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local business, just offplanet trade in veldbeest meat. A lot of independent
concerns started, manufacturing, food production, that sort of thing that we
didn t want to bother with. We sold land north of the city, in mile and
two-mile square blocks, about two thousand square miles of it. Then the
immigrants stopped coming, and a lot of them moved away. There simply wasn t
employment for them. Most of the companies that had been organized went broke.
Some of the factories that were finished operated for a while; most of them
were left unfinished. The banks took over some of the land; most of it got
into the hands of the shylocks; and since the Fuzzy Trial Ingermann has been
acquiring title to a lot of it. Since the Fuzzy Trial, nobody else has been
spending money for real-estate; everybody expects to get all the free land
they want.
 Well, he ll probably make some money out of that, but the people who come in
here with the capital will be the ones to control it, won t they?
 Of course they will, but that s honest business; Ingermann isn t interested.
He s expecting an increase of about two to three hundred percent in the
planetary population in the next five years. With eighty percent of the
land-surface in public domain, that s probably an underestimate. Most of them
will be voters; Ingermann s going to try to control that vote.
And if he did... His own position was secure; Colonial Governors were
appointed, and it took something like the military intervention which had put
him into office to unseat one. But a Colonial Governor had to govern through
and with the consent of a Legislature. He wasn t looking forward happily to a
Legislature controlled by Hugo Ingermann. Neither, he knew, was Grego.
He d have to be careful, though. Grego wanted to put the company back in its
old pre-Fuzzy position of planetary dominance. He was still violently opposed
to that.
It was almost dark, now. The Fuzzies had put the final touches to the lacy
trellis they had built, and came crowding over, wanting Pappy Ben and Pappy
Vic to come look. They went and examined it, and spoke commendation. Grego
picked up Diamond; Flora and Fauna were wanting him to go and sit down and
furnish them a lap to sit on.
 I ve been worrying about just that, he said, when he was back in his chair,
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with the Fuzzies climbing up onto him.  A lot of the older planets are
beginning to overpopulate, and there s never room enough for everybody on
Terra. There ll be a rush here in about a year. If I can only get things
stabilized before then... 
Grego was silent for a moment.  If you re worried about all those
public-health and welfare and service functions, forget about them for a
while, he said.  I know, I said the company would discontinue them in ninety
days, but that was right after the Pendarvis Decisions, and nobody knew what
the situation was going to be. We can keep them going for a year, at least.
 The Government won t have any more money a year from now, he said.  And
you ll expect compensation.
 Of course we will, but we won t demand gold or Federation notes. Tax-script,
bonds, land script... 
Land-script, of course; the law required a Colonial Government to make land
available to Federation citizens, but it did not require such land to be given
free. That might be one way to finance the Government.
It could also be a way for the Zarathustra Company, having gotten the
Government deeply into debt, to regain what had been lost in the aftermath of
the Fuzzy Trial.
 Suppose you have Gus Brannhard talk it over with Leslie Coombes, Grego was
suggesting.  You can trust Gus not to stick the Government s foot into any
bear trap, can t you?
 Why, of course, Mr. Grego. I want to thank you, very much, for this. That
public services takeover was worrying me more than anything else.
Yet he couldn t feel relieved, and he couldn t feel grateful at all. He felt
discomfited, and angry at himself more than at Grego.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
GERD VAN RIEBEEK crouched at the edge of the low cliff, slowly twisting the
selector-knob of a small screen in front of him. The view changed; this time
he was looking through the eye of a pickup fifty feet below and five hundred
yards to the left. Nothing in it moved except a wind-stirred branch that
jiggled a spray of ragged leaves in the foreground. The only thing from the
sound-outlet was a soft drone of insects, and the tweet-twonk, tweet-twonk of
a presumably love-hungry banjo-bird. Then something just out of sight scuffled
softly among the dead leaves. He turned up the sound-volume slightly.
 What do you think it is?
Jack Holloway, beside him, rose to one knee, raising his binoculars.
 I can t see anything. Try the next one.
Gerd twisted the knob again. This pickup was closer the ground; it showed a
vista of woods lit by shafts of sunlight falling between trees. Now he could
hear rustling and scampering, and with ultrasonic earphone, Fuzzy voices:
 This way. Not far. Find hatta-zosa.
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Jack was looking down at the open slope below the cliff.
 If that s what they call goofers, I see six of them from here, he said.
 Probably a dozen more I can t see. He watched, listening.  Here they come,
now.
The Fuzzies had stopped talking and were making very little noise; then they
came into view; eight of them, in single file. The weapons they carried were
longer and heavier than the prawn killers of the southern Fuzzies, knobbed
instead of paddle-shaped, and sharp-pointed on the other end. All of them had
picked up stones which they carried in their free hands. They all stopped,
then three of them backed away into the brush again. The other five spread out
in a skirmish line and waited. He shut off the screen and crawled over beside
Jack to peep over the edge of the cliff.
There were seven goofers, now; rodent-looking things with dark gray fur, a
foot and a half long and six inches high at the shoulder, all industriously
tearing off bark and digging at the roots of young trees. No wonder the woods
were so thin, around here; if there were any number of them it was a wonder
there were any trees at all. He picked up a camera and aimed it, getting some
shots of them.
 Something else figuring on getting some lunch here, Jack said, sweeping the
sky with his glasses.  Harpy, a couple of miles off. Ah, another one. We ll
stick around a while; we may have to help our friends out.
The five Fuzzies at the edge of the brush stood waiting. The goofers hadn t
heard them, and were still tearing and chewing at the bark and digging at the
roots. Then, having circled around, the other three burst out suddenly, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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