The four looked at one another. He lit a fresh cigarette from the end of the old one, dropping the butt on the floor and tramping it.
“Twenty years is a hell of a long time,” Thaxter said. “You’re dead a damn sight longer, though. Yes, if you can make a deal, go ahead.”
“What makes you think you can?” Conrad Evins demanded. “You say they’re sure of conviction on the sunstone charges. Why would they take a plea on them and drop the Fuzzy charges? That’s what they really want to convict us on.”
“Want to, yes. But I don’t believe they can, and I think Gus Brannhard doesn’t, either. Enslavement is the reduction of a sapient being to the status of chattel property; purchase or sale of a sapient being so chattelized; and/or compulsory labor or service under restraint. Well, we’ll claim those Fuzzies weren’t slaves but willing accomplices.”
“That’s not the way the Fuzzies tell it,” Rose Evins said indifferently.
“In court, the Fuzzies won’t tell it any way at all,” he told them. “In court, the Fuzzies will not be permitted to testify. Take my word for it; they just won’t.”
“Well, that’s good news,” Thaxter grunted skeptically. “If true. How about the faginy charge?”
Ingermann puffed on his cigarette and blew smoke at the overhead light, then sat down on the edge of the table. “Faginy,” he began, “consists of training minor children to perform criminal and/or immoral acts; and/or compelling minor children to perform such acts; and/or deriving gain or profit from performance of such acts by minor children. According to the Pendarvis Decisions, Fuzzies are legally equivalent to human children of under twelve years of age, so according to the Pendarvis Decisions, what you did when you trained those Fuzzies to crawl through ventilation ducts and remove simulated sunstones from cabinets in a mock-up of the Company gem-vault was faginy; and so was taking them to Company House and having them crawl in and get out the real sunstones; and, according to law, the penalty is death by shooting, mandatory and without discretion of the court.
“Well, I’m attacking this legal fiction that a mature adult Fuzzy is a minor child. No one in this Government-Company axis wants to have to defend the Fuzzies’ minor-child status in court. That’s why they’ll take your pleas on the sunstone charges and drop the Fuzzy charges. As you remarked, Leo, twenty years is a long time, but you’re dead a lot longer.”
An incredulous, almost hopeful, look came into Rose Evins’s eyes, and was instantly extinguished. She wasn’t going to abandon the peace of resignation for the torments of hope.
“Well, yes,” she said softly. “Plead us guilty on those other charges. It won’t make any difference.”
Her husband also agreed, taking his cue from her; Novaes took his from both, simply nodding. Thaxter’s mouth curved down more at the corners, and his lower lip jutted out farther.
“It better not,” he said. “Ingermann, if you plead us guilty on the sunstone charges and then get us shot for faginy or enslavement—”
“Shut up!” Ingermann barked. He was frightened; he knew what Thaxter was going to say next. “You damned fool, didn’t I tell you they have this room bugged?”
CHAPTER FIVE
WISE ONE WOKE in the dawn chill; Little She and Big She and Lame One and Fruitfinder were cuddled against him, warmed by his body heat as he was by theirs. Lame One, waking, stirred. It was still dark under the thornbushes, but there was a faint grayness above; the sun was stirring awake in its sleeping-place, too, and would soon come out to make light and warmth. The others, Stonebreaker and Stabber and Other She, were also waking. This had been a good sleeping-place, safe and cozy. It would be nice to lie here for a long time, but soon they would have to relieve themselves, and that would mean digging holes. And he was hungry. He said so, and the others agreed.
Little She said: “Don’t leave pretty bright-things. Take along.”
They would take them, and, as usual, Little She would carry them. Lately the others had begun calling her Carries-Bright-Things. But they all wanted to keep them. They were pretty and strange, and they never tired of looking at them and talking about them and playing with them. Once, they lost one of the bigger ones, and they had gone back and hunted for it from before sunhighest time until a long while after before they found it. After that, they had broken off three sticks and wedged one into the open end of each bright-thing, so that they would be easier to carry and harder to lose.
