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
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 wasnât. Nobody on Zarathustra knew the reason, but it wasnât 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.
âAaaah!â he rumbled, as the bottle and glass were placed beside him. âBeen staying alive for hours hoping for this.â
âWell, donât let any of the kids get at it. Little Fuzzy trying to smoke pipes is bad enough; I donât want any dipsos in the family, too.â
Gus filled the glass. To be on the safe side, he promptly emptied it into himself.
âYou got a nice family, Jack. Make a wonderful impression in courtâas long as Baby doesnât try to sit on the judgeâs head. Any jury that sees them and hears that Ortheris girlâs story will acquit you from the box, with a vote of censure for not shooting Kellogg, too.â
âIâm not worried about that. What I want is Kellogg convicted.â
âYou better worry, Jack,â Rainsford said. âYou saw the combination against us at the hearing.â
Leslie Coombes, the Companyâs 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 OâBrien, the Colonial Attorney General, who doubled as Chief Prosecutor. They had both tried to get the whole thing dismissedâself-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.
âYou saw how far they got, didnât you?â
âI hope we donât wish theyâd succeeded,â Rainsford said gloomily.
âWhat do you mean, Ben?â Brannhard asked. âWhat do you think theyâll do?â
âI donât know. Thatâs what worries me. Weâre threatening the Zarathustra Company, and the Companyâs too big to be threatened safely,â Rainsford replied. âTheyâll try to frame something on Jack.â
âWith veridication? Thatâs ridiculous, Ben.â
âDonât you think we can prove sapience?â Gerd van Riebeek demanded.
âWhoâs going to define sapience? And how?â Rainsford asked. âWhy, between them, Coombes and OâBrien can even agree to accept the talk-and-build-a-fire rule.â
âHuh-uh!â Brannhard was positive. âCourt 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 OâBrien doesnât know that, and I doubt if he does, Coombes will.â Brannhard poured another drink and gulped it before the sapient beings around him could get at it. âYou know what? I will make a small wager, and I will even give odds, that the first thing Ham OâBrien does when he gets back to Mallorysport will be to enter nolle prosequi on both charges. What Iâd 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 wouldnât let him.â
âBut if he throws out the Kellogg case, thatâs it,â Gerd van Riebeek said. âWhen Jack comes to trial, nobodyâll say a mumblinâ word about sapience.â
âI 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. Iâm 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 Kelloggâs 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.â
âItâll have to be expert testimony,â Rainsford said. âThe testimony of psychologists. I suppose you know that the only psychologists on this planet are employed by the chartered Zarathustra Company.â 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. âIâd have done the same as you did, Jack, but I still wish this hadnât happened.â
âHuh!â Mamma Fuzzy looked up, startled by the exclamation. âWhat do you think Victor Gregoâs wishing, right now?â
Victor Grego replaced the hand-phone. âLeslie, on the yacht,â he said. âTheyâre coming in now. Theyâll stop at the hospital to drop Kellogg, and then theyâre coming here.â
Nick Emmert nibbled a canape. He had reddish hair, pale eyes and a wide, bovine face.
âHolloway must have done him up pretty badly,â he said.
âI wish Hollowayâd killed him!â He blurted it angrily, and saw the Resident Generalâs shocked expression.
âYou donât really mean that, Victor?â
âThe devil I donât!â He gestured at the recorder-player, which had just finished the tape of the hearing, transmitted from the yacht at sixty-speed. âThatâs only a teaser to whatâll come out at the trial. You know what the Companyâs epitaph will be? Kicked to death, along with a Fuzzy, by Leonard Kellogg.â
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, wouldnât have been so bad if it hadnât been for that asinine murder complaint. That was what had provoked Hollowayâs counter-complaint, which was what had done the damage.
And, now that he thought of it, it had been one of Kelloggâs people, van Riebeek, who had touched off the explosion in the first place. He didnât 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 wouldnât.
âBut, Victor, they wonât convict Leonard of murder,â Emmert was saying. âNot for killing one of those little things.â
ââMurder shall consist of the deliberate and unjustified killing of any sapient being, of any race,ââ he quoted. âThatâs the law. If they can prove in court that the Fuzzies are sapient beingsâŠ.â
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 Companyâs charter. Maybe Kellogg could be kept out of court, at that. There wasnât 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 solsâ bond could be written off; that was pennies to the Company. No, that would still leave them stuck with the Holloway trial.
âYou want me out of here when the others come, Victor?â Emmert asked, popping another canape into his mouth.
âNo, no; sit still. This will be the last chance weâll have to get everybody together; after this, weâll have to avoid anything thatâll look like collusion.â
âWell, anything I can do to help; you know that, Victor,â 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 wreckageâif 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 accountâall out the airlock. Nick would be counted upon to do anything he couldâhowever 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 manâs back, and still got himself killed. Borch hadnât been any better choice than Kellogg himself. What was the matter with him; couldnât he pick men for jobs any more? And Ham OâBrien! No, he didnât have to blame himself for OâBrien. OâBrien was one of Nick Emmertâs boys. And he hadnât 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.
âAll right; show them in.â
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 OâBrien was neither tall, elegant nor calm. His skin was almost blackâheâd 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 ContinentâErnst Mallin, Juan Jimenez and Ruth Ortheris. Mallin was saying that it was a pity Dr. Kellogg wasnât with them.
âI question that. Well, please be seated. We have a great deal to discuss, Iâm afraid.â
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
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