“Well, I won’t claim they’re sapient,” Ruth Ortheris told him.  “Not till day after tomorrow, at the earliest.  But they very easily could be.  They have learning and reasoning capacity equal to that of any eight-year-old Terran Human child, and well above that of the adults of some recognizedly sapient races.  And they have not been taught tricks; they have learned by observation and reasoning.”

“Well, Dr. Kellogg, mentation levels isn’t my subject,” Jimenez took it up, “but they do have all the physical characteristics shared by other sapient races—­lower limbs specialized for locomotion and upper limbs for manipulation, erect posture, stereoscopic vision, color perception, erect posture, hand with opposing thumb—­all the characteristics we consider as prerequisite to the development of sapience.”

“I think they’re sapient, myself,” Gerd van Riebeek said, “but that’s not as important as the fact that they’re on the very threshold of sapience.  This is the first race of this mental level anybody’s ever seen.  I believe that study of the Fuzzies will help us solve the problem of how sapience developed in any race.”

Kellogg had been laboring to pump up a head of enthusiasm; now he was ready to valve it off.

“But this is amazing!  This will make scientific history!  Now, of course, you all realize how pricelessly valuable these Fuzzies are.  They must be brought at once to Mallorysport, where they can be studied under laboratory conditions by qualified psychologists, and—­”

“No.”

Jack lifted Baby Fuzzy off his head and handed him to Mamma, and set Mamma on the floor.  That was reflex; the thinking part of his brain knew he didn’t need to clear for action when arguing with the electronic image of a man twenty-five hundred miles away.

“Just forget that part of it and start over,” he advised.

Kellogg ignored him.  “Gerd, you have your airboat; fix up some nice comfortable cages—­”

"Kellogg!”

The man in the screen stopped talking and stared in amazed indignation.  It was the first time in years he had been addressed by his naked patronymic, and possibly the first time in his life he had been shouted at.

“Didn’t you hear me the first time Kellogg?  Then stop gibbering about cages.  These Fuzzies aren’t being taken anywhere.”

“But Mr. Holloway!  Don’t you realize that these little beings must be carefully studied?  Don’t you want them given their rightful place in the hierarchy of nature?”

“If you want to study them, come out here and do it.  That’s so long as you don’t annoy them, or me.  As far as study’s concerned, they’re being studied now.  Dr. Rainsford’s studying them, and so are three of your people, and when it comes to that, I’m studying them myself.”

“And I’d like you to clarify that remark about qualified psychologists,” Ruth Ortheris added, in a voice approaching zero-Kelvin.  “You wouldn’t be challenging my professional qualifications, would you?”