Caveat Fuzzy Read online

  LITTLE FUZZY RETURNS

  On the pleasant backwater planet of Zarathustra things had been relatively quiet since the famous duel between Jack Holloway and his recently discovered son, Morgan. Unless one considers the potential ramifications of the alien rocket ship discovered on the secondary landmass of Beta Continent. The new owners of Bowlby Inter-planetary Network (BIN) attack Ben Rainsford’s governorship and the Yellowsand mining treaty with the Charterless Zarathustra Company using the recently discovered rocket and what appear to be the fossils of giant Fuzzies. If Rainsford’s government is legally challenged, what will happen to the Fuzzies?

  Victor Grego is also under attack in the news and in the sunstone market. If the government is declared illegal, so too is the Yellowsand mining treaty that is the financial mainstay of the Company as well as the colonial government. This, too, could threaten the security of the Zarathustran natives.

  Equally disturbing is the unrest evident among the Northern Beta Fuzzies. Things are brought to a head when a member of the colonial government is taken hostage by Fuzzies. Tempers flare and only Jack Holloway may be able to stop hostilities before they grow into a full-out war. The government, the CZC, and the Fuzzies are all in danger as events overtake them, as Caveat Fuzzy brings to a conclusion the events related in Fuzzy Ergo Sum.

  CAVEAT FUZZY

  A Pequod Press Science Fiction Novel

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright © 2012 by Wolfgang Diehr & Pequod Press

  Original Cover Art—Copyright © 2012 by Alan Gutierrez

  This book may not be reproduced or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, scanning, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Printing 2012

  V 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN: 978-0-937912-22-5

  On the cover: Alan Gutierrez, Caveat Fuzzy

  2012 (www.alangutierrez.com)

  Pequod Press

  P.O. Box 80

  Boalsburg, PA 16827

  www.PequodPress.com

  H. BEAM PIPER CONTINUATIONS PRESENTED BY PEQUOD PRESS

  GUNPOWDER GOD

  THE FIRESEED WARS

  SIEGE OF TARR-HOSTIGOS

  KALVAN KINGMAKER

  GREAT KINGS’ WAR

  TIME CRIME

  TERRO-HUMAN FUTURE HISTORY

  FUZZY ERGO SUM

  CAVEAT FUZZY

  SPACE VIKING

  THE LAST SPACE VIKING

  SPACE VIKING’S THRONE

  DEDICATION

  To Doctor James Farrow:

  Who started me on this road.

  To Professor Christopher Leland:

  Who showed me the potholes.

  To Leila E. Smith:

  Who came back for me when she

  realized I was still at the last rest stop.

  PROLOGUE

  Bradley, never ‘Brad,’ Small was a minor felon, as his name would suggest. In his youth on Terra he had engaged in petty theft, aircar theft and even burglary, earning him time in juvenile hall and later prison. On Freya he ran afoul of a minor noble over the attention he had shown a young woman, while on Gimli he barely escaped the authorities on charges of fraud.

  On Zarathustra Bradley decided to turn over a new leaf. He started out by trying to get a job with the Chartered Zarathustra Company. Unfortunately, the discovery of the Fuzzies resulted in the Company losing its charter and changing its hiring policies. Personnel with a quasi-legal background were no longer welcome. His attempt to gain employment at The Bitter End bar met with similar results. The owner, Raul Laporte, preferred to not hire men with a known criminal history. Criminals were okay, but known criminals might bring unwanted attention to Laporte’s extralegal activities. Bradley even lost out on any land grab schemes after the new colonial government leased the unseated lands back to the now Charterless Zarathustra Company.

  No job, no land, no cash. With no other ready options, Bradley returned to what he knew—crime. But he decided to be smarter about it. First, he strong-armed a prospector who was reputed to carry a stash of sunstones acquired illegally from the res. This provided working capital since his victim dared not report the theft as he would be arrested as well. Though the sunstones had a market value of thirty thousand sols, the pawnshop only paid fifteen thousand. That was enough for the enterprising thief. Bradley then studied prospecting and acquired mining equipment. Next, he acquired a used aircar and altered the serial number and VIN plate, a skill he’d developed on Terra in his youth.

