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.
With them was a tall girl with coppery hair, and a dark-faced
man whose smartly tailored jacket bulged slightly under the left
arm. The man was Ahmed Khadra, Detective-Captain, in charge of the
Native Protection Force, Investigation Division. The girl was
Sandra Glenn, Victor Grego’s Fuzzy-sitter. Grego was just
losing her to Khadra, if the sunstone on her left hand meant
anything.
His own Fuzzies had dashed down the escalator ahead of him; the
ones below ran forward to greet them. He managed to get through the
crowd to Ahmed and Sandra, and had a few words with them before all
the Fuzzies came pelting up, Diamond and Flora and Fauna and the
others tugging at his trouser-legs and wanting to be noticed, and
his own Fuzzies wanting Unka Ahmed and Auntie Sandra to notice
them. He squatted among them, petting them and saying hello. Baby
Fuzzy promptly climbed onto Ahmed Khadra’s shoulder. At least
they’d broken him of trying to sit on people’s heads,
which was something. Between talking to the Fuzzies, all of whom
wanted to be talked to, he managed to get a few more words with
Ahmed and Sandra, mostly about the Fuzzy Club she was going to
manage.
“It’s going to be just one big nonstop Fuzzy party
all the time,” she said. “I hope we don’t get too
tired of it.”
It was Victor Grego’s idea; he was putting up the money
and providing the lower floors and surrounding parkland of one of
the Company buildings. People who’d adopted Fuzzies
couldn’t be expected to give them their exclusive attention,
and Fuzzies living with human families would want to talk to and
play with other Fuzzies. The Fuzzy Club would be a place where they
could get together and be kept out of danger and/or mischief.
“When’s the grand opening? I’ll have to come
in for it.”
“Oh, not for a few weeks. After Ahmed and I are married.
We still have a lot of fixing up to do, and I want the girl
who’s taking my place with Diamond to get better acquainted
with him, and vice versa, before I leave her to cope with him
alone.”
“You need much coping with?” he asked Diamond,
rumpling his fur and then smoothing it again.
“Actually, no; he’s very good. The girl will have to
learn more about him, is all. He’s being a big help with the
Fuzzy Club; gives all sorts of advice, some of it
excellent.”
Diamond had been telling Little Fuzzy and the others about the
new Fuzzy Place. The five ex-jewel-thieves had gotten Baby Fuzzy
away from Khadra and were making a great to-do over him, to
Mamma’s proud pleasure. Ko-Ko and Cinderella and Mike and
Mitzi had wandered away somewhere with Pierrot and Columbine.
Little Fuzzy was tugging at him.
“Pappy Jack? Little Fuzzy go with Flora, Fauna?” he
asked.
“Sure. Run along and have fun. Pappy Jack go make talk
with other Big Ones.” He turned to Ahmed and Sandra.
“Don’t you folks want koktel-drinko?”
“We had,” Ahmed said. Sandra added, “We have
to see about dinner for Fuzzy-people pretty soon.”
He said he’d see them around, and strolled away, filling
his pipe, toward the crowd around the bartending robot. Diamond
accompanied him, mostly in short dashes ahead and waits for him to
catch up; what was the matter with Big Ones, anyhow, always poking
along? There was an approaching bedlam, and three Fuzzies burst
into sight, blowing horns. Behind them, in single file, came three
small wheelbarrows, a Fuzzy pushing and another riding in each,
with more Fuzzies dashing along behind.
“Look, Pappy Jack! Whee’barrow!” Diamond
called. “Pappy Ben give. Fun. Unka Ahmed, Auntie Sandra, they
have whee’barrow at new Fuzzy Place.”
The procession came to a disorderly halt a hundred yards beyond;
the Fuzzies pushing dropped the shafts and took the places of the
three who had been riding; three more picked up the wheelbarrows,
and the whole cavalcade dashed away again.
“Good little fellows,” somebody behind him said.
“Everybody takes his fair turn.”
The speaker was Associate-Justice Yves Janiver, with silver-gray
hair and a dramatically black mustache; he was now presiding judge
of Native Cases court. One of his companions was big and ruddy,
Clyde Garrick, head cashier of the Bank of Mallorysport. The other,
thin and elderly, with a fringe of white hair under a black beret,
was Henry Stenson, the instrument maker. Holloway greeted and shook
hands with them.
“Those were my three who just jumped off,” Stenson
said.
He’d gotten them on loan from the Adoption Bureau, to help
test the voice-transformer he and Grego had invented. Then the
Fuzzies had refused to go back, and he’d had to adopt them;
they’d adopted him already. Their names were Microvolt and
Roentgen and Angstrom. Damned names some people gave Fuzzies. He
asked how they were getting along.
