“Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye,” Thor yelled. “It is my honor and pleasure to announce the betrothal of John Morgan Holloway the Lesser of Freya to Akira Hsu O’Barre of Terra. All ye in attendance here today are requested to attend the nuptials three months hence at Castle Holloway.”
The band, comprised of several Terran and non-Terran members from Morgan’s crew, started up playing a cheerful, if odd-sounding tune. The instruments and music were mostly of Freyan origin. As the music played, Akira removed her gloves and held up her right hand to display her engagement ring. This was an adaptation of the Freyan custom where the bride and groom typically wore long sleeves to hide their new betrothal bracelets until the official announcement.
The crowd cheered and applauded. Jack stepped onto the stage and gave a short speech about how he approved of the bride and expected many strong grandchildren to carry on the family name, also in accordance with Freyan tradition. Gus called for a toast then gave it himself inhaling a large stein of Freyan ale in the process.
“And now, I think there is another announcement to be made,” Jack said after downing a stein of ale himself. Screw the doctors and their over-cautious nature, he thought. “Gerd? Ruth?”
The couple looked at each other; Gerd quizzically and Ruth with a smile. She grabbed her husband’s arm and dragged him onto the stage.
“I don’t want to upstage the soon-to-be-weds, but I do have an announcement. Gerd and I are having twins!”
Gerd, taken by surprise, stared numbly at his wife. “Twins? You’re pregnant?”
“Well, one does have to follow the other,” Ruth said airily.
“Twins!” Gerd picked up his stein and drained it, then yelled, “I’m going to be a father!”
The crowd cheered and raised a glass. Gus asked what gender the twins were.
“Two girls,” called back Ruth.
Jack let out a sigh of relief. He had been on several planets where friends had named their children after him, usually because he saved somebody’s life. Girls removed that possibility and left it open for Morgan and Akira to follow Freyan tradition and name the first son after the father without creating a surplus of Johns and Jacks. That reminded him that Akira was pregnant. Two months’ worth if he was right about the timing. That announcement would have to wait until the two were properly married.
It took a while for the applause to die down, then there was more music and dancing. Red Fur watched the display and was confused. He understood the idea of the mated pair being happy about having young ones, though the concept of twins had to be explained to him as Fuzzies propagated single offspring at a time. The idea of two people making a formal agreement to mate made no sense, as Fuzzies did not typically mate for life.
After the announcements, people lined up to congratulate Morgan and Akira as well as Gerd and Ruth. Afterwards, Ruth went to the bar to get a drink for Gerd who had been waylaid by Juan Jimenez. The bar, a temporary setup operated by Morgan’s robot bartender, had another person ordering a drink that Ruth knew well.
“Mr. Stensen, what a surprise,” Ruth said. She hadn’t seen much of the man since the Fuzzy Trial two years earlier.
Henry Stensen, designer extraordinaire and senior TFN espionage agent on Zarathustra, gently guided Ruth away from anybody who might overhear them. “Ruth, I was hoping to speak with you.”
“Oh? What about?” Ruth feigned surprise though she suspected where Stensen was headed.
Stensen guided her further away from potentially curious ears. “We want to give you your old job back.”
“My…” Ruth almost couldn’t believe her ears even though she had expected the offer. “Have you forgotten that I was outed at the trial? The whole planet knows I was a TFN spy.”
“Exactly. The assumption will be that you couldn’t possibly work as a spy since everybody already knows that you were one. That means you can now hide in plain sight and nobody will suspect you.”
Ruth shook her head. “That might work with Joe Sixpack but not on Mr. Grego. He’s too sharp by half to be taken in twice like that. Besides, he’s on the side of the angels, now. If it weren’t for him, the Fuzzies would be headed for extinction. Or at least that is what we thought at the time.”
“Grego is a businessman first and a philanthropist somewhere around third or fourth,” Stensen countered. “He needs to be watched, and you will be in the best position to do it.”
Ruth thought it over, then shook her head slowly. “Not this time. I am about to be a mother. This is no kind of work for me anymore.”
Stensen shrugged. “Think it over. You might change your mind. And don’t forget the extra money you will bring in as a TFN operative.”
