“Your Honor, my clients are an association of individuals interested in acquiring land,” Ingermann said. “Prospectors, woodsmen, tenant farmers, small veldbeest ranchers…”

“Loan-sharks, shylocks, percentage grubstakers, speculators, would-be claim brokers,” Brannhard continued.

“They are the common people of this planet!” Ingermann declared. “The workers, the sturdy and honest farmers, the frontiersmen, all of whom the Zarathustra Company has held in peonage until liberated by the great and historic decisions which bear your Honor’s name.”

“Just a moment,” Coombes almost drawled. “Your Honor, the word ‘peonage’ has a specific meaning at law. I must deny most vehemently that it has ever described the relationship between the Zarathustra Company and anybody on this planet.”

“The word was ill-chosen, Mr. Ingermann. It will be deleted from the record.”

“We still haven’t found out who Mr. Ingermann’s clients are, your Honor,” Brannhard said. “May I suggest that Mr. Ingermann be placed on the stand and asked to name them?”

Ingermann shot a quick, involuntary glance at the witness stand: a heavy chair, with electrode attachments and a bright metal helmet over it, and a translucent globe on a standard. Then he began clamoring protests. So far, Hugo Ingermann had always managed to avoid having to testify to anything under veridication. That was probably why he was still a member of the Bar, instead of a convict.

“No, Mr. Brannhard,” he said, with real sadness. “Mr. Ingermann is not compelled to divulge the names of his clients. Mr. Ingermann would be within his rights in bringing this action on his own responsibility, out of his deep love of justice and well-known zeal for the public welfare.”

Brannhard shrugged massively. Nobody could blame him for not trying. Coombes spoke:

“Your Honor, we are all agreed about the Government’s obligation, but has it occurred, either to Mr. Ingermann or to the Court, that the present Government is merely a fiat-government set up by military authority? Commodore Napier acted, as he was obliged to, as the ranking officer of the Terran Federation Armed Forces present, to constitute civil government to replace the former one, declared illegal by your Honor. Until elections can be held and a popularly elected Colonial Legislature can be convened, there may be grave doubts as to the validity of some of Governor Rainsford’s acts, especially in granting titles to land. Your Honor, do we want to see the courts of this planet vexed, for years to come, with litigation over such titles?”

“That’s the Government’s attitude precisely,” Brannhard agreed. “We’re required by law to hold such elections with a year; to do that we’ll have to hold an election for delegates to a constitutional convention and get a planetary constitution adopted. That will take six to eight months. Until this can be done, we petition the Court to withhold action on this matter.”

“That’s quite reasonable, Mr. Brannhard. The Court recognizes the Government’s legal obligation, but the Court does not recognize any immediacy in fulfilling it. If, within a year, the Government can open the public lands and establish land-claims offices, the Court will be quite satisfied.” He tapped lightly with his gavel. “Next case, if you please,” he told the crier.

“Now I see it!” Ingermann almost shouted. “The Zarathustra Company’s taken over this new Class-IV Government, and the courts along with it!”

He hit the bench again with his gavel; this time it cracked like a rifle shot.

“Mr. Ingermann! You are not deliberately placing yourself in contempt, are you?” he asked. “No? I’d hoped not. Next case, please.”

LESLIE COOMBES ACCEPTED the cocktail with a word of absentminded thanks, tasted it, and set it down on the low table. It was cool and quiet up here on the garden-terrace around Victor Grego’s penthouse at the top of Company House; the western sky was a conflagration of sunset reds and oranges and yellows.

“No, Victor; Gus Brannhard is not our friend. He’s not our enemy, but as Attorney-General he is Ben Rainsford’s lawyer, and the Government’s — at the moment, it’s hard to distinguish between the two — and Ben Rainsford hates all of us vindictively.”

Victor Grego looked up from the drink he was pouring for himself. He had a broad-cheeked, wide-mouthed face. A few threads of gray were visible in the sunset glow among the black at his temples; they hadn’t been there before the Fuzzy Trial.

“I don’t see why,” he said, “It’s all over now. They made their point about the Fuzzies; that was all they were interested in, wasn’t it?”

He was being quite honest about it, too, Coombes thought. Grego was simply incapable of animosity about something that was over and done with.

“It was all Jack Holloway and Gerd van Riebeek were interested in. Brannhard was their lawyer; he’d have fought just as hard to prove that bush-goblins were sapient beings. But Rainsford is taking this personally. The Fuzzies were his great scientific discovery, and we tried to discredit it, and that makes us Bad Guys. And in the last chapter, the Bad Guys should all be killed or sent to jail.”

Grego stoppered the cocktail jug and picked up his glass.

“We haven’t come to the last chapter yet,” he said. “I don’t want any more battles; we haven’t patched up the combat damage from the last one. But if Ben Rainsford wants one, I’m not bugging out on it. You know, we could make things damned nasty for him.” He sipped slowly and set the glass down. “This so-called Government of his is broke; you know that, don’t you? And it’ll take from six to eight months to get a Colonial Legislature organized and in session, and he can’t levy taxes by executive decree; that’s purely a legislative function. In the meantime, he’ll have to borrow, and the only place he can borrow is from the bank we control.”

That was the trouble with Victor. If anybody or anything challenged him, his first instinct was to hit back. Following that instinct when he had first heard of the Fuzzies had gotten the Company back of the eightball in the first place.

“Well, don’t do any fighting with planet busters at twenty paces,” he advised. “Gus Brannhard and Alex Napier, between them, talked him out of prosecuting us for what we did before the trial, and convinced him he’d wreck the whole planetary economy if he damaged the company too badly. We’re in the same spot; we can’t afford to have a bankrupt Government on top of everything else. Let him borrow all the money he wants.”

“And then tax it away from us to pay it back?”

“Not if we get control of the Legislature and write the tax laws ourselves. This is a political battle; let’s use political weapons.”

“You mean organize a Zarathustra Company Party?” Grego laughed. “You have any idea how unpopular the Company is, right now?”

“No, no. Let the citizens and voters organize the parties. We’ll just pick out the best one and take it over. All we’ll need to organize will be a political organization.”

Grego smiled slowly over the rim of his glass and swallowed.

“Yes, Leslie. I don’t think I need to tell you what to do. You know it better than I do. Have you anybody in mind to head it? They shouldn’t be associated with the Company at all; at least, not where the public can see it.”

He named a few names — independent business men, freeholding planters, professional people, a clergyman or so. Grego nodded approvingly at each.

“Hugo Ingermann,” he said.

“Good God!” Coombes doubted his ears for a moment. Then he was shocked. “We want nothing whatever to do with that fellow. Why, there isn’t a crooked operation in Mallorysport, criminal or just plain dishonest, that he isn’t mixed up in. And I told you how he was talking in court today.”

Grego nodded again. “Precisely. Well, we won’t have anything to do with him. We’ll just let Hugo go his malodorous way, and cash in on any scandals he creates. You say Rainsford thinks in terms of Good Guys and Bad Guys? Well, Hugo Ingermann is the baddest Bad Guy on the planet, and if Rainsford doesn’t know that, and he probably doesn’t, Gus Brannhard’ll tell him. I just hope Hugo Ingermann goes on attacking the Company every time he opens his mouth.” He finished what was in his glass and unstoppered the jug. “Still with me, Leslie? It’s a half hour yet to dinner.”