“Oh, they’re having a wonderful time, Mr.
Holloway,” Stenson laughed. “I’ve fixed them up a
little workshop of their own, to keep them out of everybody’s
way in my shop. They want to help everybody do everything; I never
saw anybody as helpful as those Fuzzies. You know,” he added,
“they are a help, too. They have almost microscopic vision,
and they’re wonderfully clever with their hands.” From
Henry Stenson, that was high praise. “Well, they’re
small people; they live on a smaller scale than we do. If only they
didn’t lose interest so quickly. When they do, of course,
it’s no use expecting them to go on.”
“No, it isn’t fun anymore. Besides, they don’t
understand what you want them to do, or why.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” Stenson agreed.
“Explaining a micromass detector or a radiation counter to a
Fuzzy . . . ” He thought for a moment. “I think I’ll
start them on jewelry work. They like pretty things, and
they’d make wonderful jewelers.”
That was an idea. Maybe, about a year from now, an exhibition of
Fuzzy arts and handcrafts. Talk that over with Gerd and Ruth; talk
it over with Little Fuzzy and Dr. Crippen, too.
A dozen Fuzzies rushed past—the five Company Police Fuzzies and
Mamma Fuzzy with Baby running beside her, and some others he felt
he ought to know but didn’t. They were all swirling around a
big red-and-gold ball, rolling it rapidly on the grass. Diamond
took off after them.
“Why don’t you teach them some real ball games,
Jack?” Clyde Garrick asked. He was a sports enthusiast.
“Football, now; a Fuzzy football game would be something to
watch.” A Fuzzy directly in front of the rolling ball leaped
over it, coming down among those who were pushing it.
“Basketball; did you see the jump that one made? I wish I
could get a team of human kids who could jump like that
together.”
Holloway shook his head. “Some of the marines out at
Hoksu-Mitto tried to teach them soccer,” he said.
“Didn’t work, at all. They couldn’t see the sense
of the rules, and they couldn’t understand why all of them
couldn’t play on both teams. If a Fuzzy sees somebody trying
to do something, all he wants to do is help.”
That shocked Garrick. He didn’t think people who lacked
competitive spirit were people at all. Stenson nodded.
“What I was saying. They want to help everybody. You could
interest them in the sort of sports in which one really competes
with oneself. If you teach a Fuzzy something new, he isn’t
satisfied till he can do it again better.”
“Rifle shooting,” Garrick grudged. He didn’t
consider shooting a sport at all. Not an athletic sport, at any
rate. “I know shooters who claim they get just as much fun
shooting alone as in a match.”
“I don’t know about that. A Fuzzy would need an
awfully light rifle and awfully light loads. Mind, they only weigh
fifteen or twenty pounds. A .22 light enough for a Fuzzy to handle
would kick him as hard as my 12.7 express kicks me. But
archery’d be all right. We’ve been teaching them to
make bows and arrows and shoot them. You’d be surprised; most
of them can pull a twenty-pound bow, and for them that’s
heavier than a hundred-pound bow for a man.”
“Huh!” Garrick looked at the swirl of golden bodies
around the bright-colored ball. Anybody who weighed so little and
could pull a twenty-pound bow deserved respect, team spirit or no
team spirit. “Tell you what, Jack. I’ll put up cups for
regional archery matches and for a world’s championship
match, and we can start having matches and organizing teams. Say,
in a year, we could hold a match for the world’s
title.”
What a Fuzzy would do with a trophy cup now!
“But what I’d really like to see,” Garrick
continued, “would be a real live Fuzzy football league.
Don’t you think you could get some interest stirred
up?”
No, and a damned good thing. Start Fuzzy football, and the
gamblers would be onto it like a Fuzzy after a land-prawn. And from
what he knew about Fuzzies, any Fuzzy could be fixed to throw a
game for half a cake of Extee-Three; and everybody on both teams
would help, just to do what some Big One wanted. No, no Fuzzy
football.
While he had been talking he had been edging and nudging the
others toward the bartending robot. Yves Janiver, whose glass was
empty, was aiding and abetting. As soon as they were close enough,
he and the Native Court judge stepped in to get drinks. He was
being supplied with his when he was greeted by Claudette Pendarvis,
who asked if he had just arrived.
“Practically. I saw your two; they’re off somewhere
with some of mine,” he said. “Is the judge here
yet?”
No; he wasn’t. She asked Janiver if he knew where the
Chief Justice was. In conference, in chambers—he and Gus Brannhard
and some other lawyers. Pendarvis and Brannhard would be arriving a
little later. Mrs. Pendarvis wanted to know if he was going to
visit Adoption Bureau while he was in town.
