to put them on the two Fuzzies.

“How many is that, now, Ahmed?” he called down the hut.

“These are Fifty-eight and Fifty-nine,” Khadra called back. “Deduct three, two for Rainsford’s, and one for Goldilocks.”

Poor little Goldilocks; she’d have loved having an ID disc. She’d been so proud of the little jingle-charm Ruth had given her, just before she’d been killed. Fifty-six Fuzzies; getting quite a population here.

The communication screen buzzed. He flipped a switch on the edge of his desk and dropped his feet to the floor, turning. It was Ben Rainsford, and he was furiously angry about something. His red whiskers bristled as though electrically charged, and his blue eyes were almost shooting sparks.

“Jack,” he began indignantly, “I’ve just found out that Victor Grego has a Fuzzy cooped up at Company House. What’s more, he’s had the effrontery to have Leslie Coombes apply to Judge Pendarvis to have him appointed guardian.”

That surprised him slightly. To date, Grego hadn’t exactly established himself as one of the Friends of Little Fuzzy.

“How did he get him, do you know?”

Rainsford gobbled in rage for a moment, then said:

“He claims he found this Fuzzy in his apartment, night before last, up at the top of Company House. Now isn’t that one Nifflheim of a story; does he think anybody’s silly enough to believe that?”

“Well, it is a funny place for a Fuzzy to be,” he admitted. “You suppose it might be one that was live-trapped for Mallin to study, before the trial? Ruth says there were only four, and they were all turned loose the night of the Lurkin business.”

“I don’t know. All I know is what Gus Brannhard told me that Pendarvis’s secretary told him, that Pendarvis told her, that Coombes told Pendarvis.” That sounded pretty roundabout, but he supposed that was the way Colonial Governors had to get things. “Gus says Coombes claims Grego says he doesn’t know where the Fuzzy came from or how he got into Company House. That is probably a thumping big lie.”

“It’s probably the truth. Victor Grego’s too smart to lie to his lawyer, and Coombes is too smart to lie to the Chief Justice. Judges are funny about that; they want statements veridicated, and after what you saw happen to Mallin in court, you don’t suppose any of that crowd would try to lie under veridication.”

Rainsford snorted scornfully. Grego was lying; if the veridicator backed him up, the veridicator was as big a liar as he was.

“Well, I don’t care how he got the Fuzzy; what I’m concerned with is what he’s doing to him,” Rainsford replied. “And Ernst Mallin; Coombes admitted to Pendarvis that Mallin was helping Grego look after the Fuzzy. Look after him! They’re probably torturing the poor thing, Grego and that sadistic quack head-shrinker. Jack, you’ve got to get that Fuzzy away from Grego!”

“Oh, I doubt that. Grego wouldn’t mistreat the Fuzzy, and if he was, he wouldn’t apply for papers of guardianship and make himself legally responsible. What do you want me to do?”

“Well, I told Gus to get a court order; Gus told me you were the Native Commissioner, that it was your job to act to protect the Fuzzy…”

Gus didn’t think the Fuzzy needed any protecting; he thought Grego was treating him well, and ought to be allowed to keep him. So he’d passed the buck. He nodded.

“All right. I’m coming in to Mallorysport now. You’re three hours behind us here, and if I use Gerd’s boat I can make it in three hours. I’ll be at Government House at 1530, your time. I’ll bring either Pancho or Ruth along. You have Gus meet us when we get in. And I’ll want to borrow your Flora and Fauna.”

“What for?”

“Interpreters, and to interrogate Grego’s Fuzzy. And I want them instead of any of our crowd here because they may have to testify in court and they won’t have to travel back and forth. And tell Gus to get all the papers we’ll need to crash Company House with. This is the first time anything like this has come up. We’re going to give it the full treatment.”

He blanked the screen, scribbled on a notepad and tore off the sheet, then looked around. Ko-Ko and Cinderella and Mamma Fuzzy and a couple of the Constabulary Fuzzies were working on a jigsaw puzzle on the floor near his desk.

“Ko-Ko,” he called. “Do-bizzo.” When Ko-Ko got to his feet and came over, he handed him the note. “Give to Unka Panko,” he said. “Make run fast.”

VICTOR GREGO HAD Leslie Coombes on screen; the lawyer was saying:

“The Chief Justice is not hostile. Hospitable, I’d say. I think he’s trying to be careful not to establish any precedent that might embarrass the Native Affairs Commission later. He was rather curious about how the Fuzzy got into Company House, though.”

“Tell him that makes two of us. So am I.”

“Have Steefer’s men found out anything yet?”

“Not that he’s reported. I’m going to talk to him shortly. The way things are, he’s spread out pretty thin.”

“It would help a lot if we could explain that. Would you be willing to make a veridicated statement of what you know?”

