Tuning William - Fuzzy Bones

"I already told you," Grego said, "swear out warrants for their arrest."

"Warrants are one thing," Coombes replied. "Arrests are another. We've got to expand the Company Police and we can't afford it. The more vehicles they steal the more sols it costs us, and the equipment loss cuts into budgets that ought

to be going for more cops. It's a vicious circle."

Grego chuckled. "Spiteful, perhaps." He wagged a finger in the air. "You must be resourceful, Leslie. Creative. For example Sandra, here, is going to get married, leave me flat without a Fuzzy sitter; but you don't hear me complaining, do you?"

"Hah!" Sandra said.

"Stick around a while, Leslie," Grego went on, "until Gus Brannhard gets here.

Ben Rainsford came up with a plan to increase police efficiency all over the planet. I'd like to knock it around with both of you-see what you think of it."

George Lunt snapped the cover back on the separator and closed the printer's paper-feed. Nothing wrong that he could see, and certainly nothing that would explain the soil readouts in that valley. George was a methodical man and he didn't like loose ends. This was a loose end.

George jumped lightly to the ground from the aircar's open hatch. No point in taking it out of service for maintenance, he thought, unless the readouts continue to be screwed up for some other piece of geography. No; we'll just re-fly that sector with a different vehicle-see what we come up with for comparison.

As he finished punching in the assignment change to the roster, George straightened and turned to the watch sergeant. "Log that change, Sarge, so it'll be highlighted at the watch briefing. That section of the Cordilleras will just have to wait a little longer for survey mapping."

"Right-o," the sergeant said. He leaned out of his chair and made a notation on a clipboard, as Major Lunt walked back out in front of the duty desk.

George stopped for a moment, then turned back. "And, change the assigned vehicle to the command boat. I think I'll go along for the ride."

Ben Rainsford opened the front door of his apartments in Government House, then stepped back in astonishment. "Gus!" he said sharply. "What in hell is the matter with you? Do you have to go to the bathroom?"

Gus Brannhard was dancing in the hallway. Dancing was not the precise word, perhaps, but Colonial Attorney General Gustavus Adolphus Brannhard was shuffling about briskly, rather like an amiable bear, swinging his arms vigorously. Periodically, his enormous frame would seem to float up off the floor slightly, and he would click his heels together.

"Stop grinning like an idiot and tell me what this is all about," Rainsford said. "You want people to think the planet is being run by a bunch of lunatics?"

Gus stopped dancing and came inside the foyer, but he couldn't stop grinning.

A double row of white teeth glittered through his tousled gray-brown beard like a hedgehog that had swallowed a piano.

"We got him disbarred," he guffawed. "Totally, completely, and altogether disbarred."

"Who?" Rainsford shouted. 'Who did you get disbarred? And why would one shyster be glad to see another shyster get disbarred?"

Brannhard became suddenly serious. "Why, Hugo Ingermann, of course. Who the hell else have I been trying to get disbarred for the past year and a half? I was just now at Grego's smoothing the way for this police streamlining of yours and Leslie Coombes told me he had seen the Order in this afternoon's recordings. Hugo Ingermann is still a bona fide attorney, but he's mala fide in all the courts on Zarathustra-no longer admitted to practice before them."

He clapped his hands together. "Maybe he'll be so disgusted he'll leave the planet."

"Fat chance," Rainsford said.

"Well," Brannhard said, "then I can get to work on some way to have the bastard deported. Man's got to have a hobby,

you know."

Gus sat and leaned back in his chair. The chair creaked. "Yes, sir, "he said.

"I'm a happy man. Ingermann has been a thorn in the side of the government, the Company, the military, and a stench in the nostrils of every honest lawyer on Zarathustra."

"I'm not real sure," Rainsford said quietly, "that there are any honest lawyers, but I'm glad to get the news that we've pulled a couple of his teeth." Rainsford glanced up at the time readout. "Max Fane will be just as happy as you are, Gus. Why not stick around and tell him yourself, since you seem to enjoy the story so much."

Brannhard nodded. As though he had signaled it, the door chimed.

If Brannhard had been overjoyed when he arrived, Colonel Marshal Max Fane was in a black rage.

Gus looked perplexed. "What's eating you, Max?" he asked.

Fane paced a few quick steps up and down the room, then spun his rotund body on one heel. "Some sonofabitch took a shot at me!" he roared. "In town!"

Gus leaped to his feet. "What?"

"Right here!" Fane jabbed his finger toward the floor. "On the esplanade, as I was coming over from the Central Courts complex."

"Did you get him?" Rainsford asked.

Fane scowled. "Naw. He was too far away to chase- probably why he missed me.

But there weren't any people around so I got a couple rounds off at him." As though it reminded him, Max Fane pulled out his automatic and palmed the magazine.

"Well? Did you hit him?" Brannhard asked impatiently.

Fane laughed as he thumbed two fresh cartridges into the magazine. "Nooooo.

But close." He looked up as he smacked the magazine back in and bolstered the weapon. "I bet he's deaf in his left ear, though."

Marshal Fane listened approvingly to Brannhard's joyous account of the disbarment of Hugo Ingermann. Ingermann had the irritating habit of springing thugs and Junktown rats on a writ almost faster than Fane could round them up and jail them on warrants. He was likewise pleased about Rainsford's plans to consolidate police services while preserving the autonomy of the various

agencies. That would put more men in the field, and that was what he needed-what every cop on the planet needed, what with the population influx and the burden on the legal system generated by the sudden availability of free land. '

"It seems a little odd," Rainsford was saying. "Anybody ever take a shot at you before, Max?"

Fane reared back in his chair. "Out in the bush, yes. On pavement, never!"

"That's the odd part," Rainsford said. "A unique occurrence that occurs less than five hours after Ingermann is disbarred. What do you think, Gus?"

"Nothing odd about it," Gus said. "Ingermann is behind it, and it's what I expected. This makes him raw as hell, and he's going to be Out-To-Get-Us, in capital letters, from now on-until something busts loose. I don't know about you, Ben, but I plan to start packing a gun in town."

"Some citizens are already doing that after dark," Fane remarked. "Perfectly legal. There's no way to make 'em stop."

Rainsford sighed. He got up and walked to the window, then stood there, with his hands behind his back for a moment, looking out at Mallorysport. Then he said matter-of-factly, "That's the way it always starts to break down. Thugs, bums, and animals-they scare honest citizens into exercising their constitutional right of self-defense. Next thing you know, the town's full of bullet-holes."

He returned to his chair. "Get out your scratchpads, gents. The Governor General is about to make some specific suggestions and you may want to take notes."

Fane exchanged puzzled looks with Gus as he began fishing in his hip pocket for the notebook that every cop in the universe carried there.

Rainsford re-lit his pipe, then leaned forward in his chair. "First, this government has got to do everything it can to keep the Zarathustra Company afloat." He raised one hand, palm outward. "I know, I know. When Commodore Napier railroaded me into this job I wanted to take Grego and everyone on his payroll and hang 'em high, but a strong colonial company is all that's going to hold this place together for a while-at least till we can get a legislature seated. Otherwise, a civilized colony on Zarathustra is going to be out the airlock. The trade that's been built up over twenty-five years will go to hell, and Ghu knows what will happen to the Fuzzies-whose welfare our government has taken responsibility for."