The daylight grew stronger; birds twittered happily. They found soft ground and dug their holes. They always did that — bury the bad smells, even if they went away at once. Then they went to the little stream and drank and splashed in it, and then waded across and started, line-abreast, to hunt. The sky grew bright blue, flecked with golden clouds. He wondered again about the sleeping-place of the sun, and why the sun always went into it from one part of the sky and came out from another. The People had argued about that for as long as he could remember, but nobody really knew why.
They found a tree with round fruit on it. When best, this kind of fruit was pure white. Now it was spotted with brown and was not so good, but they were hungry. They threw sticks to knock it down, and ate. They found and ate lizards and grubs. Then they found a zatku.
Zatku were hard-shelled things, as long as an arm, with many legs, a hand and one finger of legs on each side, and four jointed arms ending in sharp jaws. Zatku could hurt with these; it had been a zatku that had hurt Lame One’s leg. Stonebreaker poked this one with the sharp end of his killing-club, and it grasped it with all four jaw-arms. Immediately, Other She stamped the knob of her club down on its head and, to make sure, struck again. Then they all stood back while Wise One broke and tore away the shell and pulled off one of the jaw-arms to dig out the meat. They all trusted him to see that everybody got a share. There was enough that everybody could have a second small morsel.
They hunted for a long time, and found another zatku. This was good; it had been a long time since they had found two zatku in one day. They hunted outward after they had eaten the second one, until almost sunhighest time, but they did not find any more.
They found other things to eat, however. They found the soft pink growing-things, like hands with many fingers; they were good. They killed one of the fat little animals with brown fur that ran from one of them and was clubbed by another. And Stonebreaker threw his club and knocked down a low-flying bird; everyone praised him for that. As they hunted they had been climbing the slope of a hill. By the time they reached the top, everybody had found enough to eat.
The hilltop was a nice place. There were a few trees and low bushes and stretches of open grass, and from it they could see a long way. Far to sun-upward, a big river wound glinting through the trees, and there were mountains all around. It was good to lie in the soft grass, warmed by the sun, the wind ruffling their fur and tickling pleasantly.
There was a gotza circling in the sky, but it was too far away to see them. They sat and watched it; once it made a short turn, one wing high, then dived down out of sight.
“Gotza see something,” Stonebreaker said. “Go down, eat.”
“Hope not People,” Big She said.
“Not many People this place,” he said. “Long time not see other People.”
It had been many-many days ago, far to the sun’s right hand, that they had last talked to other People, a band of two males and three females. They had talked a long time and made sleeping place together, and the next day they had parted to hunt. They had not seen those People again. Now they talked about them.
“We see again, we show bright-things,” Lame One said. “Nobody ever see bright-things before.”
The gotza rose again, and they could hear its wing-sounds now. It began soaring in wide circles, coming closer.
“Not eat long,” Stabber commented. “Something little. Still hungry.”
Maybe they had better leave this place now and go down where the trees were thicker. Wise One was about to speak of that, and then he heard the shrill, n
ot unpleasant, sound they had heard at the spring after the thunder-death had killed those three gotza. He recognized it at once; so did the others.
“Get under bushes,” he commanded. “Lie still.”
There was a tiny speck in the sky, far to the sun’s left hand; it grew larger very rapidly, and the sound grew louder. He noticed that the sound was following behind it, and wondered why that was. Then they were all under the bushes, lying very still.
It was an odd thing to be flying. It had no wings. It was flattish, rounded in front and pointed behind, like the seed of a melon-fruit, and it glistened brightly. But there were no flying Big Ones carrying it; it was flying of itself.
It flew straight at the gotza, passing almost directly over them. The gotza turned and tried desperately to escape, but the flying thing closed rapidly upon it. Then there was a sound, not the sharp crack of the thunder-death, but a ripping sound. It could be many thunder-death sounds close together. It lasted two heartbeats, and then the gotza came apart in the air, pieces flying away and falling. The strange flying thing went on for a little, turning slowly and coming back.
“Good thing, kill gotza,” Stabber said. “Maybe see us, kill gotza so gotza not kill us. Maybe friend.”
