The recorded voice ceased; for a moment the record player hummed
voicelessly. Loud in the silence, a photocell acted with a double click,
opening one segment of the sun shielding and closing another at the
opposite side of the dome. Space Commodore Alex Napier glanced up from his
desk and out at the harshly angular landscape of Xerxes and the blackness
of airless space beyond the disquietingly close horizon. Then he picked up
his pipe and knocked the heel out into the ashtray. Nobody said anything.
He began packing tobacco into the bowl.
"Well, gentlemen?" He invited comment.
"Pancho?" Captain Conrad Greibenfeld, the Exec., turned to Lieutenant
Ybarra, the chief psychologist.
"How reliable is this stuff?" Ybarra asked.
"Well, I knew Jack Holloway thirty years ago, on Fenris, when I was just
an ensign. He must be past seventy now," he parenthesized. "If he says he
saw anything, I'll believe it. And Bennett Rainsford's absolutely
reliable, of course."
"How about the agent?" Ybarra insisted.
He and Stephen Aelborg, the Intelligence officer, exchanged glances. He
nodded, and Aelborg said:
"One of the best. One of our own, lieutenant j.g., Naval Reserve. You
don't need to worry about credibility, Pancho."
"They sound sapient to me," Ybarra said. "You know, this is something I've
always been half hoping and half afraid would happen."
"You mean an excuse to intervene in that mess down there?" Greibenfeld
asked.
Ybarra looked blankly at him for a moment. "No. No, I meant a case of
borderline sapience; something our sacred talk-and-build-a-fire rule won't
cover. Just how did this come to our attention, Stephen?"
"Well, it was transmitted to us from Contact Center in Mallorysport late
Friday night. There seem to be a number of copies of this tape around; our
agent got hold of one of them and transmitted it to Contact Center, and it
was relayed on to us, with the agent's comments," Aelborg said. "Contact
Center ordered a routine surveillance inside Company House and, to play
safe, at the Residency. At the time, there seemed no reason to give the
thing any beat-to-quarters-and-man-guns treatment, but we got a report on
Saturday afternoon--Mallorysport time, that is--that Leonard Kellogg had
played off the copy of the tape that Juan Jimenez had made for file, and
had alerted Victor Grego immediately.
"Of course, Grego saw the implications at once. He sent Kellogg and the
chief Company psychologist, Ernst Mallin, out to Beta Continent with
orders to brand Rainsford's and Holloway's claims as a deliberate hoax.
Then the Company intends to encourage the trapping of Fuzzies for their
fur, in hopes that the whole species will be exterminated before anybody
can get out from Terra to check on Rainsford's story."
"I hadn't heard that last detail before."
"Well, we can prove it," Aelborg assured him.
It sounded like a Victor Grego idea. He lit his pipe slowly. Damnit, he
didn't want to have to intervene. No Space Navy C.O. did. Justifying
intervention on a Colonial planet was too much bother--always a board of
inquiry, often a courtmartial. And supersession of civil authority was
completely against Service Doctrine. Of course, there were other and more
important tenets of Service Doctrine. The sovereignty of the Terran
Federation for one, and the inviolability of the Federation Constitution.
And the rights of extraterrestrials, too. Conrad Greibenfeld, too, seemed
to have been thinking about that.
"If those Fuzzies are sapient beings, that whole setup down there is
illegal. Company, Colonial administration and all," he said.
"Zarathustra's a Class-IV planet, and that's all you can make out of it."
"We won't intervene unless we're forced to. Pancho, I think the decision
will be largely up to you."
Pancho Ybarra was horrified.
"Good God, Alex! You can't mean that. Who am I? A nobody. All I have is an
ordinary M.D., and a Psych.D. Why, the best psychological brains in the
Federation--"
"Aren't on Zarathustra, Pancho. They're on Terra, five hundred
light-years, six months' ship voyage each way. Intervention, of course, is
my responsibility, but the sapience question is yours. I don't envy you,
but I can't relieve you of it."
* * * * *
Gerd van Riebeek's suggestion that all three of the visitors sleep aboard
the airboat hadn't been treated seriously at all. Gerd himself was
accommodated in the spare room of the living hut. Juan Jimenez went with
Ben Rainsford to his camp for the night. Ruth Ortheris had the cabin of
the boat to herself. Rainsford was on the screen the next morning, while
Jack and Gerd and Ruth and the Fuzzies were having breakfast; he and
Jimenez had decided to take his airjeep and work down from the head of
Cold Creek in the belief that there must be more Fuzzies around in the
woods.