Stensen went to talk to Morgan about an invention he wanted to finance while Ruth stood thinking about the offer. She nearly jumped a foot when Grego came up behind her and said hello.
“My apologies,” Grego said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to add my congratulations on the baby. Babies, rather.”
“Uh, thanks, Mr. Grego. Thank you.”
“Call me Victor.” Grego glanced over in the direction of Stensen and Morgan. “I noticed Henry Stensen was chatting you up. Did he offer you your old job back, yet? No, don’t answer that. I just wanted to tell you that you should take it if he did. I’ll likely be wary of you anyway.”
“What? Then why offer me that job? I won’t spy on the TFN for you if that is where you are headed.”
“Great Ghu! That would be treason, I think. No, nothing like that. I want you and Gerd back because you were damned good at what you do and I value good people. I don’t mind looking over my shoulder a bit if that’s what it takes to get them. You just think about it. I will suspect that you are a spy whether you are or not, so you might as well get paid for it.”
Grego glanced back over at Morgan and saw that Stensen had moved on. “You’ll have to excuse me, Ruth. I have to go offer Morgan the CFO position at the company.” As he started to turn away he flashed his toothy grin back at Ruth and said, “Maybe you can do a little surveillance on him.”
Grego walked away as Ruth stood and stared. Grego is too devious to be believed, she thought, but he made a valid point. First, though, she would have to discuss it with Gerd.
XL
The party was over and made-things that moved about like livethings cleaned up the mess the Big Ones had left behind. Red Fur watched as the made-things, robots, did their work. Little Fuzzy brought a cup with water in it for him to drink as he sat and watched.
“T’ank-oo, Little Fuhzzee.”
Little Fuzzy sat down on the log next to Red Fur. “You see everything. You still want Big Ones to stay away from Jin-f ’ke?”
Red Fur let out a long sigh and nodded. “Yes. Here, Fuhzzees are like children. The Big Ones feed you and protect you and teach you many things.”
“Yes,” Little Fuzzy agreed. “Is much fun, here.”
“That is why the Jin-f ’ke must stay away from Big Ones.” Red Fur could see that Little Fuzzy was confused. “Children must grow up. Here, that cannot happen. Big Ones will always see us as children to be protected. Jin-f ’ke protect themselves and each other. You saw other Big Ones who were very different? The ones called Thorans, Ullerans, Lokians and foolish one they call a Khooghra: they like made-things, the robots that obey Big Ones like Pappy Jack.
“They not as wise, so they learn from the…Terrans? Yes, Terrans. They do not grow for themselves. They work for Terrans. I see Big Ones tell others what to do. I not see them tell Terrans what to do. Even your people, Little Fuzzy. Big Ones give names, teach things, then tell what to do and not do. And you do it! You are like made-things. Like robots.”
Little Fuzzy was shocked at Red Fur’s words. “Yes, Pappy Jack protects us. Teaches us. The Big Ones give us the Wonderful Food and helps our babies to be born strong. Alive. Before, only one in two hands of babies born would be alive. Now, almost all of our babies live. Without the Big Ones, we would soon be no more.
”
“My people also know this bad trouble. Babies not born right. But ones born right grow stronger. Many of my people have strong babies without Big Ones’ help. Ones who do not like…lan’-p’awns make many strong babies. We no need Big Ones’ help for this.
“Big Ones must been like us once, long time ago. Now, have manymany clever made-things. My people need learn to do these things without Big Ones. We must grow and teach our young, and they grow and learn. Maybe they learn new things even Big Ones not know. We accept Big Ones’ shoppo-diggo to remind us what we can learn, but nothing else.”
Red Fur stood up and turned to the air-yacht that brought him to the gathering of Big Ones and Fuzzies. “I go back to my people. Tell Pappy Jack we not want Big Ones on Jin-f ’ke land. If bad Big Ones come, we will make dead. We not want to fight, but we will not let them hurt us.”
Red Fur started off for the yacht. He would wait there until he returned to his people. Little Fuzzy watched as Red Fur walked away. He was sad to see the Jin-f ’ke leader go, and sadder that he would not accept the help of the Big Ones.
