Jack Holloway had been out on bail before, but never for quite so much. It
was almost worth it, though, to see Leslie Coombes's eyes widen and
Mohammed Ali O'Brien's jaw drop when he dumped the bag of sunstones,
blazing with the heat of the day and of his body, on George Lunt's
magisterial bench and invited George to pick out twenty-five thousand
sols' worth. Especially after the production Coombes had made of posting
Kellogg's bail with one of those precertified Company checks.
He looked at the whisky bottle in his hand, and then reached into the
cupboard for another one. One for Gus Brannhard, and one for the rest of
them. There was a widespread belief that that was why Gustavus Adolphus
Brannhard was practicing sporadic law out here in the boondocks of a
boondock planet, defending gun fighters and veldbeest rustlers. It
wasn't. Nobody on Zarathustra knew the reason, but it wasn't whisky.
Whisky was only the weapon with which Gus Brannhard fought off the memory
of the reason.
He was in the biggest chair in the living room, which was none too ample
for him; a mountain of a man with tousled gray-brown hair, his broad face
masked in a tangle of gray-brown beard. He wore a faded and grimy bush
jacket with clips of rifle cartridges on the breast, no shirt and a torn
undershirt over a shag of gray-brown chest hair. Between the bottoms of
his shorts and the tops of his ragged hose and muddy boots, his legs were
covered with hair. Baby Fuzzy was sitting on his head, and Mamma Fuzzy was
on his lap. Mike and Mitzi sat one on either knee. The Fuzzies had taken
instantly to Gus. Bet they thought he was a Big Fuzzy.
"Aaaah!" he rumbled, as the bottle and glass were placed beside him. "Been
staying alive for hours hoping for this."
"Well, don't let any of the kids get at it. Little Fuzzy trying to smoke
pipes is bad enough; I don't want any dipsos in the family, too."
Gus filled the glass. To be on the safe side, he promptly emptied it into
himself.
"You got a nice family, Jack. Make a wonderful impression in court--as
long as Baby doesn't try to sit on the judge's head. Any jury that sees
them and hears that Ortheris girl's story will acquit you from the box,
with a vote of censure for not shooting Kellogg, too."
"I'm not worried about that. What I want is Kellogg convicted."
"You better worry, Jack," Rainsford said. "You saw the combination against
us at the hearing."
Leslie Coombes, the Company's top attorney, had come out from Mallorysport
in a yacht rated at Mach 6, and he must have crowded it to the limit all
the way. With him, almost on a leash, had come Mohammed Ali O'Brien, the
Colonial Attorney General, who doubled as Chief Prosecutor. They had both
tried to get the whole thing dismissed--self-defense for Holloway, and
killing an unprotected wild animal for Kellogg. When that had failed, they
had teamed in flagrant collusion to fight the inclusion of any evidence
about the Fuzzies. After all it was only a complaint court; Lieutenant
Lunt, as a police magistrate, had only the most limited powers.
"You saw how far they got, didn't you?"
"I hope we don't wish they'd succeeded," Rainsford said gloomily.
"What do you mean, Ben?" Brannhard asked. "What do you think they'll do?"
"I don't know. That's what worries me. We're threatening the Zarathustra
Company, and the Company's too big to be threatened safely," Rainsford
replied. "They'll try to frame something on Jack."
"With veridication? That's ridiculous, Ben."
"Don't you think we can prove sapience?" Gerd van Riebeek demanded.
"Who's going to define sapience? And how?" Rainsford asked. "Why,
between them, Coombes and O'Brien can even agree to accept the
talk-and-build-a-fire rule."
"Huh-uh!" Brannhard was positive. "Court ruling on that, about forty years
ago, on Vishnu. Infanticide case, woman charged with murder in the death
of her infant child. Her lawyer moved for dismissal on the grounds that
murder is defined as the killing of a sapient being, a sapient being is
defined as one that can talk and build a fire, and a newborn infant can do
neither. Motion denied; the court ruled that while ability to speak and
produce fire is positive proof of sapience, inability to do either or both
does not constitute legal proof of nonsapience. If O'Brien doesn't know
that, and I doubt if he does, Coombes will." Brannhard poured another
drink and gulped it before the sapient beings around him could get at it.
