"Huh -uh !" Brannhard was positive . " Court ruling on that , about forty years ago , on Vishnu . Infanticide case , woman charged with murder in the death of her infant child . Her lawyer moved for dismissal on the grounds that murder is defined as the killing of a sapient being, a sapient being is defined as one that can talk and build a fire , and a newborn infant can do neither . Motion denied ; the court ruled that while ability to speak and produce fire is positive proof of sapience , inability to do either or both does not constitute legal proof of nonsapience . If O'Brien doesn't know that , and I doubt if he does , Coombes will . " Brannhard poured another drink and gulped it before the sapient beings around him could get at it. " You know what ? I will make a small wager , and I will even give odds , that the first thing Ham O'Brien does when he gets back to Mallorysport will be to enter nolle prosequi on both charges . What I'd like would be for him to nol . pros . Kellogg and let the charge against Jack go to court . He would be dumb enough to do that him- self , but Leslie Coombes wouldn't let him .”
"But if he throws out the Kellogg case , that's it , " Gerd van Riebeek said . " When Jack comes to trial , nobody'll say a mumblin' word about sapience ."
"I will , and I will not mumble it. You all know colonial law on homicide . In the case of any person killed while in commission of a felony, no prosecution may be brought in any degree , against anybody . I'm going to contend that Leon- ard Kellogg was murdering a sapient being, that Jack Hollo- way acted lawfully in attempting to stop it and that when Kurt Borch attempted to come to Kellogg's assistance he , himself , was guilty of felony, and consequently any prosecu- tion against Jack Holloway is illegal . And to make that con- tention stick , I shall have to say a great many words , and produce a great deal of testimony , about the sapience of Fuzzies ."
"It'll have to be expert testimony , " Rainsford said . "The testimony of psychologists . I suppose you know that the only psychologists on this planet are employed by the chartered Zarathustra Company . " He drank what was left of his high- ball, looked at the bits of ice in the bottom of his glass and then rose to mix another one . "I'd have done the same as you did , Jack , but I still wish this hadn't happened . "
"Huh!" Mamma Fuzzy looked up , startled by the exclama-
exclamation
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