When they were just getting this thing together, Holloway hadn’t thought of himself as the Commissioner of Native Affairs, and he hadn’t thought of the ZNPF as his private police force, although it was. There was a job to be done looking out for the Fuzzies’ interests and it was too important to entrust to anyone else. In the early days he and George Lunt had shared a makeshift hut and called it an office, communicating by shouting back and forth from their desks. Now they had to hike through a hundred-twenty-foot stretch of desks and office machines and roboclerks and human secretaries to get to each other’s offices.

  “When I put this deal together in my head,” Jack said, “Ben Rainsford was very busy being the new Governor General and very busy hating Victor Grego and the CZC as the unscrupulous enemy. Now that I’ve finally got them doing business with each other, the royalties we’ll get from the Company for mining that rich patch of sunstones Gerd and I found in Fuzzy territory just might be enough to keep everything afloat until after the constitutional elections. The government can’t levy taxes till then. In the meantime, I want to get the mining operation underway.”

  “Might be more than we can chew, Jack,” George said. “I’m stretched pretty thin, now. We’ll have to monitor that operation mighty close; make sure nobody goes sneaking off on his own inside the Reservation. Have to keep track of everything going in or out, watch that they don’t bother any of the Fuzzies—that sort of thing.”

  “I know, George,” Holloway said.

  “Have to patrol the borders—tight electronic surveillance—be certain no one goes in or out except at our check-points. Take more men than I’ve got right now just to do that.”

  “I know, George,” Holloway repeated. “Start working something up for me in the way of what you’ll need, both men and equipment, if we have crews up there cracking— say—three hundred tons of flint a month.”

  “Jack—we can’t afford it!”

  Holloway nodded. “We can’t, but the Company can. The CZC is going to reimburse us for what we spend policing their leasehold.”

  Major Lunt chuckled. “I see. Do they know it yet?”

  “No,” Holloway said, “but Grego will see the wisdom of it once it’s explained to him. In the long run, it’s a toss-up as to whether it’s cheaper for the Company Police do the job or for the Company to hire us to do it. Besides, I won’t grant the lease unless our own people are specified to do the law enforcement.

  “Grego knows a good thing when he sees it. His bottom line won’t be much different at the end of the year. This deal will be good for the Company, good for the Fuzzies, and good for the Government—all the way around.”

  “Okay,” George agreed. “I’ll get something together that you can take to Grego—maybe not down to the last paper clip, but in general terms of how much it’s going to cost.”

  “Good,” Holloway said. “Grego won’t say yes or no right away. Hell take the breakdown to his own Company Police Chief first—have Harry Steefer look over the figures to see whether we’re gouging the Company.”

  He turned to leave, then added a question. “Today, George?”

  Lunt nodded. “I imagine so.”

  “Hokay, bizzo,” Holloway said, lapsing into Lingua Fuzzy. “How about bringing it over to the house—right around cocktail time. That way we can talk it over without being interrupted by more than four or five screen calls.”

  After Mr. Commissioner Holloway had left, George sat down at his desk and sighed; not in aversion to this new task, but in the realization that he was mentally waving goodbye to any immediate chance of getting rid of Lieutenant Paine and his Marines.

  I’ve got to get Ahmed back over here, he thought. It’s very good public relations to have Captain Ahmed Khadra. Chief of Detectives, ZNPF, acting as the Mallorysport liaison with the Company Police, and the Constabulary, and the Mallorysport P.O., and all that, but I’ve got to have a strong Exec over here if we’re going into another expansion phase. He’ll just have to set the date with Sandra, get hitched, and bring her over here permanently.

  Then, I’ve got to start getting the manpower strength up—send John over to Mallorysport and goose up the recruiting office—and beef up my training program with more instructors and cadre sergeants, scrounge up some more uniforms and equipment, and…

  VIII

  Victor Grego sat in the lawn chair on his penthouse apartment’s terrace and thought. He leaned back, with his eyes closed, and thought.

