“Space Fuzzies,” Bronson said with a laugh. “Sure, they came from Nifflheim and adapted to conditions here.”
“Naw, they came from Mars, like the Freyans,” Henderson countered. “Just wait. Next it’ll be Martianists claiming them as long lost brothers.”
“Wait, I know,” Nichols yelled, “they flew here on winged land-prawns from Uller.”
“Okay, let’s settle down,” the leader ordered. “Too much noise might disturb the neighbors.”
The crowd quickly quieted and discussed the show among themselves. Hendrix left the group and approached the leader. “Sir, do you think this will interfere with our operation, here?”
The leader turned to Hendrix and asked, “How?”
“Anthropologists, scientists, geologists, what-have-you could start combing Beta for proof right or left. That Darloss may have just sparked a match that will light a fire under every idiot amateur anthropologist and treasure hunter who saw that interview.”
The leader considered Hendrix’s words a moment before replying. “That could happen, but not before we are done here. Beta is mostly Fuzzy territory. You need all kinds of permits and government sanctions to come crawling around here. Governor Rainsford won’t hand those out willy-nilly to just anybody. Plus, there will be counter arguments all over the vids. Most people won’t get off the couch until they have more information. Anybody trying to sneak in will get nailed by the Native Affairs Police.”
“And if somebody does come snooping around?” prompted Hendrix.
The leader stared levelly at Hendrix. “There’s another use for the mass/ energy converter.”
IX
Victor Grego was tired and ready to call it a day at 1800 hours. He had called the head of the mass media division, Miguel Courland, on the carpet earlier. Courland’s position was that he couldn’t run an effective news organization if he had to get the okay from the boss on every story. While Grego was forced to agree in principle the fact remained that the Darloss interview was potentially damaging to the company. Courland couldn’t see how a crackpot saying that Fuzzies came from outer space could be a threat and said so. Nothing short of finding a Fuzzy spaceship would be considered proof positive of the theory.
The meeting ended with the understanding that Darloss would not be given a second interview and any reputable scientist with an opposing view would be given equal airtime. Grego liked Courland and respected his ability to run his division effectively and even respected the man’s ethics. He respected anybody who had a job to do and did it competently even if he was personally inconvenienced by it. Courland had been against the anti-Fuzzy slant of the news during the Holloway/Kellogg trial. The news was the news and should be free of all bias. Grego was inclined to agree but simply couldn’t let his own media company do anything that might damage the CZC.
There was also the John Morgan business. The man was constantly digging through files, talking with the staff and just generally nosing around. That in itself was to be expected. However, Morgan was too polite and that worried Grego. Company hatchet men tended to be rude, arrogant types that had clear agendas. Akira’s report said that Morgan was interested in market research, which was also to be expected, but more-so in anybody who had been to Freya. Records on Jack Holloway, Gus Brannhard and Chief Harry Steefer had been accessed from the main computer along with information about Epsilon Continent. Epsilon was about the size of Australia and used as a game preserve since the signing of the agreement with the government that leased the unseated lands back to the CZC. The company had never even seriously developed it.
John Morgan was up to something and he couldn’t imagine what it could be. Akira also reported that Morgan was very interested in reports about radiation, particularly background radiation. In general, Zarathustra had the lowest background radiation level of any Terra-like planet. What was Morgan after?
Then, on a personal level, there was Diamond to worry about. While the bachelor life suited Grego, it was unfair to expect the same for the Fuzzy. Diamond should have a mate and Grego had no idea what was involved in a Fuzzy selecting a suitable partner. However, he did know—that at the very least—Diamond would need to get out of the penthouse and be placed in an environment where he could be exposed to unattached female Fuzzies.
I’ll give Jack a call and see if he could let Diamond stay with him on Beta for a few weeks, Grego decided. A fine specimen of male Fuzzy-hood like Diamond should be able to attract a suitable female pretty quick there.