"You know what? I will make a small wager, and I will even give odds, that
the first thing Ham O'Brien does when he gets back to Mallorysport will be
to enter _nolle prosequi_ on both charges. What I'd like would be for him
to _nol. pros._ Kellogg and let the charge against Jack go to court. He
would be dumb enough to do that himself, but Leslie Coombes wouldn't let
him."
"But if he throws out the Kellogg case, that's it," Gerd van Riebeek said.
"When Jack comes to trial, nobody'll say a mumblin' word about sapience."
"I will, and I will not mumble it. You all know colonial law on homicide.
In the case of any person killed while in commission of a felony, no
prosecution may be brought in any degree, against anybody. I'm going to
contend that Leonard Kellogg was murdering a sapient being, that Jack
Holloway acted lawfully in attempting to stop it and that when Kurt Borch
attempted to come to Kellogg's assistance he, himself, was guilty of
felony, and consequently any prosecution against Jack Holloway is illegal.
And to make that contention stick, I shall have to say a great many words,
and produce a great deal of testimony, about the sapience of Fuzzies."
"It'll have to be expert testimony," Rainsford said. "The testimony of
psychologists. I suppose you know that the only psychologists on this
planet are employed by the chartered Zarathustra Company." He drank what
was left of his highball, looked at the bits of ice in the bottom of his
glass and then rose to mix another one. "I'd have done the same as you
did, Jack, but I still wish this hadn't happened."
"_Huh!_" Mamma Fuzzy looked up, startled by the exclamation. "What do you
think Victor Grego's wishing, right now?"
* * * * *
Victor Grego replaced the hand-phone. "Leslie, on the yacht," he said.
"They're coming in now. They'll stop at the hospital to drop Kellogg, and
then they're coming here."
Nick Emmert nibbled a canape. He had reddish hair, pale eyes and a wide,
bovine face.
"Holloway must have done him up pretty badly," he said.
"I wish Holloway'd killed him!" He blurted it angrily, and saw the
Resident General's shocked expression.
"You don't really mean that, Victor?"
"The devil I don't!" He gestured at the recorder-player, which had just
finished the tape of the hearing, transmitted from the yacht at
sixty-speed. "That's only a teaser to what'll come out at the trial. You
know what the Company's epitaph will be? _Kicked to death, along with a
Fuzzy, by Leonard Kellogg._"
Everything would have worked out perfectly if Kellogg had only kept his
head and avoided collision with Holloway. Why, even the killing of the
Fuzzy and the shooting of Borch, inexcusable as that had been, wouldn't
have been so bad if it hadn't been for that asinine murder complaint. That
was what had provoked Holloway's counter-complaint, which was what had
done the damage.
And, now that he thought of it, it had been one of Kellogg's people, van
Riebeek, who had touched off the explosion in the first place. He didn't
know van Riebeek himself, but Kellogg should have, and he had handled him
the wrong way. He should have known what van Riebeek would go along with
and what he wouldn't.
"But, Victor, they won't convict Leonard of murder," Emmert was saying.
"Not for killing one of those little things."
"'Murder shall consist of the deliberate and unjustified killing of any
sapient being, of any race,'" he quoted. "That's the law. If they can
prove in court that the Fuzzies are sapient beings...."
Then, some morning, a couple of deputy marshals would take Leonard Kellogg
out in the jail yard and put a bullet through the back of his head, which,
in itself, would be no loss. The trouble was, they would also be shooting
an irreparable hole in the Zarathustra Company's charter. Maybe Kellogg
could be kept out of court, at that. There wasn't a ship blasted off from
Darius without a couple of drunken spacemen being hustled aboard at the
last moment; with the job Holloway must have done, Kellogg should look
just right as a drunken spaceman. The twenty-five thousand sols' bond
could be written off; that was pennies to the Company. No, that would
still leave them stuck with the Holloway trial.