  To look at him, one would think he was a gentle, heavy-set man who was dozing in the sun on his day off. One would not immediately think that this man was the Manager-in-Chief of the Zarathustra Company or that he was hard at work. One might suppose that running a colonial company which did about a quarter of a billion sols in gross annual business was little more than presiding over luncheon meetings with subordinate executives and reading reports.

  That was what one would think if one went to work each day, worked one’s shift, and then went home—conveniently leaving the job at the office.

  Victor Grego’s office was inside his head, and he carried it with him night and day.

  The meat-packing plants on Delta Continent were working around the clock, now. With all this influx of population, there was a constant and heavy demand for prepared and packaged foodstuffs of all kinds. Not only was that a blessing tor the general profit picture, but it kept the supervisors so busy they didn’t have time to worry about the Company losing its charter or to pester the Manager-in-chief with minor problems.

  The agreement with Governor Rainsford’s Colonial Government that allowed the Company to mine on that rich sunstone deposit inside the Fuzzy Reservation was going to work out all right, too—no matter if it did cost a hefty royalty for the privilege. The continued input of sunstones owned by the Company would keep the Company in a tough position which virtually amounted to control of sunstone prices. That had been an early horror that haunted Grego right after the Fuzzy Trial; one hundred million sols in the sunstone vault combined with the prospect of a free market in sunstones could have badly eroded the Company’s worth if a gang of prospectors had gotten together and formed a cooperative to sell directly to someone like the Couperin Cartel—who had the money to drive down the buying price and drive up the selling price by controlling inventories.

  The private communication screen chimed softly from inside the apartment. Grego’s eyes snapped open and he got to his feet to answer it, casting a glance toward where three Fuzzies were laying out an intricate pattern of colored tiles and plastic rods.

  As he suspected, the caller was Colonial Governor Ben Rainsford. Ben had left off his own two Fuzzies, Flora and Fauna, to spend the afternoon with Grego’s Diamond. Diamond was very happy with Pappy Vic, but he did get lonesome for the company of other Fuzzies. Have to do something about that one of these days.

  “Of course, Governor,” Grego was saying to the image in the screen—a rumpled little man with bristling red whiskers who still wore bush clothes, even though he was the chief executive of a planetary government. “1730 will be quite convenient. Perhaps you’d care to join me in a cocktail if you can spare the time.”

  “I’d be delighted,” Ben Rainsford said. “In fact there’s something I think we should chat about, and this will be a good opportunity to talk.”

  Grego bid Rainsford good-day and switched off the screen. He chuckled to himself as he returned to the terrace. How times change, he thought. When Fuzzy business started, Rainsford wanted nothing so much as to nail my skin to the fence and use it for target practice.

  He stopped on the terrace, stretched and yawned, then looked down the wide valley below Mallorysport. Clouds were rolling up from the horizon. It looked like rain.

  Just as the first large drops of rain splatted down onto the terrace, the doorway chimed and Grego admitted Ben Rainsford. The two men exchanged greetings and some small talk. Then Grcgo turned toward the terrace and motioned for Rainsford to follow him. “Before the rain really gets going, I want you to take a look at what the kids have been doing,” he said.

  As they stepped out into the afternoon light, which was now dimmed by the overcast, a fork of lightning split the sky, followed by the roll of thunder marching up the valley.

  The Fuzzies looked up at the sky, decided it was really going to rain, and trotted toward the open terrace doors.

  “Come on, Pappy Vic. Do-bizzo,” Diamond said, “Bizzo; fazzu. Get fur all wet.”

  “Hokay, Diamond,” Grego said. “So jash-ah; jos Flora or Fauna. I’ll just show Unka Ben this pretty thing.”

  Rainsford stooped to get a better look at the design which the three Fuzzies had created, paying no attention to the big raindrops which were making dark spots on his khaki jacket.

  “Well?” he said to Grego. He spread his hands, then put them back on his knees. “What’s unusual about it?”

  “Nothing,” Grego said, “except that I’ve noticed the spiral design seems to be a favorite of Fuzzies, but I can’t imagine where they’ve seen it before. You’re the expert xeno-naturalist. What’s the answer?”

  “The first answer,” Rainsford said as he shuddered under the increasing rain, “is to get in out of the wet. Let’s have that drink.”

