Fuzzies and Other People Read online

  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 fingermarks.”

  “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.”

  vii.

  Gus Brannhard said, “Well, I was wrong. I am most happy to admit it. I’ve been getting the same reports, from all over, and the editorial opinion is uniformly favorable.”

  Leslie Coombes, in the screen, nodded. He was in the library of his apartment across the city, with a coffee service and a stack of papers and teleprint sheets on the table in front of him.

  “Editorial opinion, of course, doesn’t win elections, but the grass-roots-level reports are just as good. Things are going to be just as they always were, and that’s what most people really want. It ought to gain us some votes, instead of losing us any. These people Hugo Ingermann was frightening with stories about how they were going to be taxed into poverty to maintain the Fuzzies in luxury, for instance… . Now it appears that the Fuzzies will be financing the Government.”

  “Is Victor still in town?”

  “Oh, no. He left for Yellowsand Canyon before daybreak. He’s been having men and equipment shifted in there from Big Blackwater for the last week. By this time, they’re probably digging out sunstones by the peck.”

  He laughed. Like a kid with a new rifle; couldn’t wait to try it out. “I suppose he took Diamond along?”

  Grego never went anywhere without his Fuzzy. “Well, why don’t you drop around to Government House for cocktails? Jack’s still in town, and we can talk without as many interruptions, human and otherwise, as last evening.”

  Coombes said he would be glad to. They chatted for a few minutes, then broke the connection, and immediately the screen buzzer began. When he put it on again, his screen-girl looked out of it as though she smelled a week-old dead snake somewhere.

  “The Honorable—technically, of course—Hugo In-germann,” she said. “He’s been trying to get you for the last ten minutes.”

  “Well, I’ve been trying to get him ever since I took office,” he said. “Put him on.” Then he snapped on the recorder.

  The screen flickered and cleared, and a plump, well-barbered face looked out of it, affable and candid, with innocently wide blue eyes. A face anybody who didn’t know its owner would trust.

  “Good morning, Mr. Brannhard.”

  “Good morning indeed, Mr. Ingermann. Is there something I can do for you? Besides dropping dead, that is?”

  “Ah, I believe there is something I can do for you, Mr. Brannhard,” Ingermann beamed like an orphanage superintendent on Christmas morning. “How would you like pleas of guilty from Leo Thaxter, Conrad and Rose Evins, and Phil Novaes?”

  “I couldn’t even consider them. You know pleas of guilty to capital charges aren’t admissible.”

  Ingermann stared for a moment in feigned surprise, then laughed. “Those ridiculous things? No, we are pleading guilty to the proper and legitimate charges of first-degree burglary, grand larceny, and criminal conspiracy. That is, of course, if the Colony agrees to drop that silly farrago of faginy and enslavement charges.”

  He checked the impulse to ask Ingermann if he were crazy. Whatever Hugo Ingermann was, he wasn’t that. He substituted: “Do you think I’m crazy, Mr. Ingermann?”

  “I hope you’re smart enough to see the advantage of my offer,” Ingermann replied.

  “Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not. The advantage to your clients, yes; that’s the difference between twenty years in the penitentiary and a ten-millimeter bullet in the back of the head. I’m afraid the advantage to the Colony is slightly less apparent.”

  “It shouldn’t be. You can’t get a conviction on those charges, and you know it. I’m giving you a chance to get off the hook.”

  “Well, that’s very kind of you, Mr. Ingermann, indeed it is. I’m afraid, though, that I can’t take advantage of your good nature. You’ll just have to fight those charges in court.”

  “You think I can’t?” Ingermann was openly contemptuous now. “You’re prosecuting my clients, if that’s how you mispronounce it, on charges of faginy. You know perfectly well that the crime of faginy cannot be committed against an adult, and you know, just as well, that that’s what those Fuzzies are.”

  “They are legally minor children.”

  “They are classified as minor children by a court ruling. That ruling is not only contrary to physical fact but is also a flagrant usurpation of legislative power by the judiciary, and hence unconstitutional. As such, I mean to attack it.”

  And wouldn’t that play Nifflheim? The Government couldn’t let that ruling be questioned; why, it would…Which was what Ingermann was counting on, of course. He shrugged.

  “We can get along without convicting them of faginy; we can still convict them of enslavement. That’s the nice thing about capital punishment: nobody needs to be shot in the head more than once.”

  Ingermann laughed scornfully. “You think you can frame my clients on enslavement charges? Those Fuz-zies weren’t slaves; they were accomplices.”

