Entry: June 27, 654 A.E.

Morning

The Scientific Community

I called Ben Rainsford right away. Ben's a naturalist from the Institute of Zeno-Sciences, and we've been friends for years. If anyone could help me understand what I'd found, it would be Ben. When he saw the Fuzzies, he was as amazed as I'd been. He immediately grasped the implications.

"Jack," he said, "if these Fuzzies are sapient beings, Zarathustra is a Class-IV inhabited planet. The Company charter becomes void."

That's when it hit me. The Zarathustra Company owns this planet under a Class-III charter—uninhabited planet. They have mineral rights, land rights, import-export monopoly, the whole works. If the Fuzzies are people, the Company loses everything. They're not going to like that one bit.

Ben brought in some other scientists: Juan Jimenez, a mammalogist; Gerd van Riebeek, a xeno-naturalist; and Ruth Ortheris, a psychologist. Watching them interact with the Fuzzies was gratifying. These were trained observers, and they could see what I saw: intelligence, reasoning ability, communication, problem-solving. Ruth was especially impressed with their learning speed and puzzle-solving abilities.

Then Leonard Kellogg showed up.