The Third Science Fiction Megapack

by E. C. Tubb

  He got up, with Mamma and Baby, and crossed to where Leslie Coombes was sitting. By this time, somebody was bringing in a coffee urn from the cafeteria. Fuzzies ought to happen oftener in court.

  The gavel tapped slowly. Little Fuzzy scrambled up onto Jack Holloway’s lap. After five days in court, they had all learned that the gavel meant for Fuzzies and other people to be quiet. It might be a good idea, Jack thought, to make a little gavel, when he got home, and keep it on the table in the living room for when the family got too boisterous. Baby, who wasn’t gavel-trained yet, started out onto the floor; Mamma dashed after him and brought him back under the table.

  The place looked like a courtroom again. The tables were ranged in a neat row facing the bench, and the witness chair and the jury box were back where they belonged. The ashtrays and the coffee urn and the ice tubs for beer and soft drinks had vanished. It looked like the party was over. He was almost regretful; it had been fun. Especially for seventeen Fuzzies and a Baby Fuzzy and a little black-and-white kitten.

  There was one unusual feature; there was now a fourth man on the bench, in gold-braided Navy black; sitting a little apart from the judges, trying to look as though he weren’t there at all—Space Commodore Alex Napier.

  Judge Pendarvis laid down his gavel. “Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to present the opinions you have reached?” he asked.

  Lieutenant Ybarra, the Navy psychologist, rose. There was a reading screen in front of him; he snapped it on.

  “Your Honors,” he began, “there still exists considerable difference of opinion on matters of detail but we are in agreement on all major points. This is quite a lengthy report, and it has already been incorporated into the permanent record. Have I the court’s permission to summarize it?”

  The court told him he had. Ybarra glanced down at the screen in front of him and continued:

  “It is our opinion,” he said, “that sapience may be defined as differing from nonsapience in that it is characterized by conscious thought, by ability to think in logical sequence and by ability to think in terms other than mere sense data. We—meaning every member of every sapient race—think consciously, and we know what we are thinking. This is not to say that all our mental activity is conscious. The science of psychology is based, to a large extent, upon our realization that only a small portion of our mental activity occurs above the level of consciousness, and for centuries we have been diagraming the mind as an iceberg, one-tenth exposed and nine-tenths submerged. The art of psychiatry consists largely in bringing into consciousness some of the content of this submerged nine-tenths, and as a practitioner I can testify to its difficulty and uncertainty.

  “We are so habituated to conscious thought that when we reach some conclusion by any nonconscious process, we speak of it as a ‘hunch,’ or an ‘intuition,’ and question its validity. We are so habituated to acting upon consciously formed decisions that we must laboriously acquire, by systematic drill, those automatic responses upon which we depend for survival in combat or other emergencies. And we are by nature so unaware of this vast submerged mental area that it was not until the first century Pre-Atomic that its existence was more than vaguely suspected, and its nature is still the subject of acrimonious professional disputes.”

  There had been a few of those, off and on, during the past four days, too.

  “If we depict sapient mentation as an iceberg, we might depict nonsapient mentation as the sunlight reflected from its surface. This is a considerably less exact analogy; while the nonsapient mind deals, consciously, with nothing but present sense data, there is a considerable absorption and re-emission of subconscious memories. Also, there are occasional flashes of what must be conscious mental activity, in dealing with some novel situation. Dr. van Riebeek, who is especially interested in the evolutionary aspect of the question, suggests that the introduction of novelty because of drastic environmental changes may have forced nonsapient beings into more or less sustained conscious thinking and so initiated mental habits which, in time, gave rise to true sapience.

  “The sapient mind not only thinks consciously by habit, but it thinks in connected sequence. It associates one thing with another. It reasons logically, and forms conclusions, and uses those conclusions as premises from which to arrive at further conclusions. It groups associations together, and generalizes. Here we pass completely beyond any comparison with nonsapience. This is not merely more consciousness, or more thinking; it is thinking of a radically different kind. The nonsapient mind deals exclusively with crude sensory material. The sapient mind translates sense impressions into ideas, and then forms ideas of ideas, in ascending orders of abstraction, almost without limit.