"You want me out of here when the others come, Victor?" Emmert asked,
popping another canape into his mouth.
"No, no; sit still. This will be the last chance we'll have to get
everybody together; after this, we'll have to avoid anything that'll look
like collusion."
"Well, anything I can do to help; you know that, Victor," Emmert said.
Yes, he knew that. If worst came to utter worst and the Company charter
were invalidated, he could still hang on here, doing what he could to
salvage something out of the wreckage--if not for the Company, then for
Victor Grego. But if Zarathustra were reclassified, Nick would be
finished. His title, his social position, his sinecure, his grafts and
perquisites, his alias-shrouded Company expense account--all out the
airlock. Nick would be counted upon to do anything he could--however much
that would be.
He looked across the room at the levitated globe, revolving imperceptibly
in the orange spotlight. It was full dark on Beta Continent now, where
Leonard Kellogg had killed a Fuzzy named Goldilocks and Jack Holloway had
killed a gunman named Kurt Borch. That angered him, too; hell of a gunman!
Clear shot at the broad of a man's back, and still got himself killed.
Borch hadn't been any better choice than Kellogg himself. What was the
matter with him; couldn't he pick men for jobs any more? And Ham O'Brien!
No, he didn't have to blame himself for O'Brien. O'Brien was one of Nick
Emmert's boys. And he hadn't picked Nick, either.
The squawk-box on the desk made a premonitory noise, and a feminine voice
advised him that Mr. Coombes and his party had arrived.
"All right; show them in."
Coombes entered first, tall suavely elegant, with a calm, untroubled face.
Leslie Coombes would wear the same serene expression in the midst of a
bombardment or an earthquake. He had chosen Coombes for chief attorney,
and thinking of that made him feel better. Mohammed Ali O'Brien was
neither tall, elegant nor calm. His skin was almost black--he'd been born
on Agni, under a hot B3 sun. His bald head glistened, and a big nose
peeped over the ambuscade of a bushy white mustache. What was it they said
about him? Only man on Zarathustra who could strut sitting down. And
behind them, the remnant of the expedition to Beta Continent--Ernst
Mallin, Juan Jimenez and Ruth Ortheris. Mallin was saying that it was a
pity Dr. Kellogg wasn't with them.
"I question that. Well, please be seated. We have a great deal to discuss,
I'm afraid."
* * * * *
Mr. Chief Justice Frederic Pendarvis moved the ashtray a few inches to the
right and the slender vase with the spray of starflowers a few inches to
the left. He set the framed photograph of the gentle-faced, white-haired
woman directly in front of him. Then he took a thin cigar from the silver
box, carefully punctured the end and lit it. Then, unable to think of
further delaying tactics, he drew the two bulky loose-leaf books toward
him and opened the red one, the criminal-case docket.
Something would have to be done about this; he always told himself so at
this hour. Shoveling all this stuff onto Central Courts had been all right
when Mallorysport had had a population of less than five thousand and
nothing else on the planet had had more than five hundred, but that time
was ten years past. The Chief Justice of a planetary colony shouldn't have
to wade through all this to see who had been accused of blotting the brand
on a veldbeest calf or who'd taken a shot at whom in a barroom. Well, at
least he'd managed to get a few misdemeanor and small-claims courts
established; that was something.
The first case, of course, was a homicide. It usually was. From Beta,
Constabulary Fifteen, Lieutenant George Lunt. Jack Holloway--so old Jack
had cut another notch on his gun--Cold Creek Valley, Federation citizen,
race Terran human; willful killing of a sapient being, to wit Kurt Borch,
Mallorysport, Federation citizen, race Terran human. Complainant, Leonard
Kellogg, the same. Attorney of record for the defendant, Gustavus Adolphus
Brannhard. The last time Jack Holloway had killed anybody, it had been a
couple of thugs who'd tried to steal his sunstones; it hadn't even gotten
into complaint court. This time he might be in trouble. Kellogg was a
Company executive. He decided he'd better try the case himself. The
Company might try to exert pressure.
