Fuzzy Sapiens

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MYRA WAS VEXED. “It’s Mr. Dunbar. The chief chemist at Synthetic Foods,” she added, as though he didn’t know that. “He is here himself; he has something he insists he must give to you personally.”

“That’s what I told him to do, Myra. Send him in.”

Malcolm Dunbar pushed through the door from Myra’s office with an open fiberboard carton under his arm. That had probably helped vex Myra; Dunbar was an executive, and executives ought not to carry their own parcels; it was infra dignitatem. He set it on the corner of the desk.

“Here it is, Mr. Grego; this is the first batch. We just finished the chemical tests on it. Identical with both the Navy stuff and the stuff we imported ourselves.”

He rose and went around the desk, reaching into the carton and taking out a light brown slab, breaking off a corner and tasting it. It had the same slightly rancid, slightly oily and slightly sweetish flavor as the regular product. It tasted as though it had been compounded according to the best scientific principles of dietetics, by somebody who thought there was something sinful about eating for pleasure. He yielded to no one in his admiration of Fuzzy fuzzy holloway, but anybody who liked this stuff was nuts.

“You’re sure it’s safe?”

Dunbar was outraged. “My God, would I bring it here for you to feed your Fuzzy if I didn’t know it was? In the first place, it’s made strictly according to Terran Federation Armed Forces specifications. The bulk-matter is pure wheat farina, the same as Argentine Syntho-Foods and Odin Dietetics use. The rest is chemically pure synthetic nutrients. We have a man at the plant who used to be a chemical engineer at Odin Dietetics; he checked all the processes and they’re identical. And we tried it on all the standard lab animals; Terran hamsters and Thoran tilbras, and then on Freyan kholphs and Terran rhesus monkeys. The kholphs,” he footnoted, “didn’t like it worth a damn. It harmed none of them. And I ate a cake of the damned stuff myself, and it took a couple of hours and a pint of bourbon to get rid of the taste,” the martyr to science added.

“All right. I will accept that it is fit for Fuzzy consumption. Fortunately, the whole Fuzzy population of Mallorysport, all five of them, are up on my terrace now. Let’s go.”

Ben Rainsford’s Flora and Fauna, and Mrs. Pendarvis’s Pierrot and Columbine were with Diamond in the Fuzzy-room. Outside on the terrace it was raw and rainy, one of Mallorysport’s rare unpleasant days. They had a lot of colored triangular tiles on the floor, and were making patterns with them. Sandra Glenn was watching them with one eye and reading with the other. They all sprang to their feet and began yeeking, then remembered the Fuzzy phones on their belts, whipped them out, and began shouting, “Heyo, Pappy Vic!” He’d tried to explain that he was Diamond’s Pappy Vic, and just Uncle Vic to the rest, but they refused to make the distinction. Pappy to one Fuzzy, pappy to all.

“Pappy Vic give Estee-fee,” he told them. “New estefee, very good.” He set the box down and got out one of the slabs, breaking and distributing it. The Fuzzies had nice manners; the two most recent guests, Pierrot and Columbine, served first, held theirs till the others were served. Then they all nibbled together.

They each took one nibble and stopped.

“Not good,” Diamond declared. “Not Estee-fee. Want Estee-fee. “

“Bad,” Flora pronounced it, spitting out what she had in her mouth and carrying the rest to the trash-bin. “Estee-fee good; this not.”

“Estee-fee for look; not Estee-fee in mouth,” Pierrot said.

“What are they saying?” Dunbar wanted to know.

“They say it isn’t Extee-Three at all, and they want to know how dumb I am to think it is.”

“But look, Mr. Grego; this is Extee-Three. It is chemically identical with the stuff they’ve been eating all along.”

“The Fuzzies aren’t chemists. They only know what it tastes like, and it doesn’t taste like Extee-Three to them.”

“It tastes like Extee-Three to me…”

“You,” Sandra told him, “are not a Fuzzy.” She switched languages and explained that Pappy Vic and the other Big One really thought it was Estee-fee.

“Pappy Vic feel bad,” he told them. “Pappy Vic want to give real Estee-fee.”