“With adequate safeguards. Not for anybody to pump me about business matters.”

“Naturally. How about Mallin and Jimenez?”

“They will if they want to keep on working for the company.” It surprised him that Coombes would even ask such a question. “You think it’s necessary?”

“I think it very advisable. Rainsford will certainly oppose your application; possibly Holloway. How about getting a statement from the Fuzzy?”

“Mallin and I tried, last evening. I don’t know any of the language, and he only has a few tapes he got from Lieutenant Ybarra at the time of the trial. We have hearing aids, now. It’s a hell of a language; sounds like Old Terran Japanese more than anything else. The Fuzzy was trying to tell us something, but we couldn’t make out what. We have it all on tape.

“And we showed him audiovisual portraits of those two Survey rangers who were helping Jimenez. He made both of them; I doubt if he likes them very much. We’re looking for them. We are also looking for a Company scout car that vanished along with them.”

“Vehicle theft’s a felony; that will do to hold and interrogate them on,” Coombes mentioned. “Well, shall I see you for cocktails?”

“Yes. You’d better call me, say every half-hour. If Rainsford gets nasty about this, I may need you before then.”

After that, he called Chief Steefer. Steefer greeted him with:

“Mr. Grego, how red is my face?”

“Not noticeably so. Should it be?”

Steefer swore. “Mr. Grego, I want your authorization to make an inch-by-inch search of this whole building.”

“Good God, Harry!” He was thinking of how many millions on millions of inches that was. “Have you found something?”

“Not about the Fuzzy, but — You have no idea what’s been going on here, on these unoccupied levels. We found places where people had been camping for weeks. We found one place where there must have been a nonstop party going on for a month; there was almost a lifter scow full of empty bottles. And we found a tea pad.”

“Yes? What was that like?”

“Nothing much; lot of mattresses thrown around, and the floor covered with butts — mostly chuckleweed or opiate-impregnated tobacco. I don’t think that was any of our people; everybody and his girlfriend in Mallorysport seems to have been sneaking in here. We have men at all the landing stages, of course, but there aren’t enough to…” His face hardened. “I’ve just gone slack on the job. That’s the only explanation I can make.”

“We’ve all gone slack, Harry.” He thought of the mess in his pantry; that was symptomatic. “You know, we may owe the Fuzzies a debt of gratitude, if what’s happened to us will make us start acting like a business concern instead of a bunch of kids in fairyland. All right; go ahead. Finding out how the Fuzzy got in here is still of top importance, but clean house generally while you’re at it and see that it stays cleaned up.”

Then he called Juan Jimenez at Science Center. Jimenez had gotten a new suit since yesterday, less casual, more executive. His public face had been done over too, to emphasize efficiency rather than agreeableness.

“Good morning, Victor.” He stumbled a little over the first name, which was a prerogative of a division chief but to which he was not yet accustomed.

“Good morning, Juan. I know you haven’t forgotten we’re lunching together, but I wondered if you could make it a little early. There are a couple of things we want to go over first. In twenty minutes?”

“Easily; sooner than that if you wish.”

“As soon as you can make it. Just come in the back way.”

Then he made another screen call. This was an outside call, for which he had to look up the combination. When the screen cleared, a thin-faced, elderly man with white hair looked out of it. He wore a gray work smock, the breast pockets full of small tools and calibrating instruments. His name was Henry Stenson, and he might have been called an instrument maker, just as Benvenuto Cellini might have been called a jeweler.

“Why, Mr. Grego,” he greeted, in pleased surprise, or reasonable facsimile. “I haven’t heard from you for some time.”

“No. Not since that gadget you planted in my globe stopped broadcasting. Incidentally, the globe’s about thirty seconds slow, and both moons are impossibly out of synchronization. We had to stop it to take out that thing you built into it, and none of my people has your fine touch.”

Stenson grimaced slightly. “I suppose you know for whom I did that?”

“Well, I’m not certain whether you’re Navy Intelligence, like our former employee, Ruth Ortheris, or Colonial Office Investigative Bureau; but that’s minor. Whoever, they’re to be congratulated on an excellent operative. You know, I could get quite nasty about that; planting radio-transmitted microphones in people’s offices is a felony. I don’t intend doing anything, but I definitely want no more of it. You can understand my attitude.”

“Well, naturally, Mr. Grego. You know,” he added, “I thought that thing was detection proof.”

“Instrumentally, yes. My people were awed when they saw the detection baffles on that thing. Have you patented them? If you have, we owe you some money, because we’re copying them. But nothing is proof against physical search, and we practically tore my office apart as soon as it became evident that anything said in it was known almost immediately on Xerxes Base.”

Stenson nodded gravely. “You didn’t call me just to tell me you’d caught me out? I knew that as soon as the radio went dead.”

