“And you’re afraid of that?”

“Of course he is,” Coombes said. “So am I, and so ought you to be. Just take the Yellowsand agreement. If the Fuzzies are legally minor children, they can’t control or dispose of property. The Government, as guardian-in-general of the whole Fuzzy race, has authority to do that, including leasing mineral lands. But suppose they’re adult aborigines. Even Class-IV aborigines can control their own property, and according to Federation Law, Terrans are forbidden to settle upon or exploit the ‘anciently accustomed habitation’ of Class-IV natives — in this case, Beta Continent north of the Snake and the Little Blackwater, which includes Yellowsand Canyon — without the natives’ consent. Consent, under Federation Law, must be expressed by vote of a representative tribal council, or by the will of a recognized tribal chief.”

“Well, Jesus-in-the-haymow!” Jack Holloway almost yelled. “There is no such damned thing! They have no tribes, just little family groups, about half a dozen in each. And who in Nifflheim ever heard of a Fuzzy chief?”

“Then, we’re all right,” he said. “The law cannot compel the performance of an impossibility.”

“You only have half of that, Victor,” Coombes said. “The law, for instance, cannot compel a blind man to pass a vision test. The law, however, can and does make passing such a test a requirement for operating a contragravity vehicle. Blind men cannot legally pilot aircars. So if we can’t secure the consent of a nonexistent Fuzzy tribal council, we can’t mine sunstones at Yellowsand, lease or no lease.”

“Then, we’ll get out all we can while the lease is still good.” He’d stripped Big Blackwater of men and equipment already; he was thinking of what other Peters could be robbed to pay Yellowsand Paul. “We have a month till the trial.”

“I’m just as interested in that as you are, Victor,” Gus Brannhard said, “But that’s not the only thing. There’s the Adoption Bureau: If the Fuzzies aren’t minor children, somebody might make enslavement — peonage at least — out of those adoptions. And the health and education programs. And the hokfusine — sooner or later some damned do-gooder’ll squawk about compulsory medication. And here’s another angle: under Colonial Law, nobody is chargeable with any degree of homicide in any case of a person killed while committing a felony. As minor children of under twelve, Fuzzies are legally incapable of committing felony. But if they’re legally adults…

Jack literally howled. “Then, anybody could shoot a Fuzzy, anytime, if he caught him breaking into something, or…”

“Well, say we drop the faginy charges,” Fitz Mortlake suggested. “We still have the other barrel loaded. They can be shot just as dead for enslavement as for enslavement and faginy.”

“Is the other barrel loaded, though?” Gus asked. “I can put that gang on the stand — thank all the gods and the man who invented the veridicator, there’s no law against self-incrimination — I can’t force them to talk. You can’t do things in open court like you can in the back room at a police station. I may be able to get a conviction without the Fuzzies’ testimony, but I can’t guarantee it. Tell him about it, Dr. Mallin.”

“Well.” Ernst Mallin cleared his throat. “Well,” he said again. “You all understand the principles of the polyencephalographic veridicator. All mental activity is accompanied by electromagnetic activity, in detectable wave patterns. The veridicator is so adjusted as to respond only to the wave patterns accompanying the suppression of a true statement and the substitution of a false statement, by causing the blue light in the globe to turn red. I have used the veridicator in connection with psychological experiments with quite a few Fuzzies. I have never had one change the blue light to red.”

He didn’t go into the legal aspects of that; that wasn’t his subject. It was Gus Brannhard’s:

“And court testimony, no exception, must be given under veridication, with a veridicator tested by having a test-witness make a random series of true and false statements. If Fuzzies can’t be veridicated, then Fuzzies can’t testify — like Leslie’s blind man flying an aircar.”

“Yes, and that’ll play Nifflheim, too,” Ahmed Khadra said. “How do you think we’ll prosecute anybody for mistreating Fuzzies if the Fuzzies can’t testify against him?”

“Or somebody claims Fuzzy adoptions are enslavement,” Ben Rainsford said. “Victor’s Diamond, for instance, or my Flora and Fauna. How could we prove that our Fuzzies are happy with us and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, if they can’t testify to it?”

“Wait a minute. I’m just a layman,” Grego said, “but I know that every accused person is entitled to testify in his own defense. These Fuzzies are accused persons, thanks to Hugo Ingermann himself.”

Brannhard laughed. “Ingermann’s hoping to hang us on that,” he said. “He expects Leslie, who’s defending them, to put them on the stand in Complaint Court, so that I’ll have to attack their eligibility to testify and stop myself from using their testimony against his clients. Well, we won’t do it that way. Leslie’ll just plead them not guilty but chargeable and waive hearing.”

“But then they’ll all have to stand trial,” Grego objected.

“Sure they will.” The Attorney General’s laugh became a belly-shaking guffaw. “Remember the last time a bunch of Fuzzies got loose in court? We’ll just let them act like Fuzzies, and see what it does to Ingermann’s claim that they’re mature and responsible adults.”

“Dr. Mallin,” Coombes said suddenly. “You say you never saw a Fuzzy red-light a veridicator. Did you ever hear a Fuzzy make a demonstrably false statement under veridication?”

“To my knowledge, I never heard a Fuzzy make a demonstrably false statement under any circumstances, Mr. Coombes.”

“Ah. And in People versus Kellogg and Holloway you gave testimony about extensive studies you had made of Fuzzies’ electroencephalographic patterns. So their mental activity is accompanied by electromagnetic activity?”

Maybe it might be a good thing to have a lawyer sit in on every scientific discussion, just to see that the rules of evidence are applied. Mallin gave one of his tight little smiles.

“Precisely, Mr. Coombes. Fuzzies exhibit the same general wave-patterns as Terrans or any other known sapient race. All but the suppression-substitution pattern which triggers the light-change in the veridicator. No detection instrument can function in the absence of the event it is intended to detect. Fuzzies simply do not suppress true statements and substitute false statements. That is, they do not lie.”

“That’ll be one hell of a thing to try to prove,” Gus Brannhard said. “Fitz, you questioned those Fuzzies under veridication after the gem-vault job, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Ahmed and Miss Glenn interpreted for them; Diamond helped too. The veridicator had been tested; we used scaled down electrodes and a helmet made up in the robo-service shop at Company House. We got nothing but blue from any of them. We accepted that.”

“I would have, too,” Brannhard said. “But in court we’ll have to show that the veridicator would have red-lighted if any of them had tried to lie.”

“We need Fuzzy test-witnesses, to lie under veridication,” Coombes said. “If they don’t know how to lie, we’ll have to teach a few. I believe that will be Dr. Mallin’s job; I will help. Do any of you gentlemen collect paradoxes? This one’s a gem — to prove that Fuzzies tell the truth, we must first prove that they tell lies. You know, that’s one of the things I love about the law.”

Everybody laughed, except Jack Holloway. He sat staring glumly at the tabletop.

“So now, along with everything else we’ve got to make liars out of them too,” he said. “I wonder what we’ll finally end up making them.”