The next charge was also homicide, from Constabulary, Beta Fifteen. He
read it and blinked. Leonard Kellogg, willful killing of a sapient being,
to wit, Jane Doe alias Goldilocks, aborigine, race Zarathustran Fuzzy,
complainant, Jack Holloway, defendant's attorney of record, Leslie
Coombes. In spite of the outrageous frivolity of the charge, he began to
laugh. It was obviously an attempt to ridicule Kellogg's own complaint out
of court. Every judicial jurisdiction ought to have at least one Gus
Brannhard to liven things up a little. Race Zarathustran Fuzzy!
Then he stopped laughing suddenly and became deadly serious, like an
engineer who finds a cataclysmite cartridge lying around primed and
connected to a discharger. He reached out to the screen panel and began
punching a combination. A spectacled young man appeared and greeted him
deferentially.
"Good morning, Mr. Wilkins," he replied. "A couple of homicides at the
head of this morning's docket--Holloway and Kellogg, both from Beta
Fifteen. What is known about them?"
The young man began to laugh. "Oh, your Honor, they're both a lot of
nonsense. Dr. Kellogg killed some pet belonging to old Jack Holloway, the
sunstone digger, and in the ensuing unpleasantness--Holloway can be very
unpleasant, if he feels he has to--this man Borch, who seems to have been
Kellogg's bodyguard, made the suicidal error of trying to draw a gun on
Holloway. I'm surprised at Lieutenant Lunt for letting either of those
charges get past hearing court. Mr. O'Brien has entered _nolle prosequi_
on both of them, so the whole thing can be disregarded."
Mohammed O'Brien knew a charge of cataclysmite when he saw one, too. His
impulse had been to pull the detonator. Well, maybe this charge ought to
be shot, just to see what it would bring down.
"I haven't approved the _nolle prosequi_ yet, Mr. Wilkins," he mentioned
gently. "Would you please transmit to me the hearing tapes on these cases,
at sixty-speed? I'll take them on the recorder of this screen. Thank you."
He reached out and made the necessary adjustments. Wilkins, the Clerk of
the Courts, left the screen, and returned. There was a wavering scream for
a minute and a half. Going to take more time than he had expected. Well....
* * * * *
There wasn't enough ice in the glass, and Leonard Kellogg put more in.
Then there was too much, and he added more brandy. He shouldn't have
started drinking this early, be drunk by dinnertime if he kept it up, but
what else was there to do? He couldn't go out, not with his face like
this. In any case, he wasn't sure he wanted to.
They were all down on him. Ernst Mallin, and Ruth Ortheris, and even Juan
Jimenez. At the constabulary post, Coombes and O'Brien had treated him
like an idiot child who has to be hushed in front of company and coming
back to Mallorysport they had ignored him completely. He drank quickly,
and then there was too much ice in the glass again. Victor Grego had told
him he'd better take a vacation till the trial was over, and put Mallin in
charge of the division. Said he oughtn't to be in charge while the
division was working on defense evidence. Well, maybe; it looked like the
first step toward shoving him completely out of the Company.
He dropped into a chair and lit a cigarette. It tasted badly, and after a
few puffs he crushed it out. Well, what else could he have done? After
they'd found that little grave, he had to make Gerd understand what it
would mean to the Company. Juan and Ruth had been all right, but Gerd--The
things Gerd had called him; the things he'd said about the Company. And
then that call from Holloway, and the humiliation of being ordered out
like a tramp.
And then that disgusting little beast had come pulling at his clothes, and
he had pushed it away--well, kicked it maybe--and it had struck at him
with the little spear it was carrying. Nobody but a lunatic would give a
thing like that to an animal anyhow. And he had kicked it again, and it
had screamed....
The communication screen in the next room was buzzing. Maybe that was
Victor. He gulped the brandy left in the glass and hurried to it.
It was Leslie Coombes, his face remotely expressionless.
