Tuning William - Fuzzy Bones

Stagwell was tall, raw-boned, and agile-looking. He grinned a lot, and had the look about him of a man who could run five miles with a machine gun under each arm and not even be breathing hard.

"One thing I want to get straight," O'Bannon. said, "while there's just us here-including the civilians. Helton, you're in charge of the dig. I'm giving you Casagra's company to handle that, but you work through him. Don't go off on any vast projects without clearing with him. Somebody gets injured down there; he's the commander and he'll have to answer for it-not you."

"Yes, sir," Helton said.

"Another thing, Gunnie," O'Bannon continued, "if you mess into my security and scanning operations without my say-so, I'll fry you. Do we see eye-to-eye?"

"Yes, sir," Helton repeated.

O'Bannon turned to the civilians. "I want Commissioner Holloway to brief my staff and commanders on matters regarding the Fuzzies. I want Major Lunt to do the same with respect to ZNPF operations. As to what we may have found here, the fewer people having specific knowledge of that, the happier I'll be about it. That means I want Casagra's men to continue to camp and mess away from the rest of the battalion and have minimum contact." He sighed and paused for a moment. "... Not that it will do much good, the way Marines gossip, but we can try.

"Questions? Okay. There will be Officers Call in twenty minutes." He pointed back over his shoulder, without looking, to where tents were already blossoming from the ground. "I'll see you all then." He turned and left.

"Gruff little fella, isn't he?" Gerd asked.

" 'Businesslike' is the word I'd use," George Lunt remarked.

"I've noticed," Holloway said to Helton, "that you don't 'sir' very many people, Phil."

"Only the ones I respect a lot-sir," Helton said.

After the briefing, Helton took Major Telemann over to Casagra's company area, where it had been decided he should be assigned, since they were handling the most sensitive part of the operation. They went in Telemann's aircar, fitted out for Public Information Operation, which is to say crammed with electronic gear to monitor news agencies' activities.

Telemann was the only Marine on site in khakis instead of field greens. Best foot forward with the public, and all.

Vidal Beltran watched from the back hatch of his kitchen scow as they set up.

He knew instinctively what it all meant.

"Another damned mouth to feed," he said disgustedly.

An entire corner of Victor Grego's private office was occupied by one of his most cherished possessions-a large globe of Zarathustra, suspended on its own contragravity unit, with the moons Xerxes and Darius, to scale, circling it as it rotated; the entire affair illuminated by a fixed orange spotlight representing the K0 star that gave life to the planet. At mid-morning in Mallorysport, the terminator line had crossed the coast of Beta.

"Victor?" the voice from the communications screen said. "Are you listening?"

It was a bold thing for a lesser big wheel to say, even if he was the lesser big wheel that was in charge of Company Science Center.

"Uh? " Grego said, looking back at the screen. "I was just checking something on the map, Juan. It's early morning on Beta, now. Where is your archeologist?"

"He says he just spent the night in the best hotel in Red Hill, but that it was still ghastly. Wants to know if he should come home, or what. I thought we might have him hang around over there a day or so and see what the gossip is."

Grego frowned. "I'm not gainsaying your staff, Juan, but I don't recall that we have an archeologist on the payroll. What would the Company have wanted with an archeologist on an uninhabited planet?"

"He's not really an archeologist," Juan said. "He's an analytical geologist

with a master's in archeology. It's the closest we could come to the real thing."

Grego lit a cigarette and absently scratched his Adam's apple as he took the first puff. "So, we have a 'routine archeological dig' on a_planet where there is no archeology, and they won't let the CZC archeologist on the site. What do you make of it, Juan?"

"Just that," Juan said, "plus the fact that the place is swarming with Marines, Apparently Napier has sent down a large patrol force and they' ve cordoned off a large area of the Fuzzy Reservation."

Grego frowned. "Well, then, it must be something pretty big. Old Man Holloway wouldn't sit still for that otherwise. Yes, Juan, I like your suggestion. Tell our man to hang around town a couple days. Tell him too bad about the crummy hotel, but that it's above and beyond the call of duty, or something. In the meantime, I '11 get hold of Harry Steefer and see what he can come up with.

When your man gets back from Beta, I want to see him instantly." "I'll keep you posted, Victor." They broke connection.

Grego leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. He wasn't thinking about archeology, though. In factit was difficult for him to concentrate, so he decided to clear the block from his mind.

What a remarkable young woman, he thought, as he punched out a screen combination.

A mass of bright colors swirled across the communication screen and exploded into the image of Christiana Stone.

"Yes?" she said. "Oh. Mr. Grego."

"Good morning, Christiana," he said. "I have a suggestion. Tell me what you think of it." Without waiting for an answer, he continued. "When you bring Diamond back from Government House, you could stop off at your place and change into a dinner dress. Then we'll take Diamond out to dinner at-oh-say, Alfredo's. He can show off his table manners in public. Be good for him, don't you think?"

"Oh, he'd love it, Mr. Grego," she said.

' "That wouldn 't interfere with your plans, any, would it?" Grego asked.

"Not a bit," Christiana replied. "I think it would be delightful."

"Good," Grego said. "We'll want to get there early, though, so we don't keep him up later than he's accustomed. I'll meet you at the penthouse about six."

About 0600 at Holloway Station the group that had gone to North Beta were sitting around the Khadra 's living room with Sandra, Ruth, and Lynne Andrews.

"I think," Ruth van Riebeek said to her husband, "that to say this thing they've found up there has 'vast implications' ought to insure your place in history, Gerd-not as a scientist, but as making the understatement of the century."

"Hmph!" Gerd said.

"But they're not certain that it's the remains of a hyper-drive ship, are they?" Lynne Andrews asked.

"No," Jack said, "but given the judgement of a man like Phil Helton, I'd say it's about a ninety percent shot."

Ruth looked at the other two women. "Well, I suppose it's our turn to raise your eyebrows, now. Gerd was right about the titanium content of the plants from Fuzzy Valley. They differ in content and amount from one kind of plant to another, of course."

"That's not so eyebrow-raising,".Gerd said. "What did you find out?"

"The titanium compounds are all similiar to hokfusine," Ruth said. "Given something to compare hokfusine with, it won't be so much of a job; to finger its functions in Fuzzy metabolism will be much easier."

"All these compounds," Lynne said, ticking off imaginary numbers on her fingers, "for example, have degradation fractions that are piperidine."

"Hmmm," Gerd said. "That's an organic compound already known on Terra. So, with enough vitamins like hokfusine, that can inhibit NFMp production, the Fuzzy birthrate can work itself back to normal-if the work we 've done so far is right."

"You mean it might not be right?" Jack said.

"I mean," Gerd said, "that there are many and varied times when I wish it wasn't right."

"I don't follow you," Jack said. "If you can solve the NFMp/anti-NFMp problem in Fuzzy metabolism, what's wrong with that?"