was filled. "As you say,
Victor, you made the decision, but you made it on my advice, and the
advice was bad."

He couldn't disagree, even politely, with that. He hoped it hadn't been
ruinously bad. One thing, Leslie wasn't trying to pass the buck, and
considering how Ham O'Brien had mishandled his end of it, he could have
done so quite plausibly.

"I used bad judgment," Coombes said dispassionately, as though discussing
some mistake Hitler had made, or Napoleon. "I thought O'Brien wouldn't try
to use one of those presigned writs, and I didn't think Pendarvis would
admit, publicly, that he signed court orders in blank. He's been severely
criticized by the press about that."

He hadn't thought Brannhard and Holloway would try to fight a court order
either. That was one of the consequences of being too long in a seemingly
irresistible position; you didn't expect resistance. Kellogg hadn't
expected Jack Holloway to order him off his land grant. Kurt Borch had
thought all he needed to do with a gun was pull it and wave it around. And
Jimenez had expected the Fuzzies to just sit in their cages.

"I wonder where they got to," Coombes was saying. "I understand they
couldn't be found at all in the building."

"Ruth Ortheris has an idea. She got away from Science Center before Fane
could get hold of her and veridicate her. It seems she and an assistant
took some apparatus out, about ten o'clock, in a truck. She thinks the
Fuzzies hitched a ride with her. I know that sounds rather improbable, but
hell, everything else sounds impossible. I'll have it followed up. Maybe
we can find them before Holloway does. They're not inside Science Center,
that's sure." His own glass was empty; he debated a refill and voted
against it. "O'Brien's definitely out, I take it?"

"Completely. Pendarvis gave him his choice of resigning or facing
malfeasance charges."

"They couldn't really convict him of malfeasance for that, could they?
Misfeasance, maybe, but--"

"They could charge him. And then they could interrogate him under
veridication about his whole conduct in office, and you know what they
would bring out," Coombes said. "He almost broke an arm signing his
resignation. He's still Attorney General of the Colony, of course; Nick
issued a statement supporting him. That hasn't done Nick as much harm as
O'Brien could do spilling what he knows about Residency affairs.

"Now Brannhard is talking about bringing suit against the Company, an