"Oh, hello, Leslie."
"Good afternoon, Dr. Kellogg." The formality of address was studiously
rebuking. "The Chief Prosecutor just called me; Judge Pendarvis has denied
the _nolle prosequi_ he entered in your case and in Mr. Holloway's, and
ordered both cases to trial."
"You mean they're actually taking this seriously?"
"It is serious. If you're convicted, the Company's charter will be almost
automatically voided. And, although this is important only to you
personally, you might, very probably, be sentenced to be shot." He
shrugged that off, and continued: "Now, I'll want to talk to you about
your defense, for which I am responsible. Say ten-thirty tomorrow, at my
office. I should, by that time, know what sort of evidence is going to be
used against you. I will be expecting you, Dr. Kellogg."
He must have said more than that, but that was all that registered.
Leonard wasn't really conscious of going back to the other room, until he
realized that he was sitting in his relaxer chair, filling the glass with
brandy. There was only a little ice in it, but he didn't care.
They were going to try him for murder for killing that little animal, and
Ham O'Brien had said they wouldn't, he'd promised he'd keep the case from
trial and he hadn't, they were going to try him anyhow and if they
convicted him they would take him out and shoot him for just killing a
silly little animal he had killed it he'd kicked it and jumped on it he
could still hear it screaming and feel the horrible soft crunching under
his feet....
He gulped what was left in the glass and poured and gulped more. Then he
staggered to his feet and stumbled over to the couch and threw himself
onto it, face down, among the cushions.
* * * * *
Leslie Coombes found Nick Emmert with Victor Grego in the latter's office
when he entered. They both rose to greet him, and Grego said "You've
heard?"
"Yes. O'Brien called me immediately. I called my client--my client of
record, that is--and told him. I'm afraid it was rather a shock to him."
"It wasn't any shock to me," Grego said as they sat down. "When Ham
O'Brien's as positive about anything as he was about that, I always expect
the worst."
"Pendarvis is going to try the case himself," Emmert said. "I always
thought he was a reasonable man, but what's he trying to do now? Cut the
Company's throat?"
"He isn't anti-Company. He isn't pro-Company either. He's just pro-law.
The law says that a planet with native sapient inhabitants is a Class-IV
planet, and has to have a Class-IV colonial government. If Zarathustra is
a Class-IV planet, he wants it established, and the proper laws applied.
If it's a Class-IV planet, the Zarathustra Company is illegally chartered.
It's his job to put a stop to illegality. Frederic Pendarvis' religion is
the law, and he is its priest. You never get anywhere by arguing religion
with a priest."
They were both silent for a while after he had finished. Grego was looking
at the globe, and he realized, now, that while he was proud of it, his
pride was the pride in a paste jewel that stands for a real one in a bank
vault. Now he was afraid that the real jewel was going to be stolen from
him. Nick Emmert was just afraid.
"You were right yesterday, Victor. I wish Holloway'd killed that son of a
Khooghra. Maybe it's not too late--"
"Yes, it is, Nick. It's too late to do anything like that. It's too late
to do anything but win the case in court." He turned to Grego. "What are
your people doing?"
Grego took his eyes from the globe. "Ernest Mallin's studying all the
filmed evidence we have and all the descriptions of Fuzzy behavior, and
trying to prove that none of it is the result of sapient mentation. Ruth
Ortheris is doing the same, only she's working on the line of instinct and
conditioned reflexes and nonsapient, single-stage reasoning. She has a lot
of rats, and some dogs and monkeys, and a lot of apparatus, and some
technician from Henry Stenson's instrument shop helping her. Juan Jimenez
is studying mentation of Terran dogs, cats and primates, and Freyan
kholphs and Mimir black slinkers."
"He hasn't turned up any simian or canine parallels to that funeral, has
he?"
Grego said nothing, merely shook his head. Emmert muttered something
inaudible and probably indecent.
"I didn't think he had. I only hope those Fuzzies don't get up in court,
build a bonfire and start making speeches in Lingua Terra."