  “This, finally, brings us to one of the recognized overt manifestations of sapience. The sapient being is a symbol user. The nonsapient being cannot symbolize, because the nonsapient mind is incapable of concepts beyond mere sense images.”

  Ybarra drank some water, and twisted the dial of his reading screen with the other hand.

  “The sapient being,” he continued, “can do one other thing. It is a combination of the three abilities already enumerated, but combining them creates something much greater than the mere sum of the parts. The sapient being can imagine. He can conceive of something which has no existence whatever in the sense-available world of reality, and then he can work and plan toward making it a part of reality. He can not only imagine, but he can also create.”

  He paused for a moment. “This is our definition of sapience. When we encounter any being whose mentation includes these characteristics, we may know him for a sapient brother. It is the considered opinion of all of us that the beings called Fuzzies are such beings.”

  Jack hugged the small sapient one on his lap, and Little Fuzzy looked up and murmured, “He-inta?”

  “You’re in, kid,” he whispered. “You just joined the people.”

  Ybarra was saying, “They think consciously and continuously. We know that by instrumental analysis of their electroencephalographic patterns, which compare closely to those of an intelligent human child of ten. They think in connected sequence; I invite consideration of all the different logical steps involved in the invention, designing and making of their prawn-killing weapons, and in the development of tools with which to make them. We have abundant evidence of their ability to think beyond present sense data, to associate, to generalize, to abstract and to symbolize.

  “And above all, they can imagine, not only a new implement, but a new way of life. We see this in the first human contact with the race which, I submit, should be designated as Fuzzy sapiens. Little Fuzzy found a strange and wonderful place in the forest, a place unlike anything he had ever seen, in which lived a powerful being. He imagined himself living in this place, enjoying the friendship and protection of this mysterious being. So he slipped inside, made friends with Jack Holloway and lived with him. And then he imagined his family sharing this precious comfort and companionship with him, and he went and found them and brought them back with him. Like so many other sapient beings, Little Fuzzy had a beautiful dream; like a fortunate few, he made it real.”

  The Chief Justice allowed the applause to run on for a few minutes before using his gavel to silence it. There was a brief colloquy among the three judges, and then the Chief Justice rapped again. Little Fuzzy looked perplexed. Everybody had been quiet after he did it the first time, hadn’t they?

  “It is the unanimous decision of the court to accept the report already entered into the record and just summarized by Lieutenant Ybarra, TFN, and to thank him and all who have been associated with him.

  “It is now the ruling of this court that the species known as Fuzzy fuzzy holloway zarathustra is in fact a race of sapient beings, entitled to the respect of all other sapient beings and to the full protection of the law of the Terran Federation.” He rapped again, slowly, pounding the decision into the legal framework.

  Space Commodore Napier leaned over and whispered; all three of the jud
ges nodded emphatically. The naval officer rose.

  “Lieutenant Ybarra, on behalf of the Service and of the Federation, I thank you and those associated with you for a lucid and excellent report, the culmination of work which reflects credit upon all who participated in it. I also wish to state that a suggestion made to me by Lieutenant Ybarra regarding possible instrumental detection of sapient mentation is being credited to him in my own report, with the recommendation that it be given important priority by the Bureau of Research and Development. Perhaps the next time we find people who speak beyond the range of human audition, who have fur and live in a mild climate, and who like their food raw, we’ll know what they are from the beginning.”

  Bet Ybarra gets another stripe, and a good job out of this. Jack hoped so. Then Pendarvis was pounding again.

  “I had almost forgotten; this is a criminal trial,” he confessed. “It is the verdict of this court that the defendant, Jack Holloway, is not guilty as here charged. He is herewith discharged from custody. If he or his attorney will step up here, the bail bond will be refunded.” He puzzled Little Fuzzy by hammering again with his gavel to adjourn court.

