VII
Tuesday dawned hot and windless, a scarlet sun coming up in a hard, brassysky. 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 todayafter all. They had breakfast outside on the picnic table, and then Bendecided he'd go back to his camp and pick up a few things he hadn'tbrought and now decided he needed.
"My hunting rifle's one," he said, "and I think I'll circle down to theedge of the brush country and see if I can pick off a zebralope. We oughtto have some more fresh meat."
So, after eating, Rainsford got into his jeep and lifted away. Across therun, Kellogg and Mallin were walking back and forth in front of the camp,talking earnestly. When Ruth Ortheris and Gerd van Riebeek came out, theystopped, broke off their conversation and spoke briefly with them. ThenGerd and Ruth crossed the footbridge and came up the path together.
The Fuzzies had scattered, by this time, to hunt prawns. Little Fuzzy andKo-Ko and Goldilocks ran to meet them; Ruth picked Goldilocks up andcarried her, and Ko-Ko and Little Fuzzy ran on ahead. They greeted Jack,declining coffee; Ruth sat down in a chair with Goldilocks, Little Fuzzyjumped up on the table and began looking for goodies, and when Gerdstretched 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 sweetestthing. Of course, they're all pretty nice. I can't get over howaffectionate and trusting they are; the ones we saw out in the woods wereso timid."
"Well, the ones out in the woods don't have any Pappy Jack to look afterthem" 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 anotherprerequisite for sapience. It develops in some small, relativelydefenseless, animal surrounded by large and dangerous enemies he can'toutrun or outfight. So, to survive, he has to learn to outthink them. Likeour own remote ancestors, or like Little Fuzzy; he had his choice ofgetting sapient or getting exterminated."
Ruth seemed troubled. "Gerd, Dr. Mallin has found absolutely nothing aboutthem that indicates true sapience."
"Oh, Mallin be bloodied; he doesn't know what sapience is any more than Ido. And a good deal less than you do, I'd say. I think he's trying toprove 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 apsychologist; don't tell me you haven't seen it. Maybe if the Fuzzies wereproven 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. Butyou have to admit he's been fighting the idea, intellectually andemotionally, right from the start. Why, they could sit down with pencilsand slide rules and start working differential calculus and it wouldn'tconvince 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 cameto 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 smalldelighted sounds. Finally she held it up and said, "Yeek?"
"Yes, sweetie-pie, you can have it." Ruth took the chain from around herneck and put it over Goldilocks' head; she had to loop it three timesbefore 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 knowwhat 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 onlywear 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 waspiloting 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 upin a few minutes. After she had gotten into the jeep and it had liftedout, Gerd put Ko-Ko off his chest and sat up, getting cigarettes from hisshirt pocket.
"I don't know what the devil's gotten into her," he said, watching thejeep vanish. "Oh, yes, I do. She's gotten the Word from On High. Kellogghath 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, Ithought, 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 againstthe camera-binoculars on the left, and changed the subject abruptly."Jack, has Ben Rainsford sent a report on the Fuzzies to the Instituteyet?" 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 fromthe camp across the run and approaching.
He decided to let the breakfast dishes go till after lunch. Kurt Borch hadstayed behind at the Kellogg camp, so he kept an eye on the Fuzzies andbrought them back when they started to stray toward the footbridge. BenRainsford hadn't returned by lunchtime, but zebralope hunting took alittle time, even from the air. While he was eating, outside, one of therented airjeeps returned from the northeast in a hurry, disgorging ErnstMallin, Juan Jimenez and Ruth Ortheris. Kurt Borch came hurrying out; theytalked 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 Riebeekhastened into the living hut. There wasn't anything more to see. Hecarried the dishes into the kitchen and washed them, and the Fuzzies wentinto the bedroom for their nap.
He was sitting at the table in the living room when Gerd van Riebeekknocked 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 thathe could see the door from it, and laid the belt on the floor at his feetwhen he sat down. Then he began to curse Leonard Kellogg in four or fivelanguages.
