ce complaints and
that sort of thing; idea's to keep me amused with them while Leslie
Coombes is working up his case for the trial. Even tried to get the
manager here to evict Baby; I threatened him with a racial-discrimination
suit, and that stopped that. And I just filed suit against the Company for
seven million sols on behalf of the Fuzzies--million apiece for them and a
million for their lawyer."

"This evening," Jack said, "I'm going out in a car with a couple of Max's
deputies. We're going to take Baby, and we'll have a loud-speaker on the
car." He unfolded the city map. "They seem to be traveling this way; they
ought to be about here, and with Baby at the speaker, we ought to attract
their attention."

They didn't see anything, though they kept at it till dusk. Baby had a
wonderful time with the loud-speaker; when he yeeked into it, he produced
an ear-splitting noise, until the three humans in the car flinched every
time he opened his mouth. It affected dogs too; as the car moved back and
forth, it was followed by a chorus of howling and baying on the ground.

The next day, there were some scattered reports, mostly of small thefts. A
blanket spread on the grass behind a house had vanished. A couple of
cushions had been taken from a porch couch. A frenzied mother reported
having found her six-year-old son playing with some Fuzzies; when she had
rushed to rescue him, the Fuzzies had scampered away and the child had
begun weeping. Jack and Gerd rushed to the scene. The child's story,
jumbled and imagination-colored, was definite on one point--the Fuzzies
had been nice to him and hadn't hurt him. They got a recording of that on
the air at once.

When they got back to the hotel, Gus Brannhard was there, bubbling with
glee.

"The Chief Justice gave me another job of special prosecuting," he said.
"I'm to conduct an investigation into the possibility that this thing, the
other night, was a frame-up, and I'm to prepare complaints against anybody
who's done anything prosecutable. I have authority to hold hearings, and
subpoena witnesses, and interrogate them under veridication. Max Fane has
specific orders to cooperate. We're going to start, tomorrow, with Chief
of Police Dumont and work down. And maybe we can work up, too, as far as
Nick Emmert and Victor Grego." He gave a rumbling laugh. "Maybe that'll
give Leslie Coombes something to worry about."

* * * * *

Gerd brought the car