“But they couldn’t just leave us without any kind of a charter,” Kellogg insisted.  Who was he trying to kid—­besides himself?  “It wouldn’t be fair!” As though that clinched it.  “It isn’t our fault!”

He forced more patience into his voice.  “Leonard, please try to realize that the Terran Federation government doesn’t give one shrill soprano hoot on Nifflheim whether it’s fair or not, or whose fault what is.  The Federation government’s been repenting that charter they gave the Company ever since they found out what they’d chartered away.  Why, this planet is a better world than Terra ever was, even before the Atomic Wars.  Now, if they have a chance to get it back, with improvements, you think they won’t take it?  And what will stop them?  If those creatures over on Beta Continent are sapient beings, our charter isn’t worth the parchment it’s engrossed on, and that’s an end of it.”  He was silent for a moment.  “You heard that tape Rainsford transmitted to Jimenez.  Did either he or Holloway actually claim, in so many words, that these things really are sapient beings?”

“Well, no; not in so many words.  Holloway consistently alluded to them as people, but he’s just an ignorant old prospector.  Rainsford wouldn’t come out and commit himself one way or another, but he left the door wide open for anybody else to.”

“Accepting their account, could these Fuzzies be sapient?”

“Accepting the account, yes,” Kellogg said, in distress.  “They could be.”

They probably were, if Leonard Kellogg couldn’t wish the evidence out of existence.

“Then they’ll look sapient to these people of yours who went over to Beta this morning, and they’ll treat it purely as a scientific question and never consider the legal aspects.  Leonard, you’ll have to take charge of the investigation, before they make any reports everybody’ll be sorry for.”

Kellogg didn’t seem to like that.  It would mean having to exercise authority and getting tough with people, and he hated anything like that.  He nodded very reluctantly.

“Yes.  I suppose I will.  Let me think about it for a moment, Victor.”

One thing about Leonard; you handed him something he couldn’t delegate or dodge and he’d go to work on it.  Maybe not cheerfully, but conscientiously.

“I’ll take Ernst Mallin along,” he said at length.  “This man Rainsford has no grounding whatever in any of the psychosciences.  He may be able to impose on Ruth Ortheris, but not on Ernst Mallin.  Not after I’ve talked to Mallin first.”  He thought some more.  “We’ll have to get these Fuzzies away from this man Holloway.  Then we’ll issue a report of discovery, being careful to give full credit to both Rainsford and Holloway—­we’ll even accept the designation they’ve coined for them—­but we’ll make it very clear that while highly intelligent, the Fuzzies are not a race of sapient beings.  If Rainsford persists in making any such claim, we will brand it as a deliberate hoax.”