“Yes, surely, Mrs. Pendarvis. Tomorrow morning be all
right?”
Tomorrow morning would be fine. He asked her how things were
going. Adoptions, she said, had fallen off somewhat; that was what
he’d been expecting.
“But the hospital wants some more Fuzzies, to entertain
the patients. They have some now; they want more. And Dr. Mallin
says they are a wonderful influence on some of the mental
patients.”
“Well, we can use some more at school,” a woman who
had just come up said—Mrs. Hawkwood, principal of the kindergarten
and primary schools. “We have a couple already, in the
preliterate classes. Do you know, the Fuzzies are actually teaching
the human children?”
Age-group four to six; yes, he could believe that.
“Why just preliterates, Mrs. Hawkwood?” he asked.
“Put some of them into the c-a-t, spells cat class and see
how fast they pick it up. Bet they do better than the human six
year olds.”
“You mean, try to teach Fuzzies to read?”
The idea had never occurred to him before; it seemed like a good
one. Evidently it hadn’t occurred to Mrs. Hawkwood, either,
and now that it was presented to her, he could almost watch her
thoughts chase one another across her face. Teach Fuzzies to read?
Ridiculous; only people could read. But Fuzzies were people; there
was scientific authority for that. But they were Fuzzies; that was
different. But then . . .
At that point, Ben Rainsford came up, apologetic for not having
greeted him earlier and asking if his family had come in with him.
While he was talking to Ben, Holloway saw Chief Justice Pendarvis
and Gus Brannhard approach. The Chief Justice got a glass of wine
for himself and a cocktail for his wife; they stepped aside
together. Brannhard, big and bearded and giving the impression, in
spite of his meticulous courtroom black, of being in hunting
clothes, secured a tumbler of straight whiskey. Victor Grego and
Leslie Coombes came up and spoke. Then somebody pulled Rainsford
aside to talk to him.
That was the trouble with these cocktail parties. You met
everybody and never had a chance to talk to anybody. It was getting
almost that bad at cocktail time out at Hoksu-Mitto now. Out of the
corner of his eye, Holloway saw Mrs. Hawkwood fasten upon Ernst
Mallin. Mallin was a real authority on Fuzzy psychology; if he told
her Fuzzies could be taught to read, she’d have to believe
it. He wanted to talk to Ernst himself about that, and about a lot
of other things, but not in this donnybrook.
The wheelbarrow parade came by, more slowly and less noisily,
and a little later the crowd that had been chasing the big ball
came pushing it along, Baby Fuzzy jumping onto it and tumbling off
it. Dinnertime for Fuzzies—putting back all the playthings where
they belonged. He was in favor of using Fuzzies in schools for
human children; maybe they’d have a civilizing influence.
After a while, the Fuzzies came stringing back, mostly talking
about food.
Dinnertime for Big Ones, too. It took longer to get them
mobilized than it had the Fuzzies, and then, of course, they had to
stop on the upper terrace where Sandra Glenn and Ahmed Khadra and
some of the Government House staff had set up a Fuzzy-type
smorgasbord on a big revolving table. The Fuzzies all thought that
was fun. So did the human-people watching them. Eventually, they
all got into the dining room. There weren’t enough ladies to
pair off the guests, male and female after their kind like the
passengers on the Ark. They placed Jack Holloway between Ben
Rainsford and Leslie Coombes, with Victor Grego and Gus Brannhard
on the other side.
By the time the robo-service in the middle of the table had
taken away the dessert dishes and brought in coffee and liqueurs,
Fuzzies were beginning to filter in. They’d finished their
own dinner long ago; it was getting dark outside, and they wanted
to be where the Big Ones were. Couldn’t blame them; it was
their party, wasn’t it? They came in diffidently, like
well-brought up children, looking but not touching anything, saying
hello to people.
Diamond came over to Grego, who picked him up and set him on the
edge of the table. Rainsford pushed back his chair, and Flora and
Fauna climbed onto his lap. Gus Brannhard had four or five trying
to clamber over him. Little Fuzzy wanted up on the table, too, and
promptly unzipped his pouch, got out his little pipe, and lighted
it. Several came to Leslie Coombes, begging, “Unka
Less’ee, plis give smokko?” and Coombes lit cigarettes
for them. Coombes liked Fuzzies, and treated them with the same
grave courtesy he showed his human friends, but he didn’t
want them climbing over him, and they knew it.
“Ben, let’s get these agreements signed,”
Grego said. “Then we can give the kids some
attention.”
“Where’ll we sign them, in your office?” he
asked Rainsford.
“No, sign them right here at the table where everybody can
watch. That’s what the party’s about, isn’t
it?” Rainsford said.
