Fuzzy Ergo Sum

by Diehr Wolfgang

  He checked his watch and concluded Ruth would be at lunch. He scribbled a note to call her after 1300 hours and then returned to his chair opposite Dr. Mallin. “I missed her call while I was out. Does she need something from Science Division?”

  “Actually, no.” Dr. Mallin leaned forward. “She wants my expertise in the psycho-sciences and yours as a naturalist.”

  This got Jimenez ’s attention. There wasn’t much call for him to work in his field since he was promoted to head of Science Division. “What would she need both of us for? Our fields are pretty far apart, and Gerd is a xenonaturalist. He would be better qualified than me, especially since I now spend more time running this division than practicing my vocation.”

  “Ruth doesn’t want to drag Gerd over to Mallorysport without good reason.”

  Better to bother me, he thought wryly. “Over what?”

  Mallin showed his secretive smile. “It seems that she found a Fuzzy that doesn’t like Extee-Three.”

  Jimenez had to admit that it was unusual, but variances in dietary habits were to be expected in sapient beings.

  “This Fuzzy also passes on land-prawns.”

  That caught his attention. “A Fuzzy that doesn’t like land-prawn? What about the other hokfusinated foods, like the juices and candy we produce?”

  “According to Ruth, the Fuzzy, whose name is Zorro, can take it or leave it.”

  Jimenez digested the information. “So she’s wondering if it could be something psychological, like maybe Zorro doesn’t want children, physical, maybe the Fuzzy is sick, or maybe even some new mutation in the Fuzzy’s genome?”

  “Yes, that sums it up. I will admit to looking forward to talking to this Fuzzy, excuse me, to Zorro.”

  “I’ll have to bring Dr. Hoenveld in on this.” Jimenez went back to his desk and took a seat. “We’ll have to do some blood draws and look for pathogens, do a full body scan and check for parasites…”

  “Be sure to get me a good scan of the brain,” Mallin added. “There could be a physical cause for aberrant behavior. I want to rule that out before I delve into his psyche.”

  “Good thinking, Ernst. I’d better bring Victor in on this, too. Hmm… Jack Holloway will need to know…but I imagine Ruth will take care of that.”

  Dr. Mallin asked, “Do you think we might be overreacting to an isolated case?”

  “No. First of all, we don’t know if this is an isolated case or the beginning of some sort of epidemic. A pathogen that inhibits normal behavior could be very damaging to any species. We need to get ahead of this if we can.”

  “Assuming that it is a pathogen, of course,” Dr. Mallin said.

  “What else could it be?” he asked, his hands outspread.

  * * * * * * * * *

  “Sir, you need to see this.”

  “What do you have, Hendrix?”

  Hendrix indicated a screen to his left. Several red silhouettes were grouped together. They were somewhat anthropomorphic though very small compared to Terrans.

  “Fuzzies?”

  “That’s my guess, sir.”

  “Do they know we’re here?”

  “We don’t have audio, yet, and we still need to get the translator up.”

  “What’s the holdup?”

  It had taken all night to get the canopy up in time to block the surveillance satellites. The canopy was constructed of a lightweight fibroid weave designed to refract infrared light and muffle ultra-sonic noise, and it was very heavy and hard to setup.

  “Ah, Nifflheim,” the leader grumbled. “Well, priorities are priorities.”

  “What do we do with them?” Hendrix glanced back at the screen. “Stuff them in the mass converter like the damnthing?”

  “Only as a last resort. Killing Fuzzies is bad for your health—if you get caught. This area doesn’t have any outposts or human inhabitants. Those Fuzzies won’t even know what a Terran is. We just stick to our own area and hope they do the same.”

  “And if they come snooping around?”

  “Give them enough Extee-Three to hold them until we’re done. Hey, tell everybody to stop shaving until we bug-out. Maybe they’ll think we are big Fuzzies. At the very least it would confuse them if they try to I. D. us later.”

  The leader signaled for the screen to be turned off then called some men over to him. “You all heard that?”

