Zoe's Tale

by John Scalzi

  The Obin killed the Belestier, and learned from their weapons and technology. In time the Obin left their own moon to colonize other moons and grow their numbers and make war on other races when those other races chose to make war on the Obin.

  And there came a day, after many years, when the Obin decided they were ready to meet the Consu, and found where they lived and set out to meet them. Although the Obin were strong and determined, they did not know the power of the Consu, who brushed them aside, killing any Obin who dared to call or attack, and there were many thousands of these.

  Eventually the Consu became curious about the creatures they had made and offered to answer three questions for the Obin, if half the Obin everywhere would offer themselves up as a sacrifice to the Consu. And this was a hard bargain, because although no individual Obin would know its own death, such a sacrifice would wound the race, because by this time it had made many enemies among the intelligent races, and they would most certainly attack the Obin when they were weak. But the Obin had a hunger and needed answers. So one half of the Obin willingly offered themselves to the Consu, killing themselves in all manner of ways, wherever they were.

  And the Consu were satisfied and answered our three questions. Yes, they had given the Obin intelligence. Yes, they could have given the Obin consciousness but did not, because they wanted to see what consciousless intelligence was like. No, they would not now give us consciousness, nor would they ever, nor would they allow us to ask again. And since that day the Consu have not allowed the Obin to speak to them again; each embassy to them since that day has been killed.

  The Obin spent many years fighting many races as it returned itself to its former strength, and in time it became known to other races that to fight with the Obin meant death, for the Obin would not relent or show mercy or pity or fear, because the Obin did not know these things themselves. And for a long time this was the way of things.

  One day a race known as the Rraey attacked a human colony and its space station, killing all the humans they could. But before the Rraey could complete their task, the Obin attacked them, because the Obin wanted the colony world for themselves. The Rraey were weakened after their first attack and were defeated and killed. The Obin took the colony and its space station, and because the space station was known as a scientific outpost, the Obin looked through its records to see what useful technology they could take.

  It was then that the Obin discovered that one of the human scientists, who was named Charles Boutin, was working on a way to hold and store consciousness outside of the human body, in a machine based on technology the humans had stolen from the Consu. The work was not done, and the technology was not something the Obin at the space station could follow, nor the Obin scientists whom they had brought along. The Obin looked for Charles Boutin among the human survivors of the space station attacks, but he was not to be found, and it was discovered that he was away from the station when it was attacked.

  But then the Obin learned that Charles Boutin’s daughter Zoë had been on the space station. The Obin took her from the station and she alone was spared among the humans. And the Obin kept her and kept her safe and found a way to tell Charles Boutin that she was alive and offered to return her if he would give the Obin consciousness. But Charles Boutin was angry, not at the Obin but at the humans who he thought had let his daughter die, and demanded in exchange for giving the Obin consciousness, that the Obin would make war on the humans, and defeat them. The Obin could not do this themselves but allied with two other races, the Rraey, whom they had just attacked, and the Enesha, who were allies of the humans, to make war on the humans.

  Charles Boutin was satisfied and in time joined the Obin and his daughter, and worked to create consciousness for the Obin. Before he could finish his task, the humans learned of the alliance between the Obin and the Rraey and the Enesha, and attacked. The alliance was broken and the Enesha were made to war on the Rraey by the humans. And Charles Boutin was killed and his daughter Zoë was taken from the Obin by the humans. And although no individual Obin could sense it, the entire nation despaired because in agreeing to give them consciousness Charles Boutin was their friend among all friends, who would do for them what even the great Consu would not: give them awareness of themselves. When he died, their hope for themselves died. To lose his daughter, who was of him and who was dear to them because of him, compounded this despair.

  And then the humans sent a message to the Obin that they knew of Boutin’s work and offered to continue it, in exchange for an alliance and the agreement by the Obin to war on the Enesha, who had allied with the Obin against the humans, once the Enesha had defeated the Rraey. The Obin agreed to this but added the condition that once the Obin were given consciousness that two of their number would be allowed to know Zoë Boutin, and to share that knowledge with all other Obin, because she was what remained of Charles Boutin, their friend and their hero.

  And so it was that the Obin and the humans became allies, the Obin attacked and defeated the Enesha in due time, and the Obin, thousands of generations after their creation, were given consciousness by Charles Boutin. And among their number, the Obin selected two, who would become companions and protectors to Zoë Boutin and share her life with her new family. And when Zoë met them she was not afraid because she had lived with the Obin before, and she gave the two of them names: Hickory and Dickory. And the two of them became the first Obin to have names. And they were glad, and they know they are glad, because of the gift Charles Boutin gave them and all Obin.

  And they lived happily ever after.

  Hickory said something to me I didn’t hear. “What?” I said.

  “We are not sure ‘and they lived happily ever after’ is the appropriate ending,” said Hickory, and then stopped and looked closely at me. “You are crying,” it said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was remembering. The parts of it I was in.”

  “We told them wrong,” Hickory said.

  “No,” I said, and put up my hand to reassure it. “You didn’t tell it wrong, Hickory. It’s just the way you tell it and the way I remember it are a little…” I wiped a tear off my face and searched for the right word. “They’re just a little different, is all.”

