IX

Jack Holloway saw Little Fuzzy eying the pipe he had laid in the ashtray,

and picked it up, putting it in his mouth. Little Fuzzy looked

reproachfully at him and started to get down onto the floor. Pappy Jack

was mean; didn't he think a Fuzzy might want to smoke a pipe, too? Well,

maybe it wouldn't hurt him. He picked Little Fuzzy up and set him back on

his lap, offering the pipestem. Little Fuzzy took a puff. He didn't cough

over it; evidently he had learned how to avoid inhaling.

"They scheduled the Kellogg trial first," Gus Brannhard was saying, "and

there wasn't any way I could stop that. You see what the idea is? They'll

try him first, with Leslie Coombes running both the prosecution and the

defense, and if they can get him acquitted, it'll prejudice the sapience

evidence we introduce in your trial."

Mamma Fuzzy made another try at intercepting the drink he was hoisting,

but he frustrated that. Baby had stopped trying to sit on his head, and

was playing peek-a-boo from behind his whiskers.

"First," he continued, "they'll exclude every bit of evidence about the

Fuzzies that they can. That won't be much, but there'll be a fight to get

any of it in. What they can't exclude, they'll attack. They'll attack

credibility. Of course, with veridication, they can't claim anybody's

lying, but they can claim self-deception. You make a statement you

believe, true or false, and the veridicator'll back you up on it. They'll

attack qualifications on expert testimony. They'll quibble about

statements of fact and statements of opinion. And what they can't exclude

or attack, they'll accept, and then deny that it's proof of sapience.

"What the hell do they want for proof of sapience?" Gerd demanded.

"Nuclear energy and contragravity and hyperdrive?"

"They will have a nice, neat, pedantic definition of sapience, tailored

especially to exclude the Fuzzies, and they will present it in court and

try to get it accepted, and it's up to us to guess in advance what that

will be, and have a refutation of it ready, and also a definition of our

own."

"Their definition will have to include Khooghras. Gerd, do the Khooghras

bury their dead?"

"Hell, no; they eat them. But you have to give them this, they cook them

first."

"Look, we won't get anywhere arguing about what Fuzzies do and Khooghras

don't do," Rainsford said. "We'll have to get a definition of sapience.

Remember what Ruth said Saturday night?"

Gerd van Riebeek looked as though he didn't want to remember what Ruth had

said, or even remember Ruth herself. Jack nodded, and repeated it. "I got

the impression of non-sapient intelligence shading up to a sharp line, and

then sapience shading up from there, maybe a different color, or wavy

lines instead of straight ones."

"That's a good graphic representation," Gerd said. "You know, that line's

so sharp I'd be tempted to think of sapience as a result of mutation,

except that I can't quite buy the same mutation happening in the same way

on so many different planets."

Ben Rainsford started to say something, then stopped short when a

constabulary siren hooted over the camp. The Fuzzies looked up

interestedly. They knew what that was. Pappy Jack's friends in the blue

clothes. Jack went to the door and opened it, putting the outside light

on.

The car was landing; George Lunt, two of his men and two men in civilian

clothes were getting out. Both the latter were armed, and one of them

carried a bundle under his arm.

"Hello, George; come on in."

"We want to talk to you, Jack." Lunt's voice was strained, empty of warmth

or friendliness. "At least, these men do."

"Why, yes. Sure."

He backed into the room to permit them to enter. Something was wrong;

something bad had come up. Khadra came in first, placing himself beside

and a little behind him. Lunt followed, glancing quickly around and

placing himself between Jack and the gunrack and also the holstered

pistols on the table. The third trooper let the two strangers in ahead of

him, and then closed the door and put his back against it. He wondered if

the court might have cancelled his bond and ordered him into custody. The

two strangers--a beefy man with a scrubby black mustache, and a smaller

one with a thin, saturnine face--were looking expectantly at Lunt.

Rainsford and van Riebeek were on their feet. Gus Brannhard leaned over to

refill his glass, but did not rise.

"Let me have the papers," Lunt said to the beefy stranger.

The other took a folded document and handed it over.

"Jack, this isn't my idea," Lunt said. "I don't want to do it, but I have

to. I wouldn't want to shoot you, either, but you make any resistance and

I will. I'm no Kurt Borch; I know you, and I won't take any chances."

"If you're going to serve that paper, serve it," the bigger of the two

strangers said. "Don't stand yakking all night."