They cleared a space in front of the Governor-General, putting
Fuzzies on the floor or handing them to people farther down on
either side. The scrolls, three copies of each agreement, were
brought; Rainsford had one of his secretaries read them aloud. The
first was the general agreement, by which the Colonial Government
agreed to lease, for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, all
unseated public lands to the Charterless Zarathustra Company, Ltd.,
of Zarathustra, excepting the area on Beta Continent set aside as a
Fuzzy Reservation, in return for which the said Charterless
Zarathustra Company, Ltd., agreed to carry on all the nonprofit
public services previously performed by the Chartered Zarathustra
Company, and, in addition, to conduct researches and studies for
the benefit of the race known as Fuzzy sapiens zarathustra at
Science Center. Except for the northern part of Beta Continent, the
new Company was getting back, as lessees, everything it had lost as
owner by the Pendarvis Decisions.
Rainsford and Grego signed it, with Gus Brannhard and Leslie
Coombes as cosigners, with a few witnesses chosen at random from
around the table. Then the Yellowsand Canyon agreement was read; as
Commissioner of Native Affairs, Holloway had an interest in that.
The Company leased, also for nine hundred ninety-nine years, a
tract fifty miles square around the head of Yellowsand Canyon, with
rights to mine, quarry, erect buildings, and remove from the tract
sunstones and other materials. The Government agreed to lease other
tracts to the Company, subject to the consent of the Native
Commission, and to lease land on the Fuzzy Reservation to nobody
else without consent of the Company. The Company agreed to pay
royalties on all sunstones removed, at the rate of four hundred
fifty sols per carat, said moneys to be held in trust for the
Fuzzies as a race by the Colonial Government and invested with the
Banking Cartel, the interest accruing to the Government as an
administration fee. Well, that put the Government in the black, and
made the Fuzzies rich, and gave the Charterless Zarathustra Company
more than the Chartered Zarathustra Company had lost. Everybody
ought to be happy.
Rainsford and Grego, and Gus and Leslie Coombes signed it, so
did Jack Holloway, as Commissioner of Native Affairs. They picked
half a dozen more witnesses who also signed.
“What’s the matter with having a few Fuzzies sign it
too?” Grego asked, indicating the crowd that had climbed to
the table on both sides to watch what the Big Ones were doing.
“It’s their Reservation, and it’s their
sunstones.”
“Oh, Victor,” Coombes protested. “They
can’t sign this. They’re incompetent aborigines, and
legally minor children. And besides, they can’t write. At
least, not yet.”
“They can fingerprint after their names, the way any other
illiterates do,” Gus Brannhard said. “And they can sign
as additional witnesses; neither as aborigines nor as minor
children are they debarred from testifying to things of their own
experience or observation. I’m going to send Leo Thaxter and
the Evinses and Phil Novaes out to be shot on Fuzzy
testimony.”
“Chief Justice Pendarvis, give us a guidance-opinion on
that,” Coombes said. “I’d like some Fuzzies to
sign it, but not if it would impair the agreement.”
“Oh, it would not do that, Mr. Coombes,” Pendarvis
said. “Not in my opinion, anyhow. Mr. Justice Janiver,
what’s your opinion?”
“Well, as witnesses, certainly,” Janiver agreed.
“The Fuzzies are here present and the signing takes place
within their observation; they can certainly testify to
that.”
“I think,” Pendarvis said, “that the Fuzzies
ought to be informed of the purpose of this signing,
though.”
“Mr. Brannhard, you want to try that?” Coombes
asked. “Can you explain the theory of land tenure, mineral
rights, and contractual obligation in terms comprehensible to a
Fuzzy?”
“Jack, you try it; you know more about Fuzzies than I
do,” Brannhard said.
“Well, I can try.” He turned to Diamond and Little
Fuzzy and Mamma Fuzzy and a few others closest to him.
“Big Ones make name-marks on paper,” he said.
“This means, Big Ones go into woods-place Fuzzies come
from—dig holes, get stones, make trade with other Big Ones. Then
get nice things, give to Fuzzies. Make name-marks on paper for
Fuzzies, Fuzzies make finger-marks.”
“Why make finga’p’int?” Little Fuzzy
asked. “Get idee-disko?” He fingered the silver disc at
his throat.
“No; just make finga’p’int. Then, somebody ask
Fuzzies, Fuzzies say, yes, saw Big Ones make name-marks.”
“But why?” Diamond wanted to know. “Big Ones
give Fuzzies nice things now.”
“This is playtime for Big Ones,” Flora said.
“Pappy Ben make play like this all the time, make name-mark
on paper.”
“That’s right,” Brannhard said. “This is
how Big Ones make play. Much fun; Big Ones call it Law. Now, you
watch what Unka Gus do.”
