Fuzzies and Other People

CHAPTER EIGHT

AHEAD, THE RAVINE fell sharply downward; on either side it rose high and steep above the little moving-water. The trees were not many here, but there were large rocks. They had to dodge among and climb over them, going in single file. Sometimes he led, and sometimes they would all be ahead of him, Fruitfinder and Lame One and Big She and Other She and Stabber and Carries-Bright-Things and Stonebreaker. They were not hunting — there was nothing to eat here — but ahead he could see blue sky above the trees and could hear the sound of another moving-water which this one joined.

Wise One hoped it would not be too deep or too rapid to cross. There was much moving water here in all the low places between the hills and mountains. A place of much water was good because they could always drink when thirsty and because the growing-things they ate and the animals they hunted were more near water. But moving-waters were often hard to cross, and if they followed one they would come to where it joined another, and it would be big too. Without seeing it, he knew that this one flowed in the direction of the sun’s left hand, for that was how the land sloped. Moving-waters always went down, never up, and they joined bigger ones. That was an always-so thing.

Then, before they knew it, they were out of the ravine and the woods stretched away on either side and in front of them and the moving-water was small and easy to cross. On the other side, the ground sloped up gently away from it, then rose in a steep mountainside. This would be a good place to find things to eat. They splashed across at a shallow place and ran up the bank, laughing and shouting, and spread out line-abreast, hunting under the big trees toward the side of the mountain. There were brown-nut trees here. They picked up sticks and stones and threw them to knock nuts down, and then Big She shouted:

“Look, nuts here already fall off tree. Many-many on ground.”

It was so; the ground at the bottom of one tree was covered with them. They all ran quickly, gathering under the tree, laying nuts on big stones and pounding them with little ones to break the shells to get at the white inside. They were good, and enough for everybody; they ate as fast as they could crack them. They were all careful, though, to watch and listen, for in a place like this there was always danger. Animals could not hear their voices — that was an always-so thing which they could trust — but they made much noise cracking the nuts, and animals which hunted People would hear it and know what it was.

So they kept their clubs to hand, so that they could catch them up if they had to run quickly, and Carries-Bright-Things kept the three sticks with the bright-things on the ends with her club. They would not be able to stay here long, he thought. Long enough to eat as many of the nuts as they wanted, but no longer. He began to think whether to go down the stream or climb up the side of the mountain. Along the stream they would find more good-to-eat things, but the sun was well past highest-time, and they might find a better sleeping-place on the mountaintop. But this moving-water went in the direction of the sun’s left hand, and that was the way he wanted to go.

They had been traveling steadily toward the sun’s left hand for many days now. It was an always-so thing that after leaf-turning time, when the leaves became brown and fell, it became more cold toward the sun’s right hand and stayed warmer to the sun’s left; and People liked being where it was warm. Far to the sun’s right hand, farther than he had ever been, it was said that it grew so cold at times that little pools of still water would be edged with hardness from the cold. This he had never seen for himself, but other People had told about it. So, ever since the day when they had seen the gotza killed by the thunder-death and had found the bright-things, they had been moving toward the sun’s left hand.

He himself had another, even stronger, reason. Ever since he had seen the two Big Ones inside the flying thing, he had been determined to find the Big One Place.

He did not speak about this to the others. They were content to go where Wise One led them; but if he told them what was in his mind, they would all cry out against it and there would be argument, and nothing would be done. The others were still afraid of the flying Big Ones, especially Big She and Fruitfinder and Stonebreaker. He could understand that. It was always well to be at least a little afraid of something one did not know about, and a strange kind of People who went about in flying things and made thunder-death that killed gotza in the air could be very dangerous. But he was sure that they would be friendly.

They had killed the three gotza that had threatened him and the others at the cliff where they had been eating the hatta-zosa; they had been watching from above, and had done nothing until the gotza came, and then they had turned loose the thunder-death, and then they had gone away, leaving the three bright-things. And after chasing the other gotza in their flying thing and killing it, they had passed directly over him and the others, and must have seen them, but they had done no harm. That had been when he had made up his mind to find the Big One Place, and make friends with them. But when he had spoken of it to the others, they had all been afraid. All but Stabber; he had wanted to make friends with the Big Ones too, but when the others had been afraid he had said no more about it.

