“I can’t see why not. I’m doing the same kind of work with Juvenile Welfare.”
“You’ll be making decisions on who should and who should not be allowed to adopt Fuzzies. When I get a Native Cases Court set up — I think Yves Janiver, for that — your decisions will be accepted.”
“Whose decisions do you think Adolphe Ruiz’s Juvenile Court accepts now?”
“That’s right,” he agreed. And she couldn’t accept the Fuzzies and refuse to help with the adoption bureau; that wouldn’t be right, at all. And she wanted Fuzzies so badly. “Well, go ahead, darling; do it. Whoever takes that position will have to be somebody who really loves Fuzzies. What did you tell Mr. Holloway?”
“That I’d talk to you, and then call him back. He’s at Government House now.”
“Well, call him and tell him you accept. I’ll call Yves and talk to him about the Native Cases Court…”
She had left the low seat while he was speaking; she stopped to kiss him on the way out. She’d be so happy. He hoped he wouldn’t be too severely criticized. Well, he’d been criticized before and survived it.
VICTOR GREGO WATCHED Diamond investigating the articles on top of the low cocktail table. He took a couple of salted nuts from the glass bowl, nibbled one, and put the rest back. He looked at the half-full coffee cup and the liqueur glass, and left both alone. Then he started to pick up the ashtray.
“No, Diamond. Vov. Don’t touch.”
“Vov ninta, Diamond,” Ernst Mallin, who was a slightly more advanced Fuzzy linguist, said. “We ought to learn their language, instead of making them learn ours.”
“We ought to teach them our language, so they can speak to anybody, and not just Fuzzyologists.”
“I deplore that term, Mr. Grego. The suffix is Greek, from logos. Fuzzy is not a Greek word, and should not be combined with it.”
“Oh, rubbish, Ernst. We’re not speaking Greek; we’re speaking Lingua Terra. You know what Lingua Terra is? An indiscriminate mixture of English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Afrikaans, mostly English. And you know what English is? The result of the efforts of Norman men-at-arms to make dates with Saxon barmaids in the Ninth Century Pre-Atomic, and no more legitimate than any of the other results. If a little Greek suffix gets into a mess like that, it’ll have to take care of itself the best way it can. And you’d better learn to like the term, because it’s your new title. Chief Fuzzyologist; fifteen percent salary increase.”
Mallin gave one of his tight little smiles. “For that, I believe I can condone a linguistic barbarism.”
Diamond seemed, he couldn’t be sure, to be wanting to know why not touch; would it hurt?
“And how do you explain that he mustn’t spill ashes on the floor, in his own language? What are the Fuzzy words for ‘floor,’ and ‘ashes’?” He leaned forward and dropped the ash from his cigarette into the tray. “Ashtray,” he said.
Diamond repeated it as well as he could. Then he strolled over to where Mallin sat. Mallin regarded smoking as an act of infantile oralism; his ashtray was empty.
“Asht’ay?” he asked. “Diamond vov ninta?”
“You see. He knows that ashtray is a class-word, not just the name of a specific object,” Mallin said. “And I tried so hard to prove that Fuzzies couldn’t generalize. This one is empty; let’s see how we can explain the difference. If we give him the word ‘ashes,’ and then…”
A bell began ringing softly; Diamond turned quickly to see what it was. It was the bell for the private communication screen, and only half a dozen people knew the call-combination. He rose and put it on. Harry Steefer looked out of it.
“We found it, sir; ninth level down.” That was the one below the first reported thefts and ransackings. “The Fuzzies were penned in a small room that looks as though it had been intended for a general toilet and washroom. It’s right off a main hall, and somebody’s had an aircar in and out and set it down recently. I’d say half a dozen Fuzzies for two or three days.”
“Good. I want to see it. I want Diamond to see it, too. Send somebody who knows where it is up to my private stage with a car small enough to get into it.”
He blanked the screen and turned to Mallin. “You heard that. Well, let’s all three of us go down and look at it.”
Jack Holloway stopped at the head of the long escalator and looked down into the garden, now double-lighted by Darius, almost full, and Xerxes, past full and just rising. After a moment he saw Ben Rainsford reclining in a lawn-chair, with Flora and Fauna snuggled together on his lap. As he started toward them, after descending, he thought they were all asleep. Then one of the Fuzzies stirred and yeeked, and Rainsford turned his head.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Jack. Have you been here all evening?”
“Yes, all three of us,” Rainsford said. “I think it’s time for Fuzzies to go to bed, now.”
“Ben, we just had a screen call from Company House. They found where those Fuzzies had been kept, an empty room on one of the unfinished floors. They showed us with a portable pickup; dark, filthy place. The Company police are working on it for physical evidence to corroborate Diamond’s story. And they’ve put out a general want for those two Company rangers, Herckerd and Novaes; kidnapping and suspicion of enslavement.”
“Who called you? Steefer?”
“Grego. He says we can count on him for anything. He’s really sore about this.”
The Fuzzies had jumped to the ground and were trying to attract his attention. Ben shifted in his chair, and began stuffing tobacco into his pipe.
“Jack.” His voice was soft; he spoke hesitantly. “I’ve been talking to the kids, out here, till they got sleepy. They had a big time at Company House with Diamond. They say he’s lonesome for other Fuzzies. They’d like him to come here and visit them, and they’d like to go back and visit him again.”
“Well, a Fuzzy would get lonesome by himself. It didn’t take Little Fuzzy long to go and bring the rest of his family into my place.”
“And they say that outside that he’s happy. They told me about all the nice things he had, and the garden, and the room that was fixed up for him. They say everybody’s good to him, and Pappy Vic loves him. That’s what they call Grego; Pappy Vic, just like they call us Pappy Ben and Pappy Jack.” His lighter flared, showing a puzzled face above the pipe bowl. “I can’t understand it, Jack. I thought Grego would hate Fuzzies.”
“Why should he? The Fuzzies didn’t know anything about the Company’s charter; they don’t know a Class-IV planet from Nifflheim. He doesn’t even hate us; he’d have done the same thing in our place. Ben, he’s willing to call the war off; why can’t you?”
Rainsford puffed slowly, the smoke drifting and changing color in the double moonlight.
“Do you honestly believe that Fuzzy wants to stay with Grego?” he asked.
“It’d break Diamond’s heart if you took him away from Pappy Vic. Ben, why don’t you invite Diamond over to play with your two? You wouldn’t have to meet Grego; the girl he has helping with Diamond could bring him.”
“Maybe I will. You’re on speaking terms with Grego; why don’t you?”
“I will, tomorrow.” The Fuzzies hadn’t wanted to play; they’d just wanted to be noticed. He picked Flora up and gave her to Ben, then took Fauna in his own arms. “Let’s go put them to bed, and then go inside. We have a lot of things to do, in a hurry, and we need your authorization.”
“Well, what?”
“Ahmed’s staying here; he and Harry Steefer and Ian Ferguson and some others are having a conference tomorrow on this case and on general Fuzzy protection. And I’m setting up an Adoption Bureau; Judge Pendarvis’s wife’s agreed to take charge of that. We need laws, and till there’s some kind of a legislature, you have to do that by decree.”