“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!”
CHAPTER NINE
WISE ONE WAS glad when they came to where the mountain “made finish” and dropped away, far down. This had not been a good place. There had been nut-trees, and they had eaten nuts. They had killed some of the little nut-eating animals, but not many, for they were hard to catch. They had found no moving-water on top of the mountain, only small pools of still-water from the last rain, and it had not tasted good. And the sleeping-place they had found had not been good either, and it had been one of the nights when both of the night-time lights had been in the sky, and the animals had all been restless, and they had heard a screamer, though not near. Screamers ate only meat and hunted in the dark. That had been why they had found no hatta-zosa. Hatta-zosa did not stay where there were screamers. Neither did People, if they could help it.
They stopped, looking out over the tops of the trees to the country beyond. There was another mountain far to the sun’s left hand; its top stretched away, from sun-upward to sun-downward, with nothing but the sky beyond it. It was not steep, and its side was wrinkled with small valleys that showed where moving-waters came down. There must be a big moving-water below, so close to the bottom of this mountain that they could not see it. It must be a large one, because of all the little ones on both sides that flowed into it, and he was afraid it would be hard to cross.
The others were excited about the wide valley on the other side, and talked about what good hunting they would find there. They couldn’t see the moving-water below, so they didn’t think about it.
They started down, and as they went the mountainside grew steeper, and they had to cling to bushes and stop to rest against trees and use their killing-clubs to help them. As they went, they began to see the moving-water below. The sound of it grew louder. Finally they were seeing it all the time, and could see how big it was.
Big She began talking about turning back and climbing up to the top again.
“Moving-water too big; we not can cross,” she argued. “Go down, no place to go. Better we go back up now.”
“Then go beside it, way it come from,” Lame One said. “Fine place to cross where it little.”