Zoe's Tale

by John Scalzi

She handed it over. “General Rybicki has asked your father and me to be the leaders of a new colony.”

  It was my turn to hold on to the plate. “A new colony.”

  “Yes,” Jane said.

  “As in, ‘on another planet’ new colony,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Jane.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Yes,” Jane said. She knew how to get mileage out of a single word.

  “Why did he ask you?” I asked, and resumed drying. “No offense, Mom. But you’re a constable in a tiny little village. And Dad’s an ombudsman. It’s kind of a leap.”

  “None taken,” Jane said. “We had the same question. General Rybicki said that the military experience we had would cross over. John was a major and I was a lieutenant. And whatever other experience we need Rybicki believes we can pick up quickly, before we set foot on the new colony. As for why us, it’s because this isn’t a normal colony. The colonists aren’t from Earth, they’re from ten of the oldest planets in the Colonial Union. A colony of colonists. The first of its kind.”

  “And none of the planets contributing colonists want another planet to have a leadership role,” I ventured.

  Jane smiled. “That’s right,” she said. “We’re the compromise candidates. The least objectionable solution.”

  “Got it,” I said. “It’s nice to be sort of wanted.” We continued washing dishes in silence for a few minutes.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Jane said, eventually. “Do you like it here? Do you want to stay on Huckleberry?”

  “I get a vote?” I asked.

  “Of course you do,” Jane said. “If we take this, it would mean leaving Huckleberry for at least a few standard years while we got the colony up and running. But realistically it would mean leaving here for good. It would mean all of us leaving here for good.”

  “If,” I said, a little surprised. “You didn’t say yes.”

  “It’s not the sort of decision you make in the middle of a sorghum field,” Jane said, and looked at me directly. “It’s not something we can just say yes to. It’s a complicated decision. We’ve been looking over the information all afternoon, seeing what the Colonial Union’s plans are for the colony. And then we have to think about our lives here. Mine, John’s and yours.”

  I grinned. “I have a life here?” I asked. This was meant as a joke.

  Jane squashed it. “Be serious, Zoë,” she said. The grin left my face. “We’ve been here for half of your life now. You have friends. You know this place. You have a future here, if you want it. You can have a life here. It’s not something to be lightly tossed aside.” She plunged her hands into the sink, searching under the soap suds for another dish.

  I looked at Jane; there was something in her voice. This wasn’t just about me. “You have a life here,” I said.

  “I do,” Jane said. “I like it here. I like our neighbors and our friends. I like being the constable. Our life here suits me.” She handed me the casserole dish she’d just cleaned. “Before we came here I spent all my life in the Special Forces. On ships. This is the first world I’ve actually lived on. It’s important to me.”

  “Then why is this a question?” I said. “If you don’t want to go, then we shouldn’t do it.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t go,” Jane said. “I said I have a life here. It’s not the same thing. There are good reasons to do it. And it’s not just my decision to make.”

  I dried and put away the casserole dish. “What does Dad want?” I asked.

  “He hasn’t told me yet,” Mom said.

  “You know what that means,” I said. “Dad’s not subtle when there’s something he doesn’t want to do. If he’s taking his time to think about it, he probably wants to do it.”

  “I know,” Mom said. She was rinsing off the flatware. “He’s trying to find a way to tell me what he wants. It might help him if he knew what we wanted first.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “This is why I asked you if you liked it here,” Jane said, again.

  I thought about it as I dried the kitchen counter. “I like it here,” I said, finally. “But I don’t know if I want to have a life here.”

  “Why not?” Jane asked.

  “There’s not much here here, is there?” I said. I waved toward the general direction of New Goa. “The selection of life choices here is limited. There’s farmer, farmer, store owner, and farmer. Maybe a government position like you and Dad.”

  “If we go to this new colony your choices are going to be the same,” Jane said. “First wave colonist life isn’t very romantic, Zoë. The focus is on survival, and preparing the new colony for the second wave of colonists. That means farmers and laborers. Outside of a few specialized roles that will already be filled, there’s not much call for anything else.”

