Archiwum
- Index
- DePalo_Anna_ _Szesciu_wspanialych_04_ _Niechciana_milosc
- Child Maureen, Hyatt Sandra śÂšwić…teczne przyjć™cie
- zycie to jest teatr
- Henryk Ryszard Żuchowski Słownik savoir vivre dla pani
- Dianne Robins The Hollow Earth And Underground Cities
- Alex_Joe_ _Pieklo_jest_we_mnie
- Krytyczne parametry wzmacniacza mocy
- JarosśÂ‚aw Borszewicz Mroki
- Binchy Maeve Szklane jezioro
- Bonnie Dee The Au Pair Affair
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- stemplofil.keep.pl
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often enough to know you can't get away with lying on it. Woller's making you
the patsy for this, and you know that, too. Isn't it true, now, that to the
best of your knowledge and belief those Fuzzies never touched that girl, and
it wasn't till Woller talked to Lurkin and his daughter at headquarters that
anybody even men-tioned
Fuzzies?"
The screen darkened to midnight blue, and then, slowly, it light-ened.
"Yeah, that's true," Dumont admitted. He avoided their eyes, and his voice was
surly. "I thought that was how it was, and I asked Woller. He just laughed at
me and told me to forget it." The screen seethed momentarily with anger. "That
son of a Khooghra thinks he's chief, not me. One word from me and he does just
what he damn pleases!"
"Now you're being smart, Piet," Fane said. "Let's start all over. . . .
A constabulary corporal was at the controls of the car Jack had rented from
the hotel: Gerd had taken his place in one of the two constabulary cars. The
third car shuttled between them, and all three talked back and forth by radio.
"Mr. Holloway." It was the trooper in the car Gerd had been piloting. "Your
partner's down on the ground; he just called me with his portable. He's found
a cracked prawn-shell."
'Weep talking; give me direction," the corporal at the controls said, lifting
up.
In a moment, they sighted the other car, hovering over a narrow ravine on the
left bank of the stream.
The third car was coming in from the north. Gerd was still squatting on the
ground when they let down beside him. He looked up as they jumped out.
"This is it, Jack," he said. "Regular Fuzzy job."
So it was. Whatever they had used, it hadn't been anything sharp; the head was
smashed instead of being cleanly severed. The shell, however, had been broken
from underneath in the standard manner, and all four mandibles had been broken
off for picks. They must have all eaten at the prawn, share alike. It had been
done quite recently.
They sent the car up, and while all three of them circled about, they went up
the ravine on foot, calling:
"Little Fuzzy! Little Fuzzy!" They found a footprint, and then another, where
seepage water had moistened the ground. Gerd was talking excitedly into the
portable radio he carried slung on his chest.
"One of you, go ahead a quarter of a mile, and then circle back. They're in
here somewhere."
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"I see them? I see them?" a voice whooped out of the radio. "They're going up
the slope on your right, among the rocks!"
"Keep them in sight; somebody come and pick us up, and we'll get above them
and head them off."
The rental car dropped quickly, the corporal getting the door open. He didn't
bother going off contragravity; as soon as they were in and had pulled the
door shut behind them, he was lifting again. For a mo-ment, the hill swung
giddily as the car turned, and then Jack saw them, climbing the steep slope
among the rocks. Only four of them, and one was helping another. He wondered
which ones they were, what had happened to the other two and if the one that
needed help had been badly hurt.
The car landed on the top, among the rocks, settling at an awk-ward angle. He,
Gerd and the pilot piled out and started climbing and sliding down the
declivity. Then he found himself within reach of a Fuzzy and grabbed. Two more
dashed past him, up the steep hill. The one he snatched at had something in
his hand, and aimed a vi-cious blow at his face with it; he had barely time to
block it with his forearm. Then he was clutching the Fuzzy and disarming him;
the weapon was a quarter-pound ballpeen hammer. He put it in his hip pocket
and then picked up the struggling Fuzzy with both hands.
"You hit Pappy Jack!" he said reproachfully. "Dodt you know Pappy any more?
Poor scared little thing!"
The Fuzzy in his arms yeeked angrily. Then he looked, and it was no Fuzzy he
had ever seen before-not
Little Fuzzy, nor funny, pom-pous Ko-Ko, nor mischievous Mike. It was a
stranger Fuzzy.
"Well, no wonder; of course you didn't know Pappy Jack. You aren't one of
Pappy Jack's Fuzzies at
all!"
At the top, the constabulary corporal was sitting on a rock, clutch-ing two
Fuzzies, one under each arm.
They stopped struggling and yeeked piteously when they saw their companion
also a captive.
"Your partner's down below, chasing the other one," the corporal said. "You
better take these too; you know them and I don't."
"Hang onto them; they don't know me any better than they do
I9
you.
With one hand, he got a bit of Extee Three out of his coat and offered it; the
Fuzzy gave a cry of surprised pleasure, snatched it and gobbled it. He must
have eaten it before. When he gave some to the corporal, the other two, a male
and a female, also seemed familiar with it. From below, Gerd was calling:
"I got one. It's a girl Fuzzy; I don't know if it's Mitz! or Cin-derella. And,
my God, wait till you see what she was carrying."
Gerd came into sight, the fourth Fuzzy struggling under one arm and a little
kitten, black with a white face, peeping over the crook of his other elbow. He
was too stunned with disappointment to look at it with more than vague
curiosity.
"They aren't our Fuzzies, Gerd. I never saw any of them before."
"Jack, are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure!" He was indignant. "Don't you think I know my own
Fuzzies? Don't you think they'd know me?"
"Where'd the pussy come from?" the corporal wanted to know.
"God knows. They must have picked it up somewhere. She was carrying it in her
arms, like a baby."
"They're somebody's Fuzzies. They've been fed Extee Three. We'll take them to
the hotel. Whoever it is, I'll bet he misses them as much as I do mine."
His own Fuzzies, whom he would never see again. The full realiza-tion didn't
hit him until he and Gerd were in the car again. There had been no trace of
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his Fuzzies from the time they had broken out of their cages at Science
Center. This quartet had appeared the night the city police had manufactured
the story of the attack on the Lurkin girl, and from the moment they had been
seen by the youth who couldn't bring himself to fire on them, they had left a
trail that he had been able to pick up at once and follow. Why hadn't his own
Fuzzies attracted as much notice in the three weeks since they had vanished?
Because his own Fuzzies didn't exist any more. They had never gotten out of
Science Center alive.
Somebody Max Fane hadn't been able to question under veridication had murdered
them. There was no use, any more, trying to convince himself differently.
"We'll stop at their camp and pick up the blanket and the cushions and the
rest of the things. I'll send the people who lost them checks," he said. "The
Fuzzies ought to have those things."
I3
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