"Jack," Lunt said uncomfortably, "this is a court order to impound your

Fuzzies as evidence in the Kellogg case. These men are deputy marshals

from Central Courts; they've been ordered to bring the Fuzzies into

Mallorysport."

"Let me see the order, Jack," Brannhard said, still remaining seated.

Lunt handed it to Jack, and he handed it across to Brannhard. Gus had been

drinking steadily all evening; maybe he was afraid he'd show it if he

stood up. He looked at it briefly and nodded.

"Court order, all right, signed by the Chief Justice." He handed it back.

"They have to take the Fuzzies, and that's all there is to it. Keep that

order, though, and make them give you a signed and thumbprinted receipt.

Type it up for them now, Jack."

Gus wanted to busy him with something, so he wouldn't have to watch what

was going on. The smaller of the two deputies had dropped the bundle from

under his arm. It was a number of canvas sacks. He sat down at the

typewriter, closing his ears to the noises in the room, and wrote the

receipt, naming the Fuzzies and describing them, and specifying that they

were in good health and uninjured. One of them tried to climb to his lap,

yeeking frantically; it clutched his shirt, but it was snatched away. He

was finished with his work before the invaders were with theirs. They had

three Fuzzies already in sacks. Khadra was catching Cinderella. Ko-Ko and

Little Fuzzy had run for the little door in the outside wall, but Lunt was

standing with his heels against it, holding it shut; when they saw that,

both of them began burrowing in the bedding. The third trooper and the

smaller of the two deputies dragged them out and stuffed them into sacks.

He got to his feet, still stunned and only half comprehending, and took

the receipt out of the typewriter. There was an argument about it; Lunt

told the deputies to sign it or get the hell out without the Fuzzies. They

signed, inked their thumbs and printed after their signatures. Jack gave

the paper to Gus, trying not to look at the six bulging, writhing sacks,

or hear the frightened little sounds.

"George, you'll let them have some of their things, won't you?" he asked.

"Sure. What kind of things?"

"Their bedding. Some of their toys."

"You mean this junk?" The smaller of the two deputies kicked the

ball-and-stick construction. "All we got orders to take is the Fuzzies."

"You heard the gentleman." Lunt made the word sound worse than son of a

Khooghra. He turned to the two deputies. "Well, you have them; what are

you waiting for?"

Jack watched from the door as they put the sacks into the aircar, climbed

in after them and lifted out. Then he came back and sat down at the table.

"They don't know anything about court orders," he said. "They don't know

why I didn't stop it. They think Pappy Jack let them down."

"Have they gone, Jack?" Brannhard asked. "Sure?" Then he rose, reaching

behind him, and took up a little ball of white fur. Baby Fuzzy caught his

beard with both tiny hands, yeeking happily.

"Baby! They didn't get him!"

Brannhard disengaged the little hands from his beard and handed him over.

"No, and they signed for him, too." Brannhard downed what was left of his

drink, got a cigar out of his pocket and lit it. "Now, we're going to go

to Mallorysport and get the rest of them back."

"But.... But the Chief Justice signed that order. He won't give them back

just because we ask him to."

Brannhard made an impolite noise. "I'll bet everything I own Pendarvis

never saw that order. They have stacks of those things, signed in blank,

in the Chief of the Court's office. If they had to wait to get one of the

judges to sign an order every time they wanted to subpoena a witness or

impound physical evidence, they'd never get anything done. If Ham O'Brien

didn't think this up for himself, Leslie Coombes thought it up for him."

"We'll use my airboat," Gerd said. "You coming along, Ben? Let's get

started."

* * * * *

He couldn't understand. The Big Ones in the blue clothes had been friends;

they had given the whistles, and shown sorrow when the killed one was put

in the ground. And why had Pappy Jack not gotten the big gun and stopped

them. It couldn't be that he was afraid; Pappy Jack was afraid of nothing.

The others were near, in bags like the one in which he had been put; he

could hear them, and called to them. Then he felt the edge of the little

knife Pappy Jack had made. He could cut his way out of this bag now and

free the others, but that would be no use. They were in one of the things

the Big Ones went up into the sky in, and if he got out now, there would

be nowhere to go and they would be caught at once. Better to wait.

The one thing that really worried him was that he would not know where

they were being taken. When they did get away, how would they ever find

Pappy Jack again?