“Maybe kill gotza for fun,” Big She said. “Maybe kill us next, for fun.”
It was coming straight toward them now, lower and more slowly than when it had chased the gotza. Carries-Bright-Things and Fruitfinder wanted to run; Wise One screamed at them to lie still. One did not run from things like this. Still, he wanted to run himself, and it took all his will to force himself to lie motionless.
The front of the flying thing was open. At least, he could see into it, though there was a queer shine there. Then he gasped in amazement. Inside the flying thing were two big People. Not People like him, but People of some kind. They had People faces, with both eyes in front, and not one on each side like animal faces. They had People hands, but their shoulders were covered with something strange that was not fur.
So these were the flying Big Ones. They had no wings; when they wanted to fly, they got into the melon-seed-shaped thing, and it flew for them, and when it came down on the ground, they got out and walked about. Now he knew what the great heavy thing that had broken bushes and crushed stones under it had been. It might be some live-thing that did what the Big Ones wanted it to, or it might be some kind of a made-thing. He would have to think more about that. But the Big Ones were just big People.
The flying thing passed over them and was going away; the shrill wavering sound grew fainter, and it vanished. The Big Ones in it had seen them, and they had not let loose the thunder-death. Maybe the Big Ones knew that they were People too. People did not kill other People for fun. People made friends with other People, and helped them.
He rose to his feet. The others, rising with him, were still frightened. So was he, but he must not let them know it. Wise One should not be afraid. Stabber was less afraid than any of the rest; he was saying:
“Big Ones see us, not kill. Kill gotza. Big Ones good.”
“You not know,” Big She disputed. “Nobody ever know about Big Ones flying before.”
“Big Ones kill gotza to help us,” he said. “Big Ones make friends.”
“Big Ones make thunder-death, make us all dead like gotza,” Stonebreaker insisted. “Maybe Big Ones come back. We go now, far-far, then they not find us.”
They were all crying out now, except Stabber. Big She and Stonebreaker were loudest and most vehement. They did not know about the Big Ones; nobody had ever told of Big Ones; nobody knew anything about them. They were to be feared more than gotza. There was no use arguing with them now. He looked about, over the country visible from the hilltop. The big moving-water to sun-upward was too wide to cross; he had seen it. There were small moving-waters flowing into it, but they could follow to where the water was little enough to cross over. He pointed toward the sun’s left hand with his club.
“We go that way,” he said. “Maybe find zatku.”
THROUGH THE ARMOR-GLASS front of the aircar, Gerd van Riebeek saw the hilltop tilt away and the cloud-dappled sky swing dizzily. He lifted his thumb from the button-switch of the camera and reached for his cigarettes on the ledge in front of him.
“Make another pass at them, Doc?” the ZNPF trooper at the controls asked.
He shook his head.
“Uh-uh. We scared Nifflheim out of them as it is; don’t let’s overdo it.” He lit a cigarette. “Suppose we swing over to the river and circle around along both sides of it. We might see some more Fuzzies.”
He wasn’t optimistic about that. There weren’t many Fuzzies north of the Divide. Not enough land-prawns. No zatku, no hokfusine; no hokfusine, no viable births. It was a genetic miracle there were any at all up here. And even if the woods were full of them, with their ultrasonic hearing they’d hear the vibrations of an aircar’s contragravity field and be under cover before they could be spotted.
“We might see another harpy.” Trooper Art Pamaby had been a veldbeest herder on Delta Continent before he’d joined the Protection Force; he didn’t have to be taught not to like harpies. “Man, you took that one apart nice!”
Harpies were getting scarce up here. Getting scarce all over Beta. They’d vanished from the skies of the cattle country to the south, and the Company had chased them out or shot them up in the Big Blackwater, and now the ZNPF was working on them in the reservation. As a naturalist, he supposed that he ought to deplore the extinction of any species, but he couldn’t think of a better species to become extinct than Pseudopterodactyl harpy zarathustra. They probably had their place in the overall ecological picture — everything did. Scavengers, maybe, though they preferred live meat. Elimination of weak and sickly individuals of other species — though any veldbeest herder like Art Parnaby would tell you that no harpy would bother a sick cow if he could land on a plump and healthy calf.
