“Hell, I didn’t know it was loaded, either.”  He rose and took his coffee cup, blowing on it to cool it.  “What do you think Kellogg’s up to, anyhow?  That whole act he’s been putting on since he came here is phony as a nine-sol bill.”

“What I told you, evening before last,” Rainsford said.  “He doesn’t want non-Company people making discoveries on Zarathustra.  You notice how hard he and Mallin are straining to talk me out of sending a report back to Terra before he can investigate the Fuzzies?  He wants to get his own report in first.  Well, the hell with him!  You know what I’m going to do?  I’m going home, and I’m going to sit up all night getting a report into shape.  Tomorrow morning I’m going to give it to George Lunt and let him send it to Mallorysport in the constabulary mail pouch.  It’ll be on a ship for Terra before any of this gang knows it’s been sent.  Do you have any copies of those movies you can spare?”

“About a mile and a half.  I made copies of everything, even the stuff the others took.”

“Good.  We’ll send that, too.  Let Kellogg read about it in the papers a year from now.”  He thought for a moment, then said:  “Gerd and Ruth and Juan are bunking at the other camp now; suppose I move in here with you tomorrow.  I assume you don’t want to leave the Fuzzies alone while that gang’s here.  I can help you keep an eye on them.”

“But, Ben, you don’t want to drop whatever else you’re doing—­”

“What I’m doing, now, is learning to be a Fuzzyologist, and this is the only place I can do it.  I’ll see you tomorrow, after I stop at the constabulary post.”

* * * * *

The people across the run—­Kellogg, Mallin and Borch, and van Riebeek, Jimenez and Ruth Ortheris—­were still up when Rainsford went out to his airjeep.  After watching him lift out, Jack went back into the house, played with his family in the living room for a while and went to bed.  The next morning he watched Kellogg, Ruth and Jimenez leave in one jeep and, shortly after, Mallin and van Riebeek in the other.  Kellogg didn’t seem to be willing to let the three who had come to the camp first wander around unchaperoned.  He wondered about that.

Ben Rainsford’s airjeep came over the mountains from the south in the late morning and settled onto the grass.  Jack helped him inside with his luggage, and then they sat down under the big featherleaf trees to smoke their pipes and watch the Fuzzies playing in the grass.  Occasionally they saw Kurt Borch pottering around outside the other camp.

“I sent the report off,” Rainsford said, then looked at his watch.  “It ought to be on the mail boat for Mallorysport by now; this time tomorrow it’ll be in hyperspace for Terra.  We won’t say anything about it; just sit back and watch Len Kellogg and Ernst Mallin working up a sweat trying to talk us out of sending it.”  He chuckled.  “I made a definite claim of sapience; by the time I got the report in shape to tape off, I couldn’t see any other alternative.”