* * * * *

Gus Brannhard was nervous, showing it by being overtalkative, and that

worried Jack. He'd stopped twice at mirrors along the hallway to make sure

that his gold-threaded gray neckcloth was properly knotted and that his

black jacket was zipped up far enough and not too far. Now, in front of

the door marked THE CHIEF JUSTICE, he paused before pushing the button to

fluff his newly shampooed beard.

There were two men in the Chief Justice's private chambers. Pendarvis he

had seen once or twice, but their paths had never crossed. He had a good

face, thin and ascetic, the face of a man at peace with himself. With him

was Mohammed Ali O'Brien, who seemed surprised to see them enter, and then

apprehensive. Nobody shook hands; the Chief Justice bowed slightly and

invited them to be seated.

"Now," he continued, when they found chairs, "Miss Ugatori tells me that

you are making complaint against an action by Mr. O'Brien here."

"We are indeed, your Honor." Brannhard opened his briefcase and produced

two papers--the writ, and the receipt for the Fuzzies, handing them across

the desk. "My client and I wish to know upon what basis of legality your

Honor sanctioned this act, and by what right Mr. O'Brien sent his officers

to Mr. Holloway's camp to snatch these little people from their friend and

protector, Mr. Holloway."

The judge looked at the two papers. "As you know, Miss Ugatori took prints

of them when you called to make this appointment. I've seen them. But

believe me, Mr. Brannhard, this is the first time I have seen the original

of this writ. You know how these things are signed in blank. It's a

practice that has saved considerable time and effort, and until now they

have only been used when there was no question that I or any other judge

would approve. Such a question should certainly have existed in this case,

because had I seen this writ I would never have signed it." He turned to

the now fidgeting Chief Prosecutor. "Mr. O'Brien," he said, "one simply

does not impound sapient beings as evidence, as, say, one impounds a

veldbeest calf in a brand-alteration case. The fact that the sapience of

these Fuzzies is still _sub judice_ includes the presumption of its

possibility. Now you know perfectly well that the courts may take no

action in the face of the possibility that some innocent person may suffer

wrong."

"And, your Honor," Brannhard leaped into the breach, "it cannot be denied

that these Fuzzies have suffered a most outrageous wrong! Picture

them--no, picture innocent and artless children, for that is what these

Fuzzies are, happy trusting little children, who, until then, had known

only kindness and affection--rudely kidnapped, stuffed into sacks by

brutal and callous men--"

"Your Honor!" O'Brien's face turned even blacker than the hot sun of Agni

had made it. "I cannot hear officers of the court so characterized without

raising my voice in protest!"

"Mr. O'Brien seems to forget that he is speaking in the presence of two

eye witnesses to this brutal abduction."

"If the officers of the court need defense, Mr. O'Brien, the court will

defend them. I believe that you should presently consider a defense of

your own actions."

"Your Honor, I insist that I only acted as I felt to be my duty," O'Brien

said. "These Fuzzies are a key exhibit in the case of _People_ versus

_Kellogg_, since only by demonstration of their sapience can any

prosecution against the defendant be maintained."

"Then why," Brannhard demanded, "did you endanger them in this criminally

reckless manner?"

"Endanger them?" O'Brien was horrified. "Your Honor, I acted only to

insure their safety and appearance in court."

"So you took them away from the only man on this planet who knows anything

about their proper care, a man who loves them as he would his own human

children, and you subjected them to abuse, which, for all you knew, might

have been fatal to them."

Judge Pendarvis nodded. "I don't believe, Mr. Brannhard, that you have

overstated the case. Mr. O'Brien, I take a very unfavorable view of your

action in this matter. You had no right to have what are at least

putatively sapient beings treated in this way, and even viewing them as

mere physical evidence I must agree with Mr. Brannhard's characterization

of your conduct as criminally reckless. Now, speaking judicially, I order

you to produce those Fuzzies immediately and return them to the custody of

Mr. Holloway."

"Well, of course, your Honor." O'Brien had been growing progressively

distraught, and his face now had the gray-over-brown hue of a walnut

gunstock that has been out in the rain all day. "It'll take an hour or so

to send for them and have them brought here."

"You mean they're not in this building?" Pendarvis asked.

