The Fuzzies were sprawled on a couple of mattresses on the floor, all but Little Fuzzy who wanted to sit on Pappy Vic. It was taking a long time for Little Fuzzy to tell about everything that had happened since he’d gone in the river in Yellowsand Canyon; apparently he had already told the other Fuzzies his adventures, because they were constantly interrupting to remind him of things he was forgetting. Then, after he got to where he had joined Wise One and his band — Wise One was the one who had the whistle and the bandaged head — everybody tried to tell about it at once. Harry Steefer and Jose Durrante were missing a lot of it because they couldn’t understand Fuzzy. It was surprising how well this crowd had learned to pitch their voices to human audibility in the time Little Fuzzy had been with them.
Finally, Little Fuzzy got to where, trying to run ahead of the crown-fire at the top of the cliff, they had found themselves stopped by the deep chasm.
“Come this place, not get over, we think all make dead,” Little Fuzzy said. “Then I remember what Pappy Jack say. Fire make heat, heat always go up, never go down. So we go down, heat go away from us. Then Pappy Jack come.”
That called for praise, which Little Fuzzy accepted as his due, with becoming modesty.
“Pappy Jack smart, too. Not make shoot with big rifle, we not hear, not blow whistle.”
Let it go at that; hell, he couldn’t have gone on and left that damnthing bellowing in pain. He wanted to know how Wise One and his band had first learned about the Big Ones, and, sure enough, they were the same gang he and Gerd had run into in the north when the harpies had shown up. They told about their fright at the thunder-noises, and about coming back and finding the empty cartridges. This reminded one of the females of something.
“Big Ones’ Friend!” she cried out. “You still have bright-things? You not lose?”
Little Fuzzy unzipped his shoulder bag and dug out three fired rifle cartridges and showed them. The female came over and repossessed them. Then Little Fuzzy found something else in his bag, and cried out.
“I forget! Have shining-stone; find where we work to make raft in little moving-water.”
And he brought out, of all things, a big sunstone. It’d run about twenty to twenty-five carats. He rubbed it till it glowed.
“Look! Pretty!”
Grego set Diamond on the floor and came over to look; so did Diamond. Steefer and Durrante had also left their chairs.
“Where you get, Little Fuzzy?” Grego asked.
Steefer and Durrante were just swearing. People’d have to stop swearing around Fuzzies; Little Fuzzy was beginning to curse like a spaceport labor-boss already.
“Up little moving-water, run, come into lake where we make camp to make raft.”
“You sure you didn’t get this here at Yellowsand?”
“I tell you where I get. I not tell you not-so thing.”
No, they could depend on that; Fuzzies didn’t tell not-so things. Damnit!
“Good God! You know what’ll happen if this gets out,” Grego said. “Every son of a Khooghra and his brother who can scare up air-vehicles will be swarming in there. We can keep them off Yellowsand, but there’s too much country up there. Need an army to police it.”
“Why don’t you operate it?”
Grego’s language became as lurid as the forest-fire.
“We need more sunstone-diggings like we need a hole in the head. If our lease is upheld, we’ll cut work here to about twenty percent of the present rate. What do you want us to do, flood the market? Get enough sunstones out and they won’t be worth the S-450 royalty the Fuzzies are getting.”
That was true. They’d had that same trouble with diamonds on Terra, back Pre-Atomic.
“Little Fuzzy,” he said, “you found shining-stone like you tell. Is yours.”
“My God, Jack!” Harry Steefer almost howled. “That thing’s worth twenty-five grand!”
“That doesn’t make a damn’s worth of difference. Little Fuzzy found it, it’s his. Now listen, Little Fuzzy. You keep, you not lose, not give to anybody. You keep safe, all time. Savvy?”
“Yes, sure. Is pretty. Always want shining-stone.”
“You not show to people you not know. Anybody see, maybe be bad Big One, try to take. And anybody ask where you get, you say, Pappy Vic give you, because you find here at Yellowsand.”
“But not find here. Find in hard-stone, in little moving-water…”
“I know, I know!” This was what Leslie Coombes and Ernst Mallin always ran into. “Is not-so thing. But you can say.”
Little Fuzzy looked puzzled. Then he gave a laugh.
“Sure! Can say not-so thing! Wise One say not-so thing once. Say he see damnthing; was no damnthing at all. Tell rest of band, they all think is so.”
“Huh?” Victor Grego looked at Little Fuzzy, and then at the Fuzzy with the whistle hung around his neck and the bandage-turban on his head. “Tell about, Wise One.”
Wise One shrugged; an Old Terran Frenchman couldn’t have done it better.
“Others want to stay in place, once. I want to go on, hunt for Big One Place, make friends with Big Ones. They not want. They afraid, want to stay in same place all time. So, I tell them big dam’fing come, chase me, chase Stabber, come eat everybody up. They all frightened. All jump up, make run away up mountain, go down other side. Then, forget about place they want to stay, go on to sun’s left — to south, like I want.”
One of the females howled like a miniature police-siren, and not so miniature, either. With his ultrasonic hearing aid on, it almost shattered Victor’s ear.
“You make talk you see hesh-nazza, hesh-nazza come eat us all up, and no hesh-nazza at all?” She was dumbfounded with horrified indignation. “You make us run away from nice-place, good-to-eat things… ?”
“Jeeze-krise sunnabish!” Wise One shouted at her. He’d only been around Little Fuzzy a week, and listen to him. “You think this not nice-place? We stay where you want, we never see nice-place like this. You make talk about good-to-eat things; you think we get estee-fee in place you want to stay? You think we get smokko? You think we find Big Ones, make friends? You make bloody-hell talk like big fool!”
“You mean, you told these other Fuzzies you saw a damnthing and you knew you hadn’t at all?” Grego demanded. “Well, hallelujah, praise Saint Beelzebub! You talk to the kids, Jack; I’m going to call Leslie Coombes right away!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HUGO INGERMANN LOOKED up at the big screen above the empty bench, which showed, like a double-reflecting mirror, a view of the courtroom behind him, filling with spectators. It was jammed, even the balcony above. Well, he’d be playing to a good house, anyhow.
He had nothing to worry about, he told himself. Either way it came out, he’d be safe. If he got his clients acquitted by the faginy and enslavement charges — even a collaboration of Blackstone, Daniel Webster and Clarence Darrow couldn’t do anything with the burglary and larceny charges — that would be that. Of course, he’d be the most execrated man on Zarathustra, with all this publicity about Little Fuzzy and the forest-fire and the rescue, but that wouldn’t last. It wouldn’t alter the fact that he’d accomplished a courtroom masterpiece, and it would bring clients in droves. Well, maybe he’s a crooked son of a Khooghra, but he’s a smart lawyer, you gotta give him that. And people forgot soon; he knew people. It would bring back a lot of his People’s Prosperity Party followers who had defected after he’d been smeared with the gem vault job. And in a few months, the rush of immigrants would come in, all hoping to get rich on what the CZC had lost, and all sore as hell when they found there was nothing to grab. When they heard that he was the man who dared buck Rainsford and Victor Grego together, they’d rally to him, and a year after they landed they’d all be eligible to vote.