Fuzzy Nation

Chapter Twenty-four

“That’s it,” Soltan said. “Mr. Holloway. Approach the bench. Now.”

Holloway approached. Janice Meyer, making a unilateral decision, approached as well.

“You’re in contempt, Holloway,” Soltan said, spitting out the words.

“For calling a witness, Your Honor?” Holloway asked.

“For trying to make a fool out of me,” Soltan said.

“I am not trying to make a fool out of you,” Holloway said.

“Really,” Soltan said. “Because from where I’m sitting, that’s exactly what you seem to be doing. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been inserting these animals into the hearing at every opportunity.”

“They’re not animals,” Holloway began.

“Don’t start that with me now, Mr. Holloway,” Soltan warned. “I am really not in the mood.”

“Nor have I been inserting them into the hearing,” Holloway continued, risking Soltan’s additional wrath. “The video of the attack and the corpse of the attacked fuzzy had material bearing on the charges.”

“But you haven’t exactly been shy about using the creatures as an attempt to play off our emotions, have you,” Meyer said.

“I don’t particularly care about your emotions, Meyer,” Holloway said.

“And I don’t particularly care for you attempting to play off of mine,” Soltan said, to Holloway. “We’re here to look at the facts of the case, Mr. Holloway. I’ve given you slack on your rope because I thought you were getting to these facts, but this”—Soltan nodded her head dismissively in the direction of Papa Fuzzy, who by now had reached the well of the courtroom and was watching the three of them curiously—“makes it clear that you’re not here to present those facts, you’re here to do something else entirely. It’s bad enough you brought a dead one of these creatures into this courtroom to showboat. I’m not going to allow you to bring in a live one to make a fool out of me. You’ve taken that rope I gave you and hanged yourself on it.”

“This creature is a witness, Your Honor,” Holloway said, grimly. “If you want the facts as you say you do, then you will let me call it to testify.”

“And how are you going to do that?” Meyer said. “Have you suddenly become an expert on their communication, Holloway? Or are you planning to call Dr. Chen to translate? Because calling in a xenolinguist who has an entire career to gain by asserting these animals have language isn’t going to be problematic at all.”

“I find it interesting the concern you have for my potential witnesses, considering how ZaraCorp’s gone out of its way to try to make sure I didn’t have any to call,” Holloway said.

“He’s not calling Dr. Chen, Ms. Meyer,” Soltan said. “He’s not calling anyone. I reiterate, Mr. Holloway: You are in contempt of court. Recess is called until such time as you find new legal representation for the remainder of your case. When we resume, you will be allowed into the courtroom and you will be allowed to communicate with your new legal representative, but that’s it. When the preliminary hearing is through, you’ll be taken into custody.”

“You’re going to place me into the loving hands of ZaraCorp’s Security force?” Holloway said. “You really are trying to get me hanged.”

“That is enough, Mr. Holloway,” Soltan said, and stood.

“I have a witnesss, Your Honor,” Holloway said, loudly. “You need to let my witness talk.”

“Stop wasting my time, Mr. Holloway,” Soltan said. “The answer is no.”

“So I will not talk?” Papa Fuzzy asked, in a high, thin but distinct voice. “I have come to talk. I have come to tell my story. Will I not talk now?”

*

Holloway counted in his head the seconds before anyone else spoke. He got to nine.

“Tell me I just heard what I think I heard,” Judge Soltan said, still standing.

“This is what I’ve been trying to tell you, Your Honor,” Holloway said, quickly. “I have a witness. It is ready to testify.” He turned to Meyer. “And it doesn’t need a translator.” He looked at Papa, who was eyeing him curiously. “Please say hello to Judge Soltan,” he said.

The fuzzy turned and looked back at the judge. “Hello, Judge Soltan,” said the fuzzy, slowly.

Judge Soltan sat.

“So he’s taught the thing to recite a phrase,” Meyer said, scrambling to regain ground. “That proves it’s as smart as a parrot.”

“Mr. Holloway,” Soltan began.

“Talk to it, Your Honor,” Holloway said. “If you think I’m trying to trick you, talk to this fuzzy here. Ask it a question. Any question. But if I may suggest, keep your words simple. Its vocabulary is not extensive.”

“This is ridiculous, Your Honor,” Meyer said.

“Your Honor, I may showboat, but I’m not stupid,” Holloway said. “Do you honestly think I’d bring this creature in front of you if all I could get it to do is recite spoon-fed words and phrases? How long would that trick work? One round of questions, maybe two, before everything went off the script. There’s no possible way I could account for every comment or question you would have to ask it. And then what? What good would it do me and my case against Mr. DeLise to attempt to con you?”

Holloway pointed a finger at DeLise. “All I would get out of it is time in a security holding cell with his buddies watching over me,” he said. “So, no. It’s not a trick. Ask it whatever you like, for as long as you like, until you’re convinced.”

“That doesn’t prove a thing,” Meyer said. “A transmitter could feed the thing lines.”

“Examine it however you want,” Holloway said, to Meyer. “Run any sort of scanner you have over its body. You’ll be wasting your time, but if that’s what it takes, be my guest.”