To wrap-up the evening there was the meeting with Akira O’Barre. She was less than enthusiastic about her side-job in intelligence.
“I think he suspects, Mr. Grego.”
Victor Grego laid the report that Akira O’Barre handed him down on his desk and regarded the young woman. He knew when he assigned her to watch John Morgan that she wasn’t espionage material, but she was intelligent and attractive and had an easy way with people that made them comfortable around her. She also had a bit of a reputation for jumping from man to man, though the term ‘easy’ had never been used to describe her.
“Of course he suspects, Akira,” said Grego. “He seems like an intelligent man. In the business world he has to be suspicious of everybody. But suspicion does not constitute proof.” Grego opened his cigarette case and offered one to the young woman. She declined and Grego lit one for himself. “John Morgan is a wealthy man. Wealthy men do not lend their trust easily. That is how they stay wealthy. Nonetheless, I understand you have been seeing him socially.”
“We just had some drinks together. He’s been a perfect gentleman.”
Grego nodded. “Yes, Freyan men tend to be more…restrained…in their treatment of women, I understand. Dr. Mallin provided me with a cultural profile of Freyan society.”
“Sir, I don’t want to spy on him, anymore.” Akira was on the edge of tears.
“Then don’t.”
“What?” This took the young woman by surprise. “I don’t understand.”
“Mr. Morgan is a stockholder, Akira. We don’t spy on our own. However, as the CEO of this company, I need to know what files are accessed by whom and why. As an employee in Records Division, you need to keep track of that sort of thing. John Morgan should know that. If he doesn’t, then he is a fool.” Grego smiled. “That is all I require. That isn’t spying. That’s procedure. As for what you do on your off time, well, that is nobody’s business but your own.
“However,” he added, “if you find reason to believe he is up to something illegal or potentially damaging to the company, it is your responsibility to report it to me. Just like any other good employee. Is this understood?”
“Yes, Mr. Grego. Will there be anything else?”
“No, that will be all. Keep up the good work.”
Akira left in the private elevator leaving Grego alone with his thoughts. He looked over at his scale model of Zarathustra and realized it was late in the evening. He had guests coming and an interview to see on the vid.
* * * * * * * * *
“With us tonight is Dr. Jan Christiaan Hoenveld, the discoverer of Hoenveldzine.” The speaker turned to the thin elderly man at his left. “Thank-you for being on our show, Dr. Hoenveld.”
“Thank-you, Mr. Tuning.”
“Please, call me Bill. Dr. Hoenveld, I understand that you are here to dispute the claims made by Professor Darloss last week.”
“That is correct, Bill. Ah, call me Chris.” Hoenveld cleared his throat and tried to sit up a little straighter. Anybody who knew the doctor would be able to see that he was distinctly uncomfortable in the gray suit he was wearing. No doubt he would have preferred his usual lab coat. “Well, to begin, Professor Darloss’ hypothesis is based on the flimsiest of evidence. It takes years of research to properly catalogue scientific data, which he has failed to produce.”
“Interesting,” said Tuning, who in fact did not look particularly interested. “Are you saying that there are other bipedal mammals on Zarathustra?”
“What about the Fuzzies’ unique vocal and audio capabilities?” The interviewer’s face broke out into a cat-who-got-the-canary grin. “No other mammal on Zarathustra can hear in the ultrasonic range.”
Hoenveld, taken by surprise, nonetheless pulled out a ready answer. “On Terra the reverse is true. Numerous animals such as dogs can hear in the ultrasonic range while humans cannot. Does that mean humans came from a different planet?” Hoenveld put on a slightly superior grin. “Then there is the damnthing which is the only omnivorous carnivore ever discovered anywhere with hooves and horns. Mammalian carnivores and omnivores typically possess fang and claw while herbivores have hoof and horn.”
The interviewer countered by asking, “What if no other bipeds are found on Zarathustra?”