Both Gerd and Ruth decided to spend the morning at the camp and get
acquainted with the Fuzzies on hand. The family had had enough breakfast
to leave them neutral on the subject of land-prawns, and they were given
another of the new toys, a big colored ball. They rolled it around in the
grass for a while, decided to save it for their evening romp and took it
into the house. Then they began playing aimlessly among some junk in the
shed outside the workshop. Once in a while one of them would drift away to
look for a prawn, more for sport than food.
Ruth and Gerd and Jack were sitting at the breakfast table on the grass,
talking idly and trying to think of excuses for not washing the dishes.
Mamma Fuzzy and Baby were poking about in the tall grass. Suddenly Mamma
gave a shrill cry and started back for the shed, chasing Baby ahead of her
and slapping him on the bottom with the flat of her chopper-digger to
hurry him along.
Jack started for the house at a run. Gerd grabbed his camera and jumped up
on the table. It was Ruth who saw the cause of the disturbance.
"Jack! Look, over there!" She pointed to the edge of the clearing. "Two
strange Fuzzies!"
He kept on running, but instead of the rifle he had been going for, he
collected his movie camera, two of the spare chopper-diggers and some
Extee Three. When he emerged again, the two Fuzzies had come into the
clearing and stood side by side, looking around. Both were females, and
they both carried wooden prawn-killers.
"You have plenty of film?" he asked Gerd. "Here, Ruth; take this." He
handed her his own camera. "Keep far enough away from me to get what I'm
doing and what they're doing. I'm going to try to trade with them."
He went forward, the steel weapons in his hip pocket and the Extee Three
in his hand, talking softly and soothingly to the newcomers. When he was
as close to them as he could get without stampeding them, he stopped.
"Our gang's coming up behind you," Gerd told him. "Regular skirmish line;
choppers at high port. Now they've stopped, about thirty feet behind you."
He broke off a piece of Extee Three, put it in his mouth and ate it. Then
he broke off two more pieces and held them out. The two Fuzzies were
tempted, but not to the point of rashness. He threw both pieces within a
few feet of them. One darted forward, threw a piece to her companion and
then snatched the other piece and ran back with it. They stood together,
nibbling and making soft delighted noises.
His own family seemed to disapprove strenuously of this lavishing of
delicacies upon outsiders. However, the two strangers decided that it
would be safe to come closer, and soon he had them taking bits of field
ration from his hand. Then he took the two steel chopper-diggers out of
his pocket, and managed to convey the idea that he wanted to trade. The
two strange Fuzzies were incredulously delighted. This was too much for
his own tribe; they came up yeeking angrily.
The two strange females retreated a few steps, their new weapon ready.
Everybody seemed to expect a fight, and nobody wanted one. From what he
could remember of Old Terran history, this was a situation which could
develop into serious trouble. Then Ko-Ko advanced, dragging his
chopper-digger in an obviously pacific manner, and approached the two
females, yeeking softly and touching first one and then the other. Then he
laid his weapon down and put his foot on it. The two females began
stroking and caressing him.
Immediately the crisis evaporated. The others of the family came forward,
stuck their weapons in the ground and began fondling the strangers. Then
they all sat in a circle, swaying their bodies rhythmically and making
soft noises. Finally Ko-Ko and the two females rose, picked up their
weapons and started for the woods.
"Jack, stop them," Ruth called out. "They're going away."
"If they want to go, I have no right to stop them."
When they were almost at the edge of the woods, Ko-Ko stopped, drove the
point of his weapon into the ground and came running back to Pappy Jack,
throwing his arms around the human knees and yeeking. Jack stooped and
stroked him, but didn't try to pick him up. One of the two females pulled
his chopper-digger out, and they both came back slowly. At the same time,
Little Fuzzy, Mamma Fuzzy, Mike and Mitzi came running back. For a while,
all the Fuzzies embraced one another, yeeking happily. Then they all
trooped across the grass and went into the house.
"Get that all, Gerd?" he asked.
"On film, yes. That's the only way I did, though. What happened?"
