by John Scalzi
It was safe to say that some of these arrangements were more arranged than others, to put it politely, and some folks sang with the same vocal control as a cat in a shower. But now, a couple of months after the hootenannies had begun, people were beginning to get the hang of it. And people had begun coming to the hoots with new songs, arranged a cappella. One of the most popular songs at the recent hoots was "Let Me Drive the Tractor"—the tale of a colonist being taught to drive a manual tractor by a Mennonite, who, because they were the only ones who knew how to operate noncomputerized farm machinery, had been put in charge of planting crops and teaching the rest of us how to use their equipment. The song ends with the tractor going into a ditch. It was based on a true story. The Mennonites thought the song was pretty funny, even though it came at the cost of a wrecked tractor.
Songs about tractors were a long way from what any of us had been listening to before, but then, we were a long way from where any of us were before, in any sense, so maybe that fit. And to get all sociological about it, maybe what it meant was that twenty or fifty standard years down the line, whenever the Colonial Union decided to let us get in contact with the rest of the human race, Roanoke would have its own distinct musical form. Maybe they'll call it Roanokapella. Or Hootenoke. Or something.
But at this particular moment, all I was trying to do was to get the right note for Gretchen to sing so she and I could go to the next hoot with a halfway decent version of "Delhi Morning" for the Hootenanners to pick up on. And I was failing miserably. This is what it feels like when you realize that, despite a song being your favorite of maybe all time, you don't actually know every little nook and cranny of it. And since my copy of the song was on my PDA, which I could no longer use or even had anymore, there was no way to correct this problem.
Unless. "I have an idea," I said to Gretchen.
"Does it involve you learning to sing on key?" Gretchen asked.
"Even better," I said.
Ten minutes later we were on the other side of Croatoan, standing in front of the village's information center—the one place on the entire planet that you'd still find a functioning piece of electronics, because the inside was designed to completely block any radio or other signals of any sort. The technology to do this, sadly, was rare enough that we only had enough of it for a converted cargo container. The good news was, they were making more. The bad news was, they were only making enough for a medical bay. Sometimes life stinks. Gretchen and I walked into the receiving area, which was pitch black because of the signal-cloaking material; you had to close the outer door to the information center before you could open the inner door. So for about a second and a half it was like being swallowed by grim, black, featureless death. Not something I'd recommend.
And then we opened the inner door and found a geek inside. He looked at the both of us, a little surprised, and then got that no look.
"The answer is no," he said, confirming the look.
"Aw, Mr. Bennett," I said. "You don't even know what we're going to ask."
"Well, let's see," said Jerry Bennett. "Two teenage girls—daughters of the colony leaders, incidentally—just happen to walk into the only place in the colony where one could play with a PDA. Hmmm. Are they here to beg to play with a PDA? Or are they here because they enjoy the company of a chunky, middle-aged man? This is not a hard question, Miss Perry."
"We just want to listen to one song," I said. "We'll be out of your hair in just a minute."
Bennett sighed. "You know, at least a couple times a day someone just like you gets the bright idea to come in here and ask if I could just let them borrow a PDA to watch a movie, or listen to some music or read a book. And, oh, it'll just take a minute. I won't even notice they're there. And if I say yes, then other people will come in asking for the same time. Eventually I'll spend so much time helping people with their PDAs that I won't have time to do the work your parents, Miss Perry, have assigned me to do. So you tell me: What should I do?"
"Get a lock?" said Gretchen.
Bennett glanced over to Gretchen, sourly. "Very amusing," he said.
"What are you doing for my parents?" I asked.
"Your parents are having me slowly and painstakingly locate and print every single Colonial Union administration memo and file, so they can refer to them without having to come in here and bother me," Bennett said. "In one sense I appreciate that, but in a more immediate sense I've been doing it for the last three days and I'm likely to be doing it for another four. And since the printer I have to work with jams on a regular basis, it does actually require someone to pay attention to it. And that's me. So there you have it, Miss Perry: Four years of technical education and twenty years of professional work have allowed me to become a printer monkey at the very ass end of space. Truly, my life's goal has been achieved."
I shrugged. "So let us do it," I said.
"I beg your pardon," Bennett said.
"If all you're doing is making sure the printer doesn't jam, that's something we could do for you," I said. "We'll work for you for a couple of hours, and in exchange you let us use a couple of PDAs while we're here. And then you can do whatever else you need to do."
"Or just go have lunch," Gretchen said. "Surprise your wife."
Bennett was silent for a minute, considering. "Offering to actually help me," he said. "No one's tried that tactic before. Very sneaky."
"We try," I said.
"And it is lunchtime," Bennett said. "And it is just printing."
"It is," I agreed.
"I suppose if you mess things up horribly it won't be too bad for me," Bennett said. "Your parents won't punish me for your incompetence."
"Nepotism working for you," I said.
"Not that there will be a problem," Gretchen said.
"No," I agreed. "We're excellent printer monkeys."
"All right," Bennett said, and reached across his worktable to grab his PDA. "You can use my PDA. You know how to use this?"
I gave him a look.