“What about pseudopterodactyl zarathustra, or harpies as the layman might call them?” Hoenveld countered. “Across the entire planet there is only one species of harpy, and no other avian reptiles have yet been discovered. Should we assume that they, too, piled into a hyperdrive ship and got themselves stranded here? Pseudocrustaceans, or land-prawn as we call them, are also singular representatives of their species. Zarathustra’s zoological makeup defies numerous conventions. A single bipedal species is barely a blip on the radar compared to the rest of the environmental picture.”
“Professor Darloss conjectured that the land-prawn were brought to Zarathustra by the Fuzzies as a food animal,” Tuning countered.
“Then at some point the land-prawns must have had wings that allowed them to cross the oceans,” Hoenveld said with a laugh. The laugh sounded odd as if he had never done it before. “Pseudocrustaceans are distributed across every major land-mass on the planet while Fuzzy sapiens zarathustra are native only to Beta continent. If Fuzzies had brought them then they would only be endemic to Beta.”
Hoenveld was getting the better of Tuning and Tuning knew it. While the interviewer had no personal interest one way or the other in the Fuzzy debate he had made his career by putting people off balance then tripping them up. It galled him that he didn’t get the better of Darloss the week before and now he was being shown up by Hoenveld. It was time to play the hole card. “Then perhaps you can explain the NFMp hormone, Chris. Your own research shows that no other mammal on Zarathustra produces it.”
“Well, the current wisdom is that it was designed to counter some toxin in the environment some hundred thousand years ago,” the Doctor countered smoothly. “There was a great deal of volcanic activity at that time spewing noxious smoke. It is possible the NFMp countered the harmful effects. There may have been numerous species that produced the NFMp hormone at that time. They either developed a mutation that removed the NFMp, or died out. Fuzzies are the only known species that prey on the land-prawn, or zuzora, as they are called by the Fuzzies, which would explain their continued existence despite the hormone.”
“Has any experimentation been done to test the toxic environment theory?”
“Certainly not!” Hoenveld actually looked scandalized at the suggestion. “That would entail subjecting a group of sapient beings to several toxic environments. Moral implications aside, a person could be legally shot for such a thing. However, the NFMp hormone might explain why the Fuzzies survived and all the other quasi-primates died off; the NFMp must have been a beneficial mutation that bred true only to turn destructive when the environment changed. I suspect that over time another mutation could occur in the Fuzzy genome that would remove or counter the genes that result in NFMp production.
“Hoenveldzine has a titanium base. Titanium was also found in the digestive tracts of the land-prawn. In humans titanium can become toxic requiring chelation treatment to remove it. In Fuzzies the NFMp hormone must perform the same function because all of my studies to date show that there is no titanium build-up in the Fuzzies bodies. Then there is the issue of fire, which is very significant….”
Hoenveld went on to explain the fact that Fuzzies never used fire until Terrans taught them as further proof that they were native to Zarathustra. Any race capable of space travel would be capable of producing fire. Since fire created warmth, cooked food and frightened off dangerous wildlife, any spaceship crash survivors would certainly hand down that piece of technology if they had ever possessed it.
“It defies the imagination that any race could regress to the point that they couldn’t rub two sticks together.”
* * * * * * * * *
“I never would have thought old Chris had it in him.” Victor Grego was watching the viewscreen with Leslie Coombes, Ernst Mallin and Juan Jimenez in his penthouse.
“You never had to sit through one of his lectures on scientific method,” Juan Jimenez said. “Once he gets going collapsium shielding won’t stop him.”
“I would love to get him on the couch for a couple hours,” Ernst Mallin added. “I think he has some serious parental issues to work out.”
“How did you talk him into doing the show?” Leslie Coombes asked.
“Actually, he came to me.” Grego’s eyebrows shot up and Jimenez explained. “He saw the interview last week and had kittens over it. If there is one thing Dr. Jan Christiaan Hoenveld, PhD MD MA, etc, cannot abide, it is sloppy scientific procedure. He even asked me politely…well, polite for him, if he could do the interview. I think his time with Zorro might be having a positive effect on his personality.”