  “They were made drunk, transported under the influence of liquor from their native habitat, confined under restraint, compelled to perform work, and punished for failure to do so by imprisonment in a dungeon, by starvation, and by electric-shock tortures. If that isn’t a classic description of the conditions of enslavement, I should like to hear one.”

  “And have the Fuzzies accused my clients of these crimes?” Ingermann asked. “Under veridication, on a veridicator tested to distinguish between true and false statements when made by Fuzzies?”

  No, they hadn’t; and that was only half of it. The other half was what he’d been afraid of all along.

  “Don’t tell me; I’ll tell you,” Ingermann went on. “They have not, for the excellent reason that Fuzzies can’t be veridicated. I have that on the authority of Dr. Ernst Mallin, Victor Grego’s chief Fuzzyologist. A polyencephalographic veridicator simply will not respond to Fuzzies. Now, you put those Fuzzies on the stand against my clients and watch what happens.”

  That was true. Mallin, who had the idea that scientific information ought to be published, had stated that no Fuzzy with whom he had worked had ever changed the blue light of a veridicator to the red of falsehood. He had also stated that in his experience no Fuzzy had ever made a false statement, under veridication or otherwise. But Ingermann was ignoring that.

  “And as to these faginy charges, if you people really believe that Fuzzies are legally minor children, why was it thought necessary to have a dozen and a half of them fingerprint that Yellowsand lease agreement? Minor children do not sign documents like that.”

  He laughed. “Oh, that was just fun for the Fuzzies,” he said. “They wanted to do what the Big Ones were doing.”

  “Mr. Brannhard!” From Ingermann’s tone, he might have been a parent who has just been informed by a five-year-old that a gang of bandits in black masks had come in and looted the cookie jar. “Do you expect me to believe that?”

  “I don’t give a hoot on Nifflheim whether you do or not, Mr. Ingermann. Now, was there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “Isn’t that enough for now?” Ingermann asked. “The trial won’t be for a month yet. If, in the meantime, you change your mind—and if you’re well-advised you will—just give me a call. Goodbye for now.”

  Victor Grego’s aircar pilot wasn’t usually insane…only when he got his hands on the controls of a vehicle. Yellowsand Canyon was three time zones east of Mallorysport, and, coming in, the sun was an hour higher than when they had lifted out. Diamond had noticed that too, and commented on it.

  A sergeant of the Marine guard met them on the top landing stage of Government House. “Mr. Grego. Mr. Coombes and Mr. Brannhard are here, with the Governor in his office.”

  “Is anybody here going to try to arrest my Fuzzy?” he asked.

  The sergeant grinned. “No, sir. He’s been accused of everything but space-piracy, high treason, and murder-one, along with the others, but Marshal Fane says he won’t arrest any of them if they show up tomorrow in Complaint Court.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant. Then, I won’t need this.” Victor unbuckled his pistol, wrapping the belt around the holster, and tossed it onto the back seat of the car, lifting Diamond and setting him on his shoulder. “Go amuse yourself for a couple of hours,” he told the pilot. “Stay around where I can reach you, though.”

  At the head of the escalator, he told Diamond the same thing, watching him ride down and scamper across the garden in search of Flora and Fauna and the rest of his friends. Then Victor went inside, and found Leslie Coombes and Gus Brannhard seated with Ben Rains-ford at the oval table in the private conference room. They exchanged greetings, and he sat down with them.

  “Now, what the devil’s all this about arresting Fuz-zies?” he demanded. “What are they charged with?”

  “They aren’t charged with anything, yet,” Brannhard told him. “Hugo Ingermann made information against all six of them with the Colonial Marshal. He accused Allan Pinkerton and Arsene Lupin and Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler and Mata Hari of first-degree burglary, grand larceny and criminal conspiracy, and Diamond with misprision of felony and accessory-be-fore-the-fact. They won’t be charged till the accusations are heard in Complaint Court tomorrow.”

  Complaint Court was something like the ancient grand jury—an inquiry into whether or not a chargeable crime had been committed. The accusation was on trial there, not the accused.

  “Well, you aren’t letting it get past there, are you?”

  Before Brannhard could answer, Jack Holloway and Ernst Mallin came in. Holloway was angry, the tips of his mustache twitching and a feral glare in his eyes. He must have looked like that when he beat up Kellogg and shot Borch. Ernst Mallin looked distressed; he’d been in one criminal case involving Fuzzies, and that had been enough. Ahmed Khadra entered behind them, with Fitz Mortlake, the Company Police captain who was guardian-of-record for the other five Fuzzies. After more greetings, they all sat down.