That had been two hands of sun-times and dark-times ago. Since then, they had seen flying things four times, always to the sun’s left hand. He knew nothing about the country in that direction, but to the sun’s right hand nobody had ever told of seeing flying things. So, he was sure, in order to find the Big One Place, he must go toward the sun’s left hand. But he must not speak about it to the others, only say that it would be warmer to the sun’s left hand, and talk about how they might find many zatku.

There was a crashing in the brush in the direction the moving-water came from, as though some big animal was running very fast. If so, something bigger was chasing it. He sprang to his feet, his club in one hand and the stone with which he had been cracking nuts in the other. The others were on their feet, ready to flee too, when a takku came rushing straight toward them.

Takku were not dangerous; they ate only growing-things. People did not hunt them, however, because they were big and too fleet of foot to catch. But behind the takku something else was coming, making more noise, and it would be something dangerous. He hurled his stone, throwing a little ahead of the takku, meaning to drive it and whatever was after it away from them. To his surprise, he hit it on the flank.

“Throw stones!” he shouted. “Chase takku away!”

The others understood; they snatched up stones and pelted the takku. One stone hit it on the neck. It swerved away from them, stumbled, and was trying to regain its feet when the hesh-nazza burst from the brush behind it and caught it.

Hesh-nazza were the biggest animals in the woods. They had three horns, one jutting from the middle of the forehead and one curving back from each lower jaw. Except for the gotza, which attacked from above, no animal was more feared by the People, and even the gotza never attacked a hesh-nazza.

Catching up with the takku, the hesh-nazza gored it in the side, in back of the shoulder, with its forehead-horn. The takku bleated in pain, and continued to bleat while the hesh-nazza struck it with its forefeet and freed its horn to gore again.

The Gashta did not stay to see what happened after that. The takku was still bleating as they ran up the mountainside; as they climbed, it stopped, and then the hesh-nazza gave a great bellow, as they always did after killing. By this time it would be tearing the flesh of the takku with its jaw-horns, and eating. He was glad he had thought to throw the stone, and tell the others to throw; if he had not, the takku would have run straight among them, and the hesh-nazza after it, and that would have been bad. Now, however, there was no danger, but they continued climbing until they were at the top. Then they all stopped, breathing hard, to rest.

“Better hesh-nazza eat takku than us,” Lame One said.

“Big takku,” Stabber remarked. “Hesh-nazza eat long time. Then go to sleep. Next sun-time, be hungry, hunt again.”

“Hesh-nazza not come up here,” Carries-Bright-Things said. “Stay by moving-water, in low place.”

She was right; hesh-nazza did not like to climb steep places. They stayed by moving-waters, and hunted by lying quietly and waiting for animals, or for People, to come by. He was glad that he and the others had not crossed farther up the stream.

It would still be daylight for a time, but the sun was low enough that they should begin to think about finding a good sleeping-place. The top of this mountain was big and he could see nothing ahead but woods — big trees, some nut-trees. This would be a good place to sleep, and after the sun came out of its sleeping-place, they could go down into the low place on the other side.

“Go down way we came up,” Big She argued. Lately, Big She was beginning to be contrary. “Good place; nut-trees.”

“Bad place; hesh-nazza,” Stabber told her. “Hesh-nazza go down moving water little way, wait. We come, then we be inside hesh-nazza. Better do what Wise One say; Wise One knows best.”

“First, find sleeping-place here,” he said. “Now we go hunt. Everybody, look for good place to sleep.”

The others agreed. They had seen nut-trees here too; where there were nut-trees, there were small animals, good to eat, which gnawed nut-shells open. They might kill and eat a few. Nuts were good, but meat was better. There might even be zatku up here.

They spread out, calling back and forth to one another, being careful to make no noise with their feet among the dead leaves. He thought about the takku. He and at least one of the others had hit it with stones. A person could throw a stone hard enough to knock down and sometimes even kill a hatta-zosa, but all the stones had done to the takku had been to frighten it. He wished there were some way People could kill takku. One takku would be meat enough for everybody all day, and some to carry to the sleeping place for the next morning; and from a takku’s leg-bones good clubs could be made.