  “You do not like the myth,” Hickory said.

  “I like it,” I said. “I like it very much. It’s just some things hurt me to remember. It happens that way for us sometimes.”

  “I am sorry, Zoë, for causing you distress,” Hickory said, and I could hear the sadness in its voice. “We wanted to cheer you up.”

  I got up from my seat and went over to Hickory and Dickory and hugged them both. “I know you did,” I said. “And I’m really glad you tried.”

  NINE

  “Oh, look,” Gretchen said. “Teenage boys, about to do something stupid.”

  “Shut up,” I said. “That couldn’t possibly happen.” But I looked anyway.

  Sure enough, across the Magellan’s common area, two clots of teenage males were staring each other down with that look of we’re so gonna fight about something lame. They were all getting ready for a snarl, except for one of them, who gave every appearance of trying to talk some sense into one guy who looked particularly itchin’ to fight.

  “There’s one who appears to have a brain,” I said.

  “One out of eight,” Gretchen said. “Not a really excellent percentage. And if he really had a brain he’d probably be getting out of the way.”

  “This is true,” I said. “Never send a teenage boy to do a teenage girl’s job.”

  Gretchen grinned over to me. “We have that mind-meld thing going, don’t we?”

  “I think you know the answer to that,” I said.

  “You want to plan it out or just improvise?” Gretchen asked.

  “By the time we plan it out, someone’s going to be missing teeth,” I said.

  “Good point,” Gretchen said, and then got up and started moving toward the boys.

  Twenty seconds late
r the boys were startled to find Gretchen in the middle of them. “You’re making me lose a bet,” she said, to the one who looked the most aggressive.

  The dude stared for a moment, trying to wrap whatever was passing for his brain around this sudden and unexpected appearance. “What?” he said.

  “I said, you’re making me lose a bet,” Gretchen repeated, and then jerked a thumb over toward me. “I had a bet with Zoë here that no one would start a fight on the Magellan before we actually left dock, because no one would be stupid enough to do something that would get their entire family kicked off the ship.”

  “Kicked off the ship two hours before departure, even,” I said.

  “Right,” Gretchen said. “Because what sort of moron would you have to be to do that?”

  “A teenage boy moron,” I suggested.

  “Apparently,” Gretchen said. “See—what’s your name?”

  “What?” the guy said again.

  “Your name,” Gretchen said. “What your mother and father will call you, angrily, once you’ve gotten them kicked off the ship.”

  The guy looked around at his friends. “Magdy,” he said, and then opened his mouth as if to say something.

  “Well, see, Magdy, I have faith in humanity, even the teenage male part of it,” Gretchen said, plowing through whatever it was that our Magdy might have had to say. “I believed that not even teenage boys would be dumb enough to give Captain Zane an excuse to kick a bunch of them off the ship while he still could. Once we’re under way, the worst he could do is put you in the brig. But right now he could have the crew drop you and your family at the loading bay. Then you could watch the rest of us wave good-bye. Surely, I said, no one could be that incredibly dense. But my friend Zoë disagreed. What did you say, Zoë?”

  “I said that teenage boys can’t think beyond or without their newly dropped testicles,” I said, staring at the boy who had been trying to talk sense into his pal. “Also, they smell funny.”

  The boy grinned. He knew what we were up to. I didn’t grin back; I didn’t want to mess with Gretchen’s play.

  “And I was so convinced that I was right and she was wrong that I actually made a bet,” Gretchen said. “I bet every single dessert I’d get here on the Magellan that no one would be that stupid. That’s a serious bet.”

  “She loves her dessert,” I said.

  “It’s true, I do,” Gretchen said.

  “She’s a dessert fiend,” I said.

  “And now you are going to make me lose all my desserts,” Gretchen said, poking Magdy in the chest. “This is not acceptable.”

  There was a snerk from the boy Magdy had been facing off with. Gretchen wheeled on him; the boy actually flinched backward. “I don’t know why you think this is funny,” Gretchen said. “Your family would have been thrown off the ship just like his.”

  “He started it,” the boy said.

  Gretchen blinked, dramatically. “‘He started it’? Zoë, tell me I heard that wrong.”

  “You didn’t,” I said. “He really said it.”

  “It doesn’t seem possible that anyone over the age of five would be using that as a rationale for anything,” Gretchen said, examining the boy critically.

  “Where’s your faith in humanity now?” I asked.

  “I’m losing it,” Gretchen said.

  “Along with all your desserts,” I said.

  “Let me guess,” Gretchen said, and waved generally at the clot of boys in front of her. “You’re all from the same planet.” She turned and looked at the other boy clot. “And you’re all from another planet.” The boys shifted uncomfortably; she had gotten their number. “And so the first thing you do is you start picking fights because of where you used to live.”

  “Because that’s the smart thing to do with people you’re going to spend the rest of your life living with,” I said.

  “I don’t remember that being in the new colonist orientation material,” Gretchen said.

  “Funny about that,” I said.

  “Indeed,” Gretchen said, and stopped talking.

