Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper (little readers .TXT) đ
- Author: H. Beam Piper
- Performer: 0809562820
Book online «Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper (little readers .TXT) đ». Author H. Beam Piper
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 constructionâhe could think of no other name for itâwith 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.
âYes, I see. Itâs very beautiful,â he told her.
She tugged harder and pointed at the thing the others were making. Finally, he understood.
âShe wants me to work on it, too,â he said. âBen, you know where the coffee is; fix us a pot. Iâm going to be busy here.â
He sat down on the floor, and was putting sticks and balls together when Ben brought in the coffee. This was more fun than heâd had in a couple of days. He said so while Ben was distributing Extee Three to the Fuzzies.
âYes, I ought to let you kick me all around the camp for getting this started,â Rainsford said, pouring the coffee. âI could make some excuses, but theyâd all sound like âI didnât know it was loaded.ââ
âHell, I didnât know it was loaded, either.â He rose and took his coffee cup, blowing on it to cool it. âWhat do you think Kelloggâs up to, anyhow? That whole act heâs been putting on since he came here is phony as a nine-sol bill.â
âWhat I told you, evening before last,â Rainsford said. âHe doesnât 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 Iâm going to do? Iâm going home, and Iâm going to sit up all night getting a report into shape. Tomorrow morning Iâm going to give it to George Lunt and let him send it to Mallorysport in the constabulary mail pouch. Itâll be on a ship for Terra before any of this gang knows itâs been sent. Do you have any copies of those movies you can spare?â
âAbout a mile and a half. I made copies of everything, even the stuff the others took.â
âGood. Weâll send that, too. Let Kellogg read about it in the papers a year from now.â He thought for a moment, then said: âGerd and Ruth and Juan are bunking at the other camp now; suppose I move in here with you tomorrow. I assume you donât want to leave the Fuzzies alone while that gangâs here. I can help you keep an eye on them.â
âBut, Ben, you donât want to drop whatever else youâre doingââ
âWhat Iâm doing, now, is learning to be a Fuzzyologist, and this is the only place I can do it. Iâll see you tomorrow, after I stop at the constabulary post.â
The people across the runâKellogg, Mallin and Borch, and van Riebeek, Jimenez and Ruth Ortherisâwere 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 didnât seem to be willing to let the three who had come to the camp first wander around unchaperoned. He wondered about that.
Ben Rainsfordâs 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.
âI sent the report off,â Rainsford said, then looked at his watch. âIt ought to be on the mail boat for Mallorysport by now; this time tomorrow itâll be in hyperspace for Terra. We wonât 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.â He chuckled. âI made a definite claim of sapience; by the time I got the report in shape to tape off, I couldnât see any other alternative.â
âDamned if I can. You hear that, kids?â he asked Mike and Mitzi, who had come over in hope that there might be goodies for them. âUncle Ben says youâre sapient.â
âYeek?â
âThey want to know if itâs good to eat. Whatâll happen now?â
âNothing, for about a year. Six months from now, when the ship gets in, the Institute will release it to the press, and then theyâll send an investigation team here. So will any of the other universities or scientific institutes that may be interested. I suppose the governmentâll send somebody, too. After all, subcivilized natives on colonized planets are wards of the Terran Federation.â
He didnât 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. âNice fur,â he said. âFur like that would bring good prices. It will, if we donât get these people recognized as sapient beings.â
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 Mallinâs, and then Kelloggâs. 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.
âWe got your package off all right Ben,â Lunt said. He sat down and took Goldilocks on his lap; immediately Cinderella jumped up, also. âJack, what the hellâs that gang over there up to anyhow?â
âYou got that, too?â
âYou can smell it on them for a mile, against the wind. In the first place, that Borch. I wish I could get his prints; Iâll bet we have them on file. And the whole gangâs trying to hide something, and what theyâre trying to hide is something theyâre 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 doesnât like you, Jack and he doesnât like Ben, and he doesnât like the Fuzzies. Most of all he doesnât like the Fuzzies.â
âWell, I told you what I thought this morning,â Rainsford said. âThey donât want outsiders discovering things on this planet. It wouldnât make them look good to the home office on Terra. Remember, it was some non-Company people who discovered the first sunstones, back in âForty-eight.â
George Lunt looked thoughtful. On him, it was a scowl.
âI donât think thatâs it, Ben. When we were talking to him, he admitted very freely that you and Jack discovered the Fuzzies. The way he talked, he didnât seem to think they were worth discovering at all. And he asked a lot of funny questions about you, Jack. The kind of questions Iâd ask if I was checking up on somebodyâs mental competence.â The scowl became one of anger now. âBy God, I wish I had an excuse to question himâwith a veridicator!â
Kellogg didnât want the Fuzzies to be sapient beings. If they werenât theyâd 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.
VIITuesday dawned hot and windless, a scarlet sun coming up in a hard, brassy sky. The Fuzzies, who were in to wake Pappy Jack with their whistles, didnât like it; they were edgy and restless. Maybe it would rain today after all. They had breakfast outside on the picnic table, and then Ben decided heâd go back to his camp and pick up a few things he hadnât brought and now decided he needed.
âMy hunting rifleâs one,â he said, âand I think Iâll circle down to the edge of the brush country and see if I can pick off a zebralope. We ought to have some more fresh meat.â
So, after eating, Rainsford got into his jeep and lifted away. Across the run, Kellogg and Mallin were walking back and forth in front of the camp, talking earnestly. When Ruth Ortheris and Gerd van Riebeek came out, they stopped, broke off their conversation and spoke briefly with them. Then Gerd and Ruth crossed the footbridge and came up the path together.
The Fuzzies had scattered, by this time, to hunt prawns. Little Fuzzy and Ko-Ko and Goldilocks ran to meet them; Ruth picked Goldilocks up and carried her, and Ko-Ko and Little Fuzzy ran on ahead. They greeted Jack, declining coffee; Ruth sat down in a chair with Goldilocks, Little Fuzzy jumped up on the table and began looking for goodies, and when Gerd stretched out on his back on the grass Ko-Ko sat down on his chest.
âGoldilocks is my favorite Fuzzy,â Ruth was saying. âShe is the sweetest thing. Of course, theyâre all pretty nice. I canât get over how affectionate and trusting they are; the ones we saw out in the woods were so timid.â
âWell, the ones out in the woods donât have any Pappy Jack to look after themâ Gerd said. âIâd imagine theyâre very affectionate among themselves, but they have so many things to be afraid of. You know, thereâs another prerequisite for sapience. It develops in some small, relatively defenseless, animal surrounded by large and dangerous enemies he canât outrun or outfight. So, to survive, he has to learn to outthink them. Like our own remote ancestors, or like Little Fuzzy; he had his choice of getting sapient or getting exterminated.â
Ruth seemed troubled. âGerd, Dr. Mallin has found absolutely nothing about them that indicates true sapience.â
âOh, Mallin be bloodied; he doesnât know what sapience is any more than I do. And a good deal less than you do, Iâd say. I think heâs trying to prove that the Fuzzies arenât sapient.â
Ruth looked startled. âWhat makes you say that?â
âItâs been sticking out all over him ever since he came here. Youâre a psychologist; donât tell me you havenât seen it. Maybe if the Fuzzies were proven sapient it would invalidate some theory heâs gotten out of a book, and heâd have to do some thinking for himself. He wouldnât like that. But you have to admit heâs been fighting the idea, intellectually and emotionally, right from the start. Why, they could sit down with pencils and slide rules and start working differential calculus and it wouldnât convince him.â
âDr. Mallinâs trying toââ she began
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