He winced, mentally, at the thought of those Fuzzies. Catching them and letting Mallin study them had been the worst error of the whole business, and the way they had gotten rid of them had been a close runner-up.
It had been a Mallorysport police lieutenant, on his own lame-brained responsibility, who had started the story about a ten-year-old girl, Lolita Lurkin, being attacked by Fuzzies, and it had been Resident-General Nick Emmert, now bound for Terra aboard a destroyer from Xerxes to face malfeasance charges, who had posted a reward of five thousand sols apiece on Jack Holloway’s Fuzzies, supposed to be at large in the city. Dead or alive; that had touched off a hysterical Fuzzy-hunt.
That had been when he and Leslie Coombes had perpetrated their own masterpiece of imbecility, by turning loose the Fuzzies Mallin had been studying, whom everybody was now passionately eager to see the last of, in the hope that they would be shot for Emmert’s reward money. Instead, Jack Holloway, hunting for his own Fuzzies in ignorance of the fact that they were safe on Xerxes Naval Base, had found them, and now he was very glad of it. Gerd and Ruth van Riebeek had them now.
“No, Captain. Those Fuzzies are all accounted for. And Dr. Jimenez didn’t bring any others to Mallorysport.”
That put Lansky back where he had started. He went off on another tangent:
“Well, I’ll send somebody up right away to get him, Mr. Grego.”
“You will do nothing of the sort, Captain. The Fuzzy’s quite all right here; I’m taking care of him. All I want to know is how he got into Company House. And I want the investigation made discreetly. Tell the Chief when he comes in.” He thought of something else. “Get hold of a case of Extee-Three; do it before you go off duty. And have it put on my delivery lift, where I’ll find it the first thing tomorrow.”
The Fuzzy was disappointed when he blanked the screen; he wondered where the funny man in the wall had gone. He finished his Extee-Three, and didn’t seem to want anything else. Well, no wonder; one of those cakes would keep a man going for twenty-four hours.
He’d have to fix up some place for the Fuzzy to sleep. And some way for him to get water; the sink in the kitchenette was too high to be convenient. There was a low sink outside, which the gardener used; he turned the faucet on slightly, set a bowl under it, and put a little metal cup beside it. The Fuzzy understood about that, and yeeked appreciatively. He’d have to get one of those earphones the Navy people had developed, and learn the Fuzzy language.
Then he remembered that Fuzzies were most meticulous about their sanitary habits. Going back inside, he entered the big room behind the kitchenette which served the chef as a pantry, the houseboy for equipment storage, the gardener as a seed house and tool shed, and all of them as a general junkroom. He hadn’t been inside the place, himself, for some time. He swore disgustedly when he saw it, then began rummaging for something the Fuzzy could use as a digging tool.
Selecting a stout-handled basting spoon, he took it out into the garden and dug a hole in a flower bed, sticking the spoon in the ground beside it. The Fuzzy knew what the hole was for, and used it, and then filled it in and stuck the spoon back where he found it. He made some ultrasonic remarks, audible as yeeks, in gratification at finding that human-type people had civilized notions about sanitation too.
Find him something better tomorrow, a miniature spade. And fix up a real place for him to sleep, and put in a little fountain, and…
It suddenly occurred to him that he was assuming that the Fuzzy would want to stay with him permanently, and also to wonder whether he wanted a Fuzzy living with him. Of course he did. A Fuzzy was fun, and fun was something he ought to have more of. And a Fuzzy would be a friend. A Fuzzy wouldn’t care whether he was manager-in-chief of the Charterless Zarathustra Company or not, and friends like that were hard to come by, once you’d gotten to the top.
Except for Leslie Coombes, he didn’t have any friends like that.
Some time during the night, he was awakened by something soft and warm squirming against his shoulder.
“Hey; I thought I fixed you a bed of your own.”
“Yeek?”
“Oh, you want to bunk with Pappy Vic. All right.”
They both went back to sleep.
CHAPTER FIVE
IT WAS FUN having company for breakfast, especially company small enough to sit on the table. The Fuzzy tasted Grego’s coffee; he didn’t care for it. He liked fruit juice and sipped some. Then he nibbled Extee-Three, and watched quite calmly while Grego lit a cigarette, but manifested no desire to try one. He’d probably seen humans smoking, and may have picked up a lighted cigarette and either burned himself or hadn’t liked it.
Grego poured more coffee, and then put on the screen. The Fuzzy turned to look at it. Screens were fun: interesting things happened in them. He was fascinated by the kaleidoscopic jumble of color. Then it cleared, and Myra Fallada appeared in it.
“Good morning, Mr. Grego,” she started. Then she choked. Her mouth stayed open, and her eyes bulged as though she had just swallowed a glass of hundred-and-fifty-proof rum thinking it iced tea. Her hand rose falteringly to point.
“Mr. Grego! That… Is that a Fuzzy?”
The Fuzzy was delighted; this was a lot more fun than the man in the blue clothes, last night.
“That’s right. I found him making himself at home, here, last evening.” He wondered how many more times he’d have to go over that. “All I can get out of him is yeeks. For all I know, he may be a big stockholder.”
After consideration, Myra decided this was a joke. A sacrilegious joke; Mr. Grego oughtn’t to make jokes like that about the Company.
“Well, what are you going to do with it?”
“Him? Why, if he wants to stay, fix up a place for him here.”
“But… But it’s a Fuzzy!”
The Company lost its charter because of Fuzzies. Fuzzies were the enemy, and loyal Company people oughtn’t to fraternize with them, least of all Mr. Grego.
“Miss Fallada, the Fuzzies were on this planet for a hundred thousand years before the Company was ever thought of.” Pity he hadn’t taken that attitude from the start. “This Fuzzy is a very nice little fellow, who wants to be friends with me. If he wants to stay with me, I’ll be very happy to have him.” He closed the subject by asking what had come in so far this morning.
“Well, the girls have most of the morning reports from last night processed; they’ll be on your desk when you come down. And then…”
And then, the usual budget of gripes and queries. He thought most of them had been settled the day before.
“All right; pile it up on me. Has Mr. Coombes called yet?”
Yes. He was going to be busy all day. He would call again before noon, and would be around at cocktail time. That was all right. Leslie knew what he had to do and how to do it. When he got Myra off the screen, he called Chief Steefer.
Harry Steefer didn’t have to zip up his tunic or try to look wide awake; he looked that way already. He was a retired Federation Army officer and had a triple row of ribbon on his left breast to prove it.
“Good morning, Mr. Grego.” Then he smiled and nodded at the other person in view in his screen. “I see you still have the trespasser.”
“Guest, Chief. What’s been learned about him?”
“Well, not too much, yet. I have what you gave Captain Lansky last night; he’s tabulated all the reports and complaints on this wave of ransackings and petty thefts. A rather imposing list, by the way. Shall I give it to you in full?”
“No; just summarize it.”
“Well, it started, apparently, with ransacking in a couple of offices and a ladies’ lounge on the eighth level down. No valuables taken, but things tossed around and left in disorder, and candy and other edibles taken. It’s been going on like that ever since, on progressively higher levels. There were reports that somebody was in a couple of cafeteria supply rooms, without evidence of entrance.”