Caveat Fuzzy

  Technically, Gerd van Riebeek, as Deputy Commissioner of Native Affairs, was Jack’s assistant. In fact, he should have cleared up most of the paperwork while Jack was recovering in the hospital. Unfortunately, Gerd was also the resident scientist, both a xenonaturalist and an anthropologist, on staff and was working with Juan Jimenez’s department on the rocket over at Science Division. Zarathustra was a small planet in terms of population and people with a background in any scientific discipline were at a premium, so even though it was a bit out of Gerd’s area of expertise, he was the government’s representative in the matter.

  The upside was that the Charterless Zarathustra Company was picking up the tab for Gerd’s pay while on the project. Jack had no idea what Victor Grego was getting out of the deal; maybe dibs on any new technology they discovered in the rocket. One thing was for sure; Grego wasn’t footing the bill out of his love for new discoveries. The previous discovery, the Fuzzies themselves, had almost destroyed the CZC.

  Jack grabbed the next paper from the inbox. This one was a report on the huge gathering of Fuzzies in the north near the dig site. According to the most recent estimate, there were over two hundred Fuzzies gathered in the area. Ben Rainsford suggested that it might be some sort of pre-programmed instinct in the Fuzzies to gather like that every so often, perhaps once a generation or so. If so, why weren’t the local and adopted Fuzzies striking out for the big Fuzzy Family Reunion? So far none of his own family or the others in the neighborhood seemed the least bit interested in leaving the nest other than to get adopted by a Big One. Jack was no naturalist like Ben, but it didn’t sit right. If it was instinct, then why was it that only the wild Fuzzies were making the trip? For that matter, only the Fuzzies in that general area were involved—for now.

  Jack added the report to a file folder and moved on to the next paper; an authorization request for a prisoner work detail to clean up the excavation site. Jack smiled. Victor Grego didn’t miss a trick. By having a chain gang clean up at the dig he was able to exercise total control over the area. Prisoners could be questioned under veridication at the end of each work detail whereas normal wage earners couldn’t be, or at least not without some justification. Somebody had been digging up something out there before the explosion and Grego wanted to know what. Hell, so did Jack and everybody else. The smart money was on sunstones, but there were also diamonds and precious metals to be found on Zarathustra. Jack signed off and made a note to have George Lunt send a ZNPF detail to ride herd on the operation and make sure the Fuzzies weren’t annoyed by the convicts.

  Jack pushed away from the desk and stood to stretch his arms and legs. He was allowed out of the hover-chair for brief periods to exercise his legs. At his age he couldn’t afford to get complacent and sedentary. From his office window he could see Little Fuzzy and Morgan tossing a plastic disk back and forth. What was that thing called, again? A freebie? No, a Frisbee. One of the NPF cops found the specs in an historical archive and made one with a home molding kit. The Fuzzies were crazy about it. Even the dogs enjoyed chasing and fetching the silly things. Morgan barely had time to say hello after flying in from Alpha before the Fuzzies waylaid him to come and play.

  Jack’s watch started beeping. He turned off the signal and pulled a pill bottle out of his desk drawer. He took two pills and chased it with some Earl Grey Green tea. He would have preferred his usual hot coffee but the doctors were insistent that he moderate his intake until the system accommodation treatments had run their course. That also meant no tobacco or alcohol. At least he was developing a taste for the tea. It was close, but not quite as good as some of the Freyan teas he had tried when he was younger. He had developed new sympathy for what Gus Brannhard had gone through after his liver transplant. Of course, Gus didn’t need the system accommodation meds, or at least not as many for as long, since he was much younger than the Native Affairs Commissioner. Being over sixty did have a few drawbacks, let alone being over seventy.

  The new heart had been implanted seven weeks earlier while the new lung had only resided in his chest for the past two weeks. He would need the accommodation meds for at least another week. The doctors had agreed to release him on the grounds that he would have to behave himself and, ironically, have his son look after him. The same man that had shot him in the first place.