  Both men moved briskly across the terrace, into the living room, and Grego closed the doors just as another clap of thunder boomed.

  The Fuzzies had already drifted into the Fuzzy-room, just off the kitchen, and were watching a screenplay. They knew quite well that this was the time of day when the Big Ones drank tosh-ld-waji—bad-tasting water—and made Big One talk.

  “Thank you, Victor,” Colonial Governor Rainsford said, accepting a glass, then settled back on the couch.

  Grego dropped into his favorite chair. “Well, Bennett,” he began, “where do they get that spiral design?”

  “Why, from nature, I suppose,” Rainsford said. “All manner of spiral-shaped things in nature—flower stamens, snail shells, rams’ horns, seed pods—that sort of thing.”

  “Not on Zarathustra,” Grego said.

  Rainsford looked at him with a quick movement of his head. “What?”

  “The Mother Nature who drew the plans for Zarathustra,” Grego replied, “favored the concentric circle design over the spiral design. Featherleaf tree, pool-ball fruit, tandavine beans—all manner of plants grow in layered round shapes.”

  Rainsford stared at him, as if to say, who’s the scientist here, you or me?

  Grego smiled disarmingly. “I got curious and looked it up. I just thought you might have an idea about it.”

  Rainsford sipped his drink, then shook his head. “I don’t know, Victor. Science for me has been something of a luxury—a luxury I can’t afford—ever since Alex Napier stuck this Governor job onto me. You’ll have to ask the Fuzzyologists about that one.”

  Grego waved a hand. “I noticed that the first day I took Diamond to the office with me. He got into the computer room and rearranged all the lights on the input board; the pattern he made was a spiral one, kind of like a nebula.” Grego chuckled as he recalled the panic which had followed until Joe Verganno had restored the Executive One and Two computers to their normal functioning. “It was sort of pretty, too, except there was hell to pay for a couple of hours.”

  Another flash of lightning glared through the premature twilight and the thunderclap rattled the terrace doors.

  The Fuzzies peeped bashfully around the door jamb, then decided all the noise wasn’t Pappy Vic and Pappy Ben fighting and went back to their communication screen.

  “That’s something else I’ve been wondering about,” Grego said, nodding toward the Fuzzies.

  “Whazzat?” Rainsford said absently.

  “For a people of low paleolithic development, the Fuzzies don’t seem to have the slightest fear of natural events. Consider the Thorans, for example. With all their intelligence and absolute fearless courage, whenever there’s a thunderstorm they drop to the ground like stones and start praying to Great Ghu the Grandfather God like the end of the world is coming in five minutes.”

  Rainsford rubbed his chin and nodded agreement.

  “That’s another thing,” Grego said, warming to his subject. “Fuzzies don’t seem to have any primitive nature-gods or religious myths about the creation of the world and so forth. What do you make of that, Bennett?”

  “Hmmmf,” Rainsford said. “Next thing, you’ll be applying to the Institute of Xeno-Sciences for a fellowship.”

  Grego reddened slightly.

  “The first thing a xeno-naturalist learns about extrasolar creatures is to find the yardstick,” Rainsford said, “instead of trying to make existing yardsticks apply. Comparisons, yes. Circular reasoning, no.”

  “Well, then,” Grego said. “There are nine sapient races besides Terrans. They all react the same to loud noises, don’t they? With the exception of Fuzzies, that is.”

  “Yes,” Rainsford snapped, “and they can all be driven insane. Fuzzies are totally sane and can’t be driven insane. Maybe that’s the difference. There is always some difference. Non-Terran psychology is not all whittled from the same stick.”

  Grego raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. Can (argue with that line of reasoning, he thought.

  “Even the Yggsdrasil Khooghra,” Rainsford went on, “with the lowest mentation of any sapient race, can be driven nuts.”

  “I see your point,” Grego said. “I’ve been pondering some of these things. I was interested in your opinion.”

  “Thank you,” Rainsford said. “There is something else I wanted to ask you about, though, and I’m getting a bit pressed for time.”

