Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper (sight word readers .TXT) 📗

care what kind of wheels they are, just so’s they start rolling.” He replaced the phone. “Look for them in about an hour, Jack.”

“Why, thanks, Phil. Drop in some evening when you can hang up your gun and stay awhile.”

He blanked the screen and began punching again. This time he got a girl, and then the Company construction boss at Red Hill.

“Oh, hello, Jack; is Dr. Kellogg comfortable?”

“Not very. He’s moving out this afternoon. I wish you’d have your gang come up with those scows and get that stuff out of my back yard.”

“Well, he told us he was staying for a couple of weeks.”

“He got his mind changed for him. He’s to be off my land by sunset.”

The Company man looked troubled. “Jack, you haven’t been having trouble with Dr. Kellogg, have you?” he asked. “He’s a big man with the Company.”

“That’s what he tells me. You’ll still have to come and get that stuff, though.”

He blanked the screen. “You know,” he said, “I think it would be no more than fair to let Kellogg in on this. What’s his screen combination?”

Gerd supplied it, and he punched it out. One of those tricky special Company combinations. Kurt Borch appeared in the screen immediately.

“I want to talk to Kellogg.”

“Doctor Kellogg is very busy, at present.”

“He’s going to be a damned sight busier; this is moving day. The whole gang of you have till eighteen hundred to get off my grant.”

Borch was shoved aside, and Kellogg appeared. “What’s this nonsense?” he demanded angrily.

“You’re ordered to move. You want to know why? I can let Gerd van Riebeek talk to you; I think there are a few things he’s forgotten to call you.”

“You can’t order us out like this. Why, you gave us permission—”

“Permission cancelled. I’ve called Mike Hennen in Red Hill; he’s sending his scows back for the stuff he brought here. Lieutenant Lunt will have a couple of troopers here, too. I’ll expect you to have your personal things aboard your airboat when they arrive.”

He blanked the screen while Kellogg was trying to tell him that it was all a misunderstanding.

“I think that’s everything. It’s quite a while till sundown,” he added, “but I move for suspension of rules while we pour a small libation to sprinkle our new partnership. Then we can go outside and observe the enemy.”

There was no observable enemy action when they went out and sat down on the bench by the kitchen door. Kellogg would be screening Mike Hennen and the constabulary post for verification, and there would be a lot of gathering up and packing to do. Finally, Kurt Borch emerged with a contragravity lifter piled with boxes and luggage, and Jimenez walking beside to steady the load. Jimenez climbed up onto the airboat and Borch floated the load up to him and then went back into the huts. This was repeated several times. In the meantime, Kellogg and Mallin seemed to be having some sort of exchange of recriminations in front. Ruth Ortheris came out, carrying a briefcase, and sat down on the edge of a table under the awning.

Neither of them had been watching the Fuzzies, until they saw one of them start down the path toward the footbridge, a glint of silver at the throat identifying Goldilocks.

“Look at that fool kid; you stay put, Gerd, and I’ll bring her back.”

He started down the path; by the time he had reached the bridge, Goldilocks was across and had vanished behind one of the airjeeps parked in front of the Kellogg camp. When he was across and within twenty feet of the vehicle, he heard a sound across and within twenty feet of the vehicle, he heard a sound he had never heard before—a shrill, thin shriek, like a file on saw teeth. At the same time, Ruth’s voice screamed.

“Don’t! Leonard, stop that!”

As he ran around the jeep, the shrieking broke off suddenly. Goldilocks was on the ground, her fur reddened. Kellogg stood over her, one foot raised. He was wearing white shoes, and they were both spotted with blood. He stamped the foot down on the little bleeding body, and then Jack was within reach of him, and something crunched under the fist he drove into Kellogg’s face. Kellogg staggered and tried to raise his hands; he made a strangled noise, and for an instant the idiotic thought crossed Jack’s mind that he was trying to say, “Now, please don’t misunderstand me.” He caught Kellogg’s shirt front in his left hand, and punched him again in the face, and again, and again. He didn’t know how many times he punched Kellogg before he heard Ruth Ortheris’ voice:

“Jack! Watch out! Behind you!”

He let go of Kellogg’s shirt and jumped aside, turning and reaching for his gun. Kurt Borch, twenty feet away, had a pistol drawn and pointed at him.

His first shot went off as soon as the pistol was clear of the holster. He fired the second while it was still recoiling; there was a spot of red on Borch’s shirt that gave him an aiming point for the third. Borch dropped the pistol he hadn’t been able to fire, and started folding at the knees and then at the waist. He went down in a heap on his face.

Behind him, Gerd van Riebeek’s voice was saying, “Hold it, all of you; get your hands up. You, too, Kellogg.”

