THE FUZZIES HAD been excited all the way from Hoksu-Mitto; Pappy Jack was taking them on a trip to Big House Place. By the time Mallorysport came up on the horizon, tall buildings towering out of green interspaces, they were all shrieking in delight, some even forgetting to “make talk in back of mouth,” like Big Ones. They came in over the city at five thousand feet, the car slanting downward, and Little Fuzzy recognized Company House at once.

“Look! Diamond Place! Pappy Jack, we go there, see Diamond, Pappy Vic?”

“No, we go Pappy Ben Place,” he told them. “Pappy Vic, Diamond, come there. Have big party; everybody come. Pappy Ben, Flora, Fauna, Pappy Vic, Diamond…” The Fuzzies all added more names of friends they would see. “And look.” He pointed to Central Courts Building, on the right. “You know that place?”

They did; that was Big-Room Talk-Place. They’d had a lot of fun there, turning a court trial into a three-ring circus. He still had to laugh when he remembered that. The aircar circled in toward Government House. Unlike the other important buildings of Mallorysport, it sprawled instead of towering, terraced on top, with gardens spread around it. On the north lower lawn a crowd of Fuzzies and others were gathered in the loose concentration of an outdoor cocktail party. Then the car was landing and the Fuzzies were all trying to get out as soon as it was off contragravity.

There was a group at the foot of the north escalator. Most of them were small people with golden fur — Ben Rainsford’s Flora and Fauna, Victor Grego’s Diamond, Judge and Mrs. Pendarvis’s Pierrot and Columbine, and five Fuzzies whose names were Allan Pinkerton and Arsene Lupin and Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler and Mata Hari. They were members of the Company Police Detective Bureau, and they were all reformed criminals. At least, they had been apprehended while trying to clean out the gem vault at Company House and had turned people’s evidence on the gang who had trained them to be burglars.

With them was a tall girl with coppery hair, and a dark-faced man whose smartly tailored jacket bulged slightly under the left arm. The man was Ahmed Khadra, Detective-Captain, in charge of the Native Protection Force, Investigation Division. The girl was Sandra Glenn, Victor Grego’s Fuzzy-sitter. Grego was just losing her to Khadra, if the sunstone on her left hand meant anything.

His own Fuzzies had dashed down the escalator ahead of him; the ones below ran forward to greet them. He managed to get through the crowd to Ahmed and Sandra, and had a few words with them before all the Fuzzies came pelting up, Diamond and Flora and Fauna and the others tugging at his trouser-legs and wanting to be noticed, and his own Fuzzies wanting Unka Ahmed and Auntie Sandra to notice them. He squatted among them, petting them and saying hello. Baby Fuzzy promptly climbed onto Ahmed Khadra’s shoulder. At least they’d broken him of trying to sit on people’s heads, which was something. Between talking to the Fuzzies, all of whom wanted to be talked to, he managed to get a few more words with Ahmed and Sandra, mostly about the Fuzzy Club she was going to manage.

“It’s going to be just one big nonstop Fuzzy party all the time,” she said. “I hope we don’t get too tired of it.”

It was Victor Grego’s idea; he was putting up the money and providing the lower floors and surrounding parkland of one of the Company buildings. People who’d adopted Fuzzies couldn’t be expected to give them their exclusive attention, and Fuzzies living with human families would want to talk to and play with other Fuzzies. The Fuzzy Club would be a place where they could get together and be kept out of danger and/or mischief.

“When’s the grand opening? I’ll have to come in for it.”

“Oh, not for a few weeks. After Ahmed and I are married. We still have a lot of fixing up to do, and I want the girl who’s taking my place with Diamond to get better acquainted with him, and vice versa, before I leave her to cope with him alone.”

“You need much coping with?” he asked Diamond, rumpling his fur and then smoothing it again.

“Actually, no; he’s very good. The girl will have to learn more about him, is all. He’s being a big help with the Fuzzy Club; gives all sorts of advice, some of it excellent.”

Diamond had been telling Little Fuzzy and the others about the new Fuzzy Place. The five ex-jewel-thieves had gotten Baby Fuzzy away from Khadra and were making a great to-do over him, to Mamma’s proud pleasure. Ko-Ko and Cinderella and Mike and Mitzi had wandered away somewhere with Pierrot and Columbine. Little Fuzzy was tugging at him.

“Pappy Jack? Little Fuzzy go with Flora, Fauna?” he asked.

“Sure. Run along and have fun. Pappy Jack go make talk with other Big Ones.” He turned to Ahmed and Sandra. “Don’t you folks want koktel-drinko?”

“We had,” Ahmed said. Sandra added, “We have to see about dinner for Fuzzy-people pretty soon.”

He said he’d see them around, and strolled away, filling his pipe, toward the crowd around the bartending robot. Diamond accompanied him, mostly in short dashes ahead and waits for him to catch up; what was the matter with Big Ones, anyhow, always poking along? There was an approaching bedlam, and three Fuzzies burst into sight, blowing horns. Behind them, in single file, came three small wheelbarrows, a Fuzzy pushing and another riding in each, with more Fuzzies dashing along behind.

“Look, Pappy Jack! Whee’barrow!” Diamond called. “Pappy Ben give. Fun. Unka Ahmed, Auntie Sandra, they have whee’barrow at new Fuzzy Place.”

The procession came to a disorderly halt a hundred yards beyond; the Fuzzies pushing dropped the shafts and took the places of the three who had been riding; three more picked up the wheelbarrows, and the whole cavalcade dashed away again.

“Good little fellows,” somebody behind him said. “Everybody takes his fair turn.”

The speaker was Associate-Justice Yves Janiver, with silver-gray hair and a dramatically black mustache; he was now presiding judge of Native Cases court. One of his companions was big and ruddy, Clyde Garrick, head cashier of the Bank of Mallorysport. The other, thin and elderly, with a fringe of white hair under a black beret, was Henry Stenson, the instrument maker. Holloway greeted and shook hands with them.

“Those were my three who just jumped off,” Stenson said.

He’d gotten them on loan from the Adoption Bureau, to help test the voice-transformer he and Grego had invented. Then the Fuzzies had refused to go back, and he’d had to adopt them; they’d adopted him already. Their names were Microvolt and Roentgen and Angstrom. Damned names some people gave Fuzzies. He asked how they were getting along.

“Oh, they’re having a wonderful time, Mr. Holloway,” Stenson laughed. “I’ve fixed them up a little workshop of their own, to keep them out of everybody’s way in my shop. They want to help everybody do everything; I never saw anybody as helpful as those Fuzzies. You know,” he added, “they are a help, too. They have almost microscopic vision, and they’re wonderfully clever with their hands.” From Henry Stenson, that was high praise. “Well, they’re small people; they live on a smaller scale than we do. If only they didn’t lose interest so quickly. When they do, of course, it’s no use expecting them to go on.”

“No, it isn’t fun anymore. Besides, they don’t understand what you want them to do, or why.”

“No, they wouldn’t,” Stenson agreed. “Explaining a micromass detector or a radiation counter to a Fuzzy…” He thought for a moment. “I think I’ll start them on jewelry work. They like pretty things, and they’d make wonderful jewelers.”

That was an idea. Maybe, about a year from now, an exhibition of Fuzzy arts and handcrafts. Talk that over with Gerd and Ruth; talk it over with Little Fuzzy and Dr. Crippen, too.