  There was silence for several seconds.

  “Well?” Gretchen said.

  “What?” Magdy said. It was his favorite word.

  “Are you going to fight now or what?” Gretchen said. “If I’m going to lose my bet, now’s as good a time as any.”

  “She’s right,” I said. “It’s almost lunchtime. Dessert is calling.”

  “So either get on with it or break it up,” Gretchen said. She stepped back.

  The boys, suddenly aware that whatever it was they were fighting about had been effectively reduced to whether or not some girl would get a cupcake, dispersed, each clot headed pointedly in a separate direction from the other. The sane boy glanced back at me as he walked off with his friends.

  “That was fun,” Gretchen said.

  “Yeah, until they all decide to do it again,” I said. “We can’t use the dessert humiliation trick every time. And there are colonists from ten separate worlds. That’s a hundred different possible idiotic teenage boy fight situations.”

  “Well, the colonists from Kyoto are Colonial Mennonites,” Gretchen said. “They’re pacifists. So it’s only eighty-one possible idiotic teenage boy fight combinations.”

  “And yet still only two of us,” I said. “I don’t like the odds. And how did you know about the Kyoto folks, anyway?”

  “When my father was still thinking he’d be running the colony, he made me read the reports on all the colonists and their original planets,” Gretchen said. “He said I was going to be his aide-de-camp. Because, you know, that’s really what I would have wanted to do with my time.”

  “Comes in handy, though,” I said.

  Gretchen pulled out her PDA, which was buzzing, and looked at the screen. “Speaking of which,” she said, and showed me the screen. “Looks like Dad’s calling.”

  “Go be aide de camp-y,” I said.

  Gretchen rolled her eyes. “Thanks. Want to get together for the departure? And then we can go have lunch. You’ll have lost the bet by then. I’ll get your dessert.”

  “Touch my dessert and you will die in horrible ways,” I said. Gretchen laughed and left.

  I pulled out my own PDA to see if there were messages from John or Jane; there was one from Jane telling me that Hickory and Dickory were looking for me about something. Well, they knew I was onboard, and they also knew how to reach me by PDA; it’s not like I went anywhere without it. I thought about giving them a call but I figured they would find me sooner or later. I put the PDA away and looked up to find the sane boy standing in front of me.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Uh,” I said, a testament to my smoothness.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” I said, only a little flustered.

  He stuck out his hand. “Enzo,” he said. “And you’re Zoë, I guess.”

  “I am,” I said, taking his hand and shaking it.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi,” he said, and then seemed to realize he was back where he started. I smiled.

  And then there was about, oh, 47 million seconds of awkward silence. It was only actually a second or two, but as Einstein could tell you, some events have a way of stretching out.

  “Thanks for that,” Enzo said, finally. “For stopping the fight, I mean.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “I’m glad you didn’t mind we stepped in on what you were doing.”

  “Well, I wasn’t doing a great job of it anyway,” Enzo said. “Once Magdy gets himself worked up, it’s hard to get him to back down.”

  “What was that all about anyway?” I asked.

  “It’s kind of stupid,” Enzo said.

  “That I know,” I said, and then wondered if Enzo would take it the wrong way. He smiled. Score one for Enzo. “I mean what caused it.”

  “Magdy’s pretty sarcastic, and
he’s also pretty loud,” Enzo said. “He made some snide remark about what those other guys were wearing as they passed by. One of them got upset and they got into it.”

  “So you guys nearly had a brawl over fashion,” I said.

  “I told you it was stupid,” Enzo said. “But you know how it is. You get worked up, it’s kind of hard to think rationally.”

  “But you were thinking rationally,” I said.

  “That’s my job,” Enzo said. “Magdy gets us into trouble, I get us out of it.”

  “So you’ve known each other for a while,” I said.

  “He’s been my best friend since we were little,” Enzo said. “He’s really not a jerk, honest. He just sometimes doesn’t think about what he’s doing.”

  “You look out for him,” I said.

  “It goes both ways,” Enzo said. “I’m not much of a fighter. A lot of kids we knew would have taken advantage of that fact if they didn’t know Magdy would have punched them in the head.”

  “Why aren’t you much of a fighter?” I asked.

  “I think you have to like to fight a little,” Enzo said. Then he seemed to realize this was challenging his own masculinity a bit, and this would get him kicked out of the teenage male club. “Don’t get me wrong. I can defend myself just fine without Magdy around. We’re just a good team.”

  “You’re the brains of the outfit,” I suggested.

  “That’s possible,” he allowed, and then seemed to figure out that I’d gotten him to make a whole bunch of statements about himself without getting to find out anything about me. “What about you and your friend? Who is the brains of that outfit?”

  “I think Gretchen and I both hold our own pretty well in the brains department,” I said.

  “That’s a little scary,” Enzo said.

  “It’s not a bad thing to be a little intimidating,” I said.

  “Well, you have that down,” Enzo said, with just the right amount of offhandedness. I tried very hard not to blush. “So, listen, Zoë—” Enzo began, and then looked over my shoulder. I saw his eyes get very wide.