“That was good. Now, have a jeep or something up here for me right away; I’ll have to open the gem-vault. And have men there to meet me. With sono-stunners; there may be more Fuzzies inside. And get hold of the building superintendent and the ventilation engineer, and get plans of the ventilation system.”
“Right. Anything else, Mr. Grego?”
“Not that I can think of now. Be seeing you.”
He blanked the screen. Diamond, in the chair, was looking at him wide-eyed.
“Pappy Vic; what make do?”
He looked at Diamond for a moment. “Diamond, you remember when bad Big Ones bring you, other Fuzzies, here?” he asked. “You know other Fuzzies again, you see them?”
“Yeh, ’tsure. Good friend; know again.”
“Hokay. Stay put; Pappy Vic be back.”
He ran into the kitchenette and gathered a couple of tins of Extee-Three. Returning, he found a hearing aid — Diamond was using his Fuzzyphone, and he hadn’t needed it — and pocketed it. Then, swinging Diamond to his shoulder, he went outside. Just as he emerged onto the terrace, a silver-trimmed maroon company airjeep, lettered police, lifted above the edge of the terrace, turned, and glided down. He thought, again, that police vehicles should have some distinctive color-scheme to distinguish them from ordinary Company cars. Talk about that with Harry Steefer, some time. Then the jeep was down and the pilot had opened the door. He climbed in and held Diamond on his lap, while the pilot reported him aboard. Then he took the radio handphone himself.
“Grego; who’s there?” he asked.
“Hurtado. We have everything from the fourteenth level down to the sixteenth sealed off, inside and out. Captain Lansky and Lieutenant Eggers have gone to meet you at the gem vault. Dr. Mallin’s coming in; so’s Miss Glenn and Captain Khadra of the ZNPF. Maybe they can get something out of this Fuzzy.” He muttered something bitterly. “Questioning Fuzzies; what’s police work coming to next?”
“Teaching Fuzzies to crack safes; what’s crime coming to next? You get the ventilation system plans yet?”
“They’re coming up; so’s the ventilation engineer. You think there’s more Fuzzies than this one?”
“Four more. And two men, named Phil Novaes and Moses Herckerd.”
Hurtado was silent for a moment, then cursed. “Now why in Nifflheim didn’t I think of that?” he demanded. “Sure!”
They went inside from a landing-stage on the third level down. There were police there, with portable machine guns, and a couple of cars. Work was going on in some of the offices along the horizontal vehicle-way, but no excitement. They encountered a police car in the vertical shaft just above the fourteenth level down; the jeep pilot put on his red-and-white blinker and picked up the handphone of his loudspeaker, saying, “Mr. Grego here; please don’t delay us.” The car moved out of the way.
The fifteenth level down was police country. Everything was superficially quiet, but a number of vehicles were concentrated around the horizontal ways from the vertical shaft. The pilot set the jeep down at the entrance to the gem-buyer’s offices. Morgan Lansky and a detective were waiting there. He got out, holding Diamond, and the pilot handed the tins of Extee-Three to the detective. Lansky, who seemed to have recovered his aplomb, grinned.
“Interpreter, Mr. Grego?” he asked.
“Yes, and maybe he can make identification. I think he knows these Fuzzies.”
It took Lansky two seconds to get that. Then he nodded.
“Sure. That would explain everything.”
They went through the door, and, inside, it was immediately evident that the security regulation book had gone out the airlock. The portcullis was raised, though a couple of submachine-gunners loitered watchfully in front of it. Half a dozen men, all carrying sono-stunners, short carbines with flaring muzzles like ancient blunderbusses, fell in behind them. The door at the end of the short hall was open, too, and nobody was bothering with identity checks.
Nobody was supposed to be within sight of him when he opened the vault, but he ignored that, too. Lansky, Eggers, the man who was carrying the two tins of Extee-Three, and the men with the stunners all crowded down the stairway after him. Quickly he punched the nonsense sentence out on the keyboard. Ten seconds later the door receded and slid aside.
Inside, the lights were on, as always; bright as they were, they could not dim the many colored glow on the black velvet tabletop, where two Fuzzies were playing concentratedly with a thousand or so sunstones. A little rope ladder, just big enough for a Fuzzy, dangled past the light-shade from the air-outlet above.
Both Fuzzies looked up, startled. One said in accusing complaint, “You not say stones make shine; you say just stones, like always.” His companion looked at them for a moment, and then cried: “Not know these Big Ones! How come this place?”
Lansky, who had been holding Diamond while he had been using the keyboard, followed him in. Diamond saw the two on the table and jabbered in excited recognition. He took Diamond and set him on the table with the others.
“Not be afraid,” he said. “I not hurt. He friend; show him pretty things.”
Recognition was mutual; the other Fuzzies were hugging Diamond and talking rapidly. Lansky had gone to a communication screen and was punching a call-number.
“You get away from bad Big Ones, too?” Diamond was asking. “How you come this place?”
“Big Ones bring us. Make us go through long little hole. Tell us, get stones, like at other place.”
What other place, he wondered. The other strange Fuzzy was saying:
“All-time, Big Ones make us go through long little holes, get stones. We get stones, Big Ones give us good things to eat. Not get stones, Big Ones angry. Make hurt, put us in dark place, not give anything to eat, make us do again.”
“Who has the Extee-Three?” he asked. “Open a tin for me.”
“Estee-fee!” Diamond, hearing him, repeated. “Pappy Vic give Estee-fee; hoksu-fusso.”
Lansky had Hurtado in the screen; he was standing aside to allow the latter to see what was going on in the gem-vault. Hurtado was swearing.
“Now, we gotta make everything in the building Fuzzy-proof,” he was saying. “The Chief’s just come in.” He turned. “Hey, Chief, come and look at this!”
Eggers had the Extee-Three; he got the tin open. Taking the cake from him, he broke it in three, then shoved a couple of million sols in sunstones out of the way and gave a piece to each of the Fuzzies. The two little jewel-thieves knew just what it was, and began eating at once. Telling Eggers to keep an eye on them, he went to the screen. In it, Harry Steefer was cursing even more fluently than Hurtado. He broke off and greeted:
“Hello, Mr. Grego. Beside what’s on the table, are there any sunstones left?”
“I haven’t checked, yet.”
He looked around. All the drawers had been pulled out of the cabinet; the Fuzzies had evidently gotten at the upper rows by stacking and standing on the ones from below. Lansky was examining a couple of small canvas rucksacks he had found.
“What’s it look like, Captain?”
“Don’t come around the table, anybody,” Lansky warned. “The floor’s all over stones, here.”
“Then we have some left. Has Conrad Evins come in yet?”
“We’re still trying to contact him,” Steefer said. “Dr. Mallin’s here, and Captain Khadra and Miss Glenn are on the way here. I’m going over to operation-command room, now; I’ll leave somebody here.”
“Suppose you leave the Fuzzy in your office, too. I’ll bring this pair up, and Diamond can help question them all.”
Steefer assented, then excused himself to talk to somebody in the room with him. One of the detectives, who had gone out, returned with a broom and dustpan; he held the pan while Lansky swept the scattered sunstones up. There were more than he had expected, perhaps as many as half of them. He poured them into drawers, regardless of size or grade; they could be sorted out later. All the Fuzzies protested strenuously when he began gathering up the ones on the table; even Diamond wanted to play with them. He consoled them with the other cake of Extee-Three, and assured Diamond, who assured his friends, that Pappy Vic would provide other pretties.