n.

"Yes, Mr. Holloway." Kellogg's smile was getting more mechanical every
minute. He was having trouble keeping his eyes off Baby. "I must say, I
was simply astounded at the high order of intelligence claimed for these
creatures."

"And you wanted to see how big a liar I was. I don't blame you; I had
trouble believing it myself at first."

Kellogg gave a musically blithe laugh, showing even more dental equipment.

"Oh, no. Mr. Holloway; please don't misunderstand me. I never thought
anything like that."

"I hope not," Ben Rainsford said, not too pleasantly. "I vouched for Mr.
Holloway's statements, if you'll recall."

"Of course, Bennett; that goes without saying. Permit me to congratulate
you upon a most remarkable scientific discovery. An entirely new order of
mammals--"

"Which may be the ninth extrasolar sapient race," Rainsford added.

"Good heavens, Bennett!" Kellogg jettisoned his smile and slid on a look
of shocked surprise. "You surely can't be serious?" He looked again at the
Fuzzies, pulled the smile back on and gave a light laugh.

"I thought you'd heard that tape," Rainsford said.

"Of course, and the things reported were most remarkable. But sapiences!
Just because they've been taught a few tricks, and use sticks and stones
for weapons--" He got rid of the smile again, and quick-changed to
seriousness. "Such an extreme claim must only be made after careful
study."

"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