He wasn't aware of rising and leaving the table; the next thing he
realized, he was sitting on the floor, his family mobbing him and hugging
him, gabbling with joy. Dimly he heard the gavel hammering, and the voice
of Chief Justice Pendarvis: "Court is recessed for ten minutes!" By that
time, Gus was with him; gathering the family up, they carried them over to
their table.
They stumbled and staggered when they moved, and that frightened him for a
moment. Then he realized that they weren't sick or drugged. They'd just
been in low-G for a while and hadn't become reaccustomed to normal weight.
Now he knew why he hadn't been able to find any trace of them. He noticed
that each of them was wearing a little shoulder bag--a Marine Corps
first-aid pouch--slung from a webbing strap. Why the devil hadn't he
thought of making them something like that? He touched one and commented,
trying to pitch his voice as nearly like theirs as he could. They all
babbled in reply and began opening the little bags and showing him what
they had in them--little knives and miniature tools and bits of bright or
colored junk they had picked up. Little Fuzzy produced a tiny pipe with a
hardwood bowl, and a little pouch of tobacco from which he filled it.
Finally, he got out a small lighter.
"Your Honors!" Gus shouted, "I know court is recessed, but please observe
what Little Fuzzy is doing."
While they watched, Little Fuzzy snapped the lighter and held the flame to
the pipe bowl, puffing.
Across on the other side, Leslie Coombes swallowed once or twice and
closed his eyes.
When Pendarvis rapped for attention and declared court reconvened, he
said:
"Ladies and gentlemen, you have all seen and heard this demonstration of
Captain Greibenfeld's. You have heard these Fuzzies uttering what
certainly sounds like meaningful speech, and you have seen one of them
light a pipe and smoke. Incidentally, while smoking in court is
discountenanced, we are going to make an exception, during this trial, in
favor of Fuzzies. Other people will please not feel themselves
discriminated against."
That brought Coombes to his feet with a rush. He started around the table
and then remembered that under the new rules he didn't have to.
"Your Honors, I objected strongly to the use of that term by a witness
this morning; I must object even more emphatically 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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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