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was the Charterless Zarathustra Company, and the company was definitely
not a philanthropic institution.
Sounds all right to me, Jack Holloway agreed. You didn t pay me any
more than that when I was prospecting, and I had to dig them myself.
But four-fifty, Jack. The Terra market price is over a thousand sols a
carat.
This isn t Terra, Ben. Terra s five hundred light-years, six months ship-
time, away. I think Mr. Grego s making us a good offer. All we need to do is
bank the money; the company ll do the rest.
Well, how much do you think the Fuzzies will get out of it, a month?
Grego shrugged. I haven t seen it, myself. I ll take Jack s word for it.
What do you think?
Well, it depends on how much equipment you use, and what kind. If it s
anything like the diggings I used to work, you ll get about a sunstone to the
ton.
We can move and process an awful lot of tons of flint in a month, and
from Jack s description I d say we ll be working that deposit for longer than
any of us ll be around. You know, Governor, instead of the Fuzzies getting
handouts from the Government, they ll be paying the Government s bills
before long.
And that would have to be watched, too; it mustn t be allowed to become
a source of political graft. Inside a month, now, the elections for delegates to
the Constitutional Convention would be held. Make sure the right men were
elected, men who would write a Constitution which would safeguard the
Fuzzies rights for all time.
Victor Grego, he was beginning to think, could be counted on to help in
that.
LESLIE COOMBES HELD his glass while Gus Brannhard poured from the
bottle, and said, quickly, That s enough, please, when about fifty or sixty cc
of whisky had been added to the ice. He filled the glass the rest of the way
with soda, himself.
And Hugo Ingermann, he said, disgustedly, is completely innocent.
Well, innocent of the Fuzzy business and the attempt on the company
gem-vault, Brannhard conceded, pouring into his own glass. When Gus
mixed a highball, he always left out both the ice and the soda. It s probably
the only thing he ever was innocent of, in his whole life. But he isn t getting
away scot-free. Brannhard took a drink from his glass, and Coombes
shuddered inwardly; the man must have a collapsium-plated digestive tract.
While we were interrogating this one and that one about the Fuzzy-sunstone
business, we got a lot of evidence, all veridicated, to connect him with
Thaxter s shylocking and Bowlby s call-girl agency and Heenan s prize-fight
fixing and Laporte s strong-arm mob. I m after him with a shotgun; I m just
filling the air all around him with indictments, and some of them are sure to hit.
And even if I can t get him convicted of anything, he ll be disbarred, that s for
sure. And this Planetary Prosperity Party of his is catching fire, leaking
radiation, blowing up and falling apart all around. Everybody s calling it the
Fuzzy-Fagin Party, and everybody who had anything to do with it is getting
out as fast as he can.
If we work together, we ll get a good Constitution adopted and a good
Legislature elected. Or can we expect Governor Rainsford to agree with Victor
Grego on what a good Constitution and a good Legislature are?
We can, Brannhard said. We only have a few months before the off-
planet land-grabbers begin coming in, and Ben Rainsford s as much worried
about that as Victor Grego. Leslie, if you go into court and make claim to all
the unseated land the company has mapped and surveyed, I am instructed by
the Governor not to oppose you. What does that sound like?
That sounds like getting back about everything we lost, with the
sunstone lease on top of it. I am going to propose the election of Little Fuzzy
as an honorary member of the board of directors, with the title of Company
Benefactor Number One.
LITTLE FUZZY CLIMBED up on Pappy Jack s lap, squirmed a little, and
cuddled himself comfortably. He was happy to be back. He had had so much
fun in the Big House Place, he and Mamma Fuzzy and Ko-Ko and Cinderella
and Syndrome and Id and Ned Kelly and Dr. Crippen and Calamity Jane.
They had met so many Fuzzies who had been here and gone away to live
with Big Ones of their own, and they had a place where they all met and
played together. And he had met the two lovers, now they had names of their
own, Pierrot and Columbine, and he had met Diamond, about whom Unka
Panko had told him, and Diamond s Pappy Vic.
It had been to meet Diamond that Unka Panko and Auntie Lynne had
taken them all in the sky-thing to the Big House Place, because Diamond had
found out how to talk like a Big One without using one of the talk-things, and
Diamond had taught all of them how to do it. It had been hard, very hard;
Diamond was very smart to have found it out for himself, but after a while they
had all found that they could do it, too. And now Mike and Mitzi and Complex
and Superego and Dillinger and Lizzie Borden had gone to the Big House
Place with Pappy Gerd and Mummy Woof, and they would learn to talk so that
the Big Ones could hear them. And Baby Fuzzy was learning from Mamma
Fuzzy, and tomorrow they would all start teaching the others here at Hoksu-
Mitto.
Pretty soon, all Fuzzy learn to talk like Big Ones, he said. Not need
talk-thing, Big One not need ear-thing; just talk, like I do now.
That s right, Pappy Jack said. Big Ones, Fuzzies, all make talk
together. All be good friends.
And Fuzzy learn how to help Big Ones? Many things Fuzzy can do to
help, if Big Ones tell what.
Best thing Fuzzy do to help Big Ones is just be Fuzzies, Pappy Jack
told him.
But what else could they be? Fuzzies were what they were, just as Big
Ones were Big Ones.
And beside, Pappy Jack went on talking, the Fuzzies are all rich, now.
Rich? What is? Something good?
Well, most people think it is. When you re rich, you have money.
Is something good to eat? he asked. Like Estee-fee?
He wondered why Pappy Jack laughed. Maybe he was just laughing
because he was happy. Or maybe Pappy Jack thought it was funny that he
didn t know what money was.
There were still so many things Fuzzies had to learn.
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