Fuzzy Sapiens

CHAPTER NINE

GUS BRANNHARD POURED coffee into a cup already half full of brandy, brushed his beard out of the way with his left hand, and tasted it. It was good, but he still thought it would be better out of a tin pannikin beside a campfire on Beta. It was time to get down to business; after the bare report while hustling indecently through cocktails, they had talked all around the subject at dinner.

“Well, I can and will bring criminal charges,” he assured the others who were having coffee in the drawing room at Government House. “Forcible overpowering and transportation under restraint; if that isn’t kidnapping what is it?”

“Try your damnedest to make enslavement out of it, Gus,” Jack Holloway said. “If you get a conviction, we can have the pair of them shot. And telecast the executions; a real memorable public example is what we want, right now.”

“Well, I got the whole story out of Diamond,” Pancho Ybarra said. “He and another Fuzzy met four others; the six of them went down a little stream past a waterfall, and then came to a place where there were two Hagga, the ones he was shown audiovisuals of. The Hagga gave them Extee-Three, and then gave them something out of a bottle. They all woke up with hangovers in what sounds like one of the unfinished rooms in Company House. Diamond got away from them; the two bad Big Ones took the rest away.”

“So now we have five Fuzzies to hunt,” Holloway said. “That’ll be your job, Ahmed. You’ll stay here in Mallorysport. We’ll promote you to captain and chief of detectives; that’ll give you a little status equality with the other enforcement heads around here. If they’re trapping Fuzzies for sale, that’s not just Native Commission business; that’s Federation stuff.”

“They probably caught them for Mallin to experiment with,” Ben Rainsford said.

Jack swore. “Ben, you haven’t been paying attention. All this stuff we got from them was veridicated. They don’t know anything about any Fuzzies but those four Gerd and Ruth have.”

“Mr. Grego has been cooperating very satisfactorily, Governor,” Ahmed Khadra said, stiffly formal. “He has the whole Company police working on it, and told me to call on Chief Steefer for anything, and tomorrow Dr. Jimenez is going out to Beta to show some of our people where he was camping. From the Fuzzy’s description, we think Herckerd and Novaes went back there.”

“Well, what are you going to do about that Fuzzy at Company House?” he asked Jack, ignoring Khadra’s words. “You aren’t going to let him stay with Grego, are you?”

“Of course we are. Diamond’s happy, and Grego’s taking good care of him. I’m going to recommend that Judge Pendarvis issue papers of guardianship to him.”

“But it isn’t right! Not after all Grego did,” Rainsford insisted. “Why, he was going to have all the Fuzzies trapped off for their furs. He took your own Fuzzies away from you. He had Jimenez trap those other four, and let Mallin torture them, ask Ruth about that, and then started the story about the Lurkin girl and turned them loose for the mob to kill. And look how he was trying to make out that you’d just taught your Fuzzies a few tricks and then got me to back up your claim that they were sapient beings…”

There, at last and obliquely, Ben had let the cat out. What he meant was that Grego had tried to accuse him of deliberately engineering a scientific fraud. Well, a scientist would have trouble forgiving that. It was like accusing a soldier of treason or a doctor of malpractice.

“Well, it’s my professional opinion,” Pancho Ybarra said, “that Grego and Diamond are much attached to each other, and that it would be injustice to both to separate them, and probably psychologically harmful to the Fuzzy. I shall so advise Judge Pendarvis.”

“I think that’ll be official policy,” Holloway said. “When we find Fuzzies and humans living happily together, we have no right to separate them, and we won’t.”

Rainsford, who had started to fill his pipe, looked up angrily.

“Maybe you forget I’m the Governor; I make the policy. I appointed you…”

Jack’s white mustache was twitching at the tips; his eyes narrowed. He looked like an elderly and irascible tiger.

“That’s right,” he said. “You appointed me Commissioner of Native Affairs. Any time you don’t like the way I do my job, get yourself a new Commissioner.”

“Get yourself a new Attorney-General, too. I’m with Jack on this.”

Rainsford dropped his pipe into the tobacco pouch.

“You mean you’re all against me? What are you doing, bucking for jobs with the CZC?”