“Your Honor, this mockery needs to stop now,” Meyer said, to Soltan.

“Quiet, Ms. Meyer,” Soltan snapped. Meyer quieted, and shot a poisonous look at Holloway. Holloway kept his face blank. Soltan sat silently at her desk, chewing over recent events.

“Your Honor,” Holloway prompted, after a minute. “You need to tell us what we’re doing now. And I need to know if I’m still under contempt.”

Soltan looked over at Holloway. “Mr. Holloway, if I find a single bit of evidence that this witness is anything but what you say it is, contempt charges are going to be the least of your problems.”

“Fair enough,” Holloway said. “But at least try to talk to the fuzzy first.” He and Meyer returned to their tables.

Soltan glanced down at the fuzzy, who still stood there, staring impassively at her. Soltan opened her mouth to speak, closed it, and got a look on her face that said, I can’t believe I’m doing this. She looked up again at Holloway.

“Does it have a name, Mr. Holloway?” Soltan asked.

“Why don’t you ask the fuzzy,” Holloway said.

Soltan looked back to the fuzzy. “Do you have a name?” she asked slowly.

“Yes,” the fuzzy said.

There was a pause after this before Soltan figured out that she might have to be more literal. “Please tell me your name,” she said.

“My name is,” and here there was a pause. “Jack Holloway calls me ‘Papa’ but that is not my name. My name is.”

Soltan looked up, confused. “I didn’t catch the name,” she said.

“You couldn’t,” Holloway said. “Fuzzy speech is spoken above the range of our hearing, remember. When it’s speaking to you in English, it’s talking at the absolute bottom of its vocal range.”

Soltan nodded. “May I call you Papa?” she asked the fuzzy.

“Jack Holloway calls me ‘Papa.’ You can call me ‘Papa,’” Papa said.

“How do you feel, Papa?” Soltan asked.

“I feel with my hands,” Papa said.

“You might want to try more direct questions,” Holloway said.

“All right,” Soltan said. “Papa, how do you speak our language?”

“With my mouth,” Papa said, and gave Soltan a look, as if wondering how she didn’t know either this, or how to feel.

“No,” Soltan said. “Who taught you to speak our language? Did Jack Holloway teach you to speak?”

“I knew your language before I met Jack Holloway,” the fuzzy said. “No man taught me to speak your language. Andy Alpaca taught us to speak your language. Andy Alpaca taught us from inside the flat talking rock.”

“That makes no sense,” Meyer said. “That makes no sense at all.”

“What is a flat talking rock?” Soltan said.

Papa turned and pointed to Holloway’s infopanel. “This is a flat talking rock,” it said. “You use other words for it.”

“That’s an infopanel,” Soltan said.

“Yes,” Papa said. “The man and the monkey fell out of the sky and the man was killed by the” pause, as Papa used a fuzzy word. “We went into the skimmer to see what we could see and found the flat talking rock. It taught us your language.”

Soltan looked at Holloway. “Translate,” she said.

“There was a surveyor named Sam Hamilton,” Holloway said. “He had a pet monkey. His skimmer went down. He was killed by zararaptors. The fuzzys checked out the skimmer wreckage and found his infopanel. Sam was nearly illiterate, so he was using kids’ reading software to learn how to read. The software was adaptive, so it took into consideration the user’s comprehension level and scaled from there.”

“You’re seriously suggesting these things learned to read and speak a human language from an advanced piece of technology,” Meyer said.

“Yes, just like human toddlers,” Holloway said. “Amazing, that.”

“Unlike these things, toddlers are surrounded by other humans talking to them all the time,” Meyer said.

“And unlike toddlers, the fuzzys who found this were adults, and smart enough to figure out what the infopanel was displaying to them,” Holloway said. “You’re still working under the impression these things are animals. They’re not. They’re as smart as you or I.”

“Why didn’t you mention any of this before?” Soltan asked. “You were in here last week arguing these fuzzys had language. If you had one come in and speak English, it would have made your case a lot better.”

Holloway nodded toward the fuzzy. “That’s a question for Papa,” he said.

Soltan looked at the fuzzy. “You knew our language before you met Jack Holloway,” she said.

“Yes,” said Papa.

“You did not speak to Jack Holloway in our language when you met him,” Soltan said.

“No,” said Papa.

“Why?” asked Soltan.

“I did not want Jack Holloway to know,” Papa said. “We did not know if Jack Holloway was a good man or a bad man. You have many bad men. Bad men take our homes and food from us and make us move away from other” pause. “We did not know if there are any good men. All the men we saw were bad. When we moved, we found where Jack Holloway lived. I wanted to see and went to see it. Jack Holloway and Carl came and I was scared. But Jack Holloway was good and gave me food. I went back to my people and said I had found a good man.”

There was a snort from Janice Meyer at this.

