Tuning William - Fuzzy Bones

Jack wanted to get up into the Cordilleras Range right away. The patrols had reported a big mob of Fuzzies up there, so he wanted to get right up there with an armload of shodda-bags and steel shoppo-diggos, do a little trading with the natives, and persuade them to come on in to Hollo-way Station. Speed was indicated because in that part of Beta the hills were alive with the sound of prospectors-all trying to find enough sunstones to get rich quick. They wouldn 't, of course, because they didn't know how to look for sunstones, or how to get them out of the enclosing matrix of flint if they found a vein.

A lot of these birds were pretty unsavory characters. Some of them were bound to be runaway veldbeest herders with stolen Company aircars. That kind of person would be apt to vent his frustration on a Fuzzy. A little preventive work by the Native Affairs Commissioner was indicated. The ZNPF patrol would go up there on the regular surveillance post and check them all out and jug the ones who had an aircar they couldn't prove they owned, explain the boundaries of the Fuzzy Reservation to the rest, and generally get the idea across that this was not exactly the wild frontier.

In the meantime, Jack did not want any ugly incidents involving Fuzzies. For all he cared, these guys could shoot each other up all they wanted, but Fuzzies were his responsibility.

Ahmed leaned down to get a better look. "I'll be damned, George. You're right.

It is the remnants of a little irrigation ditch." He pointed along the line of the dry creek. "And it branches into three channels over there. Somebody was cultivating these plants before the creek dried up. But, nobody's ever settled up here. If they had we'd have found out about Fuzzies sooner than-

" He stopped short. "You mean Fuzzies had truck gardens up here?"

George nodded.

"But, Fuzzies are hunter-gatherers. They're nowhere near the agricultural level." Ahmed frowned and stroked his nose.

"Umm-hmm." George nodded, again. "I don't know much about anthropology, but I know hunter-gatherer societies at low Paleolithic development come a hell of a lot earlier than fanners."

"How can you be certain it was Fuzzy-farmers?" Ahmed asked.

George pointed to the ground, turning a full circle as he did so. "Why, look all around you at the dried-up tracks. Fuzzy footprints if I ever saw them."

Ahmed chuckled. "That doesn't prove anything. Fuzzies could have tramped through here by the battalion when this ground was damp-hunting prawns or something."

"Good reasoning, Captain," George said. "You're getting to be a better detective every day. And, you're right; it doesn 't prove a thing. Now come over here and look at this."

He led Ahmed over to the extensive weirthorn thicket that spread along the base of the cliff. It wasn't a surprising place to find it. Wierthorn was a kind of chaparral, with long, sharp spikes every few inches along its branches. It flourished everywhere on Zarathustra. With good water, it developed a thin layer of green leaves. Without water, it went barren, dry, and brown, but it still grew-to a height of nearly two meters. When a plant died, it was simply pushed upward by the growth of a new plant under it, so that an old stand of weirthorn several layers deep might rise as much as six or eight yards, canopied over with hard, dry thorn bushes that made a little more shade to give the growing plants a little better chance. A fire would go through the stuff like a box of matches-that's how plantation operators cleared it away and kept it out of cultivated land.

George had hacked his way several meters into the thicket with a machete. He invited Ahmed to go in and have a look.

After a few moments of peering around in the dim interior of the bramble patch, Ahmed whistled softly. "Well, I'll be damned to Nifflheim!" he exclaimed.

The inside of the thicket was laced with pathways and runs that had been made by clearing off the random lower branches which were in the way. There were little huts and lean-tos, fabricated by wattle-weaving sticks and vines among the growing weirthorn trunks, then "shingling" them with broad, rubbery leaves from the base of the butterpaddle plant so they would shed rainwater. The runs and structures were all quite small-just about Fuzzy-size.

Ahmed emerged, blinking against the brighter light outside. "Well, that tears it," he said simply. "The scientific types will go off their spool trying to make this fit in with what they already 'know' about Fuzzies."

"It's also 'proof beyond reasonable doubt,' as we say in the trade," George said. "Why, this would have proved the case for Fuzzy sapience without the thing ever getting into a court room."

"But no one had ever landed up here-or even mapped the place thoroughly-until we began patrolling it as the Fuzzy Reservation. At that, it couldn't be seen

from the air."

"It came at just the right time," George said. "I overflew the valley several times. When the sun is just right, you can see regular shapes down in the thicket-but only if you look closely and hover while you're doing it."

It was a dream of a defense against Fuzzies' natural enemies. A Fuzzy made just about a mouthful for a harpy-a flying predator about the size and general design of a Terran Jurassic pterodactyl. There wasn't any way for a harpy to make a swoop for Fuzzies who were inside the thicket. Same for damnthings and bush-goblins. They wouldn 't even try to get at dinner if it was in a weirthorn patch.

"'Okay," Ahmed said. "There's Fuzzy-signs all over the place. Even though the creek is dried up, this place is still in use." He pointed around the gentle slope between the thicket and the dry creek. "See? There's several freshly-filled toilet pits spotted around. The question is: where are the Fuzzies? How come there are no Fuzzies?"

"Oh, there are plenty of Fuzzies," George said, "but they're probably all hiding in the woods down at the lower end of the valley."

Ahmed nodded. "Makes sense. They'd all be out foraging at this time of day.

They've probably never seen a Big One before, and they probably think our vehicles are some new kind of flying appetite-like a harpy."

"Generalizing and forming abstract concepts is what they're doing there,"

George said.

"And, if they were too far away to make it back here when they spotted our jeep, they'd take the nearest cover."

They both stood for a moment, looking down the valley toward the woods, knowing there were pairs of wide Fuzzy-eyes looking back at them.

As they -walked back toward the jeep, Ahmed asked, "Why in blazes would they stay up here, instead of going along with the migration after the land-prawns?

This looks like one helluva tough place for a Fuzzy to make a living. It's a cinch the little perishers aren't getting enough to eat since the Big Blackwater Project shut off the sprinkler system."

"That," George said, jumping a shallow ravine that had once fed Fuzzy Creek,

"is a question we'll let the scientist types mutter about. What is your suggestion for immediate action, seein' as how you're wearing the same beret badge with the crossed shoppo-diggos and the 'ZNPF' on it that I am?"

Ahmed ticked off his points on the fingers of his left hand as they walked.

"First, we tell Jack what we've found. Then, we come back up here with some Fuzzy interpreters and a big stock of Extee-Three so we can get this gang to come out and have a square meal while they're learning that we're their friends. Then, we do the usual trading of tools and stuff and try to persuade them to move on south, where the living is a little easier. Then, we find out what's what with the titanium concentration in Fuzzy Valley."

"My idea, exactly," George said, "except for one thing.

"Yes?"

"While all this is going on, we keep a security lid on this place that is airtight, leakproof, and lightproof. I 've already drawn up a new area