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This man Rainsford just made a routine observation of meteorological effects. I suggest you have your meteorologists check it, and if it's correct pass it on to the news services along with your other scientific findings." "Nick Emmert thinks Rainsford is a Federation undercover agent." That made him laugh. Of course there were undercover agents on Zarathustra, hundreds of them.
Now they only evoked bitterness by their tantalizing allurement. Other men had made their pile, why should not he? Rainsford, for instance, who had been, if possible, more down on his luck than himself Rainsford had gone out to the new gold town while it was yet very new and had made a good thing of it.
The less he had to do with the government the better, and his Fuzzies were wards of Pappy Jack Holloway. He said as much. Rainsford picked up Mitzi and stroked her. "Nice fur," he said. "Fur like that would bring good prices. It will, if we don't get these people recognized as sapient beings." He looked across the run at the new camp and wondered.
His next action was against a gentleman named Wright, who had taken upon himself to pronounce him illegitimate, and in this instance he was more successful. The case was heard before Sir Richard Rainsford, Sir Matthew Hale's successor, and resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff, with £300 damages.
"You know, that line's so sharp I'd be tempted to think of sapience as a result of mutation, except that I can't quite buy the same mutation happening in the same way on so many different planets." Ben Rainsford started to say something, then stopped short when a constabulary siren hooted over the camp. The Fuzzies looked up interestedly. They knew what that was.
Gerd van Riebeek, who had been trying to ignore the existence of the woman beside him, had turned to stare at her in amazement. Coombes's face was ghastly for an instant, then froze into corpselike immobility: Ernst Mallin was dithering in incredulous anger; beside him Ben Rainsford was grinning in just as incredulous delight.
He inverted the jug over his glass. "Think we could stand another cocktail before dinner?" Space Commodore Napier sat at the desk that had been Nick Emmert's and looked at the little man with the red whiskers and the rumpled suit, who was looking back at him in consternation. "Good Lord, Commodore; you can't be serious?" "But I am. Quite serious, Dr. Rainsford." "Then you're nuts!"
At any rate, a large room, usually used for banquets, was made available for the Fuzzies George Lunt and Ben Rainsford were bringing in for the trial, and the four strangers and their black-and-white kitten were installed there. There were a lot of toys of different sorts, courtesy of the management, and a big view screen.
Then we'll issue a report of discovery, being careful to give full credit to both Rainsford and Holloway we'll even accept the designation they've coined for them but we'll make it very clear that while highly intelligent, the Fuzzies are not a race of sapient beings. If Rainsford persists in making any such claim, we will brand it as a deliberate hoax."
Ben Rainsford hadn't returned by lunchtime, but zebralope hunting took a little time, even from the air. While he was eating, outside, one of the rented airjeeps returned from the northeast in a hurry, disgorging Ernst Mallin, Juan Jimenez and Ruth Ortheris. Kurt Borch came hurrying out; they talked for a few minutes, and then they all went inside.
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