“I wonder if that’s the same gang you and Jack saw the time you found the sunstones,” Pamaby was saying.
“Could be. There were eight in that gang; I’m sure there were that many in this one. That was a couple of hundred miles north of here, but it was three weeks ago.”
The car swung lower; it was down to a couple of hundred feet when they passed over the Yellowsand River, which was broad and sluggish here, with sandbars and sandy beaches. He saw a few bits of brush with half-withered leaves, stuff carried down from where Grego and his gang had been digging a week ago at the canyon. Tributary streams flowed in from both sides, some large enough to be formidable barriers to Fuzzies. Fuzzies could swim well enough, and he’d seen them crossing streams clinging to bits of driftwood; but they didn’t like to swim, and didn’t when it wasn’t necessary. Usually, they’d follow a stream up to where it was small enough to wade across.
They saw quite a few animals. Slim, deer-like things with three horns; there were a dozen species of them, but everybody called all of them, indiscriminately, zarabuck. Fuzzies called them all takku. Once he saw a big three-horned damnthing, hesh-nazza in Fuzzy language; he got a few feet of it on film before it saw the car and bolted. Now, there was a poor mixed-up critter; originally a herbivore, it had acquired a taste for meat but couldn’t get enough to support the huge bulk of its body, and had to supplement its diet with browse. The whole zoological picture on this planet was crazy. That was why he liked Zarathustra.
They came to where Lake-Chain River joined Yellowsand. At its mouth, it was larger than the stream it fed, and it came in from almost due south, while the Yellowsand, which rose in the Divide, curved in from the east. Beyond this, there weren’t any sandbars. The current was more rapid, and the water foamed whitely around bare rocks. The wall of the Divide began looming on the horizon. Finally they could see the cleft of the canyon. There was a circling dot in the sky ahead, but it wasn’t a harpy. It was one of the CZC air-survey cars, photomapping and measuring with radar, and scanning. He looked at his watch. Almost 1700, getting on to co
cktail time. He wondered how many Fuzzies Lieutenant Bjornsen had seen on his sweep south of the Divide, and how many harpies he’d shot.
CHAPTER SIX
THE FUZZIES HAD been excited all the way from Hoksu-Mitto; Pappy Jack was taking them on a trip to Big House Place. By the time Mallorysport came up on the horizon, tall buildings towering out of green interspaces, they were all shrieking in delight, some even forgetting to “make talk in back of mouth,” like Big Ones. They came in over the city at five thousand feet, the car slanting downward, and Little Fuzzy recognized Company House at once.
“Look! Diamond Place! Pappy Jack, we go there, see Diamond, Pappy Vic?”
“No, we go Pappy Ben Place,” he told them. “Pappy Vic, Diamond, come there. Have big party; everybody come. Pappy Ben, Flora, Fauna, Pappy Vic, Diamond…” The Fuzzies all added more names of friends they would see. “And look.” He pointed to Central Courts Building, on the right. “You know that place?”
They did; that was Big-Room Talk-Place. They’d had a lot of fun there, turning a court trial into a three-ring circus. He still had to laugh when he remembered that. The aircar circled in toward Government House. Unlike the other important buildings of Mallorysport, it sprawled instead of towering, terraced on top, with gardens spread around it. On the north lower lawn a crowd of Fuzzies and others were gathered in the loose concentration of an outdoor cocktail party. Then the car was landing and the Fuzzies were all trying to get out as soon as it was off contragravity.
There was a group at the foot of the north escalator. Most of them were small people with golden fur — Ben Rainsford’s Flora and Fauna, Victor Grego’s Diamond, Judge and Mrs. Pendarvis’s Pierrot and Columbine, and five Fuzzies whose names were Allan Pinkerton and Arsene Lupin and Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler and Mata Hari. They were members of the Company Police Detective Bureau, and they were all reformed criminals. At least, they had been apprehended while trying to clean out the gem vault at Company House and had turned people’s evidence on the gang who had trained them to be burglars.
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