He checked the impulse to ask Ingermann if he were crazy. Whatever Hugo Ingermann was, he wasn’t that. He substituted: “Do you think I’m crazy, Mr. Ingermann?”

“I hope you’re smart enough to see the advantage of my offer,” Ingermann replied.

“Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not. The advantage to your clients, yes; that’s the difference between twenty years in the penitentiary and a ten-millimeter bullet in the back of the head. I’m afraid the advantage to the Colony is slightly less apparent.”

“It shouldn’t be. You can’t get a conviction on those charges, and you know it. I’m giving you a chance to get off the hook.”

“Well, that’s very kind of you, Mr. Ingermann, indeed it is. I’m afraid, though, that I can’t take advantage of your good nature. You’ll just have to fight those charges in court.”

“You think I can’t?” Ingermann was openly contemptuous now. “You’re prosecuting my clients, if that’s how you mispronounce it, on charges of faginy. You know perfectly well that the crime of faginy cannot be committed against an adult, and you know, just as well, that that’s what those Fuzzies are.”

“They are legally minor children.”

“They are classified as minor children by a court ruling. That ruling is not only contrary to physical fact but is also a flagrant usurpation of legislative power by the judiciary, and hence unconstitutional. As such, I mean to attack it.”

And wouldn’t that play Nifflheim? The Government couldn’t let that ruling be questioned; why, it would… Which was what Ingermann was counting on, of course. He shrugged.

“We can get along without convicting them of faginy; we can still convict them of enslavement. That’s the nice thing about capital punishment: nobody needs to be shot in the head more than once.”

Ingermann laughed scornfully. “You think you can frame my clients on enslavement charges? Those Fuzzies weren’t slaves; they were accomplices.”

“They were made drunk, transported under the influence of liquor from their native habitat, confined under restraint, compelled to perform work, and punished for failure to do so by imprisonment in a dungeon, by starvation, and by electric-shock tortures. If that isn’t a classic description of the conditions of enslavement, I should like to hear one.”

“And have the Fuzzies accused my clients of these crimes?” Ingermann asked. “Under veridication, on a veridicator tested to distinguish between true and false statements when made by Fuzzies?”

No, they hadn’t; and that was only half of it. The other half was what he’d been afraid of all along.

“Don’t tell me; I’ll tell you,” Ingermann went on. “They have not, for the excellent reason that Fuzzies can’t be veridicated. I have that on the authority of Dr. Ernst Mallin, Victor Grego’s chief Fuzzyologist. A polyencephalographic veridicator simply will not respond to Fuzzies. Now, you put those Fuzzies on the stand against my clients and watch what happens.”

That was true. Mallin, who had the idea that scientific information ought to be published, had stated that no Fuzzy with whom he had worked had ever changed the blue light of a veridicator to the red of falsehood. He had also stated that in his experience no Fuzzy had ever made a false statement, under veridication or otherwise. But Ingermann was ignoring that.

“And as to these faginy charges, if you people really believe that Fuzzies are legally minor children, why was it thought necessary to have a dozen and a half of them fingerprint that Yellowsand lease agreement? Minor children do not sign documents like that.”

He laughed. “Oh, that was just fun for the Fuzzies,” he said. “They wanted to do what the Big Ones were doing.”

“Mr. Brannhard!” From Ingermann’s tone, he might have been a parent who has just been informed by a five-year-old that a gang of bandits in black masks had come in and looted the cookie jar. “Do you expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t give a hoot on Nifflheim whether you do or not, Mr. Ingermann. Now, was there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Isn’t that enough for now?” Ingermann asked. “The trial won’t be for a month yet. If, in the meantime, you change your mind — and if you’re well-advised you will — just give me a call. Goodbye for now.”

VICTOR GREGO’S AIRCAR pilot wasn’t usually insane… only when he got his hands on the controls of a vehicle. Yellowsand Canyon was three time zones east of Mallorysport, and, coming in, the sun was an hour higher than when they had lifted out. Diamond had noticed that too, and commented on it.

A sergeant of the Marine guard met them on the top landing stage of Government House. “Mr. Grego. Mr. Coombes and Mr. Brannhard are here, with the Governor in his office.”

“Is anybody here going to try to arrest my Fuzzy?” he asked.

The sergeant grinned. “No, sir. He’s been accused of everything but space-piracy, high treason, and murder-one, along with the others, but Marshal Fane says he won’t arrest any of them if they show up tomorrow in Complaint Court.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. Then, I won’t need this.” Victor unbuckled his pistol, wrapping the belt around the holster, and tossed it onto the back seat of the car, lifting Diamond and setting him on his shoulder. “Go amuse yourself for a couple of hours,” he told the pilot. “Stay around where I can reach you, though.”

At the head of the escalator, he told Diamond the same thing, watching him ride down and scamper across the garden in search of Flora and Fauna and the rest of his friends. Then Victor went inside, and found Leslie Coombes and Gus Brannhard seated with Ben Rainsford at the oval table in the private conference room. They exchanged greetings, and he sat down with them.

“Now, what the devil’s all this about arresting Fuzzies?” he demanded. “What are they charged with?”

“They aren’t charged with anything, yet,” Brannhard told him. “Hugo Ingermann made information against all six of them with the Colonial Marshal. He accused Allan Pinkerton and Arsene Lupin and Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler and Mata Hari of first-degree burglary, grand larceny and criminal conspiracy, and Diamond with misprision of felony and accessory-before-the-fact. They won’t be charged till the accusations are heard in Complaint Court tomorrow.”

Complaint Court was something like the ancient grand jury — an inquiry into whether or not a chargeable crime had been committed. The accusation was on trial there, not the accused.

“Well, you aren’t letting it get past there, are you?”

Before Brannhard could answer, Jack Holloway and Ernst Mallin came in. Holloway was angry, the tips of his mustache twitching and a feral glare in his eyes. He must have looked like that when he beat up Kellogg and shot Borch. Ernst Mallin looked distressed; he’d been in one criminal case involving Fuzzies, and that had been enough. Ahmed Khadra entered behind them, with Fitz Mortlake, the Company Police captain who was guardian-of-record for the other five Fuzzies. After more greetings, they all sat down.

“What are you going to do about this goddamned thing?” Jack Holloway began while he was still pulling up his chair. “You going to let that son of a Khooghra get away with this?”

“If you mean the Fuzzies, hell, no,” Brannhard said. “They’re not guilty of anything, and everybody, Ingermann included, knows it. He’s trying to bluff me into dropping the faginy and enslavement charges and letting his clients cop a plea on the burglary and larceny charges. He thinks I’m afraid to prosecute those faginy and enslavement charges. He’s right; I am. But I’m going ahead with them.”

“Well, but, my God… !” Jack Holloway began to explode. “What’s wrong with those charges?”

“Well, the faginy, now,” Brannhard said. “That’s based on the assumption that Fuzzies are equivalent to human children of ten-to-twelve, and that rests on a reversible judicial opinion, not on statute law. Ingermann thinks we’ll drop the charges rather than open the Fuzzies’ minor-child status to question, because that’s the basis of the whole Government Fuzzy policy.”