"Sorry. Okay." He punched up a queue of files on the display. "These are files that need to go through today. The printer is there"—he motioned to the far end of the worktable—"and the paper is in that bin. Feed it into the printer, stack the finished documents next to the printer. If it jams, and it will, several times, just yank out the paper and let it autofeed a new one. It'll automatically reprint the last page it was working on. While you're doing that you can sync up to the Entertainment archive. I downloaded all those files into one place."
"You downloaded everyone's files?" I asked, and felt ever so slightly violated.
"Relax," Bennett said. "Only public files are accessible. As long as you encrypted your private files before you turned in your PDA, like you were told to, your secrets are safe. Now, once you access a music file the speakers will kick on. Don't turn them up too high or you won't be able to hear the printer jam."
"You have speakers already set up?" Gretchen asked.
"Yes, Miss Trujillo," Bennett said. "Believe it or not, even chunky middle-aged men like to listen to music."
"I know that," Gretchen said. "My dad loves his."
"And on that ego-deflating note, I'll be off," Bennett said. "I'll be back in a couple of hours. Please don't destroy the place. And if anyone comes in asking if they can borrow a PDA, tell them the answer is no, and no exceptions." He set off.
"I hope he was being ironic there," I said.
"Don't care," Gretchen said, and grabbed for the PDA. "Give me that."
"Hey," I said, holding it away from her. "First things first." I set up the printer, queued the files, and then accessed "Delhi Morning." The opening strains flowed out of the speakers and I soaked them in. I swear I almost cried.
"It's amazing how badly you remembered this song," Gretchen said, about halfway though.
"Shhhhh," I said. "Here's that part."
She saw the expression on my face and kept quiet until the song was done.
* * *
Two h
ours is not enough time with a PDA if you haven't had access to one in months. And that's all I'm going to say about that. But it was enough time that both Gretchen and I came out of the information center feeling just like we'd spent hours soaking in a nice hot bath—which, come to think of it, was something that we hadn't done for months either.
"We should keep this to ourselves," Gretchen said.
"Yes," I said. "Don't want people to bug Mr. Bennett."
"No, I just like having something over everyone else," Gretchen said.
"There aren't a lot of people who can carry off petty," I said. "Yet somehow you do."
Gretchen nodded. "Thank you, madam. And now I need to get back home. I promised Dad I'd weed the vegetable garden before it got dark."
"Have fun rooting in the dirt," I said.
"Thanks," Gretchen said. "If you were feeling nice, you could always offer to help me."
"I'm working on my evil," I said.
"Be that way," Gretchen said.
"But let's get together after dinner tonight to practice," I said. "Now that we know how to sing that part."
"Sounds good," Gretchen said. "Or will, hopefully." She waved and headed off toward home. I looked around and decided today would be a good day for a walk.
And it was. The sun was up, the day was bright, particularly after a couple of hours in the light-swallowing information center, and Roanoke was deep into spring—which was really pretty, even if it turned out that all the native blooms smelled like rotten meat dipped in sewer sauce (that description courtesy of Magdy, who could string together a phrase now and then). But after a couple of months, you stop noticing the smell, or at least accept there's nothing you can do about it. When the whole planet smells, you just have to deal with it.
But what really made it a good day for a walk was how much our world has changed in just a couple of months. John and Jane let us all out of Croatoan not too long after Enzo, Gretchen, Magdy and I had our midnight jog, and the colonists had begun to move into the countryside, building homes and farms, helping and learning from the Mennonites who were in charge of our first crops, which were already now growing in the fields. They were genetically engineered to be fast-growing; we'd be having our first harvest in the not too far future. It looked like we were going to survive after all. I walked past these new houses and fields, waving to folks as I went.
Eventually I walked past the last homestead and over a small rise. On the other side of it, nothing but grass and scrub and the forest in a line to the side. This rise was destined to be part of another farm, and more farms and pastures would cut up this little valley even further. It's funny how even just a couple thousand humans could start to change a landscape. But at the moment there was no other person in it but me; it was my private spot, for as long as it lasted. Mine and mine alone. Well, and on a couple of occasions, mine and Enzo's.
I laid back, looked up at the clouds in the sky, and smiled to myself. Maybe we were in hiding at the farthest reaches of the galaxy, but right now, at this moment, things were pretty good. You can be happy anywhere, if you have the right point of view. And the ability to ignore the smell of an entire planet.
"Zoë," said a voice behind me.
I jerked up and then saw Hickory and Dickory. They had just come over the rise.
"Don't do that," I said, and got up.
"We wish to speak to you," Hickory said.
"You could do that at home," I said.
"Here is better," Hickory said. "We have concerns."
"Concerns about what?" I said, and rose to look at them. Something wasn't quite right about either of them, and it took me a minute to figure out what it was. "Why aren't you wearing your consciousness modules?" I asked.
"We are concerned about the increasing risks you are taking with your safety," Hickory said, answering the first but not the second of my questions. "And with your safety in a general sense."
"You mean, being here?" I said. "Relax, Hickory. It's broad daylight, and the Hentosz farm is just over the hill. Nothing bad is going to happen to me."
