“Well, what’s Mallin doing?” Gerd asked. “Is he going to get Henry Stenson to invent an instrument that’ll detect a Fuzzy telling the truth?”

“No. He’s going to teach some Fuzzies to lie so they can red-light a veridicator and show that it works.”

“Hey, he can get shot for that!” Lunt said. “Lying is an immoral act. That’s faginy !”

ONE OF THE Fuzzies, whose name was Kraft, sat cross-legged on the floor, smoking a pipe. The other was named Ebbing; she sat in a scaled-down veridicator chair, with a chromium helmet on her head. Behind her, a translucent globe mounted on a standard glowed clear blue. Ernst Mallin sat sidewise at the table, looking at them; across from him, Leslie Coombes was smoking a cigarette in silence.

“Ebbing, you want to help Unka Ernst, Unka Lessee?” he was asking for the nth time.

“Sure,” Ebbing agreed equably. “What want Ebbing do?”

“Your name Ebbing. You understand name?”

“Sure. Name something somebody call somebody else. Big Ones give all Fuzzies names; put names on idee-disko.” She fingered the silver disk at her throat. “My name here. Ebbing.”

“She knows that?” Coombes asked.

“Oh, yes. She can even print it for you, as neatly as it’s engraved on the disk. Now, Ebbing. Unka Less’ee ask what your name, you tell him name is Kraft.”

“But is not. My name Ebbing. Kraft his name.” She pointed.

“I know. Unka Less’ee know too. But Unka Less’ee ask, you say Kraft. Then he ask Kraft, Kraft say his name Ebbing.”

“Is Big One way to make fun,” Coombes interjected. “We call it, Alias, Alias, Who’s Got the Alias. Much fun.”

“Please, Mr. Coombes. Now, Ebbing, you say to Unka Less’ee your name is Kraft.”

“You mean, make trade with Kraft? Trade idee-disko too?”

“No. Real name for you Ebbing. You just say name is Kraft.”

The blue-lit globe flickered, the color in it swirling, changing to dark indigo and back to pale blue. For a moment he was hopeful, then realized that it was only the typical confusion-of-meaning effect. Ebbing touched her ID-disk and looked at her companion. Then the light settled to clear blue.

“Kraft,” she said calmly.

“Unholy Saint Beelzebub!” Coombes groaned.

He felt like groaning himself.

“You give new idee-disko?” Ebbing asked.

“She thinks her name is Kraft now. That’s telling the truth to the best of her knowledge and belief,” Coombes said.

“No, no; name for you Ebbing; name for him Kraft.” He rose and went to her, detaching the helmet and electrodes. “Finish for now,” he said. “Go make play. Tell Auntie Anne give Estee-fee.”

The Fuzzies started to dash out, then remembered their manners, stopped at the door to say, “Sank-oo, Unka Ernst; goo-bye, Unka Less’ee, Unka Ernst,” before scampering away.

“They both believe now that I meant that they should trade names,” he said. “The next time I see them, they’ll be wearing each other’s ID-disks, I suppose.”

“They don’t even know that lying is possible,” Coombes said. “They don’t have anything to lie about naturally. Their problems are all environmental, and you can’t lie to your environment; if you try to lie to yourself about it, it kills you. I wish their social structure was a little more complicated; lying is a social custom. I wish they’d invented politics!”

WISE ONE WAS glad when they came to where the mountain “made finish” and dropped away, far down. This had not been a good place. There had been nut-trees, and they had eaten nuts. They had killed some of the little nut-eating animals, but not many, for they were hard to catch. They had found no moving-water on top of the mountain, only small pools of still-water from the last rain, and it had not tasted good. And the sleeping-place they had found had not been good either, and it had been one of the nights when both of the night-time lights had been in the sky, and the animals had all been restless, and they had heard a screamer, though not near. Screamers ate only meat and hunted in the dark. That had been why they had found no hatta-zosa. Hatta-zosa did not stay where there were screamers. Neither did People, if they could help it.

They stopped, looking out over the tops of the trees to the country beyond. There was another mountain far to the sun’s left hand; its top stretched away, from sun-upward to sun-downward, with nothing but the sky beyond it. It was not steep, and its side was wrinkled with small valleys that showed where moving-waters came down. There must be a big moving-water below, so close to the bottom of this mountain that they could not see it. It must be a large one, because of all the little ones on both sides that flowed into it, and he was afraid it would be hard to cross.

The others were excited about the wide valley on the other side, and talked about what good hunting they would find there. They couldn’t see the moving-water below, so they didn’t think about it.

They started down, and as they went the mountainside grew steeper, and they had to cling to bushes and stop to rest against trees and use their killing-clubs to help them. As they went, they began to see the moving-water below. The sound of it grew louder. Finally they were seeing it all the time, and could see how big it was.

Big She began talking about turning back and climbing up to the top again.

“Moving-water too big; we not can cross,” she argued. “Go down, no place to go. Better we go back up now.”

“Then go beside it, way it come from,” Lame One said. “Fine place to cross where it little.”

“Not find good-to-eat things,” Big She said. “Not find good-to-eat things since last daytime. Why Wise One not find good-to-eat things?”

Stabber became angry. “You think you wise like Wise One?” he demanded. “You think you find good-to-eat things?”

“Hungry,” Fruitfinder complained. “Want to find good-to-eat things now. Maybe Big She right. Maybe better go back, go down other side.”

“You want, you go back up mountain,” he said. “We go down. Cross moving-water, find good-to-eat things other side.”

Carries-Bright-Things agreed; so did Lame One and Other She. They started climbing down again; Big She and Stonebreaker and Fruitfinder followed without saying anything. At length the mountain became less steep, and through the trees they saw the moving-water in front of them. They went forward and stopped on the bank.

It was big, wide and swift. Lame One picked up a stone and threw it as hard as he could; it splashed far short of the other bank. Other She threw a stick into it, and in an instant it was carried away out of sight. Even if they had been willing to risk losing their killing-clubs and the bright-things, they could never have swum across it. Big She pointed at it with her club.

“Look! Look at place Wise One bring us!” she clamored. “No good-to-eat things; no way across the river. Now, climb all the way back up mountain.”

“Climb up high-steep place?” Other She was horrified.

“You try cross that?” Big She retorted. Then she looked downstream and saw where the river curved away from the mountain. “Maybe go down there.”

“That way moving-water we cross last day-time come down,” he said. “Hesh-nazza that way. Eat all takku, be hungry, now.”

Big She had forgotten about the hesh-nazza, and Big She was afraid of hesh-nazza, more even than the others. Once a hesh-nazza had almost caught her. She went back to insisting that they climb the mountain again. Fruitfinder thought they should, too. Stabber thought they ought to go up the river, which was the only thing to do. Finally all the others, even Big She, agreed.

It was hard going. The river flowed close against the mountain now, there was no bank, and they had to go in single file, clinging to bushes and trees as they went. Big She began complaining again, and so did some of the others.