"Oh, no, your Honor, there are no facilities here. I had them taken to

Science Center--"

"_What?_"

Jack had determined to keep his mouth shut and let Gus do the talking. The

exclamation was literally forced out of him. Nobody noticed; it had also

been forced out of both Gus Brannhard and Judge Pendarvis. Pendarvis

leaned forward and spoke with dangerous mildness:

"Do you refer, Mr. O'Brien, to the establishment of the Division of

Scientific Study and Research of the chartered Zarathustra Company?"

"Why, yes; they have facilities for keeping all kinds of live animals, and

they do all the scientific work for--"

Pendarvis cursed blasphemously. Brannhard looked as startled as though his

own briefcase had jumped at his throat and tried to bite him. He didn't

look half as startled as Ham O'Brien did.

"So you think," Pendarvis said, recovering his composure with visible

effort, "that the logical custodian of prosecution evidence in a murder

trial is the defendant? Mr. O'Brien, you simply enlarge my view of the

possible!"

"The Zarathustra Company isn't the defendant," O'Brien argued sullenly.

"Not of record, no," Brannhard agreed. "But isn't the Zarathustra

Company's scientific division headed by one Leonard Kellogg?"

"Dr. Kellogg's been relieved of his duties, pending the outcome of the

trial. The division is now headed by Dr. Ernst Mallin."

"Chief scientific witness for the defense; I fail to see any practical

difference."

"Well, Mr. Emmert said it would be all right," O'Brien mumbled.

"Jack, did you hear that?" Brannhard asked. "Treasure it in your memory.

You may have to testify to it in court sometime." He turned to the Chief

Justice. "Your Honor, may I suggest the recovery of these Fuzzies be

entrusted to Colonial Marshal Fane, and may I further suggest that Mr.

O'Brien be kept away from any communication equipment until they are

recovered."

"That sounds like a prudent suggestion, Mr. Brannhard. Now, I'll give you

an order for the surrender of the Fuzzies, and a search warrant, just to

be on the safe side. And, I think, an Orphans' Court form naming Mr.

Holloway as guardian of these putatively sapient beings. What are their

names? Oh, I have them here on this receipt." He smiled pleasantly. "See,

Mr. O'Brien, we're saving you a lot of trouble."

O'Brien had little enough wit to protest. "But these are the defendant and

his attorney in another murder case I'm prosecuting," he began.

Pendarvis stopped smiling. "Mr. O'Brien, I doubt if you'll be allowed to

prosecute anything or anybody around here any more, and I am specifically

relieving you of any connection with either the Kellogg or the Holloway

trial, and if I hear any argument out of you about it, I will issue a

bench warrant for your arrest on charges of malfeasance in office."

X

Colonial Marshal Max Fane was as heavy as Gus Brannhard and considerably

shorter. Wedged between them on the back seat of the marshal's car, Jack

Holloway contemplated the backs of the two uniformed deputies on the front

seat and felt a happy smile spread through him. Going to get his Fuzzies

back. Little Fuzzy, and Ko-Ko, and Mike, and Mamma Fuzzy, and Mitzi, and

Cinderella; he named them over and imagined them crowding around him,

happy to be back with Pappy Jack.

The car settled onto the top landing stage of the Company's Science

Center, and immediately a Company cop came running up. Gus opened the

door, and Jack climbed out after him.

"Hey, you can't land here!" the cop was shouting. "This is for Company

executives only!"

Max Fane emerged behind them and stepped forward; the two deputies piled

out from in front.

"The hell you say, now," Fane said. "A court order lands anywhere. Bring

him along, boys; we wouldn't want him to go and bump himself on a

communication screen anywhere."

The Company cop started to protest, then subsided and fell in between the

deputies. Maybe it was beginning to dawn on him that the Federation courts

were bigger than the chartered Zarathustra Company after all. Or maybe he

just thought there'd been a revolution.

Leonard Kellogg's--temporarily Ernst Mallin's--office was on the first

floor of the penthouse, counting down from the top landing stage. When

they stepped from the escalator, the hall was crowded with office people,

gabbling excitedly in groups; they all stopped talking as soon as they saw

what was coming. In the division chief's outer office three or four girls

jumped to their feet; one of them jumped into the bulk of Marshal Fane,

which had interposed itself between her and the communication screen. They

were all shooed out into the hall, and one of the deputies was dropped

there with the prisoner. The middle office was empty. Fane took his

badgeholder in his left hand as he pushed through the door to the inner

office.