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.
With them was a tall girl with coppery hair, and a dark-faced
man whose smartly tailored jacket bulged slightly under the left
arm. The man was Ahmed Khadra, Detective-Captain, in charge of the
Native Protection Force, Investigation Division. The girl was
Sandra Glenn, Victor Grego’s Fuzzy-sitter. Grego was just
losing her to Khadra, if the sunstone on her left hand meant
anything.
His own Fuzzies had dashed down the escalator ahead of him; the
ones below ran forward to greet them. He managed to get through the
crowd to Ahmed and Sandra, and had a few words with them before all
the Fuzzies came pelting up, Diamond and Flora and Fauna and the
others tugging at his trouser-legs and wanting to be noticed, and
his own Fuzzies wanting Unka Ahmed and Auntie Sandra to notice
them. He squatted among them, petting them and saying hello. Baby
Fuzzy promptly climbed onto Ahmed Khadra’s shoulder. At least
they’d broken him of trying to sit on people’s heads,
which was something. Between talking to the Fuzzies, all of whom
wanted to be talked to, he managed to get a few more words with
Ahmed and Sandra, mostly about the Fuzzy Club she was going to
manage.
“It’s going to be just one big nonstop Fuzzy party
all the time,” she said. “I hope we don’t get too
tired of it.”
It was Victor Grego’s idea; he was putting up the money
and providing the lower floors and surrounding parkland of one of
the Company buildings. People who’d adopted Fuzzies
couldn’t be expected to give them their exclusive attention,
and Fuzzies living with human families would want to talk to and
play with other Fuzzies. The Fuzzy Club would be a place where they
could get together and be kept out of danger and/or mischief.
“When’s the grand opening? I’ll have to come
in for it.”
“Oh, not for a few weeks. After Ahmed and I are married.
We still have a lot of fixing up to do, and I want the girl
who’s taking my place with Diamond to get better acquainted
with him, and vice versa, before I leave her to cope with him
alone.”
“You need much coping with?” he asked Diamond,
rumpling his fur and then smoothing it again.
“Actually, no; he’s very good. The girl will have to
learn more about him, is all. He’s being a big help with the
Fuzzy Club; gives all sorts of advice, some of it
excellent.”
Diamond had been telling Little Fuzzy and the others about the
new Fuzzy Place. The five ex-jewel-thieves had gotten Baby Fuzzy
away from Khadra and were making a great to-do over him, to
Mamma’s proud pleasure. Ko-Ko and Cinderella and Mike and
Mitzi had wandered away somewhere with Pierrot and Columbine.
Little Fuzzy was tugging at him.
“Pappy Jack? Little Fuzzy go with Flora, Fauna?” he
asked.
“Sure. Run along and have fun. Pappy Jack go make talk
with other Big Ones.” He turned to Ahmed and Sandra.
“Don’t you folks want koktel-drinko?”
“We had,” Ahmed said. Sandra added, “We have
to see about dinner for Fuzzy-people pretty soon.”
He said he’d see them around, and strolled away, filling
his pipe, toward the crowd around the bartending robot. Diamond
accompanied him, mostly in short dashes ahead and waits for him to
catch up; what was the matter with Big Ones, anyhow, always poking
along? There was an approaching bedlam, and three Fuzzies burst
into sight, blowing horns. Behind them, in single file, came three
small wheelbarrows, a Fuzzy pushing and another riding in each,
with more Fuzzies dashing along behind.
“Look, Pappy Jack! Whee’barrow!” Diamond
called. “Pappy Ben give. Fun. Unka Ahmed, Auntie Sandra, they
have whee’barrow at new Fuzzy Place.”
The procession came to a disorderly halt a hundred yards beyond;
the Fuzzies pushing dropped the shafts and took the places of the
three who had been riding; three more picked up the wheelbarrows,
and the whole cavalcade dashed away again.
“Good little fellows,” somebody behind him said.
“Everybody takes his fair turn.”
The speaker was Associate-Justice Yves Janiver, with silver-gray
hair and a dramatically black mustache; he was now presiding judge
of Native Cases court. One of his companions was big and ruddy,
Clyde Garrick, head cashier of the Bank of Mallorysport. The other,
thin and elderly, with a fringe of white hair under a black beret,
was Henry Stenson, the instrument maker. Holloway greeted and shook
hands with them.
“Those were my three who just jumped off,” Stenson
said.
He’d gotten them on loan from the Adoption Bureau, to help
test the voice-transformer he and Grego had invented. Then the
Fuzzies had refused to go back, and he’d had to adopt them;
they’d adopted him already. Their names were Microvolt and
Roentgen and Angstrom. Damned names some people gave Fuzzies. He
asked how they were getting along.