  “Yes, but at least it would be somewhere new,” I said. “There we’d be building a new world. Here we’re just maintaining an old one. Be honest, Mom. It’s kind of slow around these parts. A big day for you is when someone gets into a fistfight. The highlight of Dad’s day is settling a dispute over a goat.”

  “There are worse things,” Jane said.

  “I’m not asking for open warfare,” I said. Another joke.

  And once again, another stomping from Mom. “It’ll be a brand-new colony world,” she said. “They’re the ones most at risk for attack, because they have the fewest people and the least amount of defense from the CDF. You know that as well as anyone.”

  I blinked, actually surprised. I did know it as well as anyone. When I was very young—before I was adopted by Jane and John—the planet I lived on (or above, since I was on a space station) was attacked. Omagh. Jane almost never brought it up, because she knew what it did to me to think about it. “You think that’s what’s going to happen here?” I asked.

  Jane must have sensed what was going on in my head. “No, I don’t,” she said. “This is an unusual colony. It’s a test colony in some ways. There will be political pressure for this colony to succeed. That means more and better defenses, among other things. I think we’ll be better defended than most colonies starting out.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said.

  “But an attack could still happen,” Jane said. “John and I fought together at Coral. It was one of the first planets humans settled, and it was still attacked. No colony is totally safe. There are other dangers, too. Colonies can get wiped out by local viruses or predators. Bad weather can kill crops. The colonists themselves could be unprepared. Colonizing—real colonizing, not what we’re doing here on Huckleberry—is hard, constant work. Some of the colonists could fail at it and take the rest of the colony with them. There could be bad leaders making bad decisions.”

  “I don’t think we’d have to worry about that last one,” I said. I was trying to lighten the mood.

  Jane didn’t take the bait. “I’m telling you this isn’t without risk,” she said. “It’s there. A lot of it. And if we do this, we go in with our eyes open to that risk.”

  This was Mom all over. Her sense of humor wasn’t as deprived as Hickory’s and Dickory’s—I can actually make her laugh. But it doesn’t stop her from being one of the most serious people I’ve ever met in my life. When she wants to get your attention about something she thinks is important, she’s going to get it.

  It’s a good quality to have, but right at the moment it was making me seriously uncomfortable. That was her plan, no doubt.

  “Mom, I know,” I said. “I know it has risks. I know that a lot of things could go wrong. I know it wouldn’t be easy.” I waited.

  “But,” Jane said, giving me the prompt she knew I was waiting for.

  “But if you and Dad were leading it, I think it’d be worth the risk,” I said. “Because I trust you. You wouldn’t take the job if you didn’t think you could handle it. And I know you wouldn’t put me at risk unnecessarily. If you two decided to do it, I would want to go. I would definitely want to go.”

/>   I was suddenly aware that while I was speaking, my hand had drifted to my chest, and was lightly touching the small pendant there: a jade elephant, given to me by Jane. I moved my hand from it, a little embarrassed.

  “And no matter what, starting a new colony wouldn’t be boring,” I said, to finish up, a little lamely.

  Mom smiled, unplugged the sink and dried her hands. Then she took a step over to me and kissed the top of my head; I was short enough, and she was tall enough, that it was a natural thing for her. “I’ll let your dad stew on it for a few more hours,” she said. “And then I’ll let him know where we stand.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said.

  “And sorry about dinner,” she said. “Your dad gets wrapped up in himself sometimes, and I get wrapped up in noticing he’s wrapped up in himself.”

  “I know,” I said. “You should just smack him and tell him to snap out of it.”

  “I’ll put that on the list for future reference,” Jane said. She gave me another quick peck and then stepped away. “Now go do your homework. We haven’t left the planet yet.” She walked out of the kitchen.

  FOUR

  Let me tell you about that jade elephant.