He wished he knew how the Big Ones made the thunder-death. Anything that killed a gotza in the air would kill a takku. Why, anything that would kill a gotza would even kill a hesh-nazza! There must be no animal of which the Big Ones were afraid.

IT HAD BEEN a week before Jack Holloway had been able to get away from Mallorysport and back to Hoksu-Mitto, and by that time the new permanent office building was finished and furnished. He had a nice big room on the first floor, complete, of course, with a stack of paperwork that had accumulated on his desk in his absence. The old prefab hut had been taken down and moved across the run, and set up beside the schoolhouse as additional living quarters for Fuzzies, of whom there were now four hundred. That was a hell of a lot of Fuzzies.

“They’re costing like hell too,” George Lunt said. George and Gerd van Riebeek, who had returned from Yellowsand Canyon the day after the lease agreement had been signed, and Pancho Ybarra were with him in his new office the morning after his return. “And we have a hundred to a hundred and fifty more at the outposts, and hokfusine and Extee-Three to supply to the families living on farms and plantations.”

George didn’t need to tell him that. A lot of what had piled up on his desk had to do with supplies bought or on order. And the Native Commission payroll: two hundred fifty ZNPF officers and men, Ahmed Khadra’s investigators, the technicians and construction men, the clerical force, the men and women working under Gerd van Riebeek in the scientific bureau, Lynn Andrews and her medical staff…

“If that Yellowsand agreement goes out the airlock,” Gerd van Riebeek voiced his own thoughts, “we’ll have a hell of a lot of bills to pay and nothing to pay them with.”

Nobody argued that point. Pancho Ybarra said, “It’s on the Fuzzy Reservation; doesn’t the Colonial Government control that?”

“Not the way we need, not if the Fuzzies aren’t minor children. The Government controls the Reservation to enforce the law; that means, if the Fuzzies are legally adults, nobody is permitted to mine sunstones on the Reservation without the Fuzzies’ consent.”

“Those fingerprint signatures on that agreement,” George Lunt considered. “I know, they were only additional witnesses, but weren’t they acquiescent witnesses? Wouldn’t that do as evidence of consent?”

Gus Brannhard had thought of that a couple of days ago. Maybe that would stand up in court; Chief Justice Pendarvis had declined to give a guidance opinion on it, which didn’t look too good.

“Well, then, let’s get their consent,” Gerd said. “We have over four hundred here; that’s the most Fuzzies in any one place on the planet. Let’s hold a Fuzzy election. Elect Little Fuzzy paramount chief, and elect about a dozen subchiefs, and hold a tribal council, and vote consent to lease Yellowsand to the Company. You ought to see some of the tribal councils on Yggdrasil; at least ours would be sober.”

“Or Gimli; I was stationed there before I was transferred to Zarathustra,” Lunt said. “That’s how the Gimli Company got consent to work those fissionable-ore mines.”

“Won’t do. According to law, what one of these tribal councils has to do is vote somebody something like a power of attorney to transact their business for them, and that has to be veridicated by the native chief or council or whatever granting it,” he said.

Silence fell with a dull thump. The four of them looked at one another. Lunt said:

“With that much money involved, a couple of lawyers like Gus Brannhard and Leslie Coombes ought to be able to find some way around the law.”

“I don’t want to have to get around the law,” Holloway said. “If we get around the law to help the Fuzzies, somebody else’ll take the same road around it to hurt them.” His pipe had gone out, and there was nothing in it but ashes when he tried to relight it. He knocked it into an ashtray and got out his tobacco pouch. “This isn’t just for this week or this year. There’ll be Fuzzies and other people living together on this planet for thousands of years, and we want to start Fuzzy-Human relations off right. We don’t know who’ll run the Government and the Company after Rainsford and Grego and the rest of us are dead. They will run things on precedents we establish now.”

He was talking more to himself than to the three men in the office with him. He puffed on the pipe, and then continued.

“That’s why I want to see Leo Thaxter and Evins and his wife and Phil Novaes shot for what they did to those Fuzzies. I’m not bloodthirsty; I’ve killed enough people myself that I don’t see any fun in it. I just want the law clear and plain that Fuzzies are entitled to the same protection as human children, and I want a precedent to warn anybody else of what they’ll get if they mistreat Fuzzies.”