  They had.

  “We have weeks of work to do here and if we are discovered it will all be for nothing. So let’s be careful and above all, don’t mess with the Fuzzies. I’d rather be busted for illegal prospecting than murder any day.”

  One man spoke up. “Maybe we should pack it in and try again after the Fuzzies have moved on.”

  “This is a one-shot operation, people. Too much money and time went into this for us to just pack it in. We will never get another chance like this.”

  VI

  John Morgan had wasted no time in getting to work. Grego arranged for a suite of rooms below the penthouse for him. It was easily as large and well-appointed as anything in an affluent hotel on Terra, just as Grego had promised. The décor was tastefully done in post-modern colonial Zarathustran. No animal heads adorned the walls. Instead, there was a collection of native artifacts from several worlds. The newest additions were of Fuzzy origin. On the floor there was a large damnthing-skin rug in front of a fireplace that could burn real wood.

  Climate control in the building eliminated dust from the air and maintained the humidity at optimal levels, eliminating the need for regular maid service for an empty room. There were signs that someone had been through the room, and recently. Morgan extracted a small device from his suitcase and waved it around the room. Nothing happened.

  I guess Grego has the maid staff go through each suite before anybody takes occupancy, Morgan thought, not a sign of a surveillance device anywhere in here, though.

  Victor Grego also assigned him an office near the file rooms and even sent over a secretary to assist him. Morgan suspected the secretary, Akira Hsu O’Barre, was reporting his movements back to Grego. That was fine with him since anything else would have denoted a lack of healthy suspicion on the part of the Company CEO. It also made up for leaving his room un-bugged.

  Morgan got busy first thing the next morning. He inserted a microdisc into his computer terminal and ran a security program that would block anybody from tracking his virtual activities, then plugged a back-up drive that would store all his research. Everything he did on the terminal from that point on would be completely untraceable.

  “Here are the files you requested, Mr. Morgan.” Akira stood in the doorway with an office box in her hands. Despite the best efforts of Terran civilization to eliminate hard-copies, paper still accumulated in every office in the Federation. “These are the environmental reports, geology reports and the meteorological trends of the last twenty-five years. I also have that study on Zarathustran background radiation you requested.”

  “Thank-you, Akira. Just put it all down on the desk. And call me ‘John.’” Morgan quickly cleared a section of the desk and Akira set the box down. “No point in being so formal.”

  “I think this would go a lot faster if you used the computer,” the young woman pointed out.

  “I have an affinity for print, I guess. Besides, most computer files are either scanned or transcribed from paper files, and often edited down. This way I get the whole unabridged information. But I will do some research on the terminal.”

  Akira leaned on the box and looked over the mountain of files that dominated the desk. “Yes Mr…John. Does anybody ever call you Jack?”

  “Not more than once,” Morgan said, grimacing. “I tried it on for size when I was in college and decided it didn’t fit. By and large I don’t much care for nicknames.” He rifled through the files in the box then asked, “Can you get me some information on the local government? Names, positions, backgrounds; that sort of thing.”

  “I’ll check. Back when the Chartered Zarathustra Com
pany owned the planet outright, people coming in had to get handprinted and supply background information. We should still have that, plus the news archives.”

  “That would be fine. I’m especially interested in anything we have on the Native Affairs Commissioner, the Colonial Chief Prosecutor and anybody who has ever been to Freya.”

  “Freya?” Akira thought it was an odd request but held her tongue. Maybe John was homesick. Akira stood close to Morgan then said, “I was thinking about going out for drinks after my shift. I was wondering if you would like to join me?”

  Morgan smiled and replied, “Actually, I was thinking of asking you the same thing. Where did you have in mind?”

  “The Bitter End. It’s a lounge over in Junktown.”

  * * * * * * * * *

  “Do you know what you are going to say, Darloss?”