  This time, instead of keeping quiet, everybody made all the noise they could, and Uncle Gus was holding him high over his head and shouting:

  “The winnah! By unanimous decision!”

  XVII

  Ruth Ortheris sipped at the tart, cold cocktail. It was good; oh, it was good, all good! The music was soft, the lights were dim, the tables were far apart; just she and Gerd, and nobody was paying any attention to them. And she was clear out of the business, too. An agent who testified in court always was expended in service like a fired round. They’d want her back, a year from now, to testify when the board of inquiry came out from Terra, but she wouldn’t be Lieutenant j.g. Ortheris then, she’d be Mrs. Gerd van Riebeek. She set down the glass and rubbed the sunstone on her finger. It was a lovely sunstone, and it meant such a lovely thing.

  And we’re getting married with a ready-made family, too. Four Fuzzies and a black-and-white kitten.

  “You’re sure you really want to go to Beta?” Gerd asked. “When Napier gets this new government organized, it’ll be taking over Science Center. We could both get our old jobs back. Maybe something better.”

  “You don’t want to go back?” He shook his head. “Neither do I. I want to go to Beta and be a sunstone digger’s wife.”

  “And a Fuzzyologist.”

  “And a Fuzzyologist. I couldn’t drop that now. Gerd, we’re only beginning with them. We know next to nothing about their psychology.”

  He nodded seriously. “You know, they may turn out to be even wiser than we are.”

  She laughed. “Oh, Gerd! Let’s don’t get too excited about them. Why, they’re like little children. All they think about is having fun.”

  “That’s right. I said they were wiser than we are. They stick to important things.” He smoked silently for a moment. “It’s not just their psychology; we don’t know anything much about their physiology, or biology either.” He picked up his glass and drank. “Here; we had eighteen of them in all. Seventeen adults and one little one. Now what kind of ratio is that? And the ones we saw in the woods ran about the same. In all, we sighted about a hundred and fifty adults and only ten children.”

  “Maybe last year’s crop have grown up,” she began.

  “You know any other sapient races with a one-year maturation period?” he asked. “I’ll bet they take ten or fifteen years to mature. Jack’s Baby Fuzzy hasn’t gained a pound in the last month. And another puzzle; this craving for Extee Three. That’s not a natural food; except for the cereal bulk matter, it’s purely synthetic. I was talking to Ybarra; he was wondering if there mightn’t be something in it that caused an addiction.”

  “Maybe it satisfies some kind of dietary deficiency.”

  “Well, we’ll find out.” He inverted the jug over his glass. “Think we could stand another cocktail before dinner?”

  Space Commodore Napier sat at the desk that had been Nick Emmert’s and looked at the little man with the red whiskers and the rumpled suit, who was looking back at him in consternation.

  “Good Lord, Commodore; you can’t be serious?”

  “But I am. Quite serious, Dr. Rainsford.”

  “Then you’re nuts!” Rainsford exploded. “I’m no more qualified to be Governor General than I’d be to command Xerxes Base. Why, I never held an administrative position in my life.”

  “That might be a recommendation. You’re replacing a veteran administrator.”

  “And I have a job. The Institute of Zeno-Sciences—”

  “I think they’ll be glad to give you leave, under the circumstances. Doctor, you’re the logical man for this job. You’re an ecologist; you know how disastrous the effects of upsetting the balance of nature can be. The Zarathustra Company took care of this planet, when it was their property, but now nine-tenths of it is public domain, and people will be coming in from all over the Federation, scrambling to get rich overnight. You’ll know how to control things.”

  “Yes, as Commissioner of Conservation, or something I’m qualified for.”

  “As Governor General. Your job will be to make policy. You can appoint the administrators.”

  “Well, who, for instance?”

  “Well, you’re going to need an Attorney General right away. Who will you appoint for that position?”

  “Gus Brannhard,” Rainsford said instantly.