“I agree,” Pancho Ybarra said. “In my professional opinion, to which I will testify, that’s exactly what Fuzzies are — innocent and trusting little children, as helpless and vulnerable in human society as human children are in adult society. And the gang who enslaved and tortured those Fuzzies to make thieves out of them ought to be shot, not so much for what they did as for being the sort of people who would do it.”

“What do you think about the veridication angle?” Lunt asked. “If we can’t get that cleared up, we won’t be able to do anything.”

“Well, if a Fuzzy doesn’t red-light a veridicator, it means the Fuzzy isn’t lying,” Gerd said. “You ever know a Fuzzy to lie? I’ve never known one to; neither has Ruth.”

“Neither have I, not even the ones we’ve caught raising hell down in the farming country,” Lunt said. “Every man on the Protection Force’ll testify to that.”

“Well, what’s Mallin doing?” Gerd asked. “Is he going to get Henry Stenson to invent an instrument that’ll detect a Fuzzy telling the truth?”

“No. He’s going to teach some Fuzzies to lie so they can red-light a veridicator and show that it works.”

“Hey, he can get shot for that!” Lunt said. “Lying is an immoral act. That’s faginy !”

ONE OF THE Fuzzies, whose name was Kraft, sat cross-legged on the floor, smoking a pipe. The other was named Ebbing; she sat in a scaled-down veridicator chair, with a chromium helmet on her head. Behind her, a translucent globe mounted on a standard glowed clear blue. Ernst Mallin sat sidewise at the table, looking at them; across from him, Leslie Coombes was smoking a cigarette in silence.

“Ebbing, you want to help Unka Ernst, Unka Lessee?” he was asking for the nth time.

“Sure,” Ebbing agreed equably. “What want Ebbing do?”

“Your name Ebbing. You understand name?”

“Sure. Name something somebody call somebody else. Big Ones give all Fuzzies names; put names on idee-disko.” She fingered the silver disk at her throat. “My name here. Ebbing.”

“She knows that?” Coombes asked.

“Oh, yes. She can even print it for you, as neatly as it’s engraved on the disk. Now, Ebbing. Unka Less’ee ask what your name, you tell him name is Kraft.”

“But is not. My name Ebbing. Kraft his name.” She pointed.

“I know. Unka Less’ee know too. But Unka Less’ee ask, you say Kraft. Then he ask Kraft, Kraft say his name Ebbing.”

“Is Big One way to make fun,” Coombes interjected. “We call it, Alias, Alias, Who’s Got the Alias. Much fun.”

“Please, Mr. Coombes. Now, Ebbing, you say to Unka Less’ee your name is Kraft.”

“You mean, make trade with Kraft? Trade idee-disko too?”

“No. Real name for you Ebbing. You just say name is Kraft.”

The blue-lit globe flickered, the color in it swirling, changing to dark indigo and back to pale blue. For a moment he was hopeful, then realized that it was only the typical confusion-of-meaning effect. Ebbing touched her ID-disk and looked at her companion. Then the light settled to clear blue.

“Kraft,” she said calmly.

“Unholy Saint Beelzebub!” Coombes groaned.

He felt like groaning himself.

“You give new idee-disko?” Ebbing asked.

“She thinks her name is Kraft now. That’s telling the truth to the best of her knowledge and belief,” Coombes said.

“No, no; name for you Ebbing; name for him Kraft.” He rose and went to her, detaching the helmet and electrodes. “Finish for now,” he said. “Go make play. Tell Auntie Anne give Estee-fee.”

The Fuzzies started to dash out, then remembered their manners, stopped at the door to say, “Sank-oo, Unka Ernst; goo-bye, Unka Less’ee, Unka Ernst,” before scampering away.

“They both believe now that I meant that they should trade names,” he said. “The next time I see them, they’ll be wearing each other’s ID-disks, I suppose.”

“They don’t even know that lying is possible,” Coombes said. “They don’t have anything to lie about naturally. Their problems are all environmental, and you can’t lie to your environment; if you try to lie to yourself about it, it kills you. I wish their social structure was a little more complicated; lying is a social custom. I wish they’d invented politics!”