* * * * * * * * *
The outside party was over: Jack, Morgan, Akira, Betty, Ben, Grego, Gus, Gerd, Ruth, Leslie, Mallin, Napier, Pancho and the rest gathered together in the cabin. Jack mixed drinks while Betty served hors d’oeuvres she had made earlier.
“Great party, Jack,” Grego said. “Maybe I’ll have you plan the next company picnic.”
“Better talk to Betty about that,” Jack said as he poured the drinks. “She did all of the planning.”
“I’m available for reasonable rates, Mr. Grego,” Betty said.
“Victor, please, when I’m at a social gathering,” Grego said. “Wait, don’t I know you? Betty Kanazawa from secretarial, right?” So that is who made dinner for Jack the other day.
“Accounting, actually. Records Division, for now, Victor. I’m covering for Akira while she is on sabbatical.”
“Right, right.” Grego turned to Jack. “Are you going to poach another of my valued employees, Jack?”
“Seems fair to me since you just rehired Gerd and Ruth, but I’ll get back to you on that,” Jack said as he winked at Betty. He delivered the last of the drinks and plopped down in his favorite chair.
“How did the negotiations with Red Fur go, Jack?” Gus asked, after he downed half of his stein of ale. He was developing a taste for the stuff.
“According to Little Fuzzy, Red Fur wants nothing to do with us.” That brought a few gasps of amazement.
“Why not?” Ben demanded. “We have so much to offer them.”
“Red Fur wants his people to grow up on their own without big brother looking out for them. Good for him, I say.”
“Wait, you don’t want the, what did he call them?” Grego said. “Right, the Jin-f ’ke. You don’t want the Jin-f ’ke to join our Fuzzies?”
“No, Victor, I do not.” Jack said firmly.
That brought a few comments out of the crowd. “Look, right now we have plenty of Fuzzies that we look out for and take care of. But do we want to do that for every Fuzzy on Zarathustra? Of course not. That would turn an entire race into welfare rats. They would never develop and evolve naturally. What happens if we Big Ones were wiped out by a war or a plague? Who would take care of the Fuzzies then?”
“The Fuzzies would have to take care of themselves,” Gerd said. “Red Fur is smart enough to see that for himself.”
“Exactly.” Jack pulled out his pipe and stuffed it with tobacco, then lit it. “I was always against making the Fuzzies too dependent on us, but let myself be swayed by the fact that they needed us to survive as a species because they needed the, uh, hoenveldine.” Jack used the chemical name out of respect for Hoenveld who discovered the titanium-based longchain molecule. “Now we know that some Fuzzies, maybe more than we can guess at, don’t produce the NFMp hormone that sabotages their reproduction rate. Great. That means they can get along fine without us. Especially since we reduced the harpy population to almost zero on Beta.”
“What about the Fuzzies here?” Betty asked. “Are you going to round them up and dump them back in the wild?”
“Of course not,” Jack said. “It would be grotesquely cruel to give them all the wonderful things we’ve already shown them, and then take them away. No, we’ll go right on teaching them and looking out for them. Only now we will be doing it with an eye towards making them self-sufficient, something we should have done from the start. Eventually, there will be the Fuzzies we integrate into our own culture, and the Fuzzies who develop their own culture and evolve naturally. Without us.”
“That might be a problem with all those sunstones to attract illegal miners up north,” Grego observed.
Jack shrugged. “We’ll have to keep a police presence in that area until we can clean it out, Victor. In fact, you might consider setting up your Science Division Beta on the edge of the res up there.”
Gerd agreed with that plan. “I’ll be in a better position to study Fuzzies in their natural habitat. Complex, Syndrome, Id and Superego could act as liaisons between the Big Ones and the Jin-f ’ke.” Gerd remembered something. “Oh, wait, I can’t leave here until my replacement is hired.”
“Already done,” Jack said. “Piet Dumont submitted his résumé. Frankly, he’s better qualified for this job than either of us were. He starts next week. George Lunt already set up a private room for him in the barracks until he can get his own place.”