"Well, I agree, in principle; why in particular, though?"
"You know what that son of a Khooghra's doing?" Gerd asked. "He andthat--" He used a couple of Sheshan words, viler than anything in LinguaTerra. "--that quack headshrinker, Mallin, are preparing a report,accusing you and Ben Rainsford of perpetrating a deliberate scientifichoax. You taught the Fuzzies some tricks; you and Rainsford, between you,made those artifacts yourselves and the two of you are conspiring to foistthe Fuzzies off as sapient beings. Jack, if it weren't so goddamn stinkingcontemptible, 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, wasboth appalling and physiologically impossible. He cursed again, and thenlit a cigarette and got hold of himself. "Here's what happened. Kelloggand I went up that stream, about twenty miles down Cold Creek, the oneyou've been working on, and up onto the high flat to a spring and a streamthat flows down in the opposite direction. Know where I mean? Well, wefound 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 theirpeople."
He should have expected something like that, and yet it startled him. "Youmean, 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 adead 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 withher."
"They bury their dead! What was Kellogg doing, while you were opening thegrave?"
"Dithering around having ants. I'd been taking snaps of the grave, and Iwas burbling away like an ass about how important this was and how it waspositive proof of sapience, and he was insisting that we get back to campat once. He called the other
jeep and told Mallin to get to campimmediately, and Mallin and Ruth and Juan were there when we got in. Assoon as Kellogg told them what we'd found, Mallin turned fish-belly whiteand wanted to know how we were going to suppress it. I asked him if he wasnuts, and then Kellogg came out with it. They don't dare let the Fuzziesbe proven sapient."
"Because the Company wants to sell Fuzzy furs?"
Van Riebeek looked at him in surprise. "I never thought of that. I doubtif they did, either. No. Because if the Fuzzies are sapient beings, theCompany'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 beenskating on the edge of it on more planets than you're years old. And Inever thought of that; why, of course it would. Where are you now, withthe Company, by the way?"
"Out, but I couldn't care less. I have enough in the bank for the tripback to Terra, not counting what I can raise on my boat and some otherthings. Xeno-naturalists don't need to worry about finding jobs. There'sBen's outfit, for instance. And, brother, when I get back to Terra, whatI'll spill about this deal!"
"If you get back. If you don't have an accident before you get on theship." He thought for a moment. "Know anything about geology?"
"Why, some; I have to work with fossils. I'm as much a paleontologist as azoologist. Why?"
"How'd you like to stay here with me and hunt fossil jellyfish for awhile? We won't make twice as much, together, as I'm making now, but youcan look one way while I'm looking the other, and we may both stay alivelonger 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 andshook 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'llneed a gun for, but--"
Van Riebeek buckled on his belt, then drew his pistol and worked the slideto 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 tocall the cops."
He punched out a combination on the communication screen. It lighted andopened a window into the constabulary post. The sergeant who looked out ofit recognized him and grinned.
"Hi, Jack. How's the family?" he asked. "I'm coming up, one of theseevenings, to see them."
"You can see some now." Ko-Ko and Goldilocks and Cinderella were comingout of the hall from the bedroom; he gathered them up and put them on thetable. The sergeant was fascinated. Then he must have noticed that bothJack and Gerd were wearing their guns in the house. His eyes narrowedslightly.
"You got problems, Jack?" he asked.
"Little ones; they may grow, though. I have some guests here who haveoutstayed their welcome. For the record, better make it that I havesquatters 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 thatgang 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 littlesquatter trouble. Yeah; that's it. He's ordering them off his grant, andhe 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 ifthey give you anything about being Company big wheels, we don't care whatkind of wheels they are, just so's they start rolling." He replaced thephone. "Look for them in about an hour, Jack."
"Why, thanks, Phil. Drop in some evening when you can hang up your gun andstay 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 gangcome 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 troublewith 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 morethan fair to let Kellogg in on this. What's his screen combination?"
Gerd supplied it, and he punched it out. One of those tricky specialCompany 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 wholegang of you have till eighteen hundred to get off my grant."