Kellogg's--temporarily Mallin's--secretary seemed to have preceded them by

a few seconds; she was standing in front of the desk sputtering

incoherently. Mallin, starting to rise from his chair, froze, hunched

forward over the desk. Juan Jimenez, standing in the middle of the room,

seemed to have seen them first; he was looking about wildly as though for

some way of escape.

Fane pushed past the secretary and went up to the desk, showing Mallin his

badge and then serving the papers. Mallin looked at him in bewilderment.

"But we're keeping those Fuzzies for Mr. O'Brien, the Chief Prosecutor,"

he said. "We can't turn them over without his authorization."

"This," Max Fane said gently, "is an order of the court, issued by Chief

Justice Pendarvis. As for Mr. O'Brien, I doubt if he's Chief Prosecutor

any more. In fact, I suspect that he's in jail. _And that_," he shouted,

leaning forward as far as his waistline would permit and banging on the

desk with his fist, "_is where I'm going to stuff you, if you don't get

those Fuzzies in here and turn them over immediately!_"

If Fane had suddenly metamorphosed himself into a damnthing, it couldn't

have shaken Mallin more. Involuntarily he cringed from the marshal, and

that finished him.

"But I can't," he protested. "We don't know exactly where they are at the

moment."

"You don't know." Fane's voice sank almost to a whisper. "You admit you're

holding them here, but you ... don't ... know ... where. _Now start over

again; tell the truth this time!_"

At that moment, the communication screen began making a fuss. Ruth

Ortheris, in a light blue tailored costume, appeared in it.

"Dr. Mallin, what _is_ going on here?" she wanted to know. "I just came in

from lunch, and a gang of men are tearing my office up. Haven't you found

the Fuzzies yet?"

"What's that?" Jack yelled. At the same time, Mallin was almost screaming:

"Ruth! Shut up! Blank out and get out of the building!"

With surprising speed for a man of his girth, Fane whirled and was in

front of the screen, holding his badge out.

"I'm Colonel Marshal Fane. Now, young woman; I want you up here right

away. Don't make me send anybody after you, because I won't like that and

neither will you."

"Right away, Marshal." She blanked the screen.

Fane turned to Mallin. "Now." He wasn't bothering with vocal tricks any

more. "Are you going to tell me the truth, or am I going to run you in and

put a veridicator on you? Where are those Fuzzies?"

"But I don't know!" Mallin wailed. "Juan, you tell him; you took charge of

them. I haven't seen them since they were brought here."

Jack managed to fight down the fright that was clutching at him and got

control of his voice.

"If anything's happened to those Fuzzies, you two are going to envy Kurt

Borch before I'm through with you," he said.

"All right, how about it?" Fane asked Jimenez. "Start with when you and

Ham O'Brien picked up the Fuzzies at Central Courts Building last night.

"Well, we brought them here. I'd gotten some cages fixed up for them,

and--"

Ruth Ortheris came in. She didn't try to avoid Jack's eyes, nor did she

try to brazen it out with him. She merely nodded distantly, as though

they'd met on a ship sometime, and sat down.

"What happened, Marshal?" she asked. "Why are you here with these

gentlemen?"

"The court's ordered the Fuzzies returned to Mr. Holloway." Mallin was in

a dither. "He has some kind a writ or something, and we don't know where

they are."

"Oh, _no!_" Ruth's face, for an instant, was dismay itself. "Not when--"

Then she froze shut.

"I came in about o-seven-hundred," Jimenez was saying, "to give them food

and water, and they'd broken out of their cages. The netting was broken

loose on one cage and the Fuzzy that had been in it had gotten out and let

the others out. They got into my office--they made a perfect shambles of

it--and got out the door into the hall, and now we don't know where they

are. And I don't know how they did any of it."

Cages built for something with no hands and almost no brains. Ever since

Kellogg and Mallin had come to the camp, Mallin had been hypnotizing

himself into the just-silly-little-animals doctrine. He must have

succeeded; last night he'd acted accordingly.

"We want to see the cages," Jack said.

"Yeah." Fane went to the outer door. "Miguel."

The deputy came in, herding the Company cop ahead of him.

"You heard what happened?" Fane asked.

"Yeah. Big Fuzzy jailbreak. What did they do, make little wooden pistols

and bluff their way out?"

"By God, I wouldn't put it past them. Come along. Bring Chummy along with

you; he knows the inside of this place better than we do. Piet, call in.

We want six more men. Tell Chang to borrow from the constabulary if he has

to."

