“Jack, have you had any news on the screen lately?”

“No.  Something turn up?”

“God, yes!  The cops are all over the city hunting the Fuzzies; they have orders to shoot on sight.  Nick Emmert was just on the air with a reward offer—­five hundred sols apiece, dead or alive.”

It took a few seconds for that to register.  Then he became frightened.  Gus and Gerd were both on their feet and crowding to the screen behind him.

“They have some bum from that squatters’ camp over on the East Side who claims the Fuzzies beat up his ten-year-old daughter,” Fane was saying.  “They have both of them at police headquarters, and they’ve handed the story out to Zarathustra News, and Planetwide Coverage.  Of course, they’re Company-controlled; they’re playing it for all it’s worth.”

“Have they been veridicated?” Brannhard demanded.

“No, and the city cops are keeping them under cover.  The girl says she was playing outdoors and these Fuzzies jumped her and began beating her with sticks.  Her injuries are listed as multiple bruises, fractured wrist and general shock.”

“I don’t believe it!  They wouldn’t attack a child.”

“I want to talk to that girl and her father,” Brannhard was saying.  “And I’m going to demand that they make their statements under veridication.  This thing’s a frameup, Max; I’d bet my ears on it.  Timing’s just right; only a week till the trial.”

Maybe the Fuzzies had wanted the child to play with them, and she’d gotten frightened and hurt one of them.  A ten-year-old human child would look dangerously large to a Fuzzy, and if they thought they were menaced they would fight back savagely.

They were still alive and in the city.  That was one thing.  But they were in worse danger than they had ever been; that was another.  Fane was asking Brannhard how soon he could be dressed.

“Five minutes?  Good, I’ll be along to pick you up,” he said.  “Be seeing you.”

Jack hurried into the bedroom he and Brannhard shared; he kicked off his moccasins and began pulling on his boots.  Brannhard, pulling his trousers up over his pajama pants, wanted to know where he thought he was going.

“With you.  I’ve got to find them before some dumb son of a Khooghra shoots them.”

“You stay here,” Gus ordered.  “Stay by the communication screen, and keep the viewscreen on for news.  But don’t stop putting your boots on; you may have to get out of here fast if I call you and tell you they’ve been located.  I’ll call you as soon as I get anything definite.”

Gerd had the screen on for news, and was getting Planetwide, openly owned and operated by the Company.  The newscaster was wrought up about the brutal attack on the innocent child, but he was having trouble focusing the blame.  After all, who’d let the Fuzzies escape in the first place?  And even a skilled semanticist had trouble in making anything called a Fuzzy sound menacing.  At least he gave particulars, true or not.