“No. I want you to put the globe back in synchronization, as soon as possible. And there’s another thing. You helped the people on Xerxes design those ultrasonic hearing aids, didn’t you? Well, could you attack the problem from the other side, Mr. Stenson? I mean, design a little self-powered hand-phone, small enough for a Fuzzy to carry, that would transform the Fuzzy’s voice to audible frequencies?”

Stenson was silent for all of five seconds. “Yes, of course, Mr. Grego. If anything, it should be simpler. Of course, teaching the Fuzzy to carry and use it would be a problem, but not in my line of work.”

“Well, try and get an experimental model done as soon as possible. I have a Fuzzy available to try it. And if there’s anything patentable about it, get it protected. Talk to Leslie Coombes. This may be of commercial value to both of us.”

“You think there’ll be a demand?” Stenson asked. “How much do you think a Fuzzy would pay for one?”

“I think the Native Affairs Commission would pay ten to fifteen sols apiece for them, and I’m sure our electronics plant could turn them out to sell profitably for that.”

Somebody had entered the office; in one of the strategically placed mirrors, he saw that it was Juan Jimenez keeping out of the field of the screen-pickup. He nodded to him and went on talking to Stenson, who would be around the next morning to look at the globe. When they finished the conversation and blanked screens, he motioned Jimenez to his deskside chair.

“How much of that did you hear?” he asked.

“Well, I heard that white-haired old Iscariot say he’d be around tomorrow to fix the globe…”

“Henry Stenson is no Iscariot, Juan. He is a Terran Federation secret agent, and the Federation is to be congratulated on his loyalty and ability. Now that I know just what he is, and now that he knows I know it, we can do business on a friendly basis of mutual respect and distrust. He’s going to work up a gadget by which the Fuzzies can speak audibly to us.

“Now, about Fuzzies,” he continued. “We’re sure that your two helpers, Herckerd and Novaes, brought this Fuzzy of mine here to Mallorysport. You say they didn’t have him when they came back with you?”

“Absolutely not, Mr. Grego.”

“Would you veridicate that?”

Jimenez didn’t want to, that was plain. But he did want to work for the Company, especially now that he had just been promoted to chief of Scientific Study and Research. He was as close to the top of the Company House hierarchy as he could get, and he wanted to stay there.

“Yes, of course. I’d hoped, though, that my word would be good enough…”

“Nobody’s word’s going to be good enough. I’m going to veridicate what I know about it, myself; so’s Ernst Mallin. There will be quite a few veridicated statements taken in the next few days. Now, I want you to meet this Fuzzy. See if you know him, or if he knows you.”

They went out to the private lift and up to the penthouse. In the living room, Sandra Glenn was lounging in his favorite chair, listening to something from a record player with an earphone, and smoking. As they entered, she shut off the player and closed her eyes. “Sojosso-aki; you give me,” she said. “Aki-jossoso; I give you. So-noho-aki dokko; you tell me how many.”

They tiptoed past her and out onto the terrace. Ernst Mallin was sitting on a low hassock, with his hearing aid on; Diamond was squatting in front of him, tying knots in a length of twine. An audiovisual recorder was set up to cover both of them. Diamond sprang to his feet and ran to meet them, crying out: “Pappy Vic! Heeta!” and holding up the cord to show the knots he had been learning to tie.

“Hello, Diamond. Those are very fine knots. You are a smart Fuzzy. How do I say that, Ernst?” Mallin said something, haltingly; he repeated it, patting the Fuzzy’s head. “Now, how do I ask him if he’s ever seen this Big One with me before?”

Mallin asked the question himself. Diamond said something; he caught “Vov,” a couple of times. That was negative.

“He doesn’t know you, Juan. What I’m sure happened is that Herckerd and Novaes came in with you, just before the trial, then went back to Beta, probably in the aircar they stole from us, and picked up this Fuzzy. We won’t know why till we catch them and question them.” He turned to Mallin. “Get anything more out of him?”

Mallin shook his head. “I’m picking up a few more words, but I still can’t be sure. He says two Hagga, the ones we showed him the films of, brought him here. I think they brought some other Fuzzies with him; I can’t be sure. There doesn’t seem to be any way of pluralizing in his language. He says they were tosh-ki gashta, bad people. They put him in a bad place.”

“We’ll put them in a bad place. Penitentiary place. I don’t suppose you can find out how long ago this was? During or right after the trial, I suppose.”

Sandra Glenn came out onto the terrace.

“Mr. Grego; Miss Fallada’s on screen. She says representatives of all the press-services are here. They’ve heard about Diamond; they want the story, and pictures of him.”

“That was all we needed! All right, tell her to have a policeman show them up. I’m afraid our lunch’ll have to wait till we get through with them, Juan.”