“Sounds like you’re off the hook, here, Gerd.” Grego said. “I’ll expect you to start work as soon as you finish training Piet. Now, what do we do about the sunstones at the dig site? I can’t drop that many extra stones onto the market and I can’t afford to pay royalties to the government for stones I can’t sell. Even the Company has its limits.”
“Bank them in the Colonial Reserve,” Morgan said. “Most planets work on the gold standard, although Thor has a platinum standard and Loki a silver standard. We’ll run on the sunstone standard and then we can print our own money.”
“I notice you said ‘we.’ Planning on making Zarathustra your new home?” Gus said.
Morgan put an arm around Akira’s shoulders. “Of course. I have to stick around so Jack will have a chance to spoil his grandchildren.”
Akira looked stricken, then sly. She looked at Betty and Jack who both looked just as surprised. “Are you planning on starting a family soon, Morgan?”
“The sooner the better,” Morgan said. “By Freyan standards, I am running behind schedule. Most families there get started before the wedded couples enter their twenties.”
“Hmm…come outside with me for a moment.” Akira stood up and dragged Morgan out the door.
“I wonder what that was about?” Ben said. “Doesn’t Akira want children?”
Jack chuckled and said, “Wait for it.”
The room went silent. After a moment Morgan’s voice could be heard saying loudly, “You are?”
Jack nodded. “There it is.”
The couple returned and Morgan announced that the next heir to the Holloway name was already on its way, in direct contravention of Freyan rules of etiquette. That called for a fresh drink all around.
“Hey, what is going to happen to Hugo Ingermann, or Ivan Dane, whatever his name is now?” Gerd asked.
“He’ll be tried, convicted, and put before the firing squad,” Gus said. “His properties will be seized as assets to his numerous crimes and auctioned off. Along with The Bitter End.”
“No doubt of getting a conviction?” Morgan asked.
“None. We have Dr. Quigley’s testimony recorded under veridication. Rankin and Darloss are also cooperating. Richard Lundgren will be turned over to the TFN.”
“What? Why? And who is Richard Lundgren?” Grego asked.
Commodore Napier spoke up. “Lundgren is the one who bollixed up the CZC computer.”
“So that’s why Joe Verganno was having so much trouble with it,” Grego observed. “But that’s a civ
il matter, not military.”
“He also…what was that word…hacked into the communications feed. That’s how they tricked Governor Rainsford and Marshal Fane into believing that military transport that escorted Thaxter from prison came from us. And that is a military matter. We’ll also try him on the civilian charges, of course.”
“So he’ll likely be executed, too,” Grego said.
“Actually, no.” Everybody looked at Pancho Ybarra. “Talent like that is rare. We’ll allow him to cut a deal that will make him work for us. We can use people with his abilities. Naval intelligence is already planning what to do with him.”
“Which isn’t to say that he will get a free pass,” Napier added. “He’ll go through boot camp to teach him better manners, then work on base without regular liberty privileges and the only computers he will have access to will be strictly monitored. If he gets cute, he goes to the stockade.”
“Hmm…he might prefer a bullet in the head to that,” Jack said between puffs.
“Back to the properties,” Morgan said, “I would like to buy them. I’ll give you a far better price than you’ll get at auction. I’ll also take Ingermann’s B.I.N. shares since the government can’t legally own stock in a private company.”
“What? Why?” Ben asked.
“Damn,” Grego muttered. “Beaten to it again.”
“The Bitter End seems like a good investment and I could have Thor run it for me. He mentioned that he hoped he could stay on Zarathustra and with him managing the place the need for bouncers will be practically non-existent.”
“I’m in,” Thor announced. “I’ll still need a couple of bouncers for appearances, though.”
Morgan continued, “As for B.I.N., well, I think I could do something with that as well, which is why I had a man at the stock exchange ready to buy up the stocks once the news hit. Ingermann’s shares were frozen, but I now have enough for a working control. The name would have to go, of course. H.I.N., maybe.”
Ben looked dubious until Grego added his two centi-sols. “Auctioning it off to parties unknown might bring in the same element we just removed.” That sold Ben Rainsford on the idea.
Caveat Fuzzy Page 35