  “Good. And who—this question is purely rhetorical—will you appoint as Commissioner of Native Affairs?”

  Jack Holloway was going back to Beta Continent on the constabulary airboat. Official passenger: Mr. Commissioner Jack Holloway. And his staff: Little Fuzzy, Mamma Fuzzy, Baby Fuzzy, Mike, Mitzi, Ko-Ko and Cinderella. Bet they didn’t know they had official positions!

  Somehow he wished he didn’t have one himself.

  “Want a good job, George?” he asked Lunt.

  “I have a good job.”

  “This’ll be a better one. Rank of major, eighteen thousand a year. Commandant, Native Protection Force. And you won’t lose seniority in the constabulary; Colonel Ferguson’ll give you indefinite leave.”

  “Well, cripes, Jack, I’d like to, but I don’t want to leave the kids. And I can’t take them away from the rest of the gang.”

  “Bring the rest of the gang along. I’m authorized to borrow twenty men from the constabulary as a training cadre, and you only have sixteen. Your sergeants’ll get commissions, and all your men will be sergeants. I’m going to have a force of a hundred and fifty for a start.”

  “You must think the Fuzzies are going to need a lot of protection.”

  “They will. The whole country between the Cordilleras and the West Coast Range will be Fuzzy Reservation and that’ll have to be policed. Then the Fuzzies outside that will have to be protected. You know what’s going to happen. Everybody wants Fuzzies; why, even Judge Pendarvis approached me about getting a pair for his wife. There’ll be gangs hunting them to sell, using stun-bombs and sleepgas and everything. I’m going to have to set up an adoption bureau; Ruth will be in charge of that. And that’ll mean a lot of investigators—”

  Oh, it was going to be one hell of a job! Fifty thousand a year would be chicken feed to what he’d lose by not working his diggings. But somebody would have to do it, and the Fuzzies were his responsibility.

  Hadn’t he gone to law to prove their sapience?

  They were going home, home to the Wonderful Place. They had seen many wonderful places, since the night they had been put in the bags: the place where everything had been light and they had been able to jump so high and land so gently, and the place where they had met all the others of their people and had so much fun. But now they were going back to the old Wonderful Place in the woods, where it had all started.

  And they had met so many Big Ones, too. Some Big Ones were bad, but only a few; most Big Ones were good. Even the one who had done the
killing had felt sorry for what he had done; they were all sure of that. And the other Big Ones had taken him away, and they had never seen him again.

  He had talked about that with the others—with Flora and Fauna, and Dr. Crippen, and Complex, and Superego, and Dillinger and Lizzie Borden. Now that they were all going to live with the Big Ones, they would have to use those funny names. Someday they would find out what they meant, and that would be fun, too. And they could; now the Big Ones could put things in their ears and hear what they were saying, and Pappy Jack was learning some of their words, and teaching them some of his.

  And soon all the people would find Big Ones to live with, who would take care of them and have fun with them and love them, and give them the Wonderful Food. And with the Big Ones taking care of them, maybe more of their babies would live and not die so soon. And they would pay the Big Ones back. First they would give their love and make them happy. Later, when they learned how, they would give their help, too.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  JOHN GREGORY BETANCOURT is the author of more than 40 books, including 4 well received Star Trek novels, Johnny Zed, Rememory, The Blind Archer, and four prequels to Roger Zelazny’s “Amber” series.

  J. F. BONE (1916-2006) was an American science fiction author. His works include The Lani People (1962), Legacy (1976), The Meddlers (1976), and Confederation Matador (1978).

  SYDNEY J. BOUNDS (November 4, 1920 – November 24, 2006) was an English author. He wrote as Sydney J. Bounds and S. J. Bounds, as well as under the pen names Clifford Wallace, James Marshall, Earl Ellison and Rex Marlowe. He wrote over forty novels and hundreds of short stories, many published under pseudonyms or anonymously. He was best known for his science fiction, but also wrote horror, Westerns, mysteries and juveniles.