“I wanted to go back but my people were scared,” Papa said. “I told them about Carl and how Carl was like the monkey who follows us. An animal who was not smart but who men liked. I said I would go and be quiet, to learn more about Jack Holloway and men. I would not speak your language. I would not let Jack Holloway know I could speak your language. I would see how Jack Holloway was with me quiet before I would see how Jack Holloway was with me smart. If Jack Holloway was a good man, then we could show who we are and that we are smart. If Jack Holloway was a bad man, we would hide and move, as we did before.”

Holloway listened to Papa explain to Soltan and was amazed again by the creature. Papa’s words were simple—even at its highest setting the particular software Sam had on his infopanel was not meant for complex adult concepts or reading levels, and Papa’s language would be hampered by that—but the fuzzy spoke them confidently and fluently. It didn’t know much of the English language, but the little part it knew, it knew pretty well. Well enough for this.

Papa turned to Holloway. “My throat hurts,” the fuzzy said.

“Of course it does,” Holloway said. “You’ve been orating in a very low voice.”

Soltan looked at Holloway. “He’s saying he was a spy,” Soltan said. “Acting like a pet.”

“Yes,” Holloway said. “Although not entirely like a pet. It was clear Papa was smart, it just wasn’t clear he was smart on the level of a sentient creature. Also, he’s not really a he, he’s an it.”

Soltan frowned. “You call him ‘Papa,’” she said.

“Biology mistake,” Holloway said. “Patriarchal assumptions. What are you going to do.”

“Well, whatever,” Soltan said, and turned her attention back to Papa. “Do all of your people speak our language?” she asked.

“No,” Papa said. “I do. Some others do. Not many. It is hard to learn. Only I did from those who came to be with Jack Holloway.”

“Why did you want to learn our language?” Soltan asked.

“We want to know why you do what you do,” Papa said. “When we found the flat talking rock we knew that it could help us learn to talk with men. We learn and we look for a man to talk to. We did not find good men. We found bad men.”

“Who are the bad men?” Soltan said. “You said we had many of them.”

“Yes,” Papa said. “They have machines and tear the ground and trees and make the air stink. The trees are where we live and where our food is. When they come we do not stay. They do not see us because we see how they kill animals who come close. We go and we hide.”

Soltan glanced up at Holloway at this. “I presume you haven’t told your friend here what you do for a living, Mr. Holloway.”

Holloway looked embarrassed at this. “It hasn’t come up, no,” he said.

“There are levels of irony to that,” Soltan said.

“Granted,” Holloway said. “But given who they are and how they live, it’s easy to see why they see the surveyors and workers they come across as bad men. It also explains how they came to find me. Sam Hamilton’s old territory was next to mine. Not too long ago, the new surveyor there found copper along the border of our territories, and ZaraCorp came in and tore up a good chunk of it. Papa’s tribe of fuzzys must have gotten displaced. They’ve been moving through the trees ever since, looking for a new home. And if you want to hear something both funny and sad, ask Papa why it thought living with me might be a good idea.”

Soltan looked at Papa. “Why did you want to live with Jack Holloway?” she asked.

“I do not think men will tear the ground and trees where they live,” Papa said.

“Think about that, Your Honor,” Holloway said. “Aside from the irony inherent in the statement, that’s a fair feat of cognitive modeling. This fuzzy took what it knew about humans and guessed at what our behavior would be toward each other, and how it could work that to its own advantage and to the advantage of its own people.”

“If that’s true, then the thing’s been using you all this time, Mr. Holloway,” Soltan said.

“Another argument for their sentience, Your Honor,” Holloway said.

“It doesn’t bother you,” Soltan said.

“Not really, Your Honor,” Holloway said.

“Mr. Holloway, that doesn’t surprise me in the least,” Soltan said.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Holloway said. “And now may I remind you that as enlightening as this has been for all of us, I brought Papa here for a specific reason, which is to testify for this preliminary hearing. If Your Honor is sufficiently convinced that Papa is neither a trick nor a parrot, I would like to put it on the stand.”

“Your Honor, I have to strenuously object,” Meyer said. “This creature has not yet been proven sentient. Any testimony it gives would be inadmissible in any court in the Colonial Authority or on Earth. If you allow the testimony, you’re giving in to the sideshow you said you were hoping to avoid.”

Soltan blinked at Meyer. “Ms. Meyer, have you been in the same courtroom I have been in for the last several minutes?” she asked. “I’ve just had a longer and more cogent discussion with this creature than I suspect you have ever had with your client. The question to me no longer is whether these creatures are sentient or not. That particular question was answered to my satisfaction several minutes ago. The only question now is whether or not this creature in particular is a credible witness. So I’m going to hear its testimony, Ms. Meyer, and make my decision after I hear what it has to say.”

“Then I’d like to request a thirty-minute recess to prepare,” Meyer said.

“Another recess,” Soltan said. “Why not.” She headed for her chambers.

Meyer was up like a shot and out the door of the courtroom. DeLise watched her go, openmouthed. He caught Holloway looking at him and glared.

“Looks like you’re not your lawyer’s main concern anymore, Joe,” Holloway said. “I’d be worried if I were you.”

DeLise crossed his arms, stared forward, and ignored Holloway.