Tuning William - Fuzzy Bones

"It's not my job to persuade them about anything," Jack snapped. "My job is to protect them. If they won't come to us, we'll have to come to them. Your job is to implement the Commissioner's policy and wants-namely mine. So, make some notes. You are opening a branch office of Fuzzy Institute."

Gerd started to reply, but Jack cut him off with a gesture. "Little Fuzzy, tell them we will leave all thehoksu-fusso we have with us, and will bring back more in less than a hand of days. Ask if there are more Fuzzies up here than this bunch."

Little Fuzzy carried on a light-speed conversation with the leader, whose face brightened when he was told about the esteefee. He motioned some of his troops forward. Each grabbed a blue-labeled tin of esteefee and tenderly hoisted it onto his shoulder.

"All Fuzzies heh-yeh, Pappy Jack," Little Fuzzy said.

"He say, once many-many. Ha'hpy make off wif some. Some no tough enough-die in cold season. Many-many go off when zatku move souff-he no know."

Jack rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. ' Tell him they have my promise we will take care of them," he said to Little Fuzzy. He was going to say more, but there was a curious catch in his voice, so he let it go at that.

As Little Fuzzy was translating, the leader's face began to soften for the first time from the grim, hollow-eyed expression of resolve that had gripped it all through the conference. That was one way the Uplanders were like all other Fuzzies-there was something in their nature that compelled them to love the Hagga and accept their protection. Leave the valley? Not a chance. But, make the Hagga happy; that was as natural to them as eating zatku.

Suddenly, there was a blood-curdling shriek from up on Mount Fuzzy. "Great Jumping Jezebel's Eyebrows!" Ahmed bellowed at the top of his voice. "Come here! Quick!"

The Upland Fuzzies quite reasonably took this to be a danger warning. They scattered in every direction-making sure that all the tins of Extee-Three accompanied them- and were out of sight of the Terrans in less than a minute.

Even Holloway's Fuzzies took cover and then peeped out anxiously from under, in, and behind where they had dived when Ahmed first shouted.

Jack, Gerd, and George leaped onto the skid and George sent it skimming up the mountain slope to where they could see Ahmed jumping up and down and waving the microray scanner.

Before the skid stopped, Jack jumped off and ran a few steps to adjust his forward momentum. "Now what the hell?" he asked Ahmed.

Ahmed pointed to the bare ground. He had made some little piles of stones, and scratched lines in the loose earth with the toe of his boot. "Look at the size

of this sonofabitch!" he said.

George had grounded the skid. "What sonofabitch?" he barked.

"I don't know," Ahmed barked right back, "but look at the size of it!"

Gerd still had the rangefinder he had used to chart-spot his soil sample locations. He pulled it out of his pocket and took some shots of the area Ahmed had marked out.

"The 'size of it' is about eight hundred feet long and about seven hundred feet across, shaped something very much like a regular triangle," he said drily. "At risk of sounding redundant, what is it?"

"It's-it's-it's something," Ahmed said, "and it's all titanium, as near as I can tell."

"Oh for-" Jack said exasperatedly. "Here, give me that." He took the microray scanner, pointed it, shaded the readout with his hand, and then made a face.

He zeroed the readout, smacked the scanner smartly on its side a few times with the heel of his hand, and assumed an exasperated expression.

He handed the instrument to Gerd. "Here. See for yourself."

"Great Ghu's gallstones," Gerd said. "He's right. It's totally impossible, of course, but he's right."

George had to look next. The interruption pattern was quite clear on the readout pattern; a large triangle, with a hollow place in the middle, so that it looked much like a letter "A" on the readout screen. "Well, "George said,

"it'snot all titanium. There's some other stuff there, too. I don't see why you guys are all coming unstuck. I told you there was a lot of titanium up here." He looked nonplussed.

"For God's sake, George ..." Jack said. "Look. If all the titanium in the entire crust of Zarathustra was to be collected, refined, and cast into a single chunk, it still wouldn't be as large as this thing is. That's what we're excited about."

What Colonial Governor General Bennett Rainsford was excited about was that Attorney General Gus Brannhard had emphatically informed him that the prerogatives of his office did not allow him to shoot a couple members of the constitutional convention out-of-hand, just to get the rest of them to take him seriously.

The idea kept running through his mind as he addressed the delegates, assembled in congress, that they would somehow more clearly understand what he was saying if he could just haul out his pistol and rap the butt of it on the lectern smartly from time to time to drive the point home.

"I have no desire to stifle debate, ladies and gentlemen," he concluded, "but if you keep on with this debate as you have, you will legislate representative government on Zarathustra right out of business. If a Federation High Commission were to investigate the progress of this convention over the past ten months, they would, I am most certain, declare the body politic-the corpus comitatus-of the people of Zarathustra Colony to be incompetent to manage its own affairs. They-a Federation High Commission-would then appoint a guardian government for us-a political nanny, if you will-to look after us, since we had demonstrated mat we could not look after ourselves.

"I will not go that far-nor while I hold office, will I permit such a shameful occurrence. But, I'll tell you what I will do, and I'll tell you why. If you distinguished delegates do not complete the task of framing a constitution in a speedy and efficient manner, this entire colony is going to start coming down around all our ears.

"The request which you have duly filed," he continued, "for a one-year extension of the authority of this body is denied. Attorney General Brannhard will read the court order to you as soon as I have finished speaking, and furnish copies to those members who may wish to study it-on their own time.

During the remaining two months of life which this convention now possesses, the convention will complete the task to which it was appointed-namely to write a constitution for the Colony of Zarathustra. If that task has not been completed speedily, which is to say in less than the allotted time, my office will apply for an Order Nisi Quo Warranto, which the courts will issue. Such an order will dissolve the convention on a priori grounds of incompetence in office and form a possible cause of action against individual members on criminal charges of malfeasance in office."

Rainsford looked over the hall full of stunned faces before him. "I trust you all now know how I feel," he said, then turned and left the platform.

Chapter 19

"Paperwork, paperwork!" snarled the small, wiry man behind the watch captain's desk. "Damn the double-damned paperwork!"

"Are the burdens of duty weighing heavily on your scrawny frame, Captain Pendleton?" George Lunt asked quietly.

"Dammit, George," Pendleton said. He shook a sheaf of printout in the air.

"What's all this crap with changing the patrol schedules-and the personnel-and the assignment areas?"

"Why, Ray," George said, "all I've done is shift the Marines from North Beta to the southern areas of the continent-essentially."

"Essentially, my Aunt Fanny," Pendleton grumped. "You've put different men on everything north of Fuzzy Divide, and changed the duty schedule for everyone else."