Borch was shoved aside, and Kellogg appeared. "What's this nonsense?" hedemanded angrily.
"You're ordered to move. You want to know why? I can let Gerd van Riebeektalk 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 sendinghis scows back for the stuff he brought here. Lieutenant Lunt will have acouple of troopers here, too. I'll expect you to have your personal thingsaboard your airboat when they arrive."
He blanked the screen while Kellogg was trying to tell him that it was alla 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 tosprinkle our new partnership. Then we can go outside and observe theenemy."
There was no observable enemy action when they went out and sat down onthe bench by the kitchen door. Kellogg would be screening Mike Hennen andthe constabulary post for verification, and there would be a lot ofgathering up and packing to do. Finally, Kurt Borch emerged with acontragravity lifter piled with boxes and luggage, and Jimenez walkingbeside to steady the load. Jimenez climbed up onto the airboat and Borchfloated the load up to him and then went back into the huts. This wasrepeated several times. In the meantime, Kellogg and Mallin seemed to behaving some sort of exchange of recriminations in front. Ruth Ortheriscame out, carrying a briefcase, and sat down on the edge of a table underthe awning.
Neither of them had been watching the Fuzzies, until they saw one of themstart down the path toward the footbridge, a glint of silver at the throatidentifying 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 parkedin front of the Kellogg camp. When he was across and within twenty feet ofthe vehicle, he heard a sound across and within twenty feet of thevehicle, he heard a sound he had never heard before--a shrill, thinshriek, 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. Goldilockswas on the ground, her fur reddened. Kellogg stood over her, one footraised. 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 waswithin reach of him, and something crunched under the fist he drove intoKellogg's face. Kellogg staggered and tried to raise his hands; he made astrangled noise, and for an instant the idiotic thought crossed Jack'smind that he was trying to say, "Now, please don't misunderstand me." Hecaught Kellogg's shirt front in his left hand, and punched him again inthe face, and again, and again. He didn't know how many times he punchedKellogg before he heard Ruth Ortheris' voice:
"Jack! Watch out! Behind you!"
He let go of Kellogg's shirt and jumped aside, turning and reaching forhis gun. Kurt Borch, twenty feet away, had a pistol drawn and pointed athim.
His first shot went off as soon as the
pistol was clear of the holster. Hefired the second while it was still recoiling; there was a spot of red onBorch's shirt that gave him an aiming point for the third. Borch droppedthe pistol he hadn't been able to fire, and started folding at the kneesand 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; getyour hands up. You, too, Kellogg."
Kellogg, who had fallen, pushed himself erect. Blood was gushing from hisnose, and he tried to stanch it on the sleeve of his jacket. As hestumbled toward his companions, he blundered into Ruth Ortheris, whopushed him angrily away from her. Then she went to the little crushedbody, dropping to her knees beside it and touching it. The silver charmbell on the neck chain jingled faintly. Ruth began to cry.
Juan Jimenez had climbed down from the airboat; he was looking at the bodyof 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 himup short.
"You'll stop the next one, Juan," he said. "Go help Dr. Kellogg; he gothimself hurt."
"Call the constabulary," Mallin was saying. "Ruth, you go; they won'tshoot at you."
"Don't bother. I called them. Remember?"
Jimenez had gotten a wad of handkerchief tissue out of his pocket and wastrying to stop his superior's nosebleed. Through it, Kellogg was trying totell 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 ofGoldilocks; 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 dowhen they want to attract your attention," she said. "She wanted him tolook at her new jingle." Her voice broke, and it was a moment before shecould 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 hisshin. 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 wasto show you her new jingle."
Jack was beginning to regret that he hadn't shot Kellogg as soon as he sawwhat was going on. The other Fuzzies had been trying to get Goldilocksonto her feet. When they realized that it was no use, they let the bodydown again and crouched in a circle around it, making soft, lamentingsounds.