“Oh, they’re having a wonderful time, Mr.
Holloway,” Stenson laughed. “I’ve fixed them up a
little workshop of their own, to keep them out of everybody’s
way in my shop. They want to help everybody do everything; I never
saw anybody as helpful as those Fuzzies. You know,” he added,
“they are a help, too. They have almost microscopic vision,
and they’re wonderfully clever with their hands.” From
Henry Stenson, that was high praise. “Well, they’re
small people; they live on a smaller scale than we do. If only they
didn’t lose interest so quickly. When they do, of course,
it’s no use expecting them to go on.”
“No, it isn’t fun anymore. Besides, they don’t
understand what you want them to do, or why.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” Stenson agreed.
“Explaining a micromass detector or a radiation counter to a
Fuzzy . . . ” He thought for a moment. “I think I’ll
start them on jewelry work. They like pretty things, and
they’d make wonderful jewelers.”
That was an idea. Maybe, about a year from now, an exhibition of
Fuzzy arts and handcrafts. Talk that over with Gerd and Ruth; talk
it over with Little Fuzzy and Dr. Crippen, too.
A dozen Fuzzies rushed past—the five Company Police Fuzzies and
Mamma Fuzzy with Baby running beside her, and some others he felt
he ought to know but didn’t. They were all swirling around a
big red-and-gold ball, rolling it rapidly on the grass. Diamond
took off after them.
“Why don’t you teach them some real ball games,
Jack?” Clyde Garrick asked. He was a sports enthusiast.
“Football, now; a Fuzzy football game would be something to
watch.” A Fuzzy directly in front of the rolling ball leaped
over it, coming down among those who were pushing it.
“Basketball; did you see the jump that one made? I wish I
could get a team of human kids who could jump like that
together.”
Holloway shook his head. “Some of the marines out at
Hoksu-Mitto tried to teach them soccer,” he said.
“Didn’t work, at all. They couldn’t see the sense
of the rules, and they couldn’t understand why all of them
couldn’t play on both teams. If a Fuzzy sees somebody trying
to do something, all he wants to do is help.”
That shocked Garrick. He didn’t think people who lacked
competitive spirit were people at all. Stenson nodded.
“What I was saying. They want to help everybody. You could
interest them in the sort of sports in which one really competes
with oneself. If you teach a Fuzzy something new, he isn’t
satisfied till he can do it again better.”
“Rifle shooting,” Garrick grudged. He didn’t
consider shooting a sport at all. Not an athletic sport, at any
rate. “I know shooters who claim they get just as much fun
shooting alone as in a match.”
“I don’t know about that. A Fuzzy would need an
awfully light rifle and awfully light loads. Mind, they only weigh
fifteen or twenty pounds. A .22 light enough for a Fuzzy to handle
would kick him as hard as my 12.7 express kicks me. But
archery’d be all right. We’ve been teaching them to
make bows and arrows and shoot them. You’d be surprised; most
of them can pull a twenty-pound bow, and for them that’s
heavier than a hundred-pound bow for a man.”
“Huh!” Garrick looked at the swirl of golden bodies
around the bright-colored ball. Anybody who weighed so little and
could pull a twenty-pound bow deserved respect, team spirit or no
team spirit. “Tell you what, Jack. I’ll put up cups for
regional archery matches and for a world’s championship
match, and we can start having matches and organizing teams. Say,
in a year, we could hold a match for the world’s
title.”
What a Fuzzy would do with a trophy cup now!
“But what I’d really like to see,” Garrick
continued, “would be a real live Fuzzy football league.
Don’t you think you could get some interest stirred
up?”
No, and a damned good thing. Start Fuzzy football, and the
gamblers would be onto it like a Fuzzy after a land-prawn. And from
what he knew about Fuzzies, any Fuzzy could be fixed to throw a
game for half a cake of Extee-Three; and everybody on both teams
would help, just to do what some Big One wanted. No, no Fuzzy
football.
While he had been talking he had been edging and nudging the
others toward the bartending robot. Yves Janiver, whose glass was
empty, was aiding and abetting. As soon as they were close enough,
he and the Native Court judge stepped in to get drinks. He was
being supplied with his when he was greeted by Claudette Pendarvis,
who asked if he had just arrived.
“Practically. I saw your two; they’re off somewhere
with some of mine,” he said. “Is the judge here
yet?”
No; he wasn’t. She asked Janiver if he knew where the
Chief Justice was. In conference, in chambers—he and Gus Brannhard
and some other lawyers. Pendarvis and Brannhard would be arriving a
little later. Mrs. Pendarvis wanted to know if he was going to
visit Adoption Bureau while he was in town.