"Wait a minute," Jack said. He turned to Ruth. "What do you know about

this?"

"Well, not much. I was with Dr. Mallin here when Mr. Grego--I mean, Mr.

O'Brien--called to tell us that the Fuzzies were going to be kept here

till the trial. We were going to fix up a room for them, but till that

could be done, Juan got some cages to put them in. That was all I knew

about it till o-nine-thirty, when I came in and found everything in an

uproar and was told that the Fuzzies had gotten loose during the night. I

knew they couldn't get out of the building, so I went to my office and lab

to start overhauling some equipment we were going to need with the

Fuzzies. About ten-hundred, I found I couldn't do anything with it, and my

assistant and I loaded it on a pickup truck and took it to Henry Stenson's

instrument shop. By the time I was through there, I had lunch and then

came back here."

He wondered briefly how a polyencephalographic veridicator would react to

some of those statements; might be a good idea if Max Fane found out.

"I'll stay here," Gus Brannhard was saying, "and see if I can get some

more truth out of these people."

"Why don't you screen the hotel and tell Gerd and Ben what's happened?" he

asked. "Gerd used to work here; maybe he could help us hunt."

"Good idea. Piet, tell our re-enforcements to stop at the Mallory on the

way and pick him up." Fane turned to Jimenez. "Come along; show us where

you had these Fuzzies and how they got away."

* * * * *

"You say one of them broke out of his cage and then released the others,"

Jack said to Jimenez as they were going down on the escalator. "Do you

know which one it was?"

Jimenez shook his head. "We just took them out of the bags and put them

into the cages."

That would be Little Fuzzy; he'd always been the brains of the family.

With his leadership, they might have a chance. The trouble was that this

place was full of dangers Fuzzies knew nothing about--radiation and

poisons and electric wiring and things like that. If they really had

escaped. That was a possibility that began worrying Jack.

On each floor they passed going down, he could glimpse parties of Company

employees in the halls, armed with nets and blankets and other catching

equipment. When they got off Jimenez led them through a big room of glass

cases--mounted specimens and articulated skeletons of Zarathustran

mammals. More people were there, looking around and behind and even into

the cases. He began to think that the escape was genuine, and not just a

cover-up for the murder of the Fuzzies.

Jimenez took them down a narrow hall beyond to an open door at the end.

Inside, the permanent night light made a blue-white glow; a swivel chair

stood just inside the door. Jimenez pointed to it.

"They must have gotten up on that to work the latch and open the door," he

said.

It was like the doors at the camp, spring latch, with a handle instead of

a knob. They'd have learned how to work it from watching him. Fane was

trying the latch.

"Not too stiff," he said. "Your little fellows strong enough to work it?"

He tried it and agreed. "Sure. And they'd be smart enough to do it, too.

Even Baby Fuzzy, the one your men didn't get, would be able to figure that

out."

"And look what they did to my office," Jimenez said, putting on the

lights.

They'd made quite a mess of it. They hadn't delayed long to do it, just

thrown things around. Everything was thrown off the top of the desk. They

had dumped the wastebasket, and left it dumped. He saw that and chuckled.

The escape had been genuine all right.

"Probably hunting for things they could use as weapons, and doing as much

damage as they could in the process." There was evidently a pretty wide

streak of vindictiveness in Fuzzy character. "I don't think they like you,

Juan."

"Wouldn't blame them," Fane said. "Let's see what kind of a houdini they

did on these cages now."

The cages were in a room--file room, storeroom, junk room--behind

Jimenez's office. It had a spring lock, too, and the Fuzzies had dragged

one of the cages over and stood on it to open the door. The cages

themselves were about three feet wide and five feet long, with plywood

bottoms, wooden frames and quarter-inch netting on the sides and tops. The

tops were hinged, and fastened with hasps, and bolts slipped through the

staples with nuts screwed on them. The nuts had been unscrewed from five

and the bolts slipped out; the sixth cage had been broken open from the

inside, the netting cut away from the frame at one corner and bent back in

a triangle big enough for a Fuzzy to crawl through.

"I can't understand that," Jimenez was saying. "Why that wire looks as

though it had been cut."

"It was cut. Marshal, I'd pull somebody's belt about this, if I were you.

Your men aren't very careful about searching prisoners. One of the Fuzzies

hid a knife out on them." He remembered how Little Fuzzy and Ko-Ko had

burrowed into the bedding in apparently unreasoning panic, and explained

about the little spring-steel knives he had made. "I suppose he palmed it

and hugged himself into a ball, as though he was scared witless, when they

put him in the bag."