"You have just made the first film of intertribal social and mating
customs, Zarathustran Fuzzy. This is the family's home; they don't want
any strange Fuzzies hanging around. They were going to run the girls off.
Then Ko-Ko decided he liked their looks, and he decided he'd team up with
them. That made everything different; the family sat down with them to
tell them what a fine husband they were getting and to tell Ko-Ko
good-bye. Then Ko-Ko remembered that he hadn't told me good-bye, and he
came back. The family decided that two more Fuzzies wouldn't be in excess
of the carrying capacity of this habitat, seeing what a good provider
Pappy Jack is, so now I should imagine they're showing the girls the
family treasures. You know, they married into a mighty well-to-do family."
The girls were named Goldilocks and Cinderella. When lunch was ready, they
were all in the living room, with the viewscreen on; after lunch, the
whole gang went into the bedroom for a nap on Pappy Jack's bed. He spent
the afternoon developing movie film, while Gerd and Ruth wrote up the
notes they had made the day before and collaborated on an account of the
adoption. By late afternoon, when they were finished, the Fuzzies came out
for a frolic and prawn hunt.
They all heard the aircar before any of the human people did, and they all
ran over and climbed up on the bench beside the kitchen door. It was a
constabulary cruise car; it landed, and a couple of troopers got out,
saying that they'd stopped to see the Fuzzies. They wanted to know where
the extras had come from, and when Jack told them, they looked at one
another.
"Next gang that comes along, call us and keep them entertained till we can
get here," one of them said. "We want some at the post, for prawns if
nothing else."
"What's George's attitude?" he asked. "The other night, when he was here,
he seemed half scared of them."
"Aah, he's got over that," one of the troopers said. "He called Ben
Rainsford; Ben said they were perfectly safe. Hey, Ben says they're not
animals; they're people."
He started to tell them about some of the things the Fuzzies did. He was
still talking when the Fuzzies heard another aircar and called attention
to it. This time, it was Ben Rainsford and Juan Jimenez. They piled out as
soon as they were off contragravity, dragging cameras after them.
"Jack, there are Fuzzies all over the place up there," Rainsford began,
while he was getting out. "All headed down this way; regular
_Volkerwanderung_. We saw over fifty of them--four families, and
individuals and pairs. I'm sure we missed ten for every one we saw."
"We better get up there with a car tomorrow," one of the troopers said.
"Ben, just where were you?"
"I'll show you on the map." Then he saw Goldilocks and Cinderella. "Hey!
Where'd you two girls come from? I never saw you around here before."
* * * * *
There was another clearing across the stream, with a log footbridge and a
path to the camp. Jack guided the big airboat down onto it, and put his
airjeep alongside with the canopy up. There were two men on the forward
deck of the boat, Kellogg and another man who would be Ernst Mallin. A
third man came out of the control cabin after the boat was off
contragravity. Jack didn't like Mallin. He had a tight, secretive face,
with arrogance and bigotry showing underneath. The third man was younger.
His face didn't show anything much, but his coat showed a bulge under the
left arm. After being introduced by Kellogg, Mallin introduced him as Kurt
Borch, his assistant.
Mallin had to introduce Borch again at the camp, not only to Ben Rainsford
but also to van Riebeek, to Jimenez and even to Ruth Ortheris, which
seemed a little odd. Ruth seemed to think so, too, and Mallin hastened to
tell her that Borch was with Personnel, giving some kind of tests. That
appeared to puzzle her even more. None of the three seemed happy about the
presence of the constabulary troopers, either; they were all relieved when
the cruise car lifted out.
Kellogg became interested in the Fuzzies immediately, squatting to examine
them. He said something to Mallin, who compressed his lips and shook his
head, saying:
"We simply cannot assume sapience until we find something in their
behavior which cannot be explained under any other hypothesis. We would be
much safer to assume nonsapience and proceed to test that assumption."
That seemed to establish the keynote. Kellogg straightened, and he and
Mallin started one of those "of course I agree, doctor, but don't you
find, on the other hand, that you must agree" sort of arguments, about the
difference between scientific evidence and scientific proof. Jimenez got
into it to the extent of agreeing with everything Kellogg said, and
differing politely with everything Mallin said that he thought Kellogg
would differ with. Borch said nothing; he just stood and looked at the
Fuzzies with ill-concealed hostility. Gerd and Ruth decided to help
getting dinner.