  His preparations complete, Bradley flew over to Beta Continent where he was quickly spotted by the Zarathustra Native Protection Force and arrested. He was fined fifty sols and released. Bradley made several such forays and was caught each time, only to be released after another, though higher, fine. He became something of a joke to the ZNPF officers, which was part of his plan, a plan that was about to pay off.

  He had expected to be caught at least three more times before finding a hole in the protective grid around the Fuzzy Reservation. However with the discovery of the alien rocket ship on The Reservation, the Zarathustra Native Protection Force was stretched thin enough to finally allow Bradley Small access to Beta Continent undetected. He flew low to the ground to avoid any surveillance devices and set up camp under a fibroid weave canopy, one formerly used by the military to block detectable transmissions, near a vein of black flint. It had taken months of research and study of satellite cartography to decide which vein of flint was both likely to yield a good load of sunstones and be safe from ZNPF notice. Now, Small was ready to start digging up sunstones and getting rich enough to retire, provided his luck held.

  Of course, Bradley Small would have to take his treasure to an underworld dealer where he would make far less money than the Charterless Zarathustra Company would pay. Sources indicated that Raul Laporte still bought illicit gems, though at two-thirds the CZC rate. Or, Bradley could simply cache his stones until he was ready go off-world and sell them at much higher prices on Fenris, Marduk, Loki or some other planet he had never been to, but that meant travel and customs inspections and the chance of being caught smuggling. Still, no risk, no reward.

  Bradley turned his attention to the business at hand. Traditional blasting was out of the question as it could draw attention from the ZNPF. Instead, he set up a heavy-duty sonic drill. It would pulverize the flint to dust a quarter cubic meter at a time, which in turn would be sucked up by a construction-grade vacuum hose that would gather and separate the flint dust from any small gravel. An evacuation hose would blow the flint dust into a nearby stream. Bradley idly observed that sunstone flint was almost always found near a body of water.

  It was an efficient method of surface mining and did little damage to the environment, although it was much slower than blasting and scanning. It would take a couple of days to get as much work done with the sonic drill as blasting could do in a few hours, but Bradley was patient. He had provisions enough to last a month, and could do a little hunting with a sono-rifle when he needed fresh meat.

  Bradley Small had been mining for two weeks when he discovered he had visitors. It was a small band of Fuzzies, possibly attracted by the noise from the sonic drill. Bradley had anticipated this possibility and had come prepared. He slipped under the canopy and came back out with a case of Terran Federation Armed Forces Emergency Ration, Extraterrestrial Type Three. Fuzzies were supposed to love the stuff, though Bradley wouldn’t eat it on a bet, as was the case for most Terrans.

  Opening a couple of tins, Bradley tossed the cakes to the Fuzzies where it landed at their feet. One Fuzzy, possibl
y the leader, took a piece and sniffed, and then nibbled some and promptly spit it back out in disgust. Bradley had never heard of such a thing. He considered the possibility that he bought a defective batch and tried a bit. It took all of his willpower not to spit it out. It wouldn’t do to have the Fuzzies thinking he purposely offered them something bad. The extee-three tasted terrible, but it was the normal terrible that it was supposed to taste like. So, nothing was wrong with it, yet the Fuzzies didn’t like it. Maybe this was a new species of Fuzzy?

  The Fuzzy leader started yeeking something at him and he quickly put in his ultra-sonic hearing aid. Bradley knew very little about the Fuzzy language; nevertheless anything was better than nothing.

  “Ota eleh! Shiru!” The Fuzzy pointed at the human, then made a sweeping gesture and pointed away.

  Bradley had no idea what any of the words being barked at him meant, but the message was coming through loud and clear; the Fuzzies wanted him off their land. Apparently, they didn’t like trespassers in these here parts, Bradley thought with a grin. He pondered for a moment over what else he might bribe them with. The extee-three was out and he didn’t think to bring any toys. Well, if he couldn’t bribe them, he would just scare them off. Fuzzies were supposed to be pretty timid in the wild, although Bradley doubted he could just chase them off by yelling at them. Story was that the Fuzzies discovered humans, not the other way around.

