“Lynne, they won’t take anything that hurts them,” she argued. “Alcohol, for instance.”

Lynne had to agree. Any Fuzzy would take a drink, just to do what the Big Ones were doing — once. The smallest quantity affected a Fuzzy instantly, and a tipsy Fuzzy was really something to see, and then the Fuzzy would have a sick hangover, and never took a second drink. That was one of the things she’d found out while working with Ernst Mallin, the Company psychologist, and doublecrossing him and the company for Navy Intelligence.

“Well, some of them don’t like smokko.”

“Some human-type people don’t, either. Some human-type people have allergies. What kind of allergies do Fuzzies have? That’s something else for you to find out.”

She set Id on the table and pulled one of the loose-leaf books toward her, picking up a pen and writing the word at the top of the blank page. Id picked up another pen and began making a series of little circles on the notepad.

The door from the hallway opened into the next room; she heard Pancho Ybarra’s voice and her husband laughing. The three on the floor put their cigarettes in the ashtray and jumped to their feet, shrieking, “Pappy Ge’hd! Unka Panko!” and dashed through the door into the next room. Id, dropping the pen, jumped down and ran after them. In a moment, they were all back. Syndrome had a Navy officer’s cap on her head, holding it up with both hands to see from under it. Id followed, with Gerd’s floppy gray sombrero, and Complex and Superego came in carrying a bulky briefcase between them. Gerd and Pancho followed. Gerd’s suit, freshly pressed that morning, already rumpled, but the Navy psychologist was still miraculously handbox-neat. She rose and greeted them, kissing Gerd; Pancho crossed the couch and sat down with Lynne.

“Well, what’s new?” Gerd asked.

“Jack called me, about an hour ago. They have the lab hut up, and all the equipment they have for it moved in. They have some bungalows up, a double one for us. Jack showed me a view of it; it’s nice. And I was bullying people about the computer and the rest of the stuff. We can all go out as soon as we have everything here together.”

“This evening, if we want to run ourselves ragged and get in in the middle of the night,” Gerd said. “After lunch tomorrow, if we want to take our time. Ben Rainsford wants us for dinner this evening.”

Lynne thought that sounded a trifle cannibalistic, and voted for tomorrow. “How did you make out at the hospital?” she asked.

“They gave us everything we asked for, no argument at all,” Gerd said. “And the same at Science Center. I was surprised.”

“I wasn’t,” Pancho said. “There’s a lot of scuttlebutt about the Government taking both over. In a couple of weeks, we may be their bosses. What are we going to do about lunch; go out or have it sent in?”

“Let’s have it sent in,” she said. “We can check over these equipment lists, and you two can chase up anything that’s left out this afternoon.”

Pancho got out his cigarette case, and discovered that it was empty.

“Hey, Lynne; so-josso-aki-smokko,” he said.

Well, it would be a honeymoon. Sort of crowded, but fun. And Pancho and Lynne were beginning to take an interest in each other. She was glad of that.

CHIEF JUSTICE FREDERIC Pendarvis leaned his elbows on the bench and considered the three black coated lawyers before him in the action of John Doe, Richard Roe, et alii, An Unincorporated Voluntary Association, versus The Colonial Government of Zarathustra.

One, at the defendants’ lectern, was a giant; well over six feet and two hundred pounds, his big-nosed face masked by a fluffy gray-brown beard, an unruly mop of gray-brown hair suggesting, incongruously, a halo. His name was Gustavus Adolphus Brannhard, and until he had been rocketed to prominence in what everybody was calling the Fuzzy Trial, he had been chiefly noted for his ability to secure the acquittal of obviously guilty clients, his prowess as a big-game hunter, and his capacity, without visible effect, for whisky. For the past five days, he had been Attorney-General of the Colony of Zarathustra.

The man standing beside and slightly behind him would have seemed tall, too, in the proximity of anybody but Gus Brannhard. He was slender and suavely elegant, and his thin, aristocratic features wore an habitually half-bored, half-amused expression, as though life were a joke he had heard too many times before. His name was Leslie Coombes, he was the Zarathustra Company’s chief attorney, and from the position he had taken it looked as though he were here to support his erstwhile antagonist in People versus Holloway and Kellogg.

The third, at the plaintiff’s lectern, was Hugo Ingermann; Judge Pendarvis was making a determined effort not to let that prejudice him against his clients. To his positive knowledge, Ingermann had been in court at least seven times in the last six years representing completely honest and respectable people, and it was possible, though scarcely probable, that this might be the eighth occasion. He was, of course, a member of the Bar, due to lack of evidence to support disbarment proceedings, so he had a right to stand here and be heard.

“This is an action, is it not, to require the Colonial Government to make available for settlement and exploitation lands now in the public domain, and to set up offices where claims to such lands may be filed?” he asked.

“It is, your Honor. I represent the plaintiffs,” Ingermann said. He was shorter than either of the others; plump, with a smooth, pink-cheeked face, and beginning to lose his hair in front. There was an expression of complete and utter sincerity in his round blue eyes which might have deceived anybody who had not been on Zarathustra long enough to have heard of him. He would have continued had Pendarvis not turned to Brannhard.

“I represent the Colonial Government, your Honor; we are contesting the plaintiff’s action.”

“And you, Mr. Coombes?”

“I represent the Charterless Zarathustra Company,” Coombes said. “We are not a party to this action. I am here merely as observer and amicus curiae. “

“The… Charterless, did you say, Mr. Coombes?… Zarathustra Company had a right to be so represented here, they have a substantial interest.” He wondered whose idea “Charterless” was; it sounded like a typical piece of Grego gallows-humor. “Mr. Ingermann?”

“Your Honor, it is the contention of the plaintiffs whom I here represent that since approximately eighty percent of the land surface of this planet is now public domain, by virtue of a recent ruling of the Honorable Supreme Court, it is now obligatory upon the Colonial Government to make this land available to the public. This, your Honor, is plainly stated in Federation Law…”

He began citing acts, sections, paragraphs; precedents; relevant decisions of Federation Courts on other planets. He was talking entirely for the record; all this had been included in the brief he had submitted. It should be heard, but enough was enough.

“Yes, Mr. Ingermann; the Court is aware of the law, and takes notice that it has been upheld in other cases,” he said. “The Government doesn’t dispute this, Mr. Brannhard?”

“Not at all, your Honor. Far from it. Governor Rainsford is, himself, most anxious to transfer unseated land to private ownership…”

“Yes, but when?” Ingermann demanded. “How long is Governor Rainsford going to drag his feet…”

“I question the justice of Mr. Ingermann’s so characterizing the situation,” Brannhard interrupted. “It must be remembered that it is less than a week since there was any public land at all on this planet.”

“Or since the Government Mr. Ingermann’s clients are suing has existed,” Coombes added. “And I could endure knowing who these Messieurs Doe and Roe are. The names sound faintly familiar, but…”