  My mother’s name—my biological mother’s name—was Cheryl Boutin. She died when I was five; she was hiking with a friend and she fell. My memories of her are what you’d expect them to be: hazy fragments from a five-year-old mind, supported by a precious few pictures and videos. They weren’t that much better when I was younger. Five is a bad age to lose a mother, and to hope to remember her for who she was.

  One thing I had from her was a stuffed version of Babar the elephant that my mother gave to me on my fourth birthday. I was sick that day, and had to stay in bed all day long. This did not make me happy, and I let everyone know it, because that was the kind of four-year-old I was. My mother surprised me with the Babar doll, and then we cuddled up together and she read Babar’s stories to me until I fell asleep, lying across her. It’s my strongest memory of her, even now; not so much how she looked, but the low and warm sound of her voice, and the softness of her belly as I lay against her and drifted off, her stroking my head. The sensation of my mother, and the feeling of love and comfort from her.

  I miss her. Still do. Even now. Even right now.

  After my mother died I couldn’t go anywhere without Babar. He was my connection to her, my connection to that love and comfort I didn’t have anymore. Being away from Babar meant being away from what I had left of her. I was five years old. This was my way of handling my loss. It kept me from falling into myself, I think. Five is a bad age to lose your mother, like I said; I think it could be a good age to lose yourself, if you’re not careful.

  Shortly after my mother’s funeral, my father and I left Phoenix, where I was born, and moved to Covell, a space station orbiting above a planet called Omagh, where he did research. Occasionally his job had him leave Covell on business trips. When that happened I stayed with my friend Kay Greene and her parents. One time my father was leaving on a trip; he was running late and forgot to pack Babar for me. When I figured this out (it didn’t take long), I started to cry and panic. To placate me, and because he did love me, you know, he promised to bring me a Celeste doll when he returned from his trip. He asked me to be brave until then. I said I would, and he kissed me and told me to go play with Kay. I did.

  While he was away, we were attacked. It would be a very long time before I would see my father again. He remembered his promise, and brought me a Celeste. It was the first thing he did when I saw him.

  I still have her. But I don’t have Babar.

  In time, I became an orphan. I was adopted by John and Jane, who I call “Dad” and “Mom,” but not “Father” and “Mother,” because those I keep for Charles and Cheryl Boutin, my first parents. John and Jane understand this well enough. They don’t mind that I make the distinction.

  Before we moved to Huckleberry—just before—Jane and I went to a mall in Phoenix City, the capital city of Phoenix. We were on our way to get ice cream; when we passed a toy store I ran in to play hide-and-seek with Jane. This went smashingly until I went down an aisle with stuffed animals in it, and came face-to-face with Babar. Not my Babar, of course. But one close enough to him that all I could do was stop and stare.

  Jane came up behind me, which meant she couldn’t see my face. “Look,” she said. “It’s Babar. Would you like one to go with your Celeste doll?” She reached over and picked one out of the bin.

  I screamed and slapped it out of her hand and ran out of the toy store. Jane caught up with me and held me while I sobbed, cradling me against her shoulder, stroking my head like my mother did when she read the Babar stories to me on my birthday. I cried myself out and then when I was done, I told her about the Babar my mother had given me.

  Jane understood why I didn’t want another Babar. It wasn’t right to have a new one. It wouldn’t be right to put something on top of those memories of her. To pretend that another Babar could replace the one she gave me. It wasn’t the toy. It was everything about the toy.

  I asked Jane not to tell John about Babar or what had just happened. I was feeling out of sorts enough having just gone to pieces in front of my new mom. I didn’t want to drag my new dad into it too. She promised. And then she gave me a hug and we went to get ice cream, and I just about made myself throw up eating an entire banana split. Which to my eight-year-old mind was a good thing. Truly, an eventful day all around.