  “Relax, Dane…yes, I do. I’ve been rehearsing all morning.” Professor Darloss, despite his affected calm, was very nervous. While he was an experienced lecturer from his time at Ares University, a small community college on Mars, he had never been on a broadcast show. Tonight he was going to be on CZCN, the major broadcast company on Zarathustra. The fact that the whole planet might see him did nothing to settle his nerves.

  “Do you need a tranquilizer?” Dane reached into his pocket and produced a medicine bottle filled with pale blue pills. Darloss shook his head and Dane returned the bottle to his pocket. “Actually, it might help if you feel a bit shaky. We don’t want you coming across as an experienced talking head. But you can’t be too nervous. Just pretend you are teaching a class back on Mars.”

  “I was fired from Ares, if you recall,” the professor snarled.

  “For an impropriety with a student, wasn’t it?” Dane suppressed a chuckle. “You should have waited for tenure before getting frisky with the co-eds. Be that as it may, your teaching and lecturing skills were never in question. This is well within your skill set.”

  Darloss fumed inwardly at being reminded of his indiscretion, but grudgingly admitted that Dane had a point. “Fine. I’ll take one of those pills with me, just in case.”

  Dane smiled as he again produced the pill bottle.

  * * * * * * * * *

  Unlike what might be expected from a nightclub on the outskirts of Junktown, The Bitter End was not a dive. Originally intended to be a front for Raul Laporte’s less-than-legal activities, it became popular with the young well-to-do. Laporte, knowing a good thing when he saw it, quickly expanded the lounge and improved the interior with an eye towards attracting even more such clientele.

  As a front operation, Laporte was careful to keep all illegal activities out, even his own. Any connection made between himself and any crime on his property would get him quickly put under veridicator interrogation. While he couldn’t be forced to answer any question, that failure to cooperate with the police would result in numerous search warrants and there was no telling what they might find. So, Laporte paid his bribes to the right people and normally kept the less savory elements out of his club.

  “There’s no way to get at him while he’s in Medical House.”

  Anderson rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Ripper, when we get him, we will need him in reasonably good health. We can wait until he has recovered.”

  Raul Laporte, tired of sitting in his office with his off-world guests, suggested that the three of them continue their discussion in the lounge of The Bitter End. Like all of his enterprises, the lounge was equipped with anti-surveillance devices to keep anybody from listening in on what happened inside its walls. As the owner he had a private booth well away from the patronage so they could speak freely without being overheard and still keep an eye on things.

  “Wouldn’t he make a better bargaining chip if he was still sick?” Rippolone pulled a cigar out of his pocket and lit it. “Y’know, like if something went wrong and we needed an out?”

  “Please explain to your associate the downsides of putting the bag on a sick man,” Laporte said, as he rolled his eyes in exasperation.

  “If he dies while we have him then we risk a bullet in the head for nothing.” Anderson extracted a cigarette from a pack and lit it off Rippolone’s cigar. “We need him healthy if we plan on taking him back to Terra for the pay-off.”

  “Yeah, I get that, but how long will it be before he gets better?” Rippolone retorted.

  “We have two weeks until The City of New Chicago leaves for Terra,” Anderson explained. “Waiting works to our advantage; it gives us time to plan.”

  Laporte took out his knife and inspected it. Since the two men from Terra arrived he had been working it quite a bit. By the time this whole thing was over he might have to replace it. A couple of patrons glanced his way and started whispering among themselves. Laporte quickly put the knife away. “Brannhard lives out in the country north of Mallorysport. He’ll be easy to nab out there.”

  “After he gets out of the hospital, then.” Anderson nodded. “We have time. Ripper and I have rooms in Mallorysport. You can reach us there if anything develops.” He produced a business card from the Zoroaster Hotel. On the back, in handwriting, was a room number.

  * * * * * * * * *

  “I half-expected this place to be a dive,” John Morgan admitted. He took in the atmosphere of the lounge as they looked for a vacant table.

  “Why is that?” Akira asked.

  “The neighborhood we came over on the way in.”