After a crack like that, there were those who would have insisted on continuing the discussion by correspondence and through seconds. With anybody but Ben Rainsford, he would have, himself. He turned to Pancho Ybarra.

“Doctor, as a psychiatrist what is your opinion of that outburst?” he asked.

“I’m not entitled to express an opinion,” the Navy psychologist replied. “Governor Rainsford is not my patient.”

“You mean, I ought to be somebody’s?” Rainsford demanded.

“Well, now that you ask, you’re not exactly psychotic, but you’re certainly not displaying much sanity on the subject of Victor Grego.”

“You think we ought to just sit back and let him do anything he pleases; run the planet the way he did before the Pendarvis Decisions?”

“He didn’t do such a bad job, Ben,” he said. “I’m beginning to think he did a damn sight better job than you’ll do unless you stop playing Hatfields and McCoys and start governing. You have to arrange for elections for delegates, and a constitutional convention. You have to take over and operate all these public services the Company’s been relieved of responsibility for when their charter was invalidated. And you’ll have to stop this cattle rustling on Beta and Delta Continents, or you’ll have a couple of first-class range wars on your hands. And you’d better start thinking about the immigrant rush that’s going to hit this planet when the news of the Pendarvis Decisions gets around.”

Rainsford, his pipe and tobacco shoved into his side pocket, was on his feet. He’d tried to interrupt a couple of times.

“Oh, to Nifflheim with you!” he cried. “I’m going out and talk to my Fuzzies.”

With that, he flung out of the room. For a moment, nobody said anything, then Jack Holloway swore.

“I hope the Fuzzies talk some sense into him. Be damned if I can.”

They probably would, if he’d listen to them. They had more sense than he had, at the moment. Ahmed Khadra, who had sat motionless through the upper-echelon brawl, clattered his cup and saucer.

“Jack, you think we ought to go check in at the hotel?” he asked.

“Nifflheim, no! This isn’t Ben Rainsford’s private camp, this is Government House,” Holloway said. “We work for the Government, too. We have work to do now.”

“We’ll have to talk to him again.” He wasn’t looking forward to it with any pleasure. “We have to get some kind of a Fuzzy Code scotch-taped together, and he’ll have to okay it. We need special legislation, and till we can get a Colonial Legislature, that’ll have to be by executive decree. And you’ll have to figure out a way to make Fuzzies available for adoption. You can’t break up a black market by shooting a few people for enslavement; you’ll have to make it possible for people to get Fuzzies legally, with controls and safeguards, instead of buying them from racketeers.”

“I know it, Gus,” Jack said. “I’ve been thinking about it; a regular adoption bureau. But who can I get to handle it? I don’t know anybody.”

“Well, I know everybody around Central Courts Building.” That ought to be enough; Central Courts was like a village, in which everybody knew everybody else. “Maybe Leslie Coombes would help me.”

“My God, Gus; don’t let Ben hear you say that,” Jack implored. “He’d blow up about a hundred megatons. You might just as well talk about getting V-dash-R G-dash-O to help.”

“He could help a lot. If we ask him, he would.”

“Ruth did a lot of work with juvenile court, on her cover-job,” Ybarra mentioned. “There’s some kind of a Juvenile Welfare Association…”

“Claudette Pendarvis. The Chief Justice’s wife. She does a lot about Juvenile Welfare.”

“Yes,” Ybarra agreed instantly. “I’ve heard Ruth talk about her. Very favorably, too, and Ruth has a galloping allergy for volunteer do-gooders as a rule.”

“She likes Fuzzies,” Jack said. “She couldn’t stay away from them during the trial. I promised her a pair as soon as I got a nice couple.” He got to his feet. “Let’s move into one of the offices, where we have a table to work on, and some communication screens. I’ll call her now and ask her about it.”

“FREDERIC, MAY I interrupt?”

Pendarvis turned from the reading-screen and started to lay aside his cigar and rise. Claudette, entering the room, motioned him to keep his seat and advanced to take the low cushion-stool, clasping her hands about her knees and tilting her head back in the same girlish pose he remembered from the long ago days on Baldur when he had been courting her.

“I want to tell you something lovely, Frederic,” she began. “Mr. Holloway just called me. He says he has two Fuzzies for me, a boy Fuzzy and a girl Fuzzy; he’s going to have them brought in tomorrow or the next day.”