They ate outside on the picnic table, with the Fuzzies watching them
interestedly. Kellogg and Mallin carefully avoided discussing them. It
wasn't until after dusk, when the Fuzzies brought their ball inside and
everybody was in the living room, that Kellogg, adopting a
presiding-officer manner, got the conversation onto the subject. For some
time, without giving anyone else an opportunity to say anything, he gushed
about what an important discovery the Fuzzies were. The Fuzzies themselves
ignored him and began dismantling the stick-and-ball construction. For a
while Goldilocks and Cinderella watched interestedly, and then they began
assisting.
"Unfortunately," Kellogg continued, "so much of our data is in the form of
uncorroborated statements by Mr. Holloway. Now, please don't misunderstand
me. I don't, myself, doubt for a moment anything Mr. Holloway said on that
tape, but you must realize that professional scientists are most reluctant
to accept the unsubstantiated reports of what, if you'll pardon me, they
think of as nonqualified observers."
"Oh, rubbish, Leonard!" Rainsford broke in impatiently. "I'm a
professional scientist, of a good many more years' standing than you, and
I accept Jack Holloway's statements. A frontiersman like Jack is a very
careful and exact observer. People who aren't don't live long on frontier
planets."
"Now, please don't misunderstand me," Kellogg reiterated. "I don't doubt
Mr. Holloway's statements. I was just thinking of how they would be
received on Terra."
"I shouldn't worry about that, Leonard. The Institute accepts my reports,
and I'm vouching for Jack's reliability. I can substantiate most of what
he told me from personal observation."
"Yes, and there's more than just verbal statements," Gerd van Riebeek
chimed in. "A camera is not a nonqualified observer. We have quite a bit
of film of the Fuzzies."
"Oh, yes; there was some mention of movies," Mallin said. "You don't have
any of them developed yet, do you?"
"Quite a lot. Everything except what was taken out in the woods this
afternoon. We can run them off right now."
He pulled down the screen in front of the gunrack, got the film and loaded
his projector. The Fuzzies, who had begun on a new stick-and-ball
construction, were irritated when the lights went out, then wildly excited
when Little Fuzzy, digging a toilet pit with the wood chisel, appeared.
Little Fuzzy in particular was excited about that; if he didn't recognize
himself, he recognized the chisel. Then there were pictures of Little
Fuzzy killing and eating land-prawns, Little Fuzzy taking the nut off the
bolt and putting it on again, and pictures of the others, after they had
come in, hunting and at play. Finally, there was the film of the adoption
of Goldilocks and Cinderella.
"What Juan and I got this afternoon, up in the woods, isn't so good, I'm
afraid," Rainsford said when the show was over and the lights were on
again. "Mostly it's rear views disappearing into the brush. It was very
hard to get close to them in the jeep. Their hearing is remarkably acute.
But I'm sure the pictures we took this afternoon will show the things they
were carrying--wooden prawn-killers like the two that were traded from the
new ones in that last film."
Mallin and Kellogg looked at one another in what seemed oddly like
consternation.
"You didn't tell us there were more of them around," Mallin said, as
though it were an accusation of duplicity. He turned to Kellogg. "This
alters the situation."
"Yes, indeed, Ernst," Kellogg burbled delightedly. "This is a wonderful
opportunity. Mr. Holloway, I understand that all this country up here is
your property, by landgrant purchase. That's right, isn't it? Well, would
you allow us to camp on that clearing across the run, where our boat is
now? We'll get prefab huts--Red Hill's the nearest town, isn't it?--and
have a Company construction gang set them up for us, and we won't be any
bother at all to you. We had only intended staying tonight on our boat,
and returning to Mallorysport in the morning, but with all these Fuzzies
swarming around in the woods, we can't think of leaving now. You don't
have any objection, do you?"
He had lots of objections. The whole business was rapidly developing into
an acute pain in the neck for him. But if he didn't let Kellogg camp
across the run, the three of them could move seventy or eighty miles in
any direction and be off his land. He knew what they'd do then. They'd
live-trap or sleep-gas Fuzzies; they'd put them in cages, and torment them
with maze and electric-shock experiments, and kill a few for dissection,
or maybe not bother killing them first. On his own land, if they did
anything like that, he could do something about it.
"Not at all. I'll have to remind you again, though, that you're to treat
these little people with consideration."
"Oh, we won't do anything to your Fuzzies," Mallin said.