“Yes, surely, Mrs. Pendarvis. Tomorrow morning be all
right?”
Tomorrow morning would be fine. He asked her how things were
going. Adoptions, she said, had fallen off somewhat; that was what
he’d been expecting.
“But the hospital wants some more Fuzzies, to entertain
the patients. They have some now; they want more. And Dr. Mallin
says they are a wonderful influence on some of the mental
patients.”
“Well, we can use some more at school,” a woman who
had just come up said—Mrs. Hawkwood, principal of the kindergarten
and primary schools. “We have a couple already, in the
preliterate classes. Do you know, the Fuzzies are actually teaching
the human children?”
Age-group four to six; yes, he could believe that.
“Why just preliterates, Mrs. Hawkwood?” he asked.
“Put some of them into the c-a-t, spells cat class and see
how fast they pick it up. Bet they do better than the human six
year olds.”
“You mean, try to teach Fuzzies to read?”
The idea had never occurred to him before; it seemed like a good
one. Evidently it hadn’t occurred to Mrs. Hawkwood, either,
and now that it was presented to her, he could almost watch her
thoughts chase one another across her face. Teach Fuzzies to read?
Ridiculous; only people could read. But Fuzzies were people; there
was scientific authority for that. But they were Fuzzies; that was
different. But then . . .
At that point, Ben Rainsford came up, apologetic for not having
greeted him earlier and asking if his family had come in with him.
While he was talking to Ben, Holloway saw Chief Justice Pendarvis
and Gus Brannhard approach. The Chief Justice got a glass of wine
for himself and a cocktail for his wife; they stepped aside
together. Brannhard, big and bearded and giving the impression, in
spite of his meticulous courtroom black, of being in hunting
clothes, secured a tumbler of straight whiskey. Victor Grego and
Leslie Coombes came up and spoke. Then somebody pulled Rainsford
aside to talk to him.
That was the trouble with these cocktail parties. You met
everybody and never had a chance to talk to anybody. It was getting
almost that bad at cocktail time out at Hoksu-Mitto now. Out of the
corner of his eye, Holloway saw Mrs. Hawkwood fasten upon Ernst
Mallin. Mallin was a real authority on Fuzzy psychology; if he told
her Fuzzies could be taught to read, she’d have to believe
it. He wanted to talk to Ernst himself about that, and about a lot
of other things, but not in this donnybrook.
The wheelbarrow parade came by, more slowly and less noisily,
and a little later the crowd that had been chasing the big ball
came pushing it along, Baby Fuzzy jumping onto it and tumbling off
it. Dinnertime for Fuzzies—putting back all the playthings where
they belonged. He was in favor of using Fuzzies in schools for
human children; maybe they’d have a civilizing influence.
After a while, the Fuzzies came stringing back, mostly talking
about food.
Dinnertime for Big Ones, too. It took longer to get them
mobilized than it had the Fuzzies, and then, of course, they had to
stop on the upper terrace where Sandra Glenn and Ahmed Khadra and
some of the Government House staff had set up a Fuzzy-type
smorgasbord on a big revolving table. The Fuzzies all thought that
was fun. So did the human-people watching them. Eventually, they
all got into the dining room. There weren’t enough ladies to
pair off the guests, male and female after their kind like the
passengers on the Ark. They placed Jack Holloway between Ben
Rainsford and Leslie Coombes, with Victor Grego and Gus Brannhard
on the other side.
By the time the robo-service in the middle of the table had
taken away the dessert dishes and brought in coffee and liqueurs,
Fuzzies were beginning to filter in. They’d finished their
own dinner long ago; it was getting dark outside, and they wanted
to be where the Big Ones were. Couldn’t blame them; it was
their party, wasn’t it? They came in diffidently, like
well-brought up children, looking but not touching anything, saying
hello to people.
Diamond came over to Grego, who picked him up and set him on the
edge of the table. Rainsford pushed back his chair, and Flora and
Fauna climbed onto his lap. Gus Brannhard had four or five trying
to clamber over him. Little Fuzzy wanted up on the table, too, and
promptly unzipped his pouch, got out his little pipe, and lighted
it. Several came to Leslie Coombes, begging, “Unka
Less’ee, plis give smokko?” and Coombes lit cigarettes
for them. Coombes liked Fuzzies, and treated them with the same
grave courtesy he showed his human friends, but he didn’t
want them climbing over him, and they knew it.
“Ben, let’s get these agreements signed,”
Grego said. “Then we can give the kids some
attention.”
“Where’ll we sign them, in your office?” he
asked Rainsford.
“No, sign them right here at the table where everybody can
watch. That’s what the party’s about, isn’t
it?” Rainsford said.