  “Oh! You mean Junktown. Yeah, it’s pretty bad, but The Bitter End is the hottest place on Alpha continent. The owner is reputed to be some sort of mobster, so nobody messes with the customers or the parking lot. I wouldn’t want to walk home through Junktown, though.”

  “I wouldn’t think so.” Morgan looked about and noticed that many of the patrons were armed. He had left his sidearm in his quarters while working and didn’t bother to retrieve it before leaving with Akira. Now he wondered if that was a social faux pas for this world. “The owner doesn’t have people check their guns at the door?”

  Akira shrugged. “It’s a colony world. People hand over their teeth quicker than their guns. But nobody would dare to start a fight inside The Bitter End.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder indicating two large men with noticeable bulges under their jackets. “Security.”

  She jerked her other thumb towards the back corner where an elevated table with three men were sitting. One of them was sharpening a knife. “The one with the bowie knife is the owner, Raul Laporte.”

  Almost on cue, the man with the knife glanced around the room and quickly put the blade away.

  “There’s an empty table over there,” she said.

  They selected a table near the dance floor. Akira grabbed a chair and plopped down before John could hold it out for her. The directional sonics that allowed the music to reach near ear-splitting levels for the dancers was barely a distraction off the dance floor, allowing John and Akira to converse without yelling.

  “Do a lot of people come here after work?” Morgan asked.

  Akira waved to somebody at the bar. “I come a couple of times a week. It helps me unwind.”

  A barmaid approached the table. “What are you drinking?”

  “Do they serve Freyan ale here?” he asked. They did. “That will be good. You?”

  “I’ll have the same,” Akira replied. “I’ve never tried ale before.”

  The drinks arrived and she tried an experimental sip. “It’s like a strong dark beer but thicker.”

  “Best go easy on that until you get used to it,” Morgan warned. “Back in college I used to win a lot of drinking contests with that ale.”

  “That’s right; you mentioned you attended Mars Colony University. What was that like?”

  He took a long drink then said, “A bit strange at first. The academics weren’t so bad, but the free time took some getting used to.”

  “The free time?” Akira took another drink. She was already feeling the effects. “What was wrong with the free time
?”

  “They had some of the damnedest activities,” he explained. “There was a huge fan-club, a term we never used on Freya, by the way, for post and pre-atomic fiction writers, especially the ones that wrote imaginative stories about Mars. They would hold big parties and dress up in these elaborate costumes based on characters from the books. The fraternities were even named after the writers. There was Epsilon Rho Burroughs and Rho Digamma Bradbury and Heta Beta Pi—”

  “That sounds great!” Akira interrupted. “On Terra it was usually toga parties. Which frat were you in?”

  “Epsilon Rho Burroughs. And we had our share of toga parties, too, though at least one person would dress up as Ares, god of war. But mostly we would stick to the Mars parties. My frat tended to do the Burroughs themes, mostly.”

  “That sounds like a lot of fun,” Akira squealed. “I’ll bet you would make a very dashing John Carter.”

  “Just between you and me, I did,” Morgan admitted half-smiling. “My fraternity had a tradition of throwing what they called a ‘Barsoom Bash’ every semester and the part of John Carter went to the youngest freshman named ‘John’ or ‘Carter’. May the Gods help the man with both names! He’d be stuck with the nickname “Warlord” his entire time at the university. Anyway, I had to spend the entire evening walking around half-naked with a rapier on my hip. Those ancient writers had odd ideas of what appropriate attire consisted of. I am surprised that you are familiar with the character, though. I had to look it up.”

  “I filled one of my electives with pre-atomic literature back in college. Oh! Tell me you have pictures of yourself in costume!”

  “I do, though I’ve never shown them to anybody.” John’s face took on a reddish shade. “I also had to kiss all the sorority girls dressed up as Dejah Thoris.” John shook his head. “Freyan society is a bit more reserved than what I was exposed to on Mars and it took a while to adjust.”

  “How did you pay your way through? I could only afford community college on Terra and I had to pay that off with the work-exchange program.”