“Well, that is lovely.” Claudette was crazy about Fuzzies. Had been ever since the first telecasts of them, and she had watched them in court and visited them at the Hotel Mallory during the trial. Now that he considered, he would like a pair of Fuzzies, too. “I think I’ll enjoy having them here as much as you will. I like Fuzzies, as long as they stay out of my courtroom.”

They both laughed, remembering what seventeen Fuzzies and a Baby Fuzzy had done to the dignity of the court while their sapience was being debated.

“I hope this won’t be regarded as special privilege though,” he added. “A great many people want Fuzzies, and…”

“But other people can have Fuzzies, too. That was what Mr. Holloway was calling me about. They’ll be made available for adoption, and he wants me to supervise it, to make sure they don’t get into wrong hands and aren’t mistreated.”

That was something else. They’d both have to think about that carefully.

“You think it would be proper for you to have an official position like that?” he asked.

“I can’t see why not. I’m doing the same kind of work with Juvenile Welfare.”

“You’ll be making decisions on who should and who should not be allowed to adopt Fuzzies. When I get a Native Cases Court set up — I think Yves Janiver, for that — your decisions will be accepted.”

“Whose decisions do you think Adolphe Ruiz’s Juvenile Court accepts now?”

“That’s right,” he agreed. And she couldn’t accept the Fuzzies and refuse to help with the adoption bureau; that wouldn’t be right, at all. And she wanted Fuzzies so badly. “Well, go ahead, darling; do it. Whoever takes that position will have to be somebody who really loves Fuzzies. What did you tell Mr. Holloway?”

“That I’d talk to you, and then call him back. He’s at Government House now.”

“Well, call him and tell him you accept. I’ll call Yves and talk to him about the Native Cases Court…”

She had left the low seat while he was speaking; she stopped to kiss him on the way out. She’d be so happy. He hoped he wouldn’t be too severely criticized. Well, he’d been criticized before and survived it.

VICTOR GREGO WATCHED Diamond investigating the articles on top of the low cocktail table. He took a couple of salted nuts from the glass bowl, nibbled one, and put the rest back. He looked at the half-full coffee cup and the liqueur glass, and left both alone. Then he started to pick up the ashtray.

“No, Diamond. Vov. Don’t touch.”

“Vov ninta, Diamond,” Ernst Mallin, who was a slightly more advanced Fuzzy linguist, said. “We ought to learn their language, instead of making them learn ours.”

“We ought to teach them our language, so they can speak to anybody, and not just Fuzzyologists.”

“I deplore that term, Mr. Grego. The suffix is Greek, from logos. Fuzzy is not a Greek word, and should not be combined with it.”

“Oh, rubbish, Ernst. We’re not speaking Greek; we’re speaking Lingua Terra. You know what Lingua Terra is? An indiscriminate mixture of English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Afrikaans, mostly English. And you know what English is? The result of the efforts of Norman men-at-arms to make dates with Saxon barmaids in the Ninth Century Pre-Atomic, and no more legitimate than any of the other results. If a little Greek suffix gets into a mess like that, it’ll have to take care of itself the best way it can. And you’d better learn to like the term, because it’s your new title. Chief Fuzzyologist; fifteen percent salary increase.”

Mallin gave one of his tight little smiles. “For that, I believe I can condone a linguistic barbarism.”

Diamond seemed, he couldn’t be sure, to be wanting to know why not touch; would it hurt?

“And how do you explain that he mustn’t spill ashes on the floor, in his own language? What are the Fuzzy words for ‘floor,’ and ‘ashes’?” He leaned forward and dropped the ash from his cigarette into the tray. “Ashtray,” he said.

Diamond repeated it as well as he could. Then he strolled over to where Mallin sat. Mallin regarded smoking as an act of infantile oralism; his ashtray was empty.

“Asht’ay?” he asked. “Diamond vov ninta?”

“You see. He knows that ashtray is a class-word, not just the name of a specific object,” Mallin said. “And I tried so hard to prove that Fuzzies couldn’t generalize. This one is empty; let’s see how we can explain the difference. If we give him the word ‘ashes,’ and then…”

A bell began ringing softly; Diamond turned quickly to see what it was. It was the bell for the private communication screen, and only half a dozen people knew the call-combination. He rose and put it on. Harry Steefer looked out of it.