Dr. Mallin smiled and asked, “Did you prepare him for the interview at all? He was a lot smoother than I would have expected.”
“Not at all. I just bought him that suit with my expense account. I didn’t want him to look like he was coached but he needed to be, at the very least, well dressed.”
Juan has come a long way since he took over Science Division, thought Grego. “Well, he did great. Three months from now give him a seven percent raise retroactive from this morning.”
Jimenez didn’t miss a beat. “Right. If we give him a raise now and it got out it would look bad. We wouldn’t want anybody to think he was being paid-off to tout the company line. I’ll let it be a surprise. I would like to give his expense account a bump, though. We might need him to publicly debate Darloss and he really needs to update his wardrobe. I swear he was born wearing that lab coat.”
“Done,” Grego agreed. “And get somebody to help him. I doubt if he knows an evening suit from a bush jacket. I hear that Frank Patel is a clotheshorse….”
The viewscreen interrupted Grego. Chief Steefer was staring out of it. Grego tapped the Receive button. “Yes, Chief?”
“Mr. Grego, I got those background checks you requested. Lansky is on his way up with them, now.”
“Very good, Chief. Can you give me the highlights?”
“Yes, sir. Darloss was a professor at a small community college on Mars. There was some sort of scandal with a female student or two that resulted in his termination, there. Darloss has held a few teaching jobs and a lab position since. His last known position was in a lab on Loki. More than that will have to be sent for off-planet.”
That meant a possible one year turn-around time. “Known associates?” he asked.
“Still looking into that,” admitted the Chief with a grimace. “He’s checked into the Alibi Inn. That’s a ‘No-Tell Motel’ over in Junktown. I have Haynes there in mufti scoping it out.”
“Haynes?” The name sounded familiar.
“Haynes was the guard who let Mr. Morgan in with that cannon on his hip…after taking his bullets.”
&
nbsp; That Haynes! Grego had to admit that Haynes had acted correctly. Powerful stockholders could destroy the careers of company people who annoyed them. Haynes had taken a very big chance just confiscating the ammunition from Morgan. “Good. What do we have on our Mr. Morgan?”
“Mr. Morgan is a Freyan native. His mother died in childbirth and there is no record of a father, though with his son being named ‘John Morgan’ I have to believe he was from Terra. His mother’s brother raised him, a minor noble named Orphtheor Honirdite…I’m not too sure about that pronunciation. This uncle put him through school on Freya and Mars. When Honirdite passed on, Mr. Morgan inherited everything. He invested heavily in the Charterless Freya Company and later with the new Chartered Magni Cooperative and the CZC. Since graduating with a master’s degree in business and a bachelor’s degree in forensic science with a minor in criminology he’s been all over the Federation. He touches down, invests in the local companies, learns the local language then moves on. His last stop was on Gimli.”
“Either he’s a Freyan Gypsy, or he’s looking for something,” Grego observed. “Any idea what?”
“I am afraid not, sir. I do have an idea that he invests in all of these companies in order to get access to their files.”
Grego nodded at the screen. “That would fit. He invests enough to have some clout, gets into their files and looks for whatever it is he’s looking for…I’m guessing he hasn’t found it, yet, or he would stop looking…then moves on.” Grego leaned back, then a thought hit him. “Where is he getting all that capital to invest?”
“His uncle was somewhat wealthy and already heavily invested in the CFC. Mr. Morgan seems to have the Midas touch with his investments,” replied the Chief. “Clearly he does his homework…I guess that master’s degree in business isn’t just for show.” Steefer listed off John Morgan’s known assets and investments. It was well into the billions of sols.
Grego whistled low. “If he rolled all that over into one lump and invested it with the Home Office, he’d own over half the company. Anything else?”
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