  Slowly, he reached down to his sono-stunner and drew it. He considered shooting a Fuzzy, but then he would have an unconscious Fuzzy to deal with while the others ran away. Instead, Bradley aimed into the open sky and fired a short burst. The Fuzzies yeeked in alarm and covered their ears. The feedback from the stunner overloaded his hearing aid, creating a loud white noise that hurt Bradley’s ears and left him disoriented for a moment. By the time he was able to compose himself the Fuzzies were aiming some sort of spears at him. These were short even by Fuzzy standards and seated on some sort of launching rods.

  Bradley realized that the spears would be just as deadly as a rifle at this range, even thrown by a Fuzzy. Reconsidering his earlier position on unconscious Fuzzies, he aimed the sono-stunner at the little band and started to pull the trigger. It was an action he would never complete.

  The first spear caught him in the chest, followed by one to his throat and another in the right leg. Bradley Small was dead before he hit the ground. The Fuzzies inspected the corpse to make sure he was no longer a threat, policed their spears, and then went through the campsite. Most of what they found was strange and incomprehensible to them, except for a small leather bag filled with stones that glowed when held in their hands. The Fuzzies took the bag of stones and left the body where it fell.

  After a few hours, the local scavengers went to work on the late Bradley Small. Soon, nothing was left save bones scattered around the camp. Two weeks later, an NPF officer discovered the bones along with the camp, reported the find and an investigation was launched. While many theories as to the cause of death were bandied about, none included the possibility of death by Fuzzy.

  I

  “On the sixty-first count of enslavement, how do you find?”

  “We find the defendants guilty.”

  The courtroom no longer reacted to the verdict. After all, they had heard it sixty times before, as well as the sixty-one recitations of guilty for illegal imprisonment, the sixty-one recitations of reckless endangerment of a sapient being, and the litany of other charges. The Fuzzies in attendance had long since fallen asleep. The reading of the verdict was taking nearly as long as the trial itself, but Chief Colonial Prosecutor Gustavus Adolphus Brannhard wanted every single count preserved on the record. The police were already lining up at the station to pull their names out of a hat for the privilege of shooting the defendants in the head, which was the mandatory punishment for most of the listed crimes.

  With the reading of the verdict completed, the gallery breathed a sigh of relief. It was exciting at first; a guilty verdict on a capital charge was always exciting. However, the long drone of the same verdict over and over quickly lost its luster. Even Judge Janiver looked relieved.

  “Having been found guilty on all charges, this court has no choice other than to sentence all defendants to death. Time, date, and manner of execution will be determined…” Judge Janiver looked at the screen embedded in his bench-top,”…Tuesday of next week. Bailiff, escort the prisoners back to their cells. Court is adjourned.”

  The gavel came down and a few people came over to congratulate Gus on a job well done. Little Fuzzy, awakened by the sudden burst of activity, saw that everybody was crowding around the prosecuting attorney. Gus waved it all off, saying that a first-year paralegal could have gotten the same verdict. After all, with sixty-one Fuzzies, several members of the local constabulary, Chief Harry Steefer and some TFN marines, not to mention the Holloways, all testifying under veridication to what they saw at the warehouse in Mortgageville and the reservation on Beta Continent, it was like shooting fish in a barrel with a shotgun.

  Jack and Morgan Holloway and Little Fuzzy stepped up to add their congratulations. Jack was still in a hover-chair as he was recovering from major surgery, and Little Fuzzy was sitting on his lap.

  “Good job, Gus,” Jack said. “After this, people will think more than twice about hurting a Fuzzy.”

  “Hell, Jack, the Fuzzies did the heavy lifting. Have three humans witness a crime and you’ll get three different stories. Have three Fuzzies witness a crime and it’s the same story three times. Or in this case, sixty-one times. And it is known far and wide that Fuzzies don’t lie as a rule. Oh, and thanks for letting Little Fuzzy be the test subject for the veridicator.” Gus ruffled the Fuzzy’s fur and Little Fuzzy smiled. “Leslie was a little concerned that Jeff Rand might start telling not-so things at the wrong time if he acted as test subject too many times.”