He gathered up the offending carton and carried it into the kitchenette, going to one of the cupboards and getting out a tin of the genuine article. Only a dozen left; he’d have to start rationing it himself. He cut it into six pieces, put by a piece for Diamond after the company was gone, and distributed the rest.

Dunbar was still arguing with Sandra that the stuff he’d brought was chemically Extee-Three.

“All right, Malcolm, I believe you. The point is, these Fuzzies don’t give a hoot on Nifflheim what the chemical composition is.” He looked at the label on the tin. “The man you have at the plant worked for Odin Dietetics, didn’t he? Well, this stuff was made on Terra by Argentine Syntho-Foods. What do they use for cereal bulk-matter at Odin Dietetics, some native grain?”

“No, introduced Terran wheat, and Argentine uses wheat from the pampas and from the Mississippi Valley in North America.”

“Different soil-chemicals, different bacteria; hell, man, look at tobacco. We’ve introduced it on every planet we’ve ever colonized, and no tobacco tastes just like the tobacco from anywhere else.”

“Do we have any Odin Extee-Three?” Sandra asked.

“Smart girl; a triple A for good thinking. Do we?”

“Yes. The stuff we import’s Argentine, and the stuff the Navy has on Xerxes is Odin.”

“And the Fuzzies can’t tell the difference? No, of course they can’t. Jack Holloway bought his Extee-Three from us and gave it to his Fuzzies, and when they got on Xerxes, the Navy fed them theirs. What did you use in this stuff, local wheat?”

“Introduced wheat; seed came from South America. Grown on Gamma Continent.”

“Well, Mal, we’re going to find out what’s the matter with this stuff. Real all-out study, tear it apart molecule by molecule. Who’s our best biochemist?”

“Hoenveld.”

“Well, put him to work on it. There’s some difference, and the Fuzzies know it. You say this stuff’s Government specification standard?”

“It meets the Government tests.”

“Well; Napier has a lot of Extee-Three on Xerxes he won’t release because it’s regulation required emergency stores. We’ll see if we can trade this for it…”

“WELL, YOU GOOFED on it somehow!” the superintendent of the synthetics plant was insisting. “The Fuzzies eat regular Extee-Three; they’re crazy about it. If they won’t eat your stuff, it isn’t Extee-Three.”

“Listen, Abe, goddamit, I know it is Extee-Three! We followed the formula exactly. Ask Joe Vespi, here; he used to work at Odin Dietetics…”

“That’s correct, Mr. Fitch; every step of the process is exactly as I remember it from Odin—”

“As you remembered it!” Fitch pounced triumphantly. “What did you remember wrong?”

“Why, nothing, Mr. Fitch. Look, here’s the schematic. The farina, that’s the bulk-matter, comes in here, to these pressure-cookers…”

DR JAN CHRISTIAAN Hoenveld was annoyed, and because he was an emminent scientist and Victor Grego was only a businessman, he was at no pains to hide it.

“Mr. Grego, do you realize how much work is piled up on me now? Dr. Andrews and Dr. Reynier and Dr. Dosihara are at me to find out whether there is any biochemical cause of premature and defective births among Fuzzies. And now you want me to drop that and find out why one batch of Extee-Three tastes differently to a Fuzzy from another. There is a gunsmith here in town who has a sign in his shop, There are only twenty four hours in a day and there is only one of me. I have often considered copying that sign in my laboratory.” He sat frowning into his screen from Science Center, across the city, for a moment. “Mr. Grego, has it occurred to you or any of your master-minds at Synthetics that difference may be in the Fuzzies’ taste-perception?”

“It has occurred to me that Fuzzies must have a sense of taste that would shame the most famous wine-taster in the Galaxy. But I question if it is more accurate than your chemical analysis. If those Fuzzies tasted a difference between our Extee-Three and Argentine SynthoFood’s, the difference must be detectable. I don’t know anybody better able to detect it than you, Doctor; that’s why I’m asking you to find out what it is.”

Dr. Jan Christiaan Hoenveld said, “Hunnh!” ungraciously. Flattered, and didn’t want to show it.

“Well, I’ll do what I can, Mr. Grego…”