VIII
Jack Holloway had been out on bail before, but never for quite so much. Itwas almost worth it, though, to see Leslie Coombes's eyes widen andMohammed Ali O'Brien's jaw drop when he dumped the bag of sunstones,blazing with the heat of the day and of his body, on George Lunt'smagisterial bench and invited George to pick out twenty-five thousandsols' worth. Especially after the production Coombes had made of postingKellogg's bail with one of those precertified Company checks.
He looked at the whisky bottle in his hand, and then reached into thecupboard for another one. One for Gus Brannhard, and one for the rest ofthem. There was a widespread belief that that was why Gustavus AdolphusBrannhard was practicing sporadic law out here in the boondocks of aboondock planet, defending gun fighters and veldbeest rustlers. Itwasn't. Nobody on Zarathustra knew the reason, but it wasn't whisky.Whisky was only the weapon with which Gus Brannhard fought off the memoryof the reason.
He was in the biggest chair in the living room, which was none too amplefor him; a mountain of a man with tousled gray-brown hair, his broad facemasked in a tangle of gray-brown beard. He wore a faded and grimy bushjacket with clips of rifle cartridges on the breast, no shirt and a tornundershirt over a shag of gray-brown chest hair. Between the bottoms ofhis shorts and the tops of his ragged hose and muddy boots, his legs werecovered with hair. Baby Fuzzy was sitting on his head, and Mamma Fuzzy wason his lap. Mike and Mitzi sat one on either knee. The Fuzzies had takeninstantly to Gus. Bet they thought he was a Big Fuzzy.
"Aaaah!" he rumbled, as the bottle and glass were placed beside him. "Beenstaying alive for hours hoping for this."
"Well, don't let any of the kids get at it. Little Fuzzy trying to smokepipes is bad enough; I don't want any dipsos in the family, too."
Gus filled the glass. To be on the safe side, he promptly emptied it intohimself.
"You got a nice family, Jack. Make a wonderful impression in court--aslong as Baby doesn't try to sit on the judge's head. Any jury that seesthem and hears that Ortheris girl's story will acquit you from the box,with a vote of censure for not shooting Kellogg, too."
"I'm not worried about that. What I want is Kellogg convicted."
"You better worry, Jack," Rainsford said. "You saw the combination againstus at the hearing."
Leslie Coombes, the Company's top attorney, had come out from Mallorysportin a yacht rated at Mach 6, and he must have crowded it to the limit allthe way. With him, almost on a leash, had come Mohammed Ali O'Brien, theColonial Attorney General, who doubled as Chief Prosecutor. They had bothtried to get the whole thing dismissed--self-defense for Holloway, andkilling an unprotected wild animal for Kellogg. When that had failed, theyhad teamed in flagrant collusion to fight the inclusion of any evidenceabout the Fuzzies. After all it was only a complaint court; LieutenantLunt, as a police magistrate, had only the most limited powers.
"You saw how far they got, didn't you?"
"I hope we don't wish they'd succeeded," Rainsford said gloomily.
"What do you mean, Ben?" Brannhard asked. "What do you think they'll do?"
"I don't know. That's what worries me. We're threatening the ZarathustraCompany, and the Company's too big to be threatened safely," Rainsfordreplied. "They'll try to frame something on Jack."
"With veridication? That's ridiculous, Ben."
"Don't you think we can prove sapience?" Gerd van Riebeek demanded.
"Who's going to define sapience? And how?" Rainsford asked. "Why,between them, Coombes and O'Brien can even agree to accept thetalk-and-build-a-fire rule."
"Huh-uh!" Brannhard was positive. "Court ruling on that, about forty yearsago, on Vishnu. Infanticide case, woman charged with murder in the deathof her infant child. Her lawyer moved for dismissal on the grounds thatmurder is defined as the killing of a sapient being, a sapient being isdefined as one that can talk and build a fire, and a newborn infant can doneither. Motion denied; the court ruled that while ability to speak andproduce fire is positive proof of sapience, inability to do either or bothdoes not constitute legal proof of nonsapience. If O'Brien doesn't knowthat, and I doubt if he does, Coombes will." Brannhard poured anotherdrink and gulped it before the sapient beings around him could get at it."You know what? I will make a small wager, and I will even give odds, thatthe first thing Ham O'Brien does when he gets back to Mallorysport will beto enter _nolle prosequi_ on both charges. What I'd like would be for himto _nol. pros._ Kellogg and let the charge against Jack go to court. Hewould be dumb enough to do that himself, but Leslie Coombes wouldn't lethim."