"Waited till he was sure he wouldn't get caught before he used it, too,"

the marshal said. "That wire's soft enough to cut easily." He turned to

Jimenez. "You people ought to be glad I'm ineligible for jury duty. Why

don't you just throw it in and let Kellogg cop a plea?"

* * * * *

Gerd van Riebeek stopped for a moment in the doorway and looked into what

had been Leonard Kellogg's office. The last time he'd been here, Kellogg

had had him on the carpet about that land-prawn business. Now Ernst Mallin

was sitting in Kellogg's chair, trying to look unconcerned and not making

a very good job of it. Gus Brannhard sprawled in an armchair, smoking a

cigar and looking at Mallin as he would look at a river pig when he

doubted whether it was worth shooting it or not. A uniformed deputy turned

quickly, then went back to studying an elaborate wall chart showing the

interrelation of Zarathustran mammals--he'd made the original of that

chart himself. And Ruth Ortheris sat apart from the desk and the three

men, smoking. She looked up and then, when she saw that he was looking

past and away from her, she lowered her eyes.

"You haven't found them?" he asked Brannhard.

The fluffy-bearded lawyer shook his head. "Jack has a gang down in the

cellar, working up. Max is in the psychology lab, putting the Company cops

who were on duty last night under veridication. They all claim, and the

veridicator backs them up, that it was impossible for the Fuzzies to get

out of the building."

"They don't know what's impossible, for a Fuzzy."

"That's what I told him. He didn't give me any argument, either. He's

pretty impressed with how they got out of those cages."

Ruth spoke. "Gerd, we didn't hurt them. We weren't going to hurt them at

all. Juan put them in cages because we didn't have any other place for

them, but we were going to fix up a nice room, where they could play

together...." Then she must have seen that he wasn't listening, and

stopped, crushing out her cigarette and rising. "Dr. Mallin, if these

people haven't any more questions to ask me, I have a lot of work to do."

"You want to ask her anything, Gerd?" Brannhard inquired.

Once he had had something very important he had wanted to ask her. He was

glad, now, that he hadn't gotten around to it. Hell, she was so married to

the Company it'd be bigamy if she married him too.

"No, I don't want to talk to her at all."

She started for the door, then hesitated. "Gerd, I...." she began. Then

she went out. Gus Brannhard looked after her, and dropped the ash of his

cigar on Leonard Kellogg's--now Ernst Mallin's--floor.

* * * * *

Gerd detested her, and she wouldn't have had any respect for him if he

didn't. She ought to have known that something like this would happen. It

always did, in the business. A smart girl, in the business, never got

involved with any one man; she always got herself four or five boyfriends,

on all possible sides, and played them off one against another.

She'd have to get out of the Science Center right away. Marshal Fane was

questioning people under veridication; she didn't dare let him get around

to her. She didn't dare go to her office; the veridicator was in the lab

across the hall, and that's where he was working. And she didn't dare--

Yes, she could do that, by screen. She went into an office down the hall;

a dozen people recognized her at once and began bombarding her with

questions about the Fuzzies. She brushed them off and went to a screen,

punching a combination. After a slight delay, an elderly man with a

thin-lipped, bloodless face appeared. When he recognized her, there was a

brief look of annoyance on the thin face.

"Mr. Stenson," she began, before he could say anything: "That apparatus I

brought to your shop this morning--the sensory-response detector--we've

made a simply frightful mistake. There's nothing wrong with it whatever,

and if anything's done with it, it may cause serious damage."

"I don't think I understand, Dr. Ortheris."

"Well, it was a perfectly natural mistake. You see, we're all at our wits'

end here. Mr. Holloway and his lawyer and the Colonial Marshal are here

with an order from Judge Pendarvis for the return of those Fuzzies. None

of us know what we're doing at all. Why the whole trouble with the

apparatus was the fault of the operator. We'll have to have it back

immediately, all of it."

"I see, Dr. Ortheris." The old instrument maker looked worried. "But I'm

afraid the apparatus has already gone to the workroom. Mr. Stephenson has

it now, and I can't get in touch with him at present. If the mistake can

be corrected, what do you want done?"

"Just hold it; I'll call or send for it."