  My son.

  That still took a little getting used to. Jack had to admit that Morgan was a fine young man, even though they did damn near kill each other in that damned duel. Smart, strong—strong enough to carry the new power unit for the aircar by himself, in fact—and very responsible…and hopefully engaged to that pretty little Akira O’Barre, soon. They’d make some good-looking grandchildren for him, he’d wager. Jack couldn’t help smiling at the thought of grandchildren, something he thought he’d never live to see.

  Jack started for the door when the viewscreen beeped. He returned to his seat and tapped the ‘picture on’ button. It was the colonial governor.

  “Hi, Ben,” he said, moving his hands together in an approximation of shaking hands. The governor did the same. “Checking up on me? I promise I’m behaving.”

  Ben Rainsford returned the gesture. “Good to know, Jack. Actually, I just wanted to give you an update. George Lunt will probably call you in a while, but I wanted to be the first.”

  “Okay, shoot.”

  Ben shuffled some papers until he found the one he was looking for. “Well, that team of geologists and God only knows what all other ‘ologists’ Victor and the Terran Federation sent over have been carefully digging the place up looking for more bones and clues as to who was flying that rocket and who managed to blow themselves up.”

  “Yes, I just signed off on the prison work detail. I’ve been meaning to get out there, but I can’t get past the warden and his guards to go anywhere.” Jack jerked a thumb toward the window. Ben could just make out John Morgan and the Fuzzies in the background. “You know he swore a Freyan Blood Oath with Little Fuzzy to protect me from harm and is taking it very seriously.”

  Ben laughed, and then said, “Too bad he didn’t do that before shooting you.” When he stopped laughing his face became very serious. “Well, this is going to add to your discomfort, I’m afraid,” Ben added soberly as he reached for something off-screen. It was a small leather bag, like the ones human children used for marbles. He poured the contents on the desk in front of him. It looked like gravel until Ben picked one pebble up and rolled it between his hands. It glowed bright red.

  Jack knew what it was without being told. After all, he had spent years digging up and selling that very same thing. “They found sunstones up there? Any idea how many?”

  Ben shook his head. “We don’t know, yet. These were dug up from that pit the rocket was buried in. Initial scans show a concentration of stones in the flint easily ten times that of the ore in Yellowsand. At least forty percent of them are thermo-fluorescent.”

  Ben didn’t look happy as he said it, nor should he. A few sunstones were valuable. A lot were still good. But the kind of concentration Ben was talking about would glut the market and destroy their value. Victor Grego had even reduced production at Yellowsand to keep the market stable. Well, at least now they knew for sure what was going on before the explosion; illegal sunstone mining.

  “Found these, too.” Ben held up what looked like a chunk of blue glass the size of a shotgun shell. Jack asked what it was. “Chemical analysis says it’s a ruby.”

  “A blue ruby? I never heard of such a thing. Wait, doesn’t that make it a sapphire?”

  “Not this time. I don’t understand how it is different from a sapphire, but Juan Jimenez tells me it is. He started giving me this whole lecture on how new technology in Second Century A.E. discovered minor differences between rubies and sapphires resulting in a reclassification of the two gems as separate entities. I stopped him before he went into agonizing detail, but he assured me that these are rubies, not sapphires.”

  Jack admitted that he had seen a lot
of blue sapphires in his time, but none that looked quite like that.

  “They’re still analyzing the other rubies,” Ben said. “This could open a new gem market. Azurites, maybe? They’ll need some sort of name, I guess.”

  “Let the guy who first found them pick a name,” suggested Jack. That the illegal miners were after sunstones was no surprise. That they found such a rich vein was, and the blue ruby was an unexpected bonus. “Wait, those prospectors blew themselves to Em-See-Square. Any stones they dug up would likely be vapor, now, right?”

  “Assuming they didn’t haul a few loads out before the big bang.”

