Tuning William - Fuzzy Bones

Chapter 22

"Let's see," Holloway was saying as the five of them walked back toward their own vehicles. "Gerd 's airboat will sleep four, and with the ZNPF car and Ben's luxurious transportation of office-"

Rainsford snorted.

"-all of us and the two drivers can sleep inside. We won't have to pitch tents."

"I've got to call my office," George Lunt said as they climbed into the boat.

"I've got to call my wife," Ahmed said. "Tell her I won't be home tonight."

Rainsford yawned. "I don't have to call anybody. I just have to get up at 0400. Why call your office, George? You afraid the duty captain has gone to sleep? You worry too much."

George frowned. "I need to get more men up here." He looked at the readout.

"Pendleton is on at this hour. Oh, boy. He'll fly into a fury about the paperwork."

"Why do you want more men, George?" Jack asked. "Things seem well in hand to me."

"Security," George replied. "This is my jurisdiction. I don't care how snappy a job the Marines are doing. It's up to me to watch the watchers, so to speak.

I don't want any more of this leaking out than can be helped until we know where we stand with the Navy."

"That's sound," Jack said. "You're the ZNPF commander, not me."

Phil Helton flipped the key on the familiar, sturdy, green enameled piece of equipment. The high pitched wavering whine and the readouts showed his report now being transmitted at sixty speed on scramble-8 to Xerxes.

Presently the operator came back on screen. "The Commodore has asked that you screen him back in one standard hour, Gunnie, and he suggests that it would be

desirable for Governor Rainsford and Commissioner Holloway to be present, as well."

Helton acknowledged and quickly ended the transmission. He muttered under his breath, "-if they haven't gone to sleep, yet-" and grabbed a passing corporal to carry the message.

At 2030 the three of them were in the communications center, with Rainsford bristling because he had been deprived of yet another hour's sleep.

Gaperski and Bates were hovering, a little to one side, should the Commodore have instructions for them.

Alex Napier's image on the communication screen, dressed in gold-braided Navy black, was concluding his remarks. "So I expect to have the rest of Lieutenant Colonel O'Bannon's battalion down there sometime tomorrow. I want to set up surveillance over a couple hundred square miles and have it carefully scanned for any more objects of this nature. The battalion will be prepared to remain for some time-until we have this thing totally evaluated."

"Now, just a minute, Commodore!" Ben Rainsford said vehemently, almost before Napier got the "evaluated" out. "As Governor General of Zarathustra, I most strenuously recommend that you get my personal approval before you start drawing boundary lines and occupying territory on the planetary surface."

Holloway dove in, as well. "Approval or no approval; this is Fuzzy land.

Anything on the Fuzzy Reservation belongs to the Fuzzies. The Commissioner of Native Affairs-namely me-will not tolerate any high-handed violations of Fuzzy territory."

Rainsford barked: "I appointed you Commissioner!"

Jack's mustache was twitching. "And you can un-appoint me any time you don't like the way I'm doing the job. I've told you that before, Ben."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," Napier said. "I appointed Governor General Rainsford, so let's not anyone get too big for his pants.

"I'm trying to help your government hang onto control of things, not set you to quarreling with each other-or with me," Napier added with just the correct note of ominous-ness. "The Navy is not interested in running anyone's planetary government-but we are quite competent and capable, if the need arises. My point is that one wild rumor about all this business could cause the very kind of crisis as the question of Fuzzy sapience did. Now, then, can we have some consensus and cooperation, please?"

Holloway and Rainsford looked at each other for a moment, both thinking, if we don't hang together, he can hang each of us separately any time he wants to.

Holloway turned back to the screen. "If you allow my ZNPF men free access to all parts of the site, I'll go along with you for a few days. If the whole business disturbs the Fuzzies or anyone bothers them, the deal is off."

"That sounds fair, but I want to be copied with all reports," Rainsford said.

"I think the Navy will manage, gentlemen," Napier said. "Now, I desire that Master Gunnery Sergeant Helton be in charge of the dig proper. He has more knowledge of vessels and equipment than all of us put together. Lieutenant Colonel O'Bannon will be in charge of the security and scanning operations.

Lieutenant Gaperski and Commander Bates will act as liaison between the two

and report directly to me, as well."

Everyone looked at each other and nodded agreement.

"And, one other thing," Napier said. "Sooner or later, you're going to have people from the press all over you, so I 'm sending down Major Max Telemann to act as Information Officer on the project and keep the media out from under your feet."

From five thousand feet the camp in Fuzzy Valley was a tiny blur of light, with a bright, starlike point to one side of it.

With powerful onboard stereo-optics the site of the dig could be made out clearly enough in the glaring floodlights to see its major features. Dust drifted upward through the beams of the lights and a slight shimmer from the geothermally heated ground of the mountainside shined nacreously.

"Dammit, Charley," Raul Laporte said. "Keep this thing in a steady circle or you'll make me muddy the readings on the infraslides."

"I'm doin' the best I can, Mr. Laporte," Charley Walker said uneasily. Like most people, he was instinctively afraid of Laporte.'

"See that you do," Laporte growled. "We've only got two passes-at the most-to get this before the combat cars get us on their screens and challenge."

This is nuts, Laporte thought-hanging myself out in the open this way. Cheaper than hiring it, though, and I can beat Ingermann at his own game. Three thousand-the cheapskate!

"Okay. I got it. Make tracks, Charley," he said.

Charley started breathing again, straightened out the air-boat and eased the velocity up.

Laporte brooded.

Hugo Ingermann often worked late at night. It was a matter of convenience more than habit. The kind of people he frequently dealt with were creatures of the night. It was their natural environment, since that side of human nature is a being of the darkness.

Spread out on the desk before him were scanner readings and infraslides delivered to him earlier by one of Laporte's men. It was disgusting. All that information and not one scrap of it corroborated his theory. Therefore, the information must be somehow in error. And now, Laporte was coming to collect, if he could believe the screen call he had just had fromThe Bitter End-and there was no reason not to.

There was a rap on the office door. . Laporte entered, smiling and amiable; yet menace oozed from every pore of his body. "Good evening, Mr. Ingermann,"

he said, and sat down on the opposite side of the desk.

"Good evening, Raul," Ingermann replied. Just the right amount of deference, to show who worked for whom. Ingermann puffed out his round, pink cheeks and spread his hands in mock helplessness. "Raul, these data just don't show a damned thing about the sunstone strike."

"That's because there is no sunstone strike, Mr. Ingermann. I've had men over there on the ground and I've had overflights made at night-like this one.

There is only a big hole in the ground where they're digging something up."

"I can see that!" Ingermann snapped. "What do you think the thing in the hole is?" he asked in a more even tone.