Tuning William - Fuzzy Bones

every senior cop in town is here this afternoon."

With the skyrocketing population every peace officer in the city no longer had the luxury of putting on his tuxedo to attend a social event; they never knew when they might have to drop everything and jump into some crisis. And, most agencies had a current standing order to maintain a high visual profile to reassure the citizens that there was literally a policeman on every landing stage, esplanade, and escalator.

Harry Steefer nodded. "What I don't get is why George Lunt didn 't come over for the wedding. He's only three hours away-and he and Ahmed are pretty close.

I mean, they go 'way back-to when George was a lieutenant and Ahmed was a patrolman in the Constabulary."

They were joined by a roundish man in khaki gabardines, holding his champagne glass gingerly, as though it might explode at any moment. "I don't get that, either," Max Fane said. With his free hand he tapped his nose. "This educated member of mine smells something odd about that. It's not like George Lunt to throw his tail in the air that way-cancel Khadra's leave-tell him to beat it back to Beta on the double. Something's in the wind, if you ask me."

Harry Steefer shrugged. " 'Spose they might have made another big sunstone strike up in the Fuzzy Reservation? That would cause a lot of fuss and fury."

"Oh, hell, no," Fane said, waving his free hand in a gesture of dismissal.

"George has an army of cops to take care of that-it's just patrolling and keeping people out who don't belong there. No, sir. Sumpin's funny in the wind."

Chief Earlie nodded. "I'll admit I'm curious, too, Max, but that's on Beta-three hours away from here. The rats down in Junktown are getting bolder; too many of them, now, to make a living off each other. They're starting to drift up into the new city, in little knots of three and four. I'm handling double the number of robberies I was this time last year-and getting fewer arrests. That's what I'm worried about. It looks like it's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better, at least by the rate the population is rising."

"You don't think the immigrants are all criminals, do you?" Steefer said.

"Oh, of course not, Harry," Chief Earlie said. "But, when you get a population boom on immigration, the rats always move in with the immigrants. We've all seen it before-if not when Mortgageville bloomed up out of the ground north of town eight or nine years ago-then someplace else. The rats come in their pockets, riding their coat-tails, and hiding under their hats. Lotta times, its the same rats that were living off them back home; when poor people pull up stakes and move on to try for something better, the rats pack their little rat carpet bags and go right along with them-like a cockleburr on a dog's tail." He stepped over to the east terrace's portable bar-a painted white rattan affair-and handed his glass over to the liveried bartender. Max Fane chuckled. "And that's only the amateur rats, the professional rats can smell a compost heap of money halfway across the galaxy. Why, they're practically waiting for the marks at the spaceport when they arrive-with rigged rat card games, little rat shy locks, and little rat swindlers with mustaches."

"Don't forget little rat pimps," Harry Steefer chimed in, "with strings of cute rat whores."

Chief Earlie accepted a fresh drink from the bartender. "Oh, yes," he said,

"we can count on a lot of new business from Bowlby, Heenan, and Laporte.

Thaxter is too comfortably situated to risk much these days. He's almost as well off as Ingermann."

"Well, that's one thing," Fane said. "Now that the little porker can't practice law any more, I won't have to look at his superior smirk as he hustles in with a writ clutched in his fist to spring some thug employed by the gentlemen you just mentioned."

"It won't matter, Max," Chief Earlie said, "he'll just hire someone who can still practice law to do it for him."

Fane gritted his teeth. "I know, but at least I won't have to look at him."

"Oh, I don't think it will be too 'boring,' as you put it, for Sandra," Juan Jimenez was saying to the tall sociologist from Science Center. He couldn't recall having seen her before, and wondered if she was aware that she worked for him; no mention had yet been made that he was head of the Company Science Center.

"But, Holloway Station," the sociologist said, " 'waythe hell out on Beta.

What is there for a wife to do out there, except-" she shrugged "-cook and keep house?"

Juan laughed. "I imagine she'll help Dr. and Mrs. van Riebeek at Fuzzy Institute. Sandra's knowledge of Fuzzy language is extensive and involves many subtleties she's learned from looking after Diamond."

"Fuzzy Institute?" the lady sociologist asked. "You mean there's a college out there?"

He laughed again. "Almost," he said. "Research labs. Medical Center. School for the Fuzzies. Permanent staff of twelve, plus about ten more on loan from the Company." I'm going to have to take this lady camping, sometime, Juan thought. / bet she hasn't been out of high-heeled shoes since she got her diploma.

"It's not exactly a wilderness, Miss-ah-Miss. . ." "Bell," she said and smiled at him. "Liana Bell." "Thank you. A lovely name. In any case, Miss Bell, Holloway Station is the headquarters of the Native Affairs Commission, so it's quite a busy place, really."

She looked off into the middle distance. "It's beginning to sound very interesting. I think I 'd like to go over there and do a short survey on the interface between Terran and Fuzzy culture. Do you think they'd mind?"

"Not at all," Juan said. "I think they'd be overjoyed." She bobbed her head once, decisively. "Yes. I'll ask Dr. Mallin about it right away. In fact, he's at this reception, isn't he? I thought I saw him earlier."

"In fact, he is," Juan said. "In the meantime, may I get you some more champagne?"

"I'd love it. Dr. Mallin is my immediate superior, you see, so I'll need his permission."

Juan chuckled. Ernst Mallin thought everyone had Fuzzies on the brain, did not approve, and thought people should get back to good old "hard" research. He had already made up his mind that the NFMp hormone had doomed Fuzzies to a genetic dead end and it was only a matter of time until the species died out in any case. He took Liana Bell's glass. "Be right back," he said.

"Oh," she said, "but you haven't told meyour name."

"Jimenez," he said. "Juan Jimenez."

She laughed. "Dr. Jimenez! And you let me stand here, rattling on like an ado-ditty about 'my superior'. You run the Science Center!"

Juan smiled and shrugged. "They let me mink so, anyway,"hesaid. "You'll still have to get Dr. Mallin's permission, although I think you would have an interesting project."

"Thank you, Dr. Jimenez," she said.

"Thankyou, Miss Bell."

"Liana," she said.

"Juan," he said.

"Champagne?" she reminded him, pointing at the empty glasses.

"Oh, yes," he said, and started to turn in the direction of the buffet. "Don't go away."

Gus Brannhard parted his gray-brown whiskers carefully as he prepared to answer the question from the Clerk of the Colonial Courts. "Champagne, Mr.

Wilkins, is very bad for the sinuses." He inhaled deeply from the enormous brandy snifter easily cradled in his huge hand."And that is why," he concluded, "I never touch the stuff. No, no-all those bubbles hopping around inside a man's head; must make a terrible racket. I imagine it would make my ears pop something fierce."

It was the eyes that were popping for Roy Wilkins. He had never dreamed that a human being could drink as much as the Colonial Attorney General and still retain his faculties. Wil-kins shoved his glasses back up his nose to a firmer footing and plunged back into the conversation.

"And what," he asked, "do you think about this business of Hugo Ingermann being disbarred? Personally, I'm tickled pink."