“We found it, sir; ninth level down.” That was the one below the first reported thefts and ransackings. “The Fuzzies were penned in a small room that looks as though it had been intended for a general toilet and washroom. It’s right off a main hall, and somebody’s had an aircar in and out and set it down recently. I’d say half a dozen Fuzzies for two or three days.”

“Good. I want to see it. I want Diamond to see it, too. Send somebody who knows where it is up to my private stage with a car small enough to get into it.”

He blanked the screen and turned to Mallin. “You heard that. Well, let’s all three of us go down and look at it.”

Jack Holloway stopped at the head of the long escalator and looked down into the garden, now double-lighted by Darius, almost full, and Xerxes, past full and just rising. After a moment he saw Ben Rainsford reclining in a lawn-chair, with Flora and Fauna snuggled together on his lap. As he started toward them, after descending, he thought they were all asleep. Then one of the Fuzzies stirred and yeeked, and Rainsford turned his head.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Jack. Have you been here all evening?”

“Yes, all three of us,” Rainsford said. “I think it’s time for Fuzzies to go to bed, now.”

“Ben, we just had a screen call from Company House. They found where those Fuzzies had been kept, an empty room on one of the unfinished floors. They showed us with a portable pickup; dark, filthy place. The Company police are working on it for physical evidence to corroborate Diamond’s story. And they’ve put out a general want for those two Company rangers, Herckerd and Novaes; kidnapping and suspicion of enslavement.”

“Who called you? Steefer?”

“Grego. He says we can count on him for anything. He’s really sore about this.”

The Fuzzies had jumped to the ground and were trying to attract his attention. Ben shifted in his chair, and began stuffing tobacco into his pipe.

“Jack.” His voice was soft; he spoke hesitantly. “I’ve been talking to the kids, out here, till they got sleepy. They had a big time at Company House with Diamond. They say he’s lonesome for other Fuzzies. They’d like him to come here and visit them, and they’d like to go back and visit him again.”

“Well, a Fuzzy would get lonesome by himself. It didn’t take Little Fuzzy long to go and bring the rest of his family into my place.”

“And they say that outside that he’s happy. They told me about all the nice things he had, and the garden, and the room that was fixed up for him. They say everybody’s good to him, and Pappy Vic loves him. That’s what they call Grego; Pappy Vic, just like they call us Pappy Ben and Pappy Jack.” His lighter flared, showing a puzzled face above the pipe bowl. “I can’t understand it, Jack. I thought Grego would hate Fuzzies.”

“Why should he? The Fuzzies didn’t know anything about the Company’s charter; they don’t know a Class-IV planet from Nifflheim. He doesn’t even hate us; he’d have done the same thing in our place. Ben, he’s willing to call the war off; why can’t you?”

Rainsford puffed slowly, the smoke drifting and changing color in the double moonlight.

“Do you honestly believe that Fuzzy wants to stay with Grego?” he asked.

“It’d break Diamond’s heart if you took him away from Pappy Vic. Ben, why don’t you invite Diamond over to play with your two? You wouldn’t have to meet Grego; the girl he has helping with Diamond could bring him.”

“Maybe I will. You’re on speaking terms with Grego; why don’t you?”

“I will, tomorrow.” The Fuzzies hadn’t wanted to play; they’d just wanted to be noticed. He picked Flora up and gave her to Ben, then took Fauna in his own arms. “Let’s go put them to bed, and then go inside. We have a lot of things to do, in a hurry, and we need your authorization.”

“Well, what?”

“Ahmed’s staying here; he and Harry Steefer and Ian Ferguson and some others are having a conference tomorrow on this case and on general Fuzzy protection. And I’m setting up an Adoption Bureau; Judge Pendarvis’s wife’s agreed to take charge of that. We need laws, and till there’s some kind of a legislature, you have to do that by decree.”

“Well, all right. But there’s one thing, Jack. Just because Grego’s with us on this doesn’t mean I’m going to let him grab back control of this planet, the way he had it before the Pendarvis Decisions. It took the Fuzzies to break the Company’s monopoly; well, I’m going to see it stays broken.”