  A week later Jane and I were standing on the observation deck of the CDFS Amerigo Vespucci, staring down at the blue and green world named Huckleberry, where we would live the rest of our lives, or so we thought. John had just left us, to take care of some last-minute business before we took our shuttle trip down to Missouri City, from where we would go to New Goa, our new home. Jane and I were holding hands and pointing out surface features to each other, trying to see if we could see Missouri City from geostationary orbit. We couldn’t. But we made good guesses.

  “I have something for you,” Jane said to me, after we decided where Missouri City would be, or ought to be, anyway. “Something I wanted to give you before we landed on Huckleberry.”

  “I hope it’s a puppy,” I said. I’d been hinting in that direction for a couple of weeks.

  Jane laughed. “No puppies!” she said. “At least not until we’re actually settled in. Okay?”

  “Oh, all right,” I said, disappointed.

  “No, it’s this,” Jane said. She reached into her pocket to pull out a silver chain with something that was a pale green at the end.

  I took the chain and looked at the pendant. “It’s an elephant,” I said.

  “It is,” Jane said. She knelt down so that she and I were face-to-face. “I bought it on Phoenix just before we left. I saw it in a shop and it made me think of you.”

  “Because of Babar,” I said.

  “Yes,” Jane said. “But for other reasons, too. Most of the people who live on Huckleberry are from a country on Earth called India, and many of them are Hindu, which is a religion. They have a god called Ganesh, who has the head of an elephant. Ganesh is their god of intelligence, and I think you’re pretty smart. He’s also the god of beginnings, which makes sense, too.”

  “Because we’re starting our lives here,” I said.

  “Right,” Jane said. She took the pendant and necklace from me and put the silver chain around my neck, fastening it in the back. “There’s also the saying that ‘an elephant never forgets.’ Have you heard it?” I nodded. “John and I are proud to be your parents, Zoë. We’re happy you’re part of our life now, and will help us make our life to come. But I know neither of us would want you ever to forget your mother and father.”

  She drew back and then touched the pendant, gently. “This is to remind you how much we love you,” Jane said. “But I hope it will also remind you how much your mother and father loved you, too. You’re loved by two sets of parents, Zoë. Don’t forget about the first beca
use you’re with us now.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “I promise.”

  “The last reason I wanted to give you this was to continue the tradition,” Jane said. “Your mother and your father each gave you an elephant. I wanted to give you one, too. I hope you like it.”

  “I love it,” I said, and then launched myself into Jane. She caught me and hugged me. We hugged for a while, and I cried a little bit too. Because I was eight years old, and I could do that.

  I eventually unhugged myself from Jane and looked at the pendant again. “What is this made of?” I asked.

  “It’s jade,” Jane said.

  “Does it mean anything?” I asked.

  “Well,” Jane said, “I suppose it means I think jade is pretty.”

  “Did Dad get me an elephant, too?” I asked. Eight-year-olds can switch into acquisition mode pretty quickly.

  “I don’t know,” Jane said. “I haven’t talked to him about it, because you asked me not to. I don’t think he knows about the elephants.”

  “Maybe he’ll figure it out,” I said.

  “Maybe he will,” Jane said. She stood and took my hand again, and we looked out at Huckleberry once more.

  About a week and a half later, after we were all moved in to Huckleberry, Dad came through the door with something small and squirmy in his hands.

  No, it wasn’t an elephant. Use your heads, people. It was a puppy.

  I squealed with glee—which I was allowed to do, eight at the time, remember—and John handed the puppy to me. It immediately tried to lick my face off.

  “Aftab Chengelpet just weaned a litter from their mother, so I thought we might give one of the puppies a home,” Dad said. “You know, if you want. Although I don’t recall you having any enthusiasm for such a creature. We could always give it back.”

  “Don’t you dare,” I said, between puppy licks.

  “All right,” Dad said. “Just remember he’s your responsibility. You’ll have to feed him and exercise him and take care of him.”

  “I will,” I said.

  “And neuter him and pay for his college,” Dad said.