"But if he throws out the Kellogg case, that's it," Gerd van Riebeek said."When Jack comes to trial, nobody'll say a mumblin' word about sapience."
"I will, and I will not mumble it. You all know colonial law on homicide.In the case of any person killed while in commission of a felony, noprosecution may be brought in any degree, against anybody. I'm going tocontend that Leonard Kellogg was murdering a sapient being, that JackHolloway acted lawfully in attempting to stop it and that when Kurt Borchattempted to come to Kellogg's assistance he, himself, was guilty offelony, and consequently any prosecution against Jack Holloway is illegal.And to make that contention stick, I shall have to say a great many words,and produce a great deal of testimony, about the sapience of Fuzzies."
"It'll have to be expert testimony," Rainsford said. "The testimony ofpsychologists. I suppose you know that the only psychologists on thisplanet are employed by the chartered Zarathustra Company." He drank whatwas left of his highball, looked at the bits of ice in the bottom of hisglass and then rose to mix another one. "I'd have done the same as youdid, Jack, but I still wish this hadn't happened."
"_Huh!_" Mamma Fuzzy looked up, startled by the exclamation. "What do youthink Victor Grego's wishing, right now?"
* * * * *
Victor Grego replaced the hand-phone. "Leslie, on the yacht," he said."They're coming in now. They'll stop at the hospital to drop Kellogg, andthen they're coming here."
Nick Emmert nibbled a canape. He had reddish hair, pale eyes and a wide,bovine face.
"Holloway must have done him up pretty badly," he said.
"I wish Holloway'd killed him!" He blurted it angrily, and saw theResident General's shocked expression.
"You don't really mean that, Victor?"
"The devil I don't!" He gestured at the recorder-player, which had justfinished the tape of the hearing, transmitted from the yacht atsixty-speed. "That's only a teaser to what'll come out at the trial. Youknow what the Company's epitaph will be? _Kicked to death, along with aFuzzy, by Leonard Kellogg._"
Everything would have worked out perfectly if Kellogg had only kept hishead and avoided collision with Holloway. Why, even the killing of theFuzzy and the shooting of Borch, inexcusable as that had been, wouldn'thave been so bad if it hadn't been for that asinine murder complaint. Thatwas what had provoked Holloway's counter-complaint, which was what haddone the damage.
And, now that he thought of it, it had been one of Kellogg's people, vanRiebeek, who had touched off the explosion in the first place. He didn'tknow van Riebeek himself, but Kellogg should have, and he had handled himthe wrong way. He should have known what van Riebeek would go along withand what he wouldn't.
"But, Victor, they won't convict Leonard of murder," Emmert was saying."Not for killing one of those little things."
"'Murder shall consist of the deliberate and unjustified killing of anysapient being, of any race,'" he quoted. "That's the law. If they canprove in court that the Fuzzies are sapient beings...."
Then, some morning, a couple of deputy marshals would take Leonard Kelloggout in the jail yard and put a bullet through the back of his head, which,in itself, would be no loss. The trouble was, they would also be shootingan irreparable hole in the Zarathustra Company's charter. Maybe Kelloggcould be kept out of court, at that. There wasn't a ship blasted off fromDarius without a couple of drunken spacemen being hustled aboard at thelast moment; with the job Holloway must ha
ve done, Kellogg should lookjust right as a drunken spaceman. The twenty-five thousand sols' bondcould be written off; that was pennies to the Company. No, that wouldstill leave them stuck with the Holloway trial.
"You want me out of here when the others come, Victor?" Emmert asked,popping another canape into his mouth.
"No, no; sit still. This will be the last chance we'll have to geteverybody together; after this, we'll have to avoid anything that'll looklike collusion."
"Well, anything I can do to help; you know that, Victor," Emmert said.