  “So, you see, “Rainsford concluded, “we’ve got a damnthing by the tail here with no way to let go unless we stay strictly on top of the situation. With our budget situation being what it is, we can’t hope for law enforcement organizations to grow fast enough to meet the requirements of this damned population boom.”

  Grego nodded. “I know, Bennett. Nine years ago, before you came to Zarathustra, we had an immigration boom. If it hadn’t gone bust, there would have been a Nifflheim of a law enforcement problem come out of it—at least for a while.”

  “Well, we can’t allow it,” Rainsford said. “We’ve got to get the most we can out of available manpower with the least possible waste motion.”

  Grego smiled. Spoken like a true manager, he thought. “You have some ideas, then, I take it?” he said.

  Rainsford knocked the heel out of his pipe. “Indeed,” he said. “We’ve got a helluva lot of overlap, here.” He ticked the agencies off on his fingers. “There’s Ian Ferguson’s Colonial Constabulary, the Mallorysport City P.D., the ZNPF, Harry Steefer’s rather sizeable mob of Company Police for your own company, and almost a hundred Marines on loan for various peace-keeping chores.” That used up all the fingers on one hand, and Rainsford waved it in the air. “Besides that, there’s the Colonial Marshal’s office, and it’s not unusual for Max Fane to send one of his men all the way over to Delta Continent just to serve papers on someone.”

  Grego nodded.

  “The way I see it,” Rainsford continued, “We should establish a central records and dispatch agency right here in Mallorysport—a Colonial Investigation Bureau—and put all our law enforcement records and mission requests through it. That way, if the CZC swears out a warrant for some veldbeest herder who stole a company aircar on Beta, you won’t have to send your own men on a ten-hour round trip to get them where the crook is. The Bureau can just put out a want on him to the local agency—Constabulary, ZNPF, whatever. Someone can bring the miscreant along when they come over to Alpha Continent on other business. You see?”

  “And,” Grego said, nodding agreement, “if someone holds up a planter or a prospector on Beta, then hightails it for Junktown, the Constabulary can have our people here pick him up and hold him. Yes, I can see where that would be more efficient—now that we have law enforcement almost everywhere on the planet.”

  “Exactly,” Rainsford said. “But it won’t work unless all the agencies involved agree to cooperate. The big advantage, as I see it, will be to get the officers who are fooling around in offices out of administrative work and into the field. Why, that ought to give us a twenty percent increase right there in people who are actually out chasing crooks— without hiring any more people or paying any more salaries.”

  “I’m convinced,” Grego said. “What do you want me to do about this, Bennett?”

  Rainsford snatched his pipe and tobacco pouch from his jacket pocket and reared back on the couch. “Why, talk to Harry Steefer about it—see what he thinks. I’ve talked to Colonel Ferguson, and I’ll talk to George Lunt when I’m over on Beta in a week or so. I’ve already talked to Captain Khadra about it. It was his idea, by the way. We’ll set up a meeting with all the force commandants. Ought to have Gus Brannhard in on it, too, I suppose.”

  “Luncheon would be a good time,” Grego said. “I’d like to attend, myself, if that’s all right.”

  “Why, of course, Victor,” Rainsford said. “I was hoping you’d say that. I may be the Colonial Governor General, but that’s only been for a year. If both of us tell all of them it’s a good idea, I’m sure they’ll all go for it.”

  After Ben Rainsford had left with Flora and Fauna, Diamond yawned and stretched in the foyer, then climbed up into Grego’s lap. “What you talk with Unka Ben, Pappy Vic?” he asked.

  “Business, Diamond,” Grego answered. “About ways to do a better job of catching bad Big Ones.”

  “Tosh-ki-Hagga?” Diamond asked, “like the Big Ones who brought me here from the big woods?”

  “That’s right,” Grego said. “It’s an awfully big job.”

  Diamond squirmed around until he was comfortable on Grego’s ample lap. “Not so bad—the way it work out,” he said sleepily.

  Grego thought about the way Diamond had been kidnapped by Herckerd and Novaes and held prisoner until he escaped. “So-noho-aki davov tosh-ki,” Grego said. You tell me how not bad.

 

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