The fuzzy turned and looked back at the judge. “Hello, Judge Soltan,” said the fuzzy, slowly.
Judge Soltan sat.
“So he’s taught the thing to recite a phrase,” Meyer said, scrambling to regain ground. “That proves it’s as smart as a parrot.”
“Mr. Holloway,” Soltan began.
“Talk to it, Your Honor,” Holloway said. “If you think I’m trying to trick you, talk to this fuzzy here. Ask it a question. Any question. But if I may suggest, keep your words simple. Its vocabulary is not extensive.”
“This is ridiculous, Your Honor,” Meyer said.
“Your Honor, I may showboat, but I’m not stupid,” Holloway said. “Do you honestly think I’d bring this creature in front of you if all I could get it to do is recite spoon-fed words and phrases? How long would that trick work? One round of questions, maybe two, before everything went off the script. There’s no possible way I could account for every comment or question you would have to ask it. And then what? What good would it do me and my case against Mr. DeLise to attempt to con you?”
Holloway pointed a finger at DeLise. “All I would get out of it is time in a security holding cell with his buddies watching over me,” he said. “So, no. It’s not a trick. Ask it whatever you like, for as long as you like, until you’re convinced.”
“That doesn’t prove a thing,” Meyer said. “A transmitter could feed the thing lines.”
“Examine it however you want,” Holloway said, to Meyer. “Run any sort of scanner you have over its body. You’ll be wasting your time, but if that’s what it takes, be my guest.”
“Your Honor, this mockery needs to stop now,” Meyer said, to Soltan.
“Quiet, Ms. Meyer,” Soltan snapped. Meyer quieted, and shot a poisonous look at Holloway. Holloway kept his face blank. Soltan sat silently at her desk, chewing over recent events.
“Your Honor,” Holloway prompted, after a minute. “You need to tell us what we’re doing now. And I need to know if I’m still under contempt.”
Soltan looked over at Holloway. “Mr. Holloway, if I find a single bit of evidence that this witness is anything but what you say it is, contempt charges are going to be the least of your problems.”
“Fair enough,” Holloway said. “But at least try to talk to the fuzzy first.” He and Meyer returned to their tables.
Soltan glanced down at the fuzzy, who still stood there, staring impassively at her. Soltan opened her mouth to speak, closed it, and got a look on her face that said, I can’t believe I’m doing this. She looked up again at Holloway.
“Does it have a name, Mr. Holloway?” Soltan asked.
“Why don’t you ask the fuzzy,” Holloway said.
Soltan looked back to the fuzzy. “Do you have a name?” she asked slowly.
“Yes,” the fuzzy said.
There was a pause after this before Soltan figured out that she might have to be more literal. “Please tell me your name,” she said.
“My name is,” and here there was a pause. “Jack Holloway calls me ‘Papa’ but that is not my name. My name is.”
Soltan looked up, confused. “I didn’t catch the name,” she said.
“You couldn’t,” Holloway said. “Fuzzy speech is spoken above the range of our hearing, remember. When it’s speaking to you in English, it’s talking at the absolute bottom of its vocal range.”
Soltan nodded. “May I call you Papa?” she asked the fuzzy.
“Jack Holloway calls me ‘Papa.’ You can call me ‘Papa,’” Papa said.
“How do you feel, Papa?” Soltan asked.
“I feel with my hands,” Papa said.
“You might want to try more direct questions,” Holloway said.
“All right,” Soltan said. “Papa, how do you speak our language?”
“With my mouth,” Papa said, and gave Soltan a look, as if wondering how she didn’t know either this, or how to feel.
“No,” Soltan said. “Who taught you to speak our language? Did Jack Holloway teach you to speak?”
“I knew your language before I met Jack Holloway,” the fuzzy said. “No man taught me to speak your language. Andy Alpaca taught us to speak your language. Andy Alpaca taught us from inside the flat talking rock.”
“That makes no sense,” Meyer said. “That makes no sense at all.”
“What is a flat talking rock?” Soltan said.
Papa turned and pointed to Holloway’s infopanel. “This is a flat talking rock,” it said. “You use other words for it.”
“That’s an infopanel,” Soltan said.
“Yes,” Papa said. “The man and the monkey fell out of the sky and the man was killed by the” pause, as Papa used a fuzzy word. “We went into the skimmer to see what we could see and found the flat talking rock. It taught us your language.”
Soltan looked at Holloway. “Translate,” she said.
“There was a surveyor named Sam Hamilton,” Holloway said. “He had a pet monkey. His skimmer went down. He was killed by zararaptors. The fuzzys checked out the skimmer wreckage and found his infopanel. Sam was nearly illiterate, so he was using kids’ reading software to learn how to read. The software was adaptive, so it took into consideration the user’s comprehension level and scaled from there.”
“You’re seriously suggesting these things learned to read and speak a human language from an advanced piece of technology,” Meyer said.
“Yes, just like human toddlers,” Holloway said. “Amazing, that.”
“Unlike these things, toddlers are surrounded by other humans talking to them all the time,” Meyer said.
“And unlike toddlers, the fuzzys who found this were adults, and smart enough to figure out what the infopanel was displaying to them,” Holloway said. “You’re still working under the impression these things are animals. They’re not. They’re as smart as you or I.”
“Why didn’t you mention any of this before?” Soltan asked. “You were in here last week arguing these fuzzys had language. If you had one come in and speak English, it would have made your case a lot better.”
Holloway nodded toward the fuzzy. “That’s a question for Papa,” he said.
Soltan looked at the fuzzy. “You knew our language before you met Jack Holloway,” she said.
“Yes,” said Papa.
“You did not speak to Jack Holloway in our language when you met him,” Soltan said.
“No,” said Papa.
“Why?” asked Soltan.
“I did not want Jack Holloway to know,” Papa said. “We did not know if Jack Holloway was a good man or a bad man. You have many bad men. Bad men take our homes and food from us and make us move away from other” pause. “We did not know if there are any good men. All the men we saw were bad. When we moved, we found where Jack Holloway lived. I wanted to see and went to see it. Jack Holloway and Carl came and I was scared. But Jack Holloway was good and gave me food. I went back to my people and said I had found a good man.”
There was a snort from Janice Meyer at this.
“I wanted to go back but my people were scared,” Papa said. “I told them about Carl and how Carl was like the monkey who follows us. An animal who was not smart but who men liked. I said I would go and be quiet, to learn more about Jack Holloway and men. I would not speak your language. I would not let Jack Holloway know I could speak your language. I would see how Jack Holloway was with me quiet before I would see how Jack Holloway was with me smart. If Jack Holloway was a good man, then we could show who we are and that we are smart. If Jack Holloway was a bad man, we would hide and move, as we did before.”