hatically to its employment from
the bench. I have indeed heard these Fuzzies make sounds which might be
mistaken for words, but I must deny that this is true speech. As to this
trick of using a lighter, I will undertake, in not more than thirty days,
to teach it to any Terran primate or Freyan kholph."

Greibenfeld rose immediately. "Your Honors, in the past thirty days, while
these Fuzzies were at Xerxes Naval Base, we have compiled a vocabulary of
a hundred-odd Fuzzy words, for all of which definite meanings have been
established, and a great many more for which we have not as yet learned
the meanings. We even have the beginning of a Fuzzy grammar. As for this
so-called trick of using a lighter, Little Fuzzy--we didn't know his name
then and referred to him as M2--learned that for himself, by observation.
We didn't teach him to smoke a pipe either; he knew that before we had
anything to do with him."

Jack rose while Greibenfeld was still speaking. As soon as the Space Navy
captain had finished, he said:

"Captain Greibenfeld, I want to thank you and your people for taking care
of the Fuzzies, and I'm very glad you learned how to hear what they're
saying, and thank you for all the nice things you gave them, but why
couldn't you have let me know they were safe? I haven't been very happy
the last month, you know."

"I know that, Mr. Holloway, and if it's any comfort to you, we were all
very sorry for you, but we could not take the risk of compromising our
secret intelligence agent in the Company's Science Center, the one who
smuggled the Fuzzies out the morning after their escape." He looked
quickly across in front of the bench to the table at the other end of the
arc. Kellogg was sitting with his face in his hands, oblivious to
everything that was going on, but Leslie Coombes's well-disciplined face
had broken, briefly, into a look of consternation. "By the time you and
Mr. Brannhard and Marshal Fane arrived with an order of the court for the
Fuzzies' recovery, they had already been taken from Science Center and
were on a Navy landing craft for Xerxes. We couldn't do anything without
exposing our agent. That, I am glad to say, is no longer a consideration."

"Well, Captain Greibenfeld," the Chief Justice said, "I assume you mean to
introduce further testimony about the observations and studies made by
your people on Xerxes. For the record, we'd like to have it established
that they were actually taken there, and w