Tuning William - Fuzzy Bones

"Not everyone, Ray," George chided. "I've left all the lieutenants and captains right where they were on the roster schedule."

" Yeaaahhh," Pendleton said,"which means that all their sergeants and troopers are now men they've never worked with before."

"Well, that just has to be done once in a while, Ray-" George said, "-the way I want things run. I don't want people getting too comfy and routine about their work. When the ground is all so familiar that they get to screening in their report automatically, it's time to change the scenery. Keeps everybody awake."

"Sure," Pendleton said,"and makes your officers old and gray before their time."

George grinned. "But, you were old and gray when I appointed you, Ray."

"I was old and gray when I was born," Pendleton said. "That's how I was smart enough to live this long."

"And sweetly, too," George said. "Your disposition is the most loveable part of you. I don't know whether that's a compliment or not." He continued quickly, so as not to leave space for. a rebuttal."lam going off duty shift at the moment. I will be at Mr. Commissioner Holloway's residence for cocktails."

Pendleton made a face.' 7 will be here slaving over all this damned paperwork," George heard him say as the screen door slammed behind him.

"Jack," George said,"we can quarantine the whole area. I've already changed the patrol assignments all around-you should hear how the watch captains are howling about that-and we can keep everyone else out on the grounds that the Upland Fuzzies are just too nervous about Hagga and it will take some time for them to become accustomed to Terrans. It's all inside the Fuzzy Reservation, anyway, so the only legal niceties involved would be a written order from you.

That will give us enough breathing-time to find out what the titanium thing is and decide how we're going to handle it. We don't want any curiosity for a while."

Jacknodded. "I agree, George. There are lots of questions to be answered, and the only chance we have of keeping control-short of asking for armed troops from Commodore Napier-is to stay one or two jumps ahead of everyone else with the answers."

"Questions?" George said. "There are nothing but questions, and I don't see any answers yet. To start with, why have Fuzzies built there in Fuzzy Valley and nowhere else?"

"Nowhere else that we know about," Ahmed corrected.

"Point well taken," Jack said. "It's the plants, of course, that pick up the titanium; that's what keeps them there. We could fly a one-item scan map of the planet from, say, fifty thousand feet, and probably depend on finding Fuzzies wherever we got a high concentration of titanium in the soil."

"Why is there so much titanium up there, anyway?" George asked.

"I don't know," Jack said. "It's contrary to everything in the current body of data about extraterrestrial geology." He shrugged. "But, there are a lot of things on a lot of planets that are contrary data."

"You think there could be other concentrations of titanium like this one?"

Ahmed asked.

Jack shrugged again. "Don't know."

"Well, what do you think that big hunk of it up in Fuzzy Valley is?" Ahmed asked.

"Don't know," Jack said, again.

"Could it be something the Fuzzies built a long time ago? I mean, archeological remains from their civilization?"

"Fuzzy archeology?" George said. "That's nuts."

"George is likely right," Jack said. "People who don't make any ancillary tools more refined than a low Paleolithic coup de poing axe and wooden shoppo-diggo are not too likely to have built pyramids or anything."

"Oh, I don't know," Khadra said. "They could have once been a very high culture-which slowly slipped back and declined to minimum survival levels.

That would answer a lot of questions about what we've found."

"What you say is possible," George said, "but it raises just as many new questions as old ones it lays to rest."

"I know. I know," Jack said. "That's why I haven't been sleeping too well."

The communication screen image shattered, shimmered, and stabilized into a replica of Jack Holloway's face.

"Jack! By Ghu, it's good to see someone who's still sane," Ben Rainsford said.

"What can I do for you?"

"How about coining on over here to Beta tomorrow morning," Jack said.

Outside his bungalow on Beta, dusk was just falling. George and Ahmed were still there, but staying out of range of the screen pickup. In Mallorysport it was full night, somewhere just after the dinner hour, depending on one's eating habits.

"What the hell for?" Rainsford demanded. "I don't have the time to go tripping around visiting my friends-much as I'd like to."

Jack looked uncomfortable, hoping to convey the impression that he didn't want to discuss it on screen. "Aw, it's something scientific, Ben," he said. "We sure would like to have you over here tomorrow. It's going to be kind of special."

"Scientific, you say?" Rainsford said. "Jack, I can't go over to Beta for something that's scientific. I 'm up to my ass in alligators over here. The only way I can get this constitutional convention moving is to make a cattle drive out of it. I can't afford the luxury of science any more. Not just now, anyway."

Jack was aggravated, and didn't make any attempt to conceal the fact. "Ben, do you remember about a year ago-when you were on your way back from a field trip- and you stopped at the Constabulary post, Beta 15, at Red Hill? George Lunt told you a story that made you think he was the biggest liar in the known galaxy. Then, when you got home, you found a message from me on your screen recorder, and beat it straight over to my camp to see for yourself?"

"Well, of course I remember it, Jack. I'm not getting senile, or anything, you know. This job is driving me nuts, but I still got all my marbles."

George Lunt came into the arc covered by the screen pickup and spoke to the Governor General. "This is just as crazy, Governor Rainsford-and it could be just as important."

"All right. I see it, now," Rainsford growled. "You fellas have turned up something that's really big. You don't want to talk about it on screen, but you want my opinion about it. That it?"

"To say nothing," Jack remarked, "of the glory of your illustrious gubernatorial presence."

"Don't lay it on too thick, Jack," Rainsford grumped. "I got people over here in Mallorysport who do that for a living. What time and where shall I meet you?"

"Could your royal princeliness manage to be at Holloway Station at 0800?" Jack asked.

"0800!" Rainsford roared. "That means I have to get up at 0400 in order to leave here by 0500!"

"Love will find a way," Holloway said. "Seriously, Ben; this is very important."

Ben Rainsford hopped out of his aircar, looking a bit more rumpled than usual, and strode briskly into Jack Holloway's bungalow without knocking. He confronted Jack, George, and Ahmed in the living room. "You better have the damned coffee pot on!" he snapped. Abruptly, he relaxed, stretched his arms over his head, and stifled a yawn.

"I would think you 'd be awake by now," Holloway said.

"I slept all the way over," Rainsford said.

"And operated the aircar while unconscious?" George asked.

Rainsford took the cup of coffee Jack handed him and blew on it. "I am the Governor General," he said. "I am authorized to have my own driver. He operated the aircar. I stretched out in the aft compartment and slept."

"You slept in your clothes?" Jack asked.

"Of course," Rainsford said. "What's wrong with that?"

He didn't understand why the other three looked back and forth at each other and nodded their heads.

Ben Rainsford might have solved that one if they had not been interrupted by the chiming of the communication screen.

The image steadied down into that of Space Commodore Alex Napier. He was speaking from his office on Xerxes. In the background, they could see the harsh, angular landscape of that Zarathustran moon through the open sun-screen segments of Napier's domed office.