H. Piper - Fuzzy Sapiens

They each took one nibble and stopped.

“Not good,” Diamond declared. “Not Estee-fee. Want Estee-fee. “

“Bad,” Flora pronounced it, spitting out what she had in her mouth and carrying the rest to the trash-bin. “Estee-fee good; this not.”

“Estee-fee for look; not Estee-fee in mouth,” Pierrot said.

“What are they saying?” Dunbar wanted to know.

“They say it isn’t Extee-Three at all, and they want to know how dumb I am to think it is.”

“But look, Mr. Grego; this is Extee-Three. It is chemically identical with the stuff they’ve been eating all along.”

“The Fuzzies aren’t chemists. They only know what it tastes like, and it doesn’t taste like Extee-Three to them.”

“It tastes like Extee-Three to me…”

“You,” Sandra told him, “are not a Fuzzy.” She switched languages and explained that Pappy Vic and the other Big One really thought it was Estee-fee.

“Pappy Vic feel bad,” he told them. “Pappy Vic want to give real Estee-fee.”

He gathered up the offending carton and carried it into the kitchenette, going to one of the cupboards and getting out a tin of the genuine article. Only a dozen left; he’d have to start rationing it himself. He cut it into six pieces, put by a piece for Diamond after the company was gone, and distributed the rest.

Dunbar was still arguing with Sandra that the stuff he’d brought was chemically Extee-Three.

“All right, Malcolm, I believe you. The point is, these Fuzzies don’t give a hoot on Nifflheim what the chemical composition is.” He looked at the label on the tin. “The man you have at the plant worked for Odin Dietetics, didn’t he? Well, this stuff was made on Terra by Argentine Syntho-Foods. What do they use for cereal bulk-matter at Odin Dietetics, some native grain?”

“No, introduced Terran wheat, and Argentine uses wheat from the pampas and from the Mississippi Valley in North America.”

“Different soil-chemicals, different bacteria; hell, man, look at tobacco. We’ve introduced it on every planet we’ve ever colonized, and no tobacco tastes just like the tobacco from anywhere else.”

“Do we have any Odin Extee-Three?” Sandra asked.

“Smart girl; a triple A for good thinking. Do we?”

“Yes. The stuff we import’s Argentine, and the stuff the Navy has on Xerxes is Odin.”

“And the Fuzzies can’t tell the difference? No, of course they can’t. Jack Holloway bought his Extee-Three from us and gave it to his Fuzzies, and when they got on Xerxes, the Navy fed them theirs. What did you use in this stuff, local wheat?”

“Introduced wheat; seed came from South America. Grown on Gamma Continent.”

“Well, Mal, we’re going to find out what’s the matter with this stuff. Real all-out study, tear it apart molecule by molecule. Who’s our best biochemist?”

“Hoenveld.”

“Well, put him to work on it. There’s some difference, and the Fuzzies know it. You say this stuff’s Government specification standard?”

“It meets the Government tests.”

“Well; Napier has a lot of Extee-Three on Xerxes he won’t release because it’s regulation required emergency stores. We’ll see if we can trade this for it…”

“WELL, YOU GOOFED on it somehow!” the superintendent of the synthetics plant was insisting. “The Fuzzies eat regular Extee-Three; they’re crazy about it. If they won’t eat your stuff, it isn’t Extee-Three.”

“Listen, Abe, goddamit, I know it is Extee-Three! We followed the formula exactly. Ask Joe Vespi, here; he used to work at Odin Dietetics…”

“That’s correct, Mr. Fitch; every step of the process is exactly as I remember it from Odin—”

“As you remembered it!” Fitch pounced triumphantly. “What did you remember wrong?”

“Why, nothing, Mr. Fitch. Look, here’s the schematic. The farina, that’s the bulk-matter, comes in here, to these pressure-cookers…”

DR JAN CHRISTIAAN Hoenveld was annoyed, and because he was an emminent scientist and Victor Grego was only a businessman, he was at no pains to hide it.

“Mr. Grego, do you realize how much work is piled up on me now? Dr. Andrews and Dr. Reynier and Dr. Dosihara are at me to find out whether there is any biochemical cause of premature and defective births among Fuzzies. And now you want me to drop that and find out why one batch of Extee-Three tastes differently to a Fuzzy from another. There is a gunsmith here in town who has a sign in his shop, There are only twenty four hours in a day and there is only one of me . I have often considered copying that sign in my laboratory.” He sat frowning into his screen from Science Center, across the city, for a moment. “Mr. Grego, has it occurred to you or any of your master-minds at Synthetics that difference may be in the Fuzzies’ taste-perception?”

“It has occurred to me that Fuzzies must have a sense of taste that would shame the most famous wine-taster in the Galaxy. But I question if it is more accurate than your chemical analysis. If those Fuzzies tasted a difference between our Extee-Three and Argentine SynthoFood’s, the difference must be detectable. I don’t know anybody better able to detect it than you, Doctor; that’s why I’m asking you to find out what it is.”

Dr. Jan Christiaan Hoenveld said, “Hunnh!” ungraciously. Flattered, and didn’t want to show it.

“Well, I’ll do what I can, Mr. Grego…”

I MUST BE very nice to Dr. Ernst Mallin. I must be very nice to Dr. Ernst Mallin. I must be… Ruth van Riebeek repeated it silently, as though writing it a hundred times on a mental blackboard, as an airboat lost altitude and came slanting down across the city, past the high crag of Company House, with the lower, broader, butte of Central Courts Building in the distance to the left. Ahead, the sanatorium area drew closer, wide parklands scattered with low white buildings. She hadn’t seen Mallin since the trial, and even then she had avoided speaking to him as much as possible. Part of it was because of the things he had done with the four Fuzzies; Pancho Ybarra said she also had a guilt-complex because of the way she’d fifth colunmed the company. Rubbish! That had been intelligence work; that had been why she’d taken a job with the CZC in the first place. She had nothing at all to feel guilty about…

“I must be very nice to Dr. Ernst Mallin,” she said, aloud. “And I’m going to have one Nifflheim of a time doing it.”

“So am I,” her husband, standing beside her, said. “He’ll have to make an effort to be nice to us, too. He’ll still remember my pistol shoved into his back out at Holloway’s the day Goldilocks was killed. I wonder if he knows how little it would have taken to make me squeeze the trigger.”

“Pancho says he is a reformed character.”

“Pancho’s seen him since we have. He could be right. Anyhow, he’s helping us, and we need all the help we can get. And he won’t hurt the Fuzzies, not with Ahmed Khadra and Mrs. Pendarvis keeping an eye on him.”

The Fuzzies, crowded on the cargo-deck below, were becoming excited. There was a forward view screen rigged where they could see it, and they could probably sense as well as see that the boat was descending. And this place ahead must be the place Pappy Jack and Pappy Gerd and Unka Panko and Little Fuzzy had been telling them about, where the Big Ones would come and take them away to nice places of their own.

She hoped too many of them wouldn’t be too badly disappointed. She hoped this adoption deal wouldn’t be too much of a failure.

The airboat grounded on the vitrified stone apron beside the building. It looked like a good place; Jack said it had been intended for but never used as a mental ward-unit; four stories high, each with its own terrace, and a flat garden-planted roof. High mesh fences around each level; the Fuzzies wouldn’t fall off. Plenty of trees and bushes; the Fuzzies would like that.