She blanked the screen. Old Johnson, the chief data synthesist, tried to

detain her with some question.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Johnson. I can't stop now. I have to go over to Company

House right away."

* * * * *

The suite at the Hotel Mallory was crowded when Jack Holloway returned

with Gerd van Riebeek; it was noisy with voices, and the ventilators were

laboring to get rid of the tobacco smoke. Gus Brannhard, Ben Rainsford and

Baby Fuzzy were meeting the press.

"Oh, Mr. Holloway!" somebody shouted as he entered. "Have you found them

yet?"

"No; we've been all over Science Center from top to bottom. We know they

went down a few floors from where they'd been caged, but that's all. I

don't think they could have gotten outside; the only exit on the ground

level's through a vestibule where a Company policeman was on duty, and

there's no way for them to have climbed down from any of the terraces or

landing stages."

"Well, Mr. Holloway, I hate to suggest this," somebody else said, "but

have you eliminated the possibility that they may have hidden in a trash

bin and been dumped into the mass-energy converter?"

"We thought of that. The converter's underground, in a vault that can be

entered only by one door, and that was locked. No trash was disposed of

between the time they were brought there and the time the search started,

and everything that's been sent to the converter since has been checked

piece by piece."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Holloway, and I know that everybody

hearing this will be glad, too. I take it you've not given up looking for

them?"

"Are we on the air now? No, I have not; I'm staying here in Mallorysport

until I either find them or am convinced that they aren't in the city. And

I am offering a reward of two thousand sols apiece for their return to me.

If you'll wait a moment, I'll have descriptions ready for you...."

* * * * *

Victor Grego unstoppered the refrigerated cocktail jug. "More?" he asked

Leslie Coombes.

"Yes, thank you." Coombes held his glass until it was filled. "As you say,

Victor, you made the decision, but you made it on my advice, and the

advice was bad."

He couldn't disagree, even politely, with that. He hoped it hadn't been

ruinously bad. One thing, Leslie wasn't trying to pass the buck, and

considering how Ham O'Brien had mishandled his end of it, he could have

done so quite plausibly.

"I used bad judgment," Coombes said dispassionately, as though discussing

some mistake Hitler had made, or Napoleon. "I thought O'Brien wouldn't try

to use one of those presigned writs, and I didn't think Pendarvis would

admit, publicly, that he signed court orders in blank. He's been severely

criticized by the press about that."

He hadn't thought Brannhard and Holloway would try to fight a court order

either. That was one of the consequences of being too long in a seemingly

irresistible position; you didn't expect resistance. Kellogg hadn't

expected Jack Holloway to order him off his land grant. Kurt Borch had

thought all he needed to do with a gun was pull it and wave it around. And

Jimenez had expected the Fuzzies to just sit in their cages.

"I wonder where they got to," Coombes was saying. "I understand they

couldn't be found at all in the building."

"Ruth Ortheris has an idea. She got away from Science Center before Fane

could get hold of her and veridicate her. It seems she and an assistant

took some apparatus out, about ten o'clock, in a truck. She thinks the

Fuzzies hitched a ride with her. I know that sounds rather improbable, but

hell, everything else sounds impossible. I'll have it followed up. Maybe

we can find them before Holloway does. They're not inside Science Center,

that's sure." His own glass was empty; he debated a refill and voted

against it. "O'Brien's definitely out, I take it?"

"Completely. Pendarvis gave him his choice of resigning or facing

malfeasance charges."

"They couldn't really convict him of malfeasance for that, could they?

Misfeasance, maybe, but--"

"They could charge him. And then they could interrogate him under

veridication about his whole conduct in office, and you know what they

would bring out," Coombes said. "He almost broke an arm signing his

resignation. He's still Attorney General of the Colony, of course; Nick

issued a statement supporting him. That hasn't done Nick as much harm as

O'Brien could do spilling what he knows about Residency affairs.

"Now Brannhard is talking about bringing suit against the Company, and

he's furnishing copies of all the Fuzzy films Holloway has to the news

services. Interworld News is going hog-wild with it, and even the services

we control can't play it down too much. I don't know who's going to be

prosecuting these cases; but whoever it is, he won't dare pull any

punches. And the whole thing's made Pendarvis hostile to us. I know, the

law and the evidence and nothing but the law and the evidence, but the

evidence is going to filter into his conscious mind through this

hostility. He's called a conference with Brannhard and myself for tomorrow

afternoon; I don't know what that's going to be like."