Wise One approved that, and Big She agreed. Wise One cracked the shells and divided the meat among everybody. That showed how scarce land-prawns were here. In the south, nobody did that. Everybody killed and ate land-prawns for himself; there were enough for everybody. He told them so, and they were all amazed, and Stabber was shouting. “Now you see! Wise One right all the time. Good Country to sun’s left hand, plenty everything!” Even Big She agreed; there was no more argument about anything now.

After they had eaten the zatku — he must remember to use only Fuzzy words, till he could teach the Big One words — they were ready to eat the hatta-zosa and the ho-todda. When they saw how he skinned and butchered with his knife, they wanted him to prepare all of them; all they had was one little stone knife.

“Not eat right away,” he told them. “Cook first.”

Then he had to explain about that, and everybody was frightened, even Wise One. They knew about fire; lightning sometimes made it, and it was a bad thing. He remembered how frightened he had been when he had first seen it in Pappy Jack’s viewscreen. He decided, with all the meat they had, to make barba-koo. They watched him dig the trench with his trowel and helped him get sticks to put the hatta-zosa on and gather wood for the fire, but when he went to light it they all stood back, ready to run like Big Ones watching somebody making ready for blast.

But when the barba-koo was started, they came closer, all exclaiming at the good smells, and when the meat was done and cool enough to eat, everybody was crying out at how good it was. Little Fuzzy remembered the first cooked meat he had eaten.

By this time the sun was making colors in the west, and everybody said it was good that the rain was over. They all wanted to go find a sleeping-place, but he told them that this would be a good enough place to sleep, since the rain was over and if they kept a fire burning all the big animals would be afraid. They believed that; they were still afraid themselves.

He got out his pipe and filled and lighted it, and after a few puffs he passed it around. Some of them liked it, and some refused to take a second puff. Wise One liked it, and so did Lame One and Other She and Carries-Bright-Things, but Stabber and Stonebreaker didn’t. They built the fire up and sat for a long time talking.

He needed this band. With eight beside himself, they could build a big raft, and with eight and himself to hunt they would not be hungry. He had to be careful, though. He remembered how hard it had been to talk the others into going to Wonderful Place after he had found it and come back to get them to come with him. They would make him leader instead of Wise One, but he didn’t want that. When a new one came into a band and tried to lead it, there was always trouble. Finally he decided what to do.

He took the whistle out of his bag and tied a string to it long enough to go around the neck, and made sure that it was tied so that it would not come loose. Then he rose and went to Wise One.

“You lead this band?” he asked.

“Yes. But if you can take us to Big One Place, you lead.”

“No. Not want. You lead. I just show how to go. Others know you, not know me.” He took the whistle — Wise One had learned how to blow it by now — and hung it around his neck. “I give; you keep,” he said. “You leader; when band not together, want to call others, you blow. When somebody lost, you blow.”

Wise One blew piercingly on the whistle. A Big One would have said, “Sank-oo,” for a gift like this. Fuzzies did not say such things; everybody was good to everybody.

“You hear?” he asked. “When I make noise like this, you come. That way, nobody get lost.” He thought for a moment. “I lead band, but Big Ones’ Friend know better than Wise One; he very wise Wise One. Wise One listen when he say something. All listen when Big Ones’ Friend say anything, do as Big Ones’ Friend say. That way, we all come to Big One Place, to Hoksu-Mitto.”

GERD VAN RIEBEEK dropped his cigarette butt and heeled it out. A hundred yards in front of him a blue and white Extee-Three carton stood pin-cushioned with arrows and leaking sand. There were almost as many arrows sticking in the turf around it, most of them very close. The hundred-odd Fuzzies were enthusiastic about it.

“Not good,” he told them. “Half not hit at all.”

“Come close,” one of the Fuzzies protested.

“You hungry, come close not give meat. You not put come-close on stick, put over fire, cook.”

The Fuzzies all laughed; this was a perfectly devastating sally of wit. A bird, about the size of a Terran pigeon, flew across the range halfway to the target. Two arrows hit it at once and it dropped.

“Now that,” he said, “was good! Who did?”

Two of them spoke up; one was his and Ruth’s Superego, and the other was an up-to-now nameless Fuzzy who had come in several weeks ago. Robin Hood would do for him. Then he looked again. No. Maid Marian.

That was with half his mind. The other half was worrying about Jack Holloway. Jack seemed to have stopped giving a damn after he came back from Yellowsand. It if only hadn’t been Little Fuzzy. Any of the others, even one of his own family, he’d just have written off, felt badly about, and gotten over. But Little Fuzzy was something special. He was the first one, and besides that, he had something none of the others had, the something that had brought him into Holloway’s Camp alone to make friends with the strange Big One. Ruth and Pancho and Ernst Mallin hadn’t gotten a dependable IQ-test for Fuzzies developed yet, but they all claimed that Little Fuzzy was a genius. And he was Pappy Jack’s favorite.

And now Jack was drinking, too. Not just a couple before dinner and one or two in the evening. By God, he was drinking as much as Gus Brannhard, and nobody but Gus Brannhard could do that and get away with it. Gerd wished he’d gone along with Jack to Mallorysport, but George Lunt hadn’t been away from here since right after the Fuzzy Trial, and he was entitled to a trip to town; and somebody had to stay and mind the store, so he’d stayed.

Oh, hell, if Jack needed looking after, George could look after him.

“Pappy Gerd! Pappy Gerd!” somebody was calling. He turned to see Jack’s Ko-Ko coming on a run. “Is talk-screen! Mummy Woof say somebody in Big House Place want to make talk.”

“Hokay, I come.” He turned to the Protection Force trooper who was helping him. “Let them go get their arrows. If that carton doesn’t fall apart when they pull them out, let them shoot another course.” Then he started up the slope toward the lab-hut, ahead of Ko-Ko.

It was Juan Jimenez, at Company Science Center. He gave a breath of relief; Jack hadn’t gotten potted and gotten into trouble.

“Hello, Gerd. Nothing more about Little Fuzzy?” he asked.

“No. I don’t think there is anything more. Jack’s in town; did you see him?”

“Yes, at the grand opening of the Fuzzy Club yesterday. Ben and Gus want him to stay over till the convention opens. Gerd, you were asking me about ecological side effects of harpy extermination and wanted me to let you know if anything turned up.”

“Yes. Has anything?”

“I think so. Forests Waters has been after me lately. You know how all those people are; they get little, manageable problems, and never bother consulting anybody, and then when they get big and unmanageable they want me to work miracles. You know where the Squiggle is?”

He did. It was along the inside of the mountain range on the lower western coast. It wasn’t really a badland, but it would do as a reasonable facsimile. Volcanic, geologically recent; a lot of weathered-down lavabeds covered with thin soil; about a thousand little streams twisting every which way and all flowing finally into the main Snake River from the west. Flooded bank-high in rainy season and almost dry in summer, doing little or nothing for the water situation on the cattle ranges at any season. For the last ten years, since the Company had been reforesting it, it had gotten a little better.