t anywhere by arguing religion
with a priest."

They were both silent for a while after he had finished. Grego was looking
at the globe, and he realized, now, that while he was proud of it, his
pride was the pride in a paste jewel that stands for a real one in a bank
vault. Now he was afraid that the real jewel was going to be stolen from
him. Nick Emmert was just afraid.

"You were right yesterday, Victor. I wish Holloway'd killed that son of a
Khooghra. Maybe it's not too late--"

"Yes, it is, Nick. It's too late to do anything like that. It's too late
to do anything but win the case in court." He turned to Grego. "What are
your people doing?"

Grego took his eyes from the globe. "Ernest Mallin's studying all the
filmed evidence we have and all the descriptions of Fuzzy behavior, and
trying to prove that none of it is the result of sapient mentation. Ruth
Ortheris is doing the same, only she's working on the line of instinct and
conditioned reflexes and nonsapient, single-stage reasoning. She has a lot
of rats, and some dogs and monkeys, and a lot of apparatus, and some
technician from Henry Stenson's instrument shop helping her. Juan Jimenez
is studying mentation of Terran dogs, cats and primates, and Freyan
kholphs and Mimir black slinkers."

"He hasn't turned up any simian or canine parallels to that funeral, has
he?"

Grego said nothing, merely shook his head. Emmert muttered something
inaudible and probably indecent.

"I didn't think he had. I only hope those Fuzzies don't get up in court,
build a bonfire and start making speeches in Lingua Terra."

Nick Emmert cried out in panic. "You believe they're sapient yourself!"

"Of course. Don't you?"

Grego laughed sourly. "Nick thinks you have to believe a thing to prove
it. It helps but it isn't necessary. Say we're a debating team; we've been
handed the negative of the question. _Resolved: that Fuzzies are Sapient
Beings._ Personally, I think we have the short end of it, but that only
means we'll have to work harder on it."

"You know, I was on a debating team at college," Emmert said brightly.
When that was disregarded, he added: "If I remember, the first thing was
definition of terms."

Grego looked up quickly. "Leslie, I think Nick has something. What is the
legal definition of a sapient being?"

"As far as I know, there isn't any. Sapience is something that's just
taken for granted."

"How about talk-and-build-a-fire?"

He shook his head. "_P