"There are predators here," Hickory said.
"There are yotes," I said, naming the dog-sized carnivores that we'd found lurking around Croatoan. "I can handle a yote."
"They move in packs," Hickory said.
"Not during the day," I said.
"You do not only come here in the day," Hickory said. "Nor do you always come alone."
I reddened a bit at that, and thought about getting angry with Hickory. But it wasn't wearing its consciousness. Getting angry with it wouldn't do anything. "I thought I told the two of you not to follow me when I want to have some private time," I said, as evenly as I could.
"We do not follow you," Hickory said. "But neither are we stupid. We know where you go and with whom. Your lack of care is putting you at risk, and you do not always allow us to accompany you anymore. We cannot protect you as we would prefer to, and are expected to."
"We have been here for months, guys." I said. "There hasn't been a single attack on anyone by anything."
"You would have been attacked that night in the woods had Dickory and I not come to find you," Hickory said. "Those were not yotes in the trees that night. Yotes cannot climb or move through trees."
"And you'll notice I'm nowhere near the forest," I said, and waved in the direction of the tree line. "And whatever was in there doesn't seem to come out here, because we'd have seen them by now if they did. We've been over this before, Hickory."
"It is not only the predators here that concern us," Hickory said.
"I'm not following you," I said.
"This colony is being searched for," Hickory said.
"If you saw the video, you'll remember that this Conclave group blasted that colony from the sky," I said. "If the Conclave finds us, I don't think even you are going to be able to do much to protect me."
"It is not the Conclave we are concerned about," Hickory said.
"You're the only ones, then," I said.
"The Conclave is not the only one who will seek this colony," Hickory said. "Others will search for it, to win favor from the Conclave, or to thwart it, or to take the colony for its own. They will not blast this colony from the sky. They will take it in the standard fashion. Invasion and slaughter."
"What is with the two of you today?" I said. I was trying to lighten the mood.
I failed. "And then there is the matter of who you are," Hickory said.
"What does that mean?" I said.
"You should know well," Hickory said. "You are not merely the daughter of the colony leaders. You are also important to us. To the Obin. That fact is not unknown, Zoë. You have been used as a bargaining chip your entire life. We Obin used you to bargain with your father to build us consciousness. You are a treaty condition between the Obin and the Colonial Union. We have no doubt that any who would attack this colony would try to take you in order to bargain with the Obin. Even the Conclave could be tempted to do this. Or they would kill you to wound us. To kill a symbol of ourselves."
"That's crazy," I said.
"It has happened before," Hickory said.
"What?" I said.
"When you lived on Huckleberry, there were no fewer than six attempts to capture or kill you," Hickory said. "The last just a few days before you left Huckleberry."
"And you never told me this?" I asked.
"It was decided by both your government and ours that neither you nor your parents needed to know," Hickory said. "You were a child, and your parents wished to give you as unremarkable a life as possible. The Obin wished to be able to provide them that. None of these attempts came close to success. We stopped each long before you would have been in danger. And in each case the Obin government expressed its displeasure with the races who made such attempts on your well-being."
I shuddered at that. The Obin were not people to make enemies of.
"We would not have told you at all—and we have violated our standing orders not to do so—
were we not in our current situation," Hickory said. "We are cut off from the systems we had in place to keep you safe. And you are becoming increasingly independent in your actions and resentful of our presence in your life."
Those last words hit me like a slap. "I'm not resentful," I said. "I just want my own time. I'm sorry if that hurts you."
"We are not hurt," Hickory said. "We have responsibilities. How we fulfill those responsibilities must adapt to circumstance. We are making an adaptation now."
"I don't know what you mean," I said.
"It is time for you to learn how to defend yourself," Hickory said. "You want to be more independent from us, and we do not have all the resources we once had to keep you safe. We have always intended to teach you to fight. Now, for both of those reasons, it is necessary to begin that training."
"What do you mean, teach me to fight?" I asked.
"We will teach you to defend yourself physically," Hickory said. "To disarm an opponent. To use weapons. To immobilize your enemy. To kill your enemy if necessary."
"You want to teach me how to kill other people," I said.
"It is necessary," Hickory said.
"I'm not sure John and Jane would approve of that," I said.
"Major Perry and Lieutenant Sagan both know how to kill," Hickory said. "Both, in their military service, have killed others when it was necessary for their survival."
"But it doesn't mean that they want me to know," I said. "And also, I don't know that I want to know. You say you need to adapt how you fulfill your responsibilities. Fine. Figure out how to adapt them. But I'm not going to learn how to kill something else so you can feel like you're doing a better job doing something I'm not even sure I want you to do anymore."
"You do not wish us to defend you," Hickory said. "Or learn to defend yourself."
"I don't know!" I said. I yelled it in exasperation. "Okay? I hate having my face pushed into all of this. That I'm some special thing that needs to be defended. Well, you know what? Everyone here needs to be defended, Hickory. We're all in danger. Any minute hundreds of ships could show up over our heads and kill us all. I'm sick of it. I try to forget about it a little every now and then. That's what I was doing out here before the two of you showed up to crap over it all. So thank you very much for that."