Yes, he knew that. If worst came to utter worst and the Company charterwere invalidated, he could still hang on here, doing what he could tosalvage something out of the wreckage--if not for the Company, then forVictor Grego. But if Zarathustra were reclassified, Nick would befinished. His title, his social position, his sinecure, his grafts andperquisites, his alias-shrouded Company expense account--all out theairlock. Nick would be counted upon to do anything he could--however muchthat would be.
He looked across the room at the levitated globe, revolving imperceptiblyin the orange spotlight. It was full dark on Beta Continent now, whereLeonard Kellogg had killed a Fuzzy named Goldilocks and Jack Holloway hadkilled a gunman named Kurt Borch. That angered him, too; hell of a gunman!Clear shot at the broad of a man's back, and still got himself killed.Borch hadn't been any better choice than Kellogg himself. What was thematter with him; couldn't he pick men for jobs any more? And Ham O'Brien!No, he didn't have to blame himself for O'Brien. O'Brien was one of NickEmmert's boys. And he hadn't picked Nick, either.
The squawk-box on the desk made a premonitory noise, and a feminine voiceadvised him that Mr. Coombes and his party had arrived.
"All right; show them in."
Coombes entered first, tall suavely elegant, with a calm, untroubled face.Leslie Coombes would wear the same serene expression in the midst of abombardment or an earthquake. He had chosen Coombes for chief attorney,and thinking of that made him feel better. Mohammed Ali O'Brien wasneither tall, elegant nor calm. His skin was almost black--he'd been bornon Agni, under a hot B3 sun. His bald head glistened, and a big nosepeeped over the ambuscade of a bushy white mustache. What was it they saidabout him? Only man on Zarathustra who could strut sitting down. Andbehind them, the remnant of the expedition to Beta Continent--ErnstMallin, Juan Jimenez and Ruth Ortheris. Mallin was saying that it was apity Dr. Kellogg wasn't with them.
"I question that. Well, please be seated. We have a great deal to discuss,I'm afraid."
* * * * *
Mr. Chief Justice Frederic Pendarvis moved the ashtray a few inches to theright and the slender vase with the spray of starflowers a few inches tothe left. He set the framed photograph of the gentle-faced, white-hairedwoman directly in front of him. Then he took a thin cigar from the silverbox, carefully punctured the end and lit it. Then, unable to think offurther delaying tactics, he drew the two bulky loose-leaf books towardhim and opened the red one, the criminal-case docket.
Something would have to be done about this; he always told himself so atthis hour. Shoveling all this stuff onto Central Courts had been all rightwhen Mallorysport had had a population of less than five thousand andnothing else on the planet had had more than five hundred, but that timewas ten years past. The Chief Justice of a planetary colony shouldn't haveto wade through all this to see who had been accused of blotting the brandon a veldbeest calf or who'd taken a shot at whom in a barroom. Well, atleast he'd managed to get a few misdemeanor and small-claims courtsestablished; that was something.
The first case, of course, was a homicide. It usually was. From Beta,Constabulary Fifteen, Lieutenant George Lunt. Jack Holloway--so old Jackhad cut another notch on his gun--Cold Creek Valley, Federation citizen,race Terran human; willful killing of a sapient being, to wit Kurt Borch,Mallorysport, Federation citizen, race Terran human. Complainant, LeonardKellogg, the same. Attorney of record for the defendant, Gustavus AdolphusBrannhard. The last time Jack Holloway had killed anybody, it had been acouple of thugs who'd tried to steal his sunstones; it hadn't even gotteninto complaint court. This time he might be in trouble. Kellogg was aCompany executive. He decided he'd better try the case himself. TheCompany might try to exert pressure.
The next charge was also homicide, from Constabulary, Beta Fifteen. Heread it and blinked. Leonard Kellogg, willful killing of a sapient being,to wit, Jane Doe alias Goldilocks, aborigine, race Zarathustran Fuzzy,complainant, Jack Holloway, defendant's attorney of record, LeslieCoombes. In spite of the outrageous frivolity of the charge, he began tolaugh. It was obviously an attempt to ridicule Kellogg's own complaint outof court. Every judicial jurisdiction ought to have at least one GusBrannhard to liven things up a little. Race Zarathustran Fuzzy!
Then he stopped laughing suddenly and became deadly serious, like anengineer who finds a cataclysmite cartridge lying around primed andconnected to a discharger. He reached out to the screen panel and beganpunching a combination. A spectacled young man appeared and greeted himdeferentially.
