John Scalzi - The Last Colony

Savitri pointed to the edge of the village. "I guess the Roman legions didn't use storage containers as a perimeter barrier," she said.

"Probably not," I said. "But that was their loss." Using the storage containers as a perimeter had been Jane's idea. In the Roman days, the legionnaires' camp would be encircled by a ditch and a palisade, to keep out the Huns and the wolves. We didn't have any Huns, or their equivalent (yet), but there had been some reports of large animals wandering out in the grass, and we also didn't want kids or teens (or certain incautious adults, who had already made their presence known) wandering off into the vegetation a klick away from the village. The storage containers were ideal for this purpose; they were tall and sturdy and there were lots of them—enough to circle the encampment twice, with appropriate spacing between the two layers to allow our angry, marooned cargo hold crew to unload inventory when needed.

Savitri and I made it to the western border of Croatoan, beyond which lay a small and fast stream. For that reason this edge of the village held its only plumbing so far. In the northwest corner a pipe carried in water to a filtration cistern, which churned out potable water for drinking and cooking; it also fed into two shower stalls at which a one-minute time limit for individuals (and three minutes for families) was strictly enforced by everyone else waiting in line. At the southwest corner was a septic digester— a small one, not the one Chief Ferro pointed out to me—into which every colonist dumped their nightpails. During the day they availed themselves of the portable toilets that surrounded the digester. There was almost always a line at these, too.

I walked over to the digester and poured the contents down a chute, holding my breath as I did so; the digester did not smell of roses. The digester took our waste and processed it into sterile fertilizer that was being collected and stored, and also into clean water, most of which was dumped into the stream. There was some discussion about whether to reroute the processed water back into the camp's supply; the general feeling was that clean or not, the colonists were under enough stress without having to drink or bathe in their own processed pee. It was a fair point. A small amount of the water, however, was held back to rinse and clean the nightpails. It's life in the big city.

Savitri jerked her thumb down the west wall as I walked back to her. "Planning to shower anytime soon?" she asked. "I mean, no offense, but for you smelling like an armpit would be a step up."

"How long are you planning to be like this?" I asked.

"Until the very day I get indoor plumbing," Savitri said. "Which, in itself, would imply I had an indoor in which to put it."

"It's the Roanoke dream," I said.

"Which isn't going to be able to start until we get all these colonists out of this tent city and into their homesteads," Savitri said.

"You're not the first person to mention this to me," I said. I was about to say more but was interrupted as Zoe' crossed our path.

"There you are," she said, and then thrust her hand at me, which was filled with something. "Look. I found a pet," she said.

I looked at the something in her hand. It stared back. It looked a little like a rat that got caught in a taffy puller. Its most distinguishing characteristics were its four oval eyes, two on either side of its head, and the fact that it, like every other vertebrate creature we'd seen on Roanoke so far, had opposable thumbs on its three-fingered hands. It was using them to balance on Zoe's hand.

"Isn't he cute?" Zoe asked. The thing appeared to belch, which Zoe took as a sign to feed it a cracker she had stored in a pocket. It grabbed it with one hand and started chomping away.

"If you say so," I said. "Where did you find it?"

"There's a bunch of them outside the mess hall," Zoe said, showing it to Babar. He sniffed at the thing; it hissed back. "They've been watching us as we eat." This rang a bell with me; suddenly I was aware I had been seeing them too over the last week. "I think they were hungry," Zoe continued. "Gretchen and I went out to feed them, but they all ran away. Except for this guy. He came right up and took a cracker from me. I think I'll keep him."

"I'd prefer you didn't," I said. "You don't know where it's been."

"Sure I do," Zoe said. "He's been around the mess hall."

"You're missing my point," I said.

"I got your point, ninety-year-old dad," Zoe said. "But come on. If it were going to inject me with poison and try to eat me, it probably would have done it by now." The thing in her hand finished its cracker and burped again, and then suddenly leapt out of Zoe's hand and scurried off in the direction of the storage container barricade. "Hey!" Zoe cried.

"Loyal like a puppy, that thing is," I said.

"When he comes back, I'm going to tell him all the horrible things you've said," Zoe' said. "And then I'm going to let him poo on your head."

I tapped the nightpail. "No, no," I said. "That's what this is for."

Zoe curled her lip at the sight of the nightpail; she was not a big fan. "Yuck. Thanks for the image."

"Don't mention it," I said. Out of the blue, it struck me that Zoe was missing a couple of shadows. "Where are Hickory and Dickory?" I asked.

"Mom asked them to come with her to look at something," Zoe said. "Which is actually why I came looking for you. She wanted you to come lock at something. She's on the other side of the barricade. By the north entrance."

"All right," I said. "Where will you be?"

"I'll be in the square, of course," Zoe said. "Where else is there to be?"

"Sorry, honey," I said. "I know you and your friends are bored."

"No kidding," Zoe said. "We all knew colonization was supposed to be difficult, but no one told us it was going to be boring."

"If you're looking for something to do, we could start up a school," I said.

"We're bored, so you suggest school?" Zoe said. "Who are you? Also, not likely, since you've confiscated all our PDAs. It's going to be hard to teach us anything when we don't have lessons."

"The Mennonites have books," I said. "Old-fashioned ones. With pages and everything."

"I know," Zoe said. "They're the only ones not going completely insane with boredom, too. God, I miss my PDA."

"The irony must be crushing," I said.

"I'm going to leave you now," Zoe said. "Before I throw a rock at you." Despite the threat, she gave me and Savitri a quick hug before she left. Babar walked off with her; she was more fun.

"I know how she feels," Savitri said, as we resumed walking.

"You want to throw a rock at me, too?" I said.

"Sometimes," Savitri said. "Not right now. No, about missing her PDA. I miss mine, too. Look at this." Savitri reached into her back pants pocket and pulled out a spiral notebook, a small stack of which had been made a gift to her by Hiram Yoder and the Mennonites. "This is what I'm reduced to."

"Savage," I said.

"Joke all you want," Savitri said, and she put the notebook back. "Going from a PDA to a notepad is hard."

I didn't argue with this. Instead, we walked out the north gate of the village, where we found Jane with Hickory and Dickory, and two members of the Magellan's security complement whom she had deputized. "Come look at this," she said, and walked over to one of the storage containers on the perimeter.

"What am I looking for?" I asked.

"These," Jane said, and pointed at the container, near the top, about three meters up.

I squinted. "Those are scratches," I said.

"Yes. We've found them on other containers, too. And there's more," Jane said, and walked over to two other containers. "Something's been digging here," she said. "It looks like something's been trying to dig under these containers."