  “What are you going to do about this goddamned thing?” Jack Holloway began while he was still pulling up his chair. “You going to let that son of a Khooghra get away with this?”

  “If you mean the Fuzzies, hell, no,” Brannhard said. “They’re not guilty of anything, and everybody, Ingermann included, knows it. He’s trying to bluff me into dropping the faginy and enslavement charges and letting his clients cop a plea on the burglary and larceny charges. He thinks I’m afraid to prosecute those faginy and enslavement charges. He’s right; I am. But I’m going ahead with them.”

  “Well, but, my God…!” Jack Holloway began to explode.

  “What’s wrong with those charges?”

  “Well, the faginy, now,” Brannhard said. “That’s based on the assumption that Fuzzies are equivalent to human children of ten-to-twelve, and that rests on a reversible judicial opinion, not on statute law. Ingermann thinks we’ll drop the charges rather than open the Fuzzies’ minor-child status to question, because that’s the basis of the whole Government Fuzzy policy.”

  “And you’re afraid of that?”

  “Of course he is,” Coombes said. “So am I, and so ought you to be. Just take the Yellowsand agreement. If the Fuzzies are legally minor children, they can’t control or dispose of property. The Government, as guardian-in-general of the whole Fuzzy race, has authority to do that, including leasing mineral lands. But suppose they’re adult aborigines. Even Class-IV aborigines can control their own property, and according to Federation Law, Terrans are forbidden to settle upon or exploit the ‘anciently accustomed habitation’ of Class-IV natives—in this case, Beta Continent north of the Snake and the Little Blackwater, which includes Yellowsand Canyon—without the natives’ consent. Consent, under Federation Law, must be expressed by vote of a representative tribal council, or by the will of a recognized tribal chief.”

  “Well, Jesus-in-the-haymow!” Jack Holloway almost yelled. “There is no such damned thing! They have no tribes, just little family groups, about half a dozen in each. And who in Nifflheim ever heard of a Fuzzy chief?”

  “Then, we’re all right,” he said. “The law cannot compel the performance of an impossibility.”

  “You only have half of that, Victor,” Coombes said. “The law, for instance, cannot compel a blind man to pass a vision test. The law, however, can and does make passing such a test a requirement for operating a contragravity vehicle. Blind men cannot legally pilot air-cars. So if we can’t secure the consent of a nonexistent Fuzzy tribal council, we can’t mine sunstones at Yellow-sand, lease or no lease.”

  “Then, we’ll get out all we can while the lease is still good.” He’d stripped Big Blackwater of men and equipment already; he was thinking of what other Peters could be robbed to pay Yellowsand Paul. “We have a month till the trial.”

  “I’m just as interested in that as you are, Victor,” Gus- Brannhard said, “but that’s not the only thing. There’s the Adoption Bureau: If the Fuzzies aren’t minor children, somebody might make enslavement—peonage at least—out of those adoptions. And the health and education programs. And the hokfusine—sooner or later some damned do-gooder’ll squawk about compulsory medication. And here’s another angle: Under Colonial Law, nobody is chargeable with any degree of homicide in any case of a person killed while committing a felony. As minor children of under twelve, Fuzzies are legally incapable of committing felony. But if they’re legally adults…”

  Jack literally howled. “Then, anybody could shoot a Fuzzy, anytime, if he caught him breaking into something, or…”

  “Well, say we drop the faginy charges,” Fitz Mort-lake suggested. “We still have the other barrel loaded. They can be shot just as dead for enslavement as for enslavement and faginy.”

  “Is the other barrel loaded, though?” Gus asked. “I can put that gang on the stand—thank all the gods and the man who invented the veridicator, there’s no law against self-incrimination—I can’t force them to talk. You can’t do things in open court like you can in the back room at a police station. I may be able to get a conviction without the Fuzzies’ testimony, but I can’t guarantee it. Tell him about it, Dr. Mallin.”

  “Well.” Ernst Mallin cleared his throat. “Well,” he said again. “You all understand the principles of the polyencephalographic veridicator. All mental activity is accompanied by electromagnetic activity, in detectable wave patterns. The veridicator is so adjusted as to respond only to the wave patterns accompanying the suppression of a true statement and the substitution of a false statement, by causing the blue light in the globe to turn red. I have used the veridicator in connection with psychological experiments with quite a few Fuzzies. I have never had one change the blue light to red.”