They cleared a space in front of the Governor-General, putting
Fuzzies on the floor or handing them to people farther down on
either side. The scrolls, three copies of each agreement, were
brought; Rainsford had one of his secretaries read them aloud. The
first was the general agreement, by which the Colonial Government
agreed to lease, for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, all
unseated public lands to the Charterless Zarathustra Company, Ltd.,
of Zarathustra, excepting the area on Beta Continent set aside as a
Fuzzy Reservation, in return for which the said Charterless
Zarathustra Company, Ltd., agreed to carry on all the nonprofit
public services previously performed by the Chartered Zarathustra
Company, and, in addition, to conduct researches and studies for
the benefit of the race known as Fuzzy sapiens zarathustra at
Science Center. Except for the northern part of Beta Continent, the
new Company was getting back, as lessees, everything it had lost as
owner by the Pendarvis Decisions.
Rainsford and Grego signed it, with Gus Brannhard and Leslie
Coombes as cosigners, with a few witnesses chosen at random from
around the table. Then the Yellowsand Canyon agreement was read; as
Commissioner of Native Affairs, Holloway had an interest in that.
The Company leased, also for nine hundred ninety-nine years, a
tract fifty miles square around the head of Yellowsand Canyon, with
rights to mine, quarry, erect buildings, and remove from the tract
sunstones and other materials. The Government agreed to lease other
tracts to the Company, subject to the consent of the Native
Commission, and to lease land on the Fuzzy Reservation to nobody
else without consent of the Company. The Company agreed to pay
royalties on all sunstones removed, at the rate of four hundred
fifty sols per carat, said moneys to be held in trust for the
Fuzzies as a race by the Colonial Government and invested with the
Banking Cartel, the interest accruing to the Government as an
administration fee. Well, that put the Government in the black, and
made the Fuzzies rich, and gave the Charterless Zarathustra Company
more than the Chartered Zarathustra Company had lost. Everybody
ought to be happy.
Rainsford and Grego, and Gus and Leslie Coombes signed it, so
did Jack Holloway, as Commissioner of Native Affairs. They picked
half a dozen more witnesses who also signed.
“What’s the matter with having a few Fuzzies sign it
too?” Grego asked, indicating the crowd that had climbed to
the table on both sides to watch what the Big Ones were doing.
“It’s their Reservation, and it’s their
sunstones.”
“Oh, Victor,” Coombes protested. “They
can’t sign this. They’re incompetent aborigines, and
legally minor children. And besides, they can’t write. At
least, not yet.”
“They can fingerprint after their names, the way any other
illiterates do,” Gus Brannhard said. “And they can sign
as additional witnesses; neither as aborigines nor as minor
children are they debarred from testifying to things of their own
experience or observation. I’m going to send Leo Thaxter and
the Evinses and Phil Novaes out to be shot on Fuzzy
testimony.”
“Chief Justice Pendarvis, give us a guidance-opinion on
that,” Coombes said. “I’d like some Fuzzies to
sign it, but not if it would impair the agreement.”
“Oh, it would not do that, Mr. Coombes,” Pendarvis
said. “Not in my opinion, anyhow. Mr. Justice Janiver,
what’s your opinion?”
“Well, as witnesses, certainly,” Janiver agreed.
“The Fuzzies are here present and the signing takes place
within their observation; they can certainly testify to
that.”
“I think,” Pendarvis said, “that the Fuzzies
ought to be informed of the purpose of this signing,
though.”
“Mr. Brannhard, you want to try that?” Coombes
asked. “Can you explain the theory of land tenure, mineral
rights, and contractual obligation in terms comprehensible to a
Fuzzy?”
“Jack, you try it; you know more about Fuzzies than I
do,” Brannhard said.
“Well, I can try.” He turned to Diamond and Little
Fuzzy and Mamma Fuzzy and a few others closest to him.
“Big Ones make name-marks on paper,” he said.
“This means, Big Ones go into woods-place Fuzzies come
from—dig holes, get stones, make trade with other Big Ones. Then
get nice things, give to Fuzzies. Make name-marks on paper for
Fuzzies, Fuzzies make finger-marks.”
“Why make finga’p’int?” Little Fuzzy
asked. “Get idee-disko?” He fingered the silver disc at
his throat.
“No; just make finga’p’int. Then, somebody ask
Fuzzies, Fuzzies say, yes, saw Big Ones make name-marks.”
“But why?” Diamond wanted to know. “Big Ones
give Fuzzies nice things now.”
“This is playtime for Big Ones,” Flora said.
“Pappy Ben make play like this all the time, make name-mark
on paper.”
“That’s right,” Brannhard said. “This is
how Big Ones make play. Much fun; Big Ones call it Law. Now, you
watch what Unka Gus do.”