"Good morning, Mr. Wilkins," he replied. "A couple of homicides at thehead of this morning's docket--Holloway and Kellogg, both from BetaFifteen. What is known about them?"
The young man began to laugh. "Oh, your Honor, they're both a lot ofnonsense. Dr. Kellogg killed some pet belonging to old Jack Holloway, thesunstone digger, and in the ensuing unpleasantness--Holloway can be veryunpleasant, if he feels he has to--this man Borch, who seems to have beenKellogg's bodyguard, made the suicidal error of trying to draw a gun onHolloway. I'm surprised at Lieutenant Lunt for letting either of thosecharges get past hearing court. Mr. O'Brien has entered _nolle prosequi_on both of them, so the whole thing can be disregarded."
Mohammed O'Brien knew a charge of cataclysmite when he saw one, too. Hisimpulse had been to pull the detonator. Well, maybe this charge ought tobe shot, just to see what it would bring down.
"I haven't approved the _nolle prosequi_ yet, Mr. Wilkins," he mentionedgently. "Would you please transmit to me the hearing tapes on these cases,at sixty-speed? I'll take them on the recorder of this screen. Thank you."
He reached out and made the necessary adjustments. Wilkins, the Clerk ofthe Courts, left the screen, and returned. There was a wavering scream fora minute and a half. Going to take more time than he had expected. Well....
* * * * *
There wasn't enough ice in the glass, and Leonard Kellogg put more in.Then there was too much, and he added more brandy. He shouldn't havestarted drinking this early, be drunk by dinnertime if he kept it up, butwhat else was there to do? He couldn't go out, not with his face likethis. In any case, he wasn't sure he wanted to.
They were all down on him. Ernst Mallin, and Ruth Ortheris, and even JuanJimenez. At the constabulary post, Coombes and O'Brien had treated himlike an idiot child who has to be hushed in front of company and comingback to Mallorysport they had ignored him completely. He drank quickly,and then there was too much ice in the glass again. Victor Grego had toldhim he'd better take a vacation till the trial was over, and put Mallin incharge of the division. Said he oughtn't to be in charge while thedivision was working on defense evidence. Well, maybe; it looked like thefirst step toward shoving him completely out of the Company.
He dropped into a chair and lit a cigarette. It tasted badly, and after afew puffs he crushed it out. Well, what else could he have done? Afterthey'd found that little grave, he had to make Gerd understand what itwould mean to the Company. Juan and Ruth had been all right, but Gerd--Thethings Gerd had called him; the things he'd said about the Company. Andthen that call from Holloway, and the humiliation of being ordered outlike a tramp.
And then that disgusting little beast had come pulling at his clothes, andhe had pushed it away--well, kicked it maybe--and it had struck at himwith the little spear it was carrying. Nobody but a lunatic would give athing like that to an animal anyhow. And he had kicked it again, and ithad screamed....
The co
mmunication screen in the next room was buzzing. Maybe that wasVictor. He gulped the brandy left in the glass and hurried to it.
It was Leslie Coombes, his face remotely expressionless.
"Oh, hello, Leslie."
"Good afternoon, Dr. Kellogg." The formality of address was studiouslyrebuking. "The Chief Prosecutor just called me; Judge Pendarvis has deniedthe _nolle prosequi_ he entered in your case and in Mr. Holloway's, andordered both cases to trial."
"You mean they're actually taking this seriously?"
"It is serious. If you're convicted, the Company's charter will be almostautomatically voided. And, although this is important only to youpersonally, you might, very probably, be sentenced to be shot." Heshrugged that off, and continued: "Now, I'll want to talk to you aboutyour defense, for which I am responsible. Say ten-thirty tomorrow, at myoffice. I should, by that time, know what sort of evidence is going to beused against you. I will be expecting you, Dr. Kellogg."
He must have said more than that, but that was all that registered.Leonard wasn't really conscious of going back to the other room, until herealized that he was sitting in his relaxer chair, filling the glass withbrandy. There was only a little ice in it, but he didn't care.
They were going to try him for murder for killing that little animal, andHam O'Brien had said they wouldn't, he'd promised he'd keep the case fromtrial and he hadn't, they were going to try him anyhow and if theyconvicted him they would take him out and shoot him for just killing asilly little animal he had killed it he'd kicked it and jumped on it hecould still hear it screaming and feel the horrible soft crunching underhis feet....
