“Yes. That spaceport proposition. ‘Why doesn’t our honest and upright Governor do something to end this infamous space-transport monopoly of the Company’s, which is strangling the economy of the planet?’ ”

“Well, why doesn’t he? Because it would cost about fifty million sols, and ships using it would have to load and unload from orbit. But that sounds like a real live issue to the people who don’t think and have nothing to think with, which means a large majority of the voters. You know what I’m worried about, Leslie? Ingermann attacking Rainsford for collusion with the Company. He hammers at that point long enough, and Rainsford’s going to do something to prove he isn’t, and whatever it is, it’ll hurt us.”

“That’s the way it looks to me, too,” Coombes agreed. “You know, among the many benefits of the Pendarvis Decisions, we now have a democratic government on Zarathustra. That means, we now have politics here. Ingermann controls all the other rackets, and politics is the biggest racket there is. Hugo Ingermann is running himself for political boss of Zarathustra.”

THE AIRCAR SETTLED to the ground; the Marine sergeant at the controls, who had been expecting to smash a dozen or so Fuzzies getting down, gave a whoosh of relief. Pancho Ybarra opened the door and motioned his companion, in Marine field-greens, to precede him, then stepped to the ground. George Lunt, still in his slightly altered Constabulary uniform, and Gerd van Riebeek, in bush-jacket and field-boots, advanced to meet them, accompanied by a swarm of Fuzzies. They all greeted him enthusiastically, and then wanted to know where Pappy Jack was.

“Pappy Jack in Big House Place; not come this place with Unka Panko. Pappy Jack come this place soon; two lights-and-darks,” he told them. “Pappy Jack have to make much talk with other Big Ones.”

“Make talk about Fuzzies?” Little Fuzzy wanted to know. “Find Big Ones for all Fuzzies?”

“That’s right. Find place for Fuzzies to go in Big House Place,” he said.

“He’s been on that ever since Jack went away,” Gerd said. “All the Fuzzies are going to have Big Ones of their own, now.”

“Well, Jack’s working on it,” he said. “You’ve both met Captain Casagra, haven’t you? Gerd van Riebeek; Major Lunt. The captain’s staying with us a couple of days; tomorrow Lieutenant Paine and some reinforcements are coming out; fifty men and fifteen combat-cars, to help out with the patrolling till we can get men and vehicles of our own.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that, Captain!” Lunt said. “We’re very short of both.”

“You have a lot of country to patrol, too,” Casagra said. “As Navy Lieutenant Ybarra says, I’ll only stay a few days, to get the feel of the situation. Marine-Lieutenant Paine will stay till you can get your own force recruited up and trained. That is, if things don’t blow up again in the veldbeest country.”

“Well, I hope they don’t,” Lunt said. “The vehicles are as welcome as the men; we have very few of our own.”

“The Company’s making some available,” he said. “And along with his other work, Ahmed Khadra’s starting a ZNPF recruiting drive.”

“Has Jack been able to get his hands on any more Extee-Three?” Gerd wanted to know.

He shook his head. “He hasn’t even been able to get any for the reception center, when the Fuzzies start coming in to town. The Company’s going to start producing it, but that’ll take time. After they get the plant set up, they’ll probably be running off test batches for a couple of weeks before they get one right.”

“The formula’s very simple,” Casagra said.

“Some of the processes aren’t; I was talking to Victor Grego. His synthetics people aren’t optimistic, but Grego’s whip-cracking at them to get it done yesterday morning.”

“Isn’t that something?” Gerd asked. “Victor Grego, Fuzzy-lover. And Jimenez, and Mallin; you ought to have heard the language my refined and delicate wife used when she heard about that.”

“Last war’s enemies, next war’s allies,” Casagra laughed. “I spent a couple of years on Thor; clans that’d be shooting us on sight one season would be our bosom friends the next, and planning to double-cross us the one after.”

An aircar rose from behind the ZNPF barracks across the run and started south; another, which had been circling the camp five miles out, was coming in.

“Harpy patrol,” Lunt was explaining to Casagra. “The Fuzzies cleaned out all the zatku, landprawns, around the camp, and they’ve been hunting farther out each day. Harpies like Fuzzies the way Fuzzies like zatku, so we have to give them air-cover. That’s been since you left, Pancho; we’ve shot about twenty harpies since then. Four up to noon today; I don’t know how many since.”

“Lost any Fuzzies yet?”

“Not to harpies, no. We almost had a lot of them massacred yesterday; two of these families or whatever they are got into a shoppo-diggo fight about some playthings. A couple got chopped up a little; there’s one.” He pointed to a Fuzzy with a white bandage turbaned about his head; he seemed quite proud of it. “One got a broken leg; Doc Andrews has him in the hospital with his leg in a cast. Before I could get to the fight, Little Fuzzy and Ko-Ko and Mamma Fuzzy and a couple of my crowd had broken it up; just waded in with their flats as if they’d been doing riot-work all their lives. And you ought to have heard Little Fuzzy chewing them out afterward. Talked to them like an old sergeant in boot camp.”

“Oh, they fight among themselves?” Casagra asked.

“This is the first time it’s happened here. I suppose they do, now and then, in the woods, with their wooden zatku-hodda. They have a regular fencing system. Nothing up to Interstellar Olympic epee standards, but effective. That’s why half of them weren’t killed in the first five seconds.” Lunt looked at his watch. “Well, Captain, suppose you come with me; we’ll go to Protection Force headquarters and go over what we’ve been doing and how your Lieutenant Paine and his men can help out.”

Casagra went over to the car and spoke to the sergeant at the controls, then he and Lunt climbed in. Ybarra fell in with Gerd and they started in the direction of the lab-hut.

“One of the pregnancy cases lost her baby,” Gerd said. “It was born prematurely and dead. We have the baby, fetus rather, under refrigeration. It seems to be about equivalent to human six-month stage. It wouldn’t have survived in any case. Malformed, visibly and I suppose internally as well. We haven’t done anything with it, yet; Lynne wanted you to see it. The Fuzzies were all sore; they thought it rated a funeral. We managed to explain to Little Fuzzy and a couple of others what we wanted to do with it, and they tried to explain to the others. I don’t know how far any of it got.”

The Fuzzies with them ran ahead, shouting “Mummy Woof! Auntie Lynne! Unka Panko bizzo do-mitto!” They were all making a clamor inside the lab-hut when he and Gerd entered, and Ruth, who was working at one of the benches making some kind of a test, was trying to shush them.

“Heyo, Unka Panko,” she greeted him, hastening through with what she had at hand. “I’ll be loose in a jiffy.” She made a few notes, set a test-tube in a rack and made a grease-pencil number on it, and then pulled down the cover and locked it. “I hadn’t done this since med school. Lynne’s back in the dispensary with a couple of volunteer native nurses, looking after the combat casualty.” She got cigarettes out of her smock-pocket and lit one, then dropped into a chair. “Pancho, what is this about Ernst Mallin?” she asked. “Do you believe it?”

“Yes. He’s really interested, now that he doesn’t have to prove any predetermined Company policy points about them. And he really likes Fuzzies. I’ve seen him with that one of Grego’s, and with Ben’s Flora and Fauna, and Mrs. Pendarvis’s pair.”