"You won't hurt any Fuzzies. Not more than once, anyhow."
* * * * *
The next morning, during breakfast, Kellogg and Kurt Borch put in an
appearance, Borch wearing old clothes and field boots and carrying his
pistol on his belt. They had a list of things they thought they would need
for their camp. Neither of them seemed to have more than the foggiest
notion of camp requirements. Jack made some suggestions which they
accepted. There was a lot of scientific equipment on the list, including
an X-ray machine. He promptly ran a pencil line through that.
"We don't know what these Fuzzies' level of radiation tolerance is. We're
not going to find out by overdosing one of my Fuzzies."
Somewhat to his surprise, neither of them gave him any argument. Gerd and
Ruth and Kellogg borrowed his airjeep and started north; he and Borch went
across the run to make measurements after Rainsford and Jimenez arrived
and picked up Mallin. Borch took off soon after with the boat for Red
Hill. Left alone, he loafed around the camp, and developed the rest of the
movie film, making three copies of everything. Toward noon, Borch brought
the boat back, followed by a couple of scowlike farmboats. In a few hours,
the Company construction men from Red Hill had the new camp set up. Among
other things, they brought two more air jeeps.
The two jeeps returned late in the afternoon, everybody excited. Between
them, the parties had seen almost a hundred Fuzzies, and had found three
camps, two among rocks and one in a hollow pool-ball tree. All three had
been spotted by belts of filled-in toilet pits around them; two had been
abandoned and the third was still occupied. Kellogg insisted on playing
host to Jack and Rainsford for dinner at the camp across the run. The
meal, because everything had been brought ready-cooked and only needed
warming, was excellent.
Returning to his own camp with Rainsford, Jack found the Fuzzies finished
with their evening meal and in the living room, starting a new
construction--he could think of no other name for it--with the
molecule-model balls and sticks. Goldilocks left the others and came over
to him with a couple of balls fastened together, holding them up with one
hand while she pulled his trouser leg with the other.
"Yes, I see. It's very beautiful," he told her.
She tugged harder and pointed at the thing the others were making.
Finally, he understood.
"She wants me to work on it, too," he said. "Ben, you know where the
coffee is; fix us a pot. I'm going to be busy here."
He sat down on the floor, and was putting sticks and balls together when
Ben brought in the coffee. This was more fun than he'd had in a couple of
days. He said so while Ben was distributing Extee Three to the Fuzzies.
"Yes, I ought to let you kick me all around the camp for getting this
started," Rainsford said, pouring the coffee. "I could make some excuses,
but they'd all sound like 'I didn't know it was loaded.'"
"Hell, I didn't know it was loaded, either." He rose and took his coffee
cup, blowing on it to cool it. "What do you think Kellogg's up to, anyhow?
That whole act he's been putting on since he came here is phony as a
nine-sol bill."
"What I told you, evening before last," Rainsford said. "He doesn't want
non-Company people making discoveries on Zarathustra. You notice how hard
he and Mallin are straining to talk me out of sending a report back to
Terra before he can investigate the Fuzzies? He wants to get his own
report in first. Well, the hell with him! You know what I'm going to do?
I'm going home, and I'm going to sit up all night getting a report into
shape. Tomorrow morning I'm going to give it to George Lunt and let him
send it to Mallorysport in the constabulary mail pouch. It'll be on a ship
for Terra before any of this gang knows it's been sent. Do you have any
copies of those movies you can spare?"
"About a mile and a half. I made copies of everything, even the stuff the
others took."
"Good. We'll send that, too. Let Kellogg read about it in the papers a
year from now." He thought for a moment, then said: "Gerd and Ruth and
Juan are bunking at the other camp now; suppose I move in here with you
tomorrow. I assume you don't want to leave the Fuzzies alone while that
gang's here. I can help you keep an eye on them."
"But, Ben, you don't want to drop whatever else you're doing--"
"What I'm doing, now, is learning to be a Fuzzyologist, and this is the
only place I can do it. I'll see you tomorrow, after I stop at the
constabulary post."
* * * * *
The people across the run--Kellogg, Mallin and Borch, and van Riebeek,
Jimenez and Ruth Ortheris--were still up when Rainsford went out to his
airjeep. After watching him lift out, Jack went back into the house,
played with his family in the living room for a while and went to bed. The
next morning he watched Kellogg, Ruth and Jimenez leave in one jeep and,
shortly after, Mallin and van Riebeek in the other. Kellogg didn't seem to
be willing to let the three who had come to the camp first wander around
unchaperoned. He wondered about that.