Kellogg, who had fallen, pushed himself erect. Blood was gushing from his nose, and he tried to stanch it on the sleeve of his jacket. As he stumbled toward his companions, he blundered into Ruth Ortheris, who pushed him angrily away from her. Then she went to the little crushed body, dropping to her knees beside it and touching it. The silver charm bell on the neck chain jingled faintly. Ruth began to cry.

Juan Jimenez had climbed down from the airboat; he was looking at the body of Kurt Borch in horror.

“You killed him!” he accused. A moment later, he changed that to “murdered.” Then he started to run toward the living hut.

Gerd van Riebeek fired a bullet into the ground ahead of him, bringing him up short.

“You’ll stop the next one, Juan,” he said. “Go help Dr. Kellogg; he got himself hurt.”

“Call the constabulary,” Mallin was saying. “Ruth, you go; they won’t shoot at you.”

“Don’t bother. I called them. Remember?”

Jimenez had gotten a wad of handkerchief tissue out of his pocket and was trying to stop his superior’s nosebleed. Through it, Kellogg was trying to tell Mallin that he hadn’t been able to help it.

“The little beast attacked me; it cut me with that spear it was carrying.”

Ruth Ortheris looked up. The other Fuzzies were with her by the body of Goldilocks; they must have come as soon as they had heard the screaming.

“She came up to him and pulled at his trouser leg, the way they all do when they want to attract your attention,” she said. “She wanted him to look at her new jingle.” Her voice broke, and it was a moment before she could recover it. “And he kicked her, and then stamped her to death.”

“Ruth, keep your mouth shut!” Mallin ordered. “The thing attacked Leonard; it might have given him a serious wound.”

“It did!” Still holding the wad of tissue to his nose with one hand, Kellogg pulled up his trouser leg with the other and showed a scar on his shin. It looked like a briar scratch. “You saw it yourself.”

“Yes, I saw it. I saw you kick her and jump on her. And all she wanted was to show you her new jingle.”

Jack was beginning to regret that he hadn’t shot Kellogg as soon as he saw what was going on. The other Fuzzies had been trying to get Goldilocks onto her feet. When they realized that it was no use, they let the body down again and crouched in a circle around it, making soft, lamenting sounds.

“Well, when the constabulary get here, you keep quiet,” Mallin was saying. “Let me do the talking.”

“Intimidating witnesses, Mallin?” Gerd inquired. “Don’t you know everybody’ll have to testify at the constabulary post under veridication? And you’re drawing pay for being a psychologist, too.” Then he saw some of the Fuzzies raise their heads and look toward the southeastern horizon. “Here come the cops, now.”

However, it was Ben Rainsford’s airjeep, with a zebralope carcass lashed along one side. It circled the Kellogg camp and then let down quickly; Rainsford jumped out as soon as it was grounded, his pistol drawn.

“What happened, Jack?” he asked, then glanced around, from Goldilocks to Kellogg to Borch to the pistol beside Borch’s body. “I get it. Last time anybody pulled a gun on you, they called it suicide.”

“That’s what this was, more or less. You have a movie camera in your jeep? Well, get some shots of Borch, and some of Goldilocks. Then stand by, and if the Fuzzies start doing anything different, get it all. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”

Rainsford looked puzzled, but he holstered his pistol and went back to his jeep, returning with a camera. Mallin began insisting that, as a licensed M.D., he had a right to treat Kellogg’s injuries. Gerd van Riebeek followed him into the living hut for a first-aid kit. They were just emerging, van Riebeek’s automatic in the small of Mallin’s back, when a constabulary car grounded beside Rainsford’s airjeep. It wasn’t Car Three. George Lunt jumped out, unsnapping the flap of his holster, while Ahmed Khadra was talking into the radio.

“What’s happened, Jack? Why didn’t you wait till we got here?”

“This maniac assaulted me and murdered that man over there!” Kellogg began vociferating.

“Is your name Jack too?” Lunt demanded.

“My name’s Leonard Kellogg, and I’m a chief of division with the Company—”

“Then keep quiet till I ask you something. Ahmed, call the post; get Knabber and Yorimitsu, with investigative equipment, and find out what’s tying up Car Three.”

Mallin had opened the first-aid kit by now; Gerd, on seeing the constabulary, had holstered his pistol. Kellogg, still holding the sodden tissues to his nose, was wanting to know what there was to investigate.

“There’s the murderer; you have him red-handed. Why don’t you arrest him?”

“Jack, let’s get over where we can watch these people without having to listen to them,” Lunt said. He glanced toward the body of Goldilocks. “That happen first?”

“Watch out, Lieutenant! He still has his pistol!” Mallin shouted warningly.

They went over and sat down on the contragravity-field generator housing of one of the rented airjeeps. Jack started with Gerd van Riebeek’s visit immediately after noon.