  And if they did, there had been plenty of time to smuggle them off-world before they were found out. If they made it back to Terra or Baldur or Loki or Thor, and dumped the sunstones en masse onto the market, then the damage was already done and it was just a matter of time before the repercussions hit.

  The Zarathustra government was financed on royalties paid by the Charterless Zarathustra Company for the sunstones mined at Yellowsand. If the bottom fell out on sunstone prices, the colonial government would go down with it.

  “I think we need to increase security at the spaceport, Ben. It’s a little like closing the barn door after the horse escaped, but what else can we do?”

  “Already done.” Ben scooped the sunstones and blue gem back into the leather bag. “I’m having these put away in a secure location. If we get lucky, the other stones those prospectors dug up vaporized with them like you suggested. If not, and we find them before they leave planet, we’ll lock them up and hold the stones against the possibility that Yellowsand becomes tapped out.”

  “Good idea,” Jack said. “In the meanwhile, why don’t you look into other sources of government revenue?”

  “I’ve already increased the fines for trespassing on the res from fifty to two hundred sols, and Victor suggested we open a posh resort like they did on Modi.” That seemed like the sort of thing a businessman would suggest, especially when he had the largest construction company on the planet. Jack said as much.

  “Yeah, he also suggested running it for us, for a modest percentage of the net, of course. Well, he does have to justify his actions to the stockholders on Terra, so I can’t fault him for eking out whatever profit he can.”

  “Especially with a whopping big stockholder right here on Zarathustra,” Jack said, reminding Ben that Morgan was a major shareholder with the CZC. “Say, maybe we should ask his advice. According to Victor, Morgan is a money magnet. He increased his inheritance by about a factor of ten.”

  “Actually, if we accept his offer on Epsilon, we’ll be able to bank a good chunk of cash and let it gain interest. Imagine, buying a whole continent!” Ben shook his head as if to clear away the cobwebs. Land on colony worlds was relatively inexpensive but fifty million sols was still a lot of money. “Has he said what he wants it for?”

  “Not yet. Why not just go ahead and sell it to him? Use Zeta Continent for your game preserve.” Jack leaned back and reached for his pipe, then remembered he was on the wagon for the next two weeks. “Damned doctors are all killjoys,” he muttered to himself.

  “What was that?”

  “Just wishing I could shoot a few doctors, Ben.”

  Ben nodded. “Same here. Mine has me watching my cholesterol. It seems I’m allergic to the balancer drugs. Back to Zeta, the Company has a mining interest there. Not the best place to relocate endangered species, especially harpies. Well, back to work for me, but you should still be on medical leave.”

  “That reminds me. When do I get that personal assistant? With Gerd on leave of absence I’m getting buried in paperwork over here.”

  Ben looked surprised. “Oh? Didn’t Morgan tell you? He went over your head and selected the new hire.”

  Now it was Jack’s turn to be surprised. “He did? Who?”

  “Beats me. But he said you’ll have your new assistant by the end of the week.”

  Jack rubbed his chest where the neo-dermaplas was still growing to replace the scar from the laser surgery. Damned thing itched like crazy. “Now who could Morgan have…oh, Nifflheim!”

  Jack laughed until the pain in his chest forced him to stop, then smiled for a good while after that.

  IV

  Records Division was, perhaps, one of the more important divisions of the Charterless Zarathustra Company. Every piece of information, be it about personnel, financial, historical, medical, scientific or general flowed into its massive archives, both in electronic and hard-copy formats. The people who worked in that massive repository of information often went unnoticed by the rest of the company.

  Akira Hsu O’Barre had been working in Records Division for twenty-two months. On Myra Falada’s recommendation, she had transferred in from the secretarial pool and found a place where she could excel. Her computer and filing skills quickly caught the attention of the division chief who then promoted her to assistant manager of the archive section. She enjoyed her work and expected to make manager within two more years, assuming her boss retired like he constantly threatened to do. Or would have had she not been asked to take an extended leave of absence.

