"Do they make tools? Or tools to make tools with, like that saw?" There
was no argument on that. "No. Nobody does that except people like us and
the Fuzzies."

It was the first time he had come right out and said that; the first time
he had even consciously thought it. He realized that he had been convinced
of it all along, though. It startled the constabulary lieutenant and
trooper.

"You mean you think--?" Lunt began.

"They don't talk, and they don't build fires," Ahmed Khadra said, as
though that settled it.

"Ahmed, you know better than that. That talk-and-build-a-fire rule isn't
any scientific test at all."

"It's a legal test." Lunt supported his subordinate.

"It's a rule-of-thumb that was set up so that settlers on new planets
couldn't get away with murdering and enslaving the natives by claiming
they thought they were only hunting and domesticating wild animals," he
said. "Anything that talks and builds a fire is a sapient being, yes.
That's the law. But that doesn't mean that anything that doesn't isn't. I
haven't seen any of this gang building fires, and as I don't want to come
home sometime and find myself burned out, I'm not going to teach them. But
I'm sure they have means of communication among themselves."

"Has Ben Rainsford seen them yet?" Lunt asked.