“But, Jack, they aren’t legally sapient beings.”
“There is no such thing. A sapient being is a being on the mental level of sapience, not a being that has been declared sapient.”
“Fuzzies are sapient beings,” Rainsford said. “That’s the opinion of a qualified xeno-naturalist.”
“Two of them,” Gerd van Riebeek said. “That is the body of a sapient being. There’s the man who killed her. Go ahead, Lieutenant, make your pinch.”
“Hey! Wait a minute!”
The Fuzzies were rising, sliding their chopper-diggers under the body of Goldilocks and lifting it on the steel shafts. Ben Rainsford was aiming his camera as Cinderella picked up her sister’s weapon and followed, carrying it; the others carried the body toward the far corner of the clearing, away from the camp. Rainsford kept just behind them, pausing to photograph and then hurrying to keep up with them.
They set the body down. Mike and Mitzi and Cinderella began digging; the others scattered to hunt for stones. Coming up behind them, George Lunt took off his beret and stood holding it in both hands; he bowed his head as the grass-wrapped body was placed in the little grave and covered.
Then, when the cairn was finished, he replaced it, drew his pistol and checked the chamber.
“That does it, Jack,” he said. “I am now going to arrest Leonard Kellogg for the murder of a sapient being.”