He gulped what was left in the glass and poured and gulped more. Then hestaggered to his feet and stumbled over to the couch and threw himselfonto it, face down, among the cushions.
* * * * *
Leslie Coombes found Nick Emmert with Victor Grego in the latter's officewhen he entered. They both rose to greet him, and Grego said "You'veheard?"
"Yes. O'Brien called me immediately. I called my client--my client ofrecord, that is--and told him. I'm afraid it was rather a shock to him."
"It wasn't any shock to me," Grego said as they sat down. "When HamO'Brien's as positive about anything as he was about that, I always expectthe worst."
"Pendarvis is going to try the case himself," Emmert said. "I alwaysthought he was a reasonable man, but what's he trying to do now? Cut theCompany's throat?"
"He isn't anti-Company. He isn't pro-Company either. He's just pro-law.The law says that a planet with native sapient inhabitants is a Class-IVplanet, and has to have a Class-IV colonial government. If Zarathustra isa Class-IV planet, he wants it established, and the proper laws applied.If it's a Class-IV planet, the Zarathustra Company is illegally chartered.It's his job to put a stop to illegality. Frederic Pendarvis' religion isthe law, and he is its priest. You never get anywhere by arguing religionwith a priest."
They were both silent for a while after he had finished. Grego was lookingat the globe, and he realized, now, that while he was proud of it, hispride was the pride in a paste jewel that stands for a real one in a bankvault. Now he was afraid that the real jewel was going to be stolen fromhim. Nick Emmert was just afraid.
"You were right yesterday, Victor. I wish Holloway'd killed that son of aKhooghra. Maybe it's not too late--"
"Yes, it is, Nick. It's too late to do anything like that. It's too lateto do anything but win the case in court." He turned to Grego. "What areyour people doing?"
Grego took his eyes from the globe. "Ernest Mallin's studying all thefilmed evidence we have and all the descriptions of Fuzzy behavior, andtrying to prove that none of it is the result of sapient mentation. RuthOrtheris is doing the same, only she's working on the line of instinct andconditioned reflexes and nonsapient, single-stage reasoning. She has a lotof rats, and some dogs and monkeys, and a lot of apparatus, and sometechnician from Henry Stenson's instrument shop helping her. Juan Jimenezis studying mentation of Terran dogs, cats and primates, and Freyankholphs and Mimir black slinkers."
"He hasn't turned up any simian or canine parallels to that funeral, hashe?"
Grego said nothing, merely shook his head. Emmert muttered somethinginaudible and probably indecent.
"I didn't think he had. I only hope those Fuzzies don't get up in court,build a bonfire and start making speeches in Lingua Terra."
Nick Emmert cried out in panic. "You believe they're sapient yourself!"
"Of course. Don't you?"
Grego laughed sourly. "Nick thinks you have to believe a thing to proveit. It helps but it isn't necessary. Say we're a debating team; we've beenhanded the negative of the question. _Resolved: that Fuzzies are SapientBeings._ Personally, I think we have the short end of it, but that onlymeans we'll have to work harder on it."
"You know, I was on a debating team at college," Emmert said brightly.When that was disregarded, he added: "If I remember, the first thing wasdefinition of terms."
Grego looked up quickly. "Leslie, I think Nick has something. What is thelegal definition of a sapient being?"
"As far as I know, there isn't any. Sapience is something that's justtaken for granted."
"How about talk-and-build-a-fire?"
He shook his head. "_People of the Colony of Vishnu_ versus _EmilyMorrosh_, 612 A.E." He told them about the infanticide case. "I waslooking up rulings on sapience; I passed the word on to Ham O'Brien. Youknow, what your people will have to do will be to produce a definition ofsapience, acceptable to the court, that will include all known sapientraces and at the same time exclude the Fuzzies. I don't envy them."
"We need some Fuzzies of our own to study," Grego said.
"Too bad we can't get hold of Holloway's," Emmert said. "Maybe we could,if he leaves them alone at his camp."
"No. We can't risk that." He thought for a moment. "Wait a moment. I thinkwe might be able to do it at that. Legally."