THEY WERE HAVING a party at the Pendarvis home. Jack Holloway sat on his heels on the floor, smoking his pipe and interpreting, while the judge and his wife, in a low easy-chair and on a drum-shaped hassock respectively, were getting acquainted with the guests of honor, the two Fuzzies Juan Jimenez had brought in from Beta Continent that evening. Gus Brannhard, who had come along from Government House, was sprawled in one of the larger chairs, chuckling in his beard. Juna Jimenez and Ahmed Khadra had removed their hearing aids and carried their drinks to the other side of the room, where they were talking about Jimenez’s visit, with a couple of George Lunt’s troopers, to the site of his former camp.
“They were back, after we left,” Jimenez was saying. “We could see where they’d set a car down. There wasn’t much to see; they policed everything up very neatly after they left, the second time. Didn’t leave any litter around.”
“Or any evidence,” Khadra added.
“That was what Yorimitsu and Calderon said when they saw it. I gather they take a dim view of neatness.”
“Around where they’re investigating, sure. Tidying up around the scene of a crime’s gotten more criminals off than all the crooked lawyers in the Galaxy. In this case it doesn’t matter. Herekerd and Novaes brought those Fuzzies in; we know that. We have a witness.”
“Can you veridicate a Fuzzy?” Brannhard asked, over his shoulder. “If you can’t, the defense’ll object.”
Pendarvis looked up and around. “Mr. Brannhard, I’m afraid I’d have to sustain such an objection. I suspect that Judge Janiver, who’d be hearing the case, would, too. If I were you, I’d find out. Have you ever been veridicated?” he asked the Fuzzy on his lap.
The Fuzzy—the male member of the couple, who was trying to work the zipper of his jacket—said, “Unnh?” The judge scratched the back of his head, which the Fuzzy, like most furry people, liked, and wondered how long it would take to learn the language.
“Not too long,” Jack told him. “It only took me a day to learn everything the people on Xerxes learned; by the time we were starting for home, after the trial, I could talk to them. What are you going to call them?”
“Don’t they have names of their own, Mr. Holloway?” the judge’s wife asked.
“They don’t seem to. In the woods, there are never more than six or eight in a family, if that’s what the groups are. I guess all the natives names are things like ‘me,’ and ‘you,’ and ‘this one,’ and ‘that one’. ”
“You’ll have to have names for them, for the adoption papers,” Brannhard said.
“At the camp, we just called them ‘the Newlyweds,’ ” Khadra said.
“How about Pierrot and Columbine?” Mrs. Pendarvis asked.
Her husband nodded. “I think that would be fine.” He pointed to himself.
“Aki Pappy Frederic. So Pierrot. “
“Aki Py’hot? Py’hot siggo Pappy F’ed’ik. “
“He accepts the name. He says he likes you. What are you going to do with them tomorrow, Mrs. Pendarvis? Do you have any human servants here?”
“No, everything’s robotic, and I oughtn’t to leave them alone with robots. Not till they get used to them.”
“Drop them off at Government House; they can play with Flora and Fauna,” Brannhard suggested. “And I’ll call Victor Grego and invite his Diamond over, and they can have a real party. First Fuzzy social event of the season.”
A mellow-toned bell began chiming. The Judge set Pierrot on the floor and excused himself; Pierrot trotted after him. In a moment, both were back.
“Chief Earlie’s on screen,” he said. “He wants to talk either to Captain Khadra or Mr. Holloway.”
That was the new Mallorysport chief of police. Jack nodded to Khadra, who left the room.
“Probably found something out about Herckerd and Novaes,” Brannhard said.
“Will you really charge them with enslavement?” Mrs. Pendarvis asked. “That’s mandatory death.”
“You catch people, deprive them of their freedom, make property of them,” Brannhard said. “What else can you call it? A pet slave is still a slave, if he belongs to somebody else. I don’t know how a Fuzzy could be made to work . . . ”
“Nightclub entertainers, attractions in bars, sideshow acts . . . ”
Khadra came back; he had his beret on, and was buckling on his pistol.
“Earlie says he has a report on a Fuzzy being seen in an apartment-unit over on the north side of the city,” he said. “Informant says a Fuzzy is being kept by a family on one of the upper floors. He’s sending men there now.”
That would probably be one of the five Herckerd and Novaes had brought in. He could see what had happened. The two former Company employees had sold them all to somebody here in Mallorysport, some racketeer who was selling them individually. There was somebody who really did need shooting. And by this time, Herckerd and Novaes would be back on Beta Continent, trapping more. Get the people who had bought this Fuzzy under veridication, the police had plenty of ways to make people want to talk, and work back from there.
“I’ll go see what it is,” Khadra was saying. “I’ll call in as soon as I can. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. In case I don’t get back, thanks for a nice evening, Judge, Mrs. Pendarvis.”
He hurried out, and for a moment nobody said anything. Then Jimenez suggested that if this were one of the Herckerd-Novaes lot, Diamond ought to see him as soon as possible; he’d be able to identify him. Khadra would think of that. Mrs. Pendarvis hoped there wouldn’t be any shooting. Mallorysport city police were notoriously trigger-happy. The conversation continued by jerks and starts; the two Fuzzies seemed to be the only ones unconcerned.
After about an hour, Khadra returned; he had left his belt and beret in the hall.
“What was it?” Brannhard asked. Jack was wanting to know if the Fuzzy was all right.
“It wasn’t a Fuzzy,” Khadra said disgustedly. “It was a Terran marmoset; these people have had it for a couple of years; brought it from Terra. The people who own it have had a wire screen around their terrace to keep it, ever since they moved in. Somebody in an aircar saw it outside and thought it was a Fuzzy. I wonder how much more of this we’re going to get.”
It was a wonder he hadn’t gotten that, himself, when his own family was lost and he was hunting for them.