  Akira came to Zarathustra on the work exchange program. As such, she owed seven years of service to the Charterless Zarathustra Company, four years of which she’d already completed. Akira had been content to complete the remaining time and possibly stay on afterwards, until Victor Grego summoned her to his office. The last time that happened, she had been tasked with spying on John Morgan. This time she had been asked to accept a temporary position outside of the company working for Jack Holloway. It was well-known that Mr. Grego and Mr. Holloway were friends, and even better known that Mr. Holloway was still recovering from his duel with Morgan.

  Still, being asked to take time off from the company to work for the Native Affairs Commissioner took her completely by surprise. She accepted when Grego assured her that the time spent on leave would still be applied to her contract period. Actually, she would have accepted anyway. If John Morgan ever planned on proposing to her, she would need to be in his father’s good graces.

  She would eventually have to either complete her tour of duty or pay back the balance of her schooling costs. Akira could easily afford the pay-out with her savings but she liked working for the company and living on Zarathustra. John Morgan Holloway the Lesser had offered to pay off the debt but she had refused. Her debt, her responsibility. Besides, she suspected Morgan was testing her in some way with his payout offer.

  Akira was now busy clearing her workload and bringing her temporary replacement up to speed. “If you have any questions after I leave, you can screen me at the Native Affairs office. Any questions for right now, Betty?”

  “Yeah,” Betty Kanazawa said. “Why are you taking this break? Word around accounting is that you’re on the fast track.”

  Akira sighed. “Mr. Grego asked me to. He called me up to his office yesterday and hit me with the request.”

  Betty’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously? The big boss himself? Where does that come from?”

  “I really don’t know for certain, but I’d bet a hundred sols that Morgan talked him into it.”

  Betty sat on the edge of the desk. “Well, water-cooler talk has it that you and Morgan are gonna get engaged. There’s even a pool on when the big day will be.”

  “Fishing for some inside information so you can win the pool?” Akira laughed. “Sorry, but he hasn’t popped the question. I’ve been doing some research on Freyan customs and it seems that I may have to jump a few hoops before then.”

  “What kind of hoops? I’m betting you already jumped through the big one….” Betty paused as she watched Akira’s face stiffen for a moment, then relax into its usual sunny self.

  “Oh, there’s some old story about a young noble who wanted to marry a common woman. As the story goes, the noble’s father refused to allow any marriage below his station. So, the girl disguised herself and entered the father’s household as a
servant; washing dishes, scrubbing floors, doing the laundry—real Cinderella type stuff. Well, after a while the father recognized her and realized that she was a woman of quality, regardless of her station. There’s more, but that’s the down and dirty of it. Somehow it caught on and now all Freyan women, except those in the nobility, have to serve the groom’s father for one month—that’s a Freyan month—to get his blessing for the marriage.”

  “You’re going through with this?” Betty shifted on the edge of a desk and tapped her teeth with a pen. “Sounds to me like a good way for the father to get some free labor out of a hopeful young girl.”

  “Nope. The girl has to be paid the going rate for her work. If she is found unacceptable, she is given her wages and goes on her way. If she wins the old man over, then she has a small dowry for the husband.”

  Akira turned off her computer station, turned the security key and put it in a pocket. The terminal would be locked out for all personnel until either Akira returned or security came to override her protocols with a replacement key and system wipe. “Actually, I have a pretty good dowry already, though I doubt my temp job on Beta has anything to do with Freyan tradition.”

  “You do!” Betty exclaimed. “How big a raise did you get when you came over from secretarial?”

  “Five percent, then another ten when I was promoted to assistant manager. When I signed on with the company I took the stock option deal. Every week ten percent of my salary is set aside to buy common stock in the Company. The money that stock generated was rolled over for more stock. I even put my profit-sharing bonuses towards more shares. Two years ago when company stock dropped after the Fuzzy Trial I used my entire savings and bought up over a thousand shares for three centi-sols on the sol.”