  Jack had to remind himself that Jeff Rand used to be Wise One of the forest fire Fuzzies. At least Coombes hadn’t named his family after a bunch of legal terms. There was an attorney in Mallorysport who named his two Fuzzies Felony and Misdemeanor. The names people would hang on a Fuzzy!

  “You weh’come, Unka Gus.”

  “You are one clever little Fuzzy,” Gus said, again ruffling his fur. “The clincher, as if this case even needed one, was your testimony, Jack. Fuzzies make great witnesses, but human juries still need to hear human testimony to remove any reasonable doubt.”

  “It was either testify or shoot them myself, Gus. I very nearly saved you the trouble of prosecuting those bastards Morgan and I caught. If Morgan hadn’t pickpocketed my pistol, well, I’m not sure what I would have done.”

  “Too bad you have to be a cop to execute those Khooghras. I wouldn’t mind putting my name in the hat,” Morgan added. “To be fair, though, I did kill the one that tried to sneak up on Jack.”

  “Who told you that you had to be a cop?” Gus quickly explained that colonial law differed from planet to planet and that on Zarathustra any civic-minded person was welcome to participate, provided they took the orientation course and passed the psych exam. “Ben pushed that little gem through the legislature last month. Partly to get the fees from the orientation but mostly to give the people a greater sense of community. However, Ben is considering the possibility of using a good old-fashioned firing squad on this crowd.”

  Gus jerked a thumb in the direction of the defendants being escorted out in chains. The shackles were extremely heavy due to the light collapsium lamination treatment so the prisoners had to struggle to keep step with the bailiff. “He and Grego are discussing a deal to televise the execution as a warning to anybody else that might get the idea to harm a Fuzzy. The firing squad would be more dramatic than some cop shooting a man in the back of the head.”

  The trio moved out of the courtroom and passed several policemen. Colonial Marshal Max Fane wanted total security for the trial in case of a riot. Everybody wanted a piece of the defendants, it seemed. Even the cops were handpicked by
Max based on their psych profiles. The Marshal took a dim view of vigilante justice.

  “Ah, so that’s why Judge Janiver didn’t automatically impose sentence,” Jack observed. “The firing squad is too good for these mutts. We should hang them, instead. Or maybe bring back the electric chair.”

  “Electric chair?” Morgan mulled it over. On Freya executions were varied and considered barbaric by the more civilized Federation planets, yet the idea of electrocution had never occurred to the Freyan populace. “That sounds interesting. Personally, I would just have them drawn and quartered, but this electric chair sounds equally entertaining.”

  “Entertaining, he says! Well, I’ll suggest that to Ben,” Gus said with a smile. Not for the first time he thought that Freyans were a little too murderous as a people, though Terrans were pretty execution happy themselves back in the pre-atomic days. “Hell, we should set up a gallows in the Grand Platz and sell tickets.”

  “Actually, that is what we often do on Freya,” Morgan said. “All executions are public events. We used to draw and quarter the more vile criminals on a regular basis, but we’ve become a bit more civilized since joining the Federation. We still make exceptions from time to time, though.”

  “Seemed like a good deterrent,” Jack noted. “I attended a number of executions on Freya while I was there. I saw hangings, beheadings, a quartering or two and one catapulting.”

  “Catapulting?” This was a new one on Gus who had also been to Freya, though briefly.

  “That one is reserved for noblemen who offend the ruling class,” Morgan supplied. “The offender is bound to a boulder and catapulted into a mountainside. It is a rather spectacular event that shows the overclass and underclass alike that none are above the law.”

  Gus imagined what it would be like to hurdle through the air helplessly as the rock face of a mountain rushed up to meet him. He suppressed a shudder. “Great Ghu on a goat!” he whispered. “What does a nobleman have to do to rate that kind of treatment?”