Ben Rainsford's airjeep came over the mountains from the south in the late
morning and settled onto the grass. Jack helped him inside with his
luggage, and then they sat down under the big featherleaf trees to smoke
their pipes and watch the Fuzzies playing in the grass. Occasionally they
saw Kurt Borch pottering around outside the other camp.
"I sent the report off," Rainsford said, then looked at his watch. "It
ought to be on the mail boat for Mallorysport by now; this time tomorrow
it'll be in hyperspace for Terra. We won't say anything about it; just sit
back and watch Len Kellogg and Ernst Mallin working up a sweat trying to
talk us out of sending it." He chuckled. "I made a definite claim of
sapience; by the time I got the report in shape to tape off, I couldn't
see any other alternative."
"Damned if I can. You hear that, kids?" he asked Mike and Mitzi, who had
come over in hope that there might be goodies for them. "Uncle Ben says
you're sapient."
"Yeek?"
"They want to know if it's good to eat. What'll happen now?"
"Nothing, for about a year. Six months from now, when the ship gets in,
the Institute will release it to the press, and then they'll send an
investigation team here. So will any of the other universities or
scientific institutes that may be interested. I suppose the government'll
send somebody, too. After all, subcivilized natives on colonized planets
are wards of the Terran Federation."
He didn't know that he liked that. The less he had to do with the
government the better, and his Fuzzies were wards of Pappy Jack Holloway.
He said as much.
Rainsford picked up Mitzi and stroked her. "Nice fur," he said. "Fur like
that would bring good prices. It will, if we don't get these people
recognized as sapient beings."
He looked across the run at the new camp and wondered. Maybe Leonard
Kellogg saw that, too, and saw profits for the Company in Fuzzy fur.
* * * * *
The airjeeps returned in the middle of the afternoon, first Mallin's, and
then Kellogg's. Everybody went inside. An hour later, a constabulary car
landed in front of the Kellogg camp. George Lunt and Ahmed Khadra got out.
Kellogg came outside, spoke with them and then took them into the main
living hut. Half an hour later, the lieutenant and the trooper emerged,
lifted their car across the run and set it down on the lawn. The Fuzzies
ran to meet them, possibly expecting more whistles, and followed them into
the living room. Lunt and Khadra took off their berets, but made no move
to unbuckle their gun belts.
"We got your package off all right Ben," Lunt said. He sat down and took
Goldilocks on his lap; immediately Cinderella jumped up, also. "Jack, what
the hell's that gang over there up to anyhow?"
"You got that, too?"
"You can smell it on them for a mile, against the wind. In the first
place, that Borch. I wish I could get his prints; I'll bet we have them on
file. And the whole gang's trying to hide something, and what they're
trying to hide is something they're scared of, like a body in a closet.
When we were over there, Kellogg did all the talking; anybody else who
tried to say anything got shut up fast. Kellogg doesn't like you, Jack and
he doesn't like Ben, and he doesn't like the Fuzzies. Most of all he
doesn't like the Fuzzies."
"Well, I told you what I thought this morning," Rainsford said. "They
don't want outsiders discovering things on this planet. It wouldn't make
them look good to the home office on Terra. Remember, it was some
non-Company people who discovered the first sunstones, back in
'Forty-eight."
George Lunt looked thoughtful. On him, it was a scowl.
"I don't think that's it, Ben. When we were talking to him, he admitted
very freely that you and Jack discovered the Fuzzies. The way he talked,
he didn't seem to think they were worth discovering at all. And he asked a
lot of funny questions about you, Jack. The kind of questions I'd ask if I
was checking up on somebody's mental competence." The scowl became one of
anger now. "By God, I wish I had an excuse to question him--with a
veridicator!"
Kellogg didn't want the Fuzzies to be sapient beings. If they weren't
they'd be ... fur-bearing animals. Jack thought of some overfed society
dowager on Terra or Baldur, wearing the skins of Little Fuzzy and Mamma
Fuzzy and Mike and Mitzi and Ko-Ko and Cinderella and Goldilocks wrapped
around her adipose carcass. It made him feel sick.