“Misdeveloped is correct, Doctor. Have you any idea why this one misdeveloped as it did?”
“No, Doctor, I haven’t.”
“They come from northern Beta; that country’s never been more than air-scouted. Does anybody know what radioactivity conditions are, up there? I’ve seen pictures of worse things than this from nuclear bomb radiations on Terra during and after the Third and Fourth World Wars, at the beginning of the First Federation.”
“The country hasn’t been explored, but it’s been scanned. Any natural radioactivity strong enough to do that would be detectable from Xerxes.”
“Oh, Nifflheim; that fetus could have been conceived on a patch of pitchblende no bigger than this table…”
“Well, couldn’t it be chemical? Something in the pregnant female’s diet?” the other woman asked.
“The Thaladomide Babies!” somebody exclaimed. “First Century, between the Second and Third World Wars. That was due to chemicals taken orally by pregnant women.”
“All right; let’s get the biochemists in on this, then.”
“Chris Hoenveld,” somebody else said. “It’s not too late to call him now.”
FUZZIES DIDN’T HAVE Cocktail Hour; that was for the Big Ones, to sit together and make Big One talk. Fuzzies just came stringing in before dinner, more or less interested in food depending on how the hunting had been, and after they ate they romped and played until they were tired, and then sat in groups, talking idly until they became sleepy.
In the woods, it had not been like that. When the sun began to go to bed, they had found safe places, where the big animals couldn’t get at them, and they had snuggled together and slept, one staying awake all the time. But here the Big Ones kept the animals away, and killed them with thunder-things when they came too close, and it was safe. And the Big Ones had things that made light even when the sky was dark, and there were places where it was always bright as day. So here, there was more fun, because there was less danger, and many new things to talk about. This was the Hoksu-Mitto, the Wonderful Place.
And today, they were even happier, because today Pappy Jack had come back.
Little Fuzzy got out his pipe, the new one Pappy Jack had brought from the Big House Place, and stuffed it with tobacco, and got out the little fire-maker. Some of the Fuzzies around him, who had just come in from the woods, were frightened. They were not used to fire; when fire happened in the woods, it was bad. That was wild fire, though. The Big Ones had tamed fire, and if a person were careful not to touch it or let it get loose, fire was nothing to be afraid of.
“We go other places, and all have Big Ones, tomorrow?” one asked. “Big Ones for us, like Pappy Jack for you?”
“Not tomorrow. Not next day. Day after that.” He held up three fingers.
“Then go in high-up-thing, to place like this. Big Ones come, make talk. You like Big One, Big One like you, you go with Big One, you live in Big One place.”
“Nice place, like this?”
“Nice place. Not like this. Different place.”
“Not want to go. Nice place here, much fun.”
“Then you not go. Pappy Jack not make you go. You want to go, Pappy Jack find nice Big One for you, be good to you.”
“Suppose not good. Suppose bad to us?”
“Then Pappy Jack come, Pappy Jorj, Unka Ahmed, Pappy Ge’hd, Unka Panko; make much trouble for bad Big One, bang, bang, bang!”
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.