Tuning William - Fuzzy Bones

Jack set his microray scanner on the edge of Gerd's "bench," and took a long drink of water. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "Nothing unusual about the geology, Gerd," he said. "This is all homogeneous-pretty much normal sedimentary stuff. I don't know anything now that I didn't know when I kicked my toe in the dirt and said that to begin with. "

Gerd punched another test result into the chart unit and raised one eyebrow.

"But now you know for sure," he said.

"True," Jack replied. "If there's anything buried in the valley, it's buried mighty deep."

"Well, there's something here," Gerd said, "that's putting a lot of titanium into the soil. So far, I have double, triple, and quad-ionized titanium traces, titanic acids, and titanates. The soil is rich enough to grow these plants again if it had sufficient water. The plants are sure to have picked the stuff up-and hence been tasty to Fuzzies. I'll take some plant samples

back for analysis, but that's just lip service. I'm sure I'm right."

"But, where is it coming from?" Jack insisted. 'Can you tell that?"

"Don't know yet," Gerd said. "I'm doing a random chart, now. If that doesn't

'point a finger.' so to speak, we can lay out a point-grid, with a sample from each point on a hundred-meter checkerboard, and graph that. 1 did have one thought." "Which is?"

"Does titanium ever come in meteorites'?" Gerd asked. Jack shrugged. "I don't know. I suppose it could." "Mmmmm," Gerd said. "That's so far out of my area, I wouldn't even know how to start looking it up. If, though, there was a big titanium-rich meteorite buried up on one of these mountains, it would decompose, ever so slowly, and release compounds like this into the soil as it washes down to the valley floor."

Jack leaned on the lifter and gazed south toward the woods. "You know, we could come up here and sink a water well. I'll bet money the water table isn't very deep. Sink the well upstream," he mused, talking more to himself than to Gerd, who understood and went on with his work while only half-listening.

"Wouldn't be unheard of to hit a structure that'd give us a good head of artesian flow. " He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. "Why, it's plain as day that there's a saturation layer east of that saddle where the old creek ran. All kinds of folded structures around here. With the amount of hot springs and geothermal fumaroles we've spotted, there's a good chance of hitting a pressure dome. Something's keeping those trees alive down in the woods, there. No sign of them dying back since the rainfall dropped off."

"Why would you want to?" Gerd asked. "Want to what?"

"Bore a well, of course."

"Why to throw the switch again on the water supply," Jack said, "get things growing up here again. Think about it. Live plants that are rich in titanium compounds-that could put a whole new twist to your Fuzzy research." He laughed, quickly and shortly. "Fuzzy salad might hold the key to the whole problem."

"Hmmmph!" Gerd said."

"Son of a Khooghra!" Jack exclaimed suddenly. Without moving his head, he fumbled behind him, making the skid bob violently.

"What the blazes are you doing?" Gerd asked, snatching up one of his soil samples to keep it from being spilled. "Hand me the binos-quick!" Jack said.

Gerd placed the stereo-optic in Jack's outstretched hand. Jack clapped it to his eyes and chuckled, talking to himself under his breath.

"What is it?" Gerd asked.

"Here," Jack said, "see for yourself." Gerd grabbed the binos and looked. "So we said the Upland Fuzzies had unusual traits, did we-traits like co-operative hunting-that woods Fuzzies didn't bother with?" Jack said triumphantly.

Gerd gasped. Their own Fuzzies-the ambassadors- were coming out of the woods, followed by a group of Upland Fuzzies. Whereas woods Fuzzies just moved over the ground in a disorderly bunch, the Upland Fuzzies-well- they were quite a different gang-apparently.

The Upland Fuzzies were arranged in two staggered files, several meters apart.

Flankers were spaced out from the edge of the main body, and there was a skirmish line to the front, with three point-men moving ahead of that.

As the two groups drew closer, Jack and Gerd could see that there was a great deal of conversation between Little Fuzzy-who loved being the self-appointed intermediary between the Hagga and all Fuzzydom-and another specific Fuzzy in the Upland group. That suggested that this group of Fuzzies had a group/headman society, which suggested entirely different things about this example of Fuzzy culture, which suggested that a lot of things the Terrans had

"deduced" about the evolution of Fuzzy civilization were flat wrong, which suggested that much Fuzzy research was really going nowhere on hyperdrive, which suggested et cetera.

This bunch was just as wary of the first contact with Hagga as any woods Fuzzy, but they were better organized about it. The skirmish line filled out with some members from the column. Chopper-diggers at high port, watchful eyes fixed on the aliens-in other words, the Terrans-and scouts maintaining an air-watch for harpies; very businesslike bunch of Fuzzies.

The leader advanced, with Little Fuzzy, and a rather dignified palaver took place. Jack and Gerd had to use their ultrasonic hearing aids. Upland Fuzzies still spoke in a frequency range too high for Terran hearing. As it was, they only caught about every other word, enough for them to be visually responsive but not really understand. Little Fuzzy translated-and enjoyed every minute of it.

The-by-now-rather-mythic explanation of Hagga was well received. The leader's delight with Extee-Three was ill-concealed, but handled with a certain dignity that only involved the widening of eyes and some yeeks of pure ecstasy. Gifts of steel shoppo-diggo and canvas shodda-bags were handled in a businesslike manner, the group came up in increments of five each, expressed approval at the trade of new for old chopper-diggers, the gift oishodda-bag, and yeeks of profound pleasure about the ration of esteefee.

The Fuzzy unit-no other word seemed quite as appropriate-almost spooked and ran when George and Ahmed arrived on the contragravity skid. Gerd's portable lab floating off the ground was one thing, but a thing that did that and moved as well, almost stretched the flee-or-fight reflex beyond its intellectual constraints. As negotiations proceeded, some of the bolder Fuzzies were persuaded to go for short rides on the skid-especially after being challenged with the example of the southern Fuzzies riding it and obviously enjoying it.

Eventually, the Uplanders seemed to think it was fun-at least they still had Fuzzies' traditional attitudes about fun, which is to say they really couldn't resist it.

Ahmed picked up the microray scanner and wandered off up the slope of what they were now calling "Mount Fuzzy," taking random readings-more for something to do man anything else.

The discussion broke down on only one point, but it was a sticking-point.

Jack's suggestion that they all come down to Holloway Station and get away from this grim hand to mouth existence was met with a flat refusal. The Upland Fuzzies were adamant about staying where they were. It was traditional, you know; stick close to the valley. They couldn't explain the why of it, but there was no shaking them from the fact of its necessity-another basic difference between the Uplanders and the woods Fuzzies, which suggested a whole bunch more of "and so ons" about the state of the art in Fuzzy research.

Attempts to convince them were useless.

"How are you going to persuade them?" George asked. "It's a cinch these folks are having a hard time putting beans on the table. Look at them. There isn't a one that isn't seriously underweight."

"And, as a result of malnutrition," Gerd added. "A lot of them need medical attention. I can see it from here. It would be for their own good, Jack, if we-"