"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 knoweverybody'll have to testify at the constabulary post under veridication?And you're drawing pay for being a psychologist, too." Then he saw some ofthe 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 lashedalong 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 toKellogg to Borch to the pistol beside Borch's body. "I get it. Last timeanybody 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, andif the Fuzzies start doing anything different, get it all. I don't thinkyou'll be disappointed."
Rainsford looked puzzled, but he holstered his pistol and went back to hisjeep, returning with a camera. Mallin began insisting that, as a licensedM.D., he had a right to treat Kellogg's injuries. Gerd van Riebeekfollowed him into the living hut for a first-aid kit. They were justemerging, van Riebeek's automatic in the small of Mallin's back, when aconstabulary car grounded beside Rainsford's airjeep. It wasn't Car Three.George Lunt jumped out, unsnapping the flap of his holster, while AhmedKhadra 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 beganvociferating.
"Is your name Jack too?" Lunt demanded.
"My name's Leonard Kellogg, and I'm a chief of division with theCompany--"
"Then keep quiet till I ask you something. Ahmed, call the post; getKnabber and Yorimitsu, with investigative equipment, and find out what'stying up Car Three."
Mallin had opened the first-aid kit by now; Gerd, on seeing theconstabulary, had holstered his pistol. Kellogg, still holding the soddentissues 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 tolisten to them," Lunt said. He glanced toward the body of Goldilocks."That happen first?"
"Watch out, Lieutenant! He still has his pistol!" Mallin shoutedwarningly.
They went over and sat down on the contragravity-field generator housingof one of the rented airjeeps. Jack started with Gerd van Riebeek's visitimmediately after noon.
"Yes, I thought of that angle myself," Lunt said disgustedly. "I didn'tthink of it till this morning, though, and I didn't think things wouldblow 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 Fuzzywhen 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 hisheater out when you turned around? Nothing to it, Jack. We'll have to havesome kind of a hearing, but it's just plain self-defense. Think any ofthis gang will tell the truth here, without taking them in and puttingthem 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 ishe on?" He nodded toward van Riebeek, standing guard over Kellogg andMallin, 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 tellthe same story over again. The area in front of the Kellogg camp wasgetting congested; he hoped Mike Hennen's labor gang would stay away for awhile. Lunt talked to van Riebeek when he had finished with Ruth, and thenwith Jimenez and Mallin and Kellogg. Then he and one of the men from CarThree came over to where Jack and Rainsford were standing. Gerd vanRiebeek joined them just as Lunt was saying:
"Jack, Kellogg's made a murder complaint against you. I told him it wasself-defense, but he wouldn't listen. So, according to the book, I have toarrest you."
"All right." He unbuckled his gun and handed it over. "Now, George, Iherewith make complaint and accusation against Leonard Kellogg, charginghim with the unlawful and unjustified killing of a sapient being, to wit,an aboriginal native of the planet of Zarathustra commonly known asGoldilocks."
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 ofsapience, not a being that has been declared sapient."
"Fuzzies are sapient beings," Rainsford said. "That's the opinion of aqualified xeno-naturalist."
"Two of them," Gerd van Riebeek said. "That is the body of a sapientbeing. There's the man who killed her. Go ahead, Lieutenant, make yourpinc
h."
"Hey! Wait a minute!"
The Fuzzies were rising, sliding their chopper-diggers under the body ofGoldilocks and lifting it on the steel shafts. Ben Rainsford was aiminghis camera as Cinderella picked up her sister's weapon and followed,carrying it; the others carried the body toward the far corner of theclearing, away from the camp. Rainsford kept just behind them, pausing tophotograph and then hurrying to keep up with them.
They set the body down. Mike and Mitzi and Cinderella began digging; theothers scattered to hunt for stones. Coming up behind them, George Lunttook off his beret and stood holding it in both hands; he bowed his headas the grass-wrapped body was placed in the little grave and covered.
Then, when the cairn was finished, he replaced it, drew his pistol andchecked the chamber.
"That does it, Jack," he said. "I am now going to arrest Leonard Kelloggfor the murder of a sapient being."
Little Fuzzy Page 7
