John Scalzi - The Last Colony

"Don't worry about it," Jane said. "And besides, he was right. This is the first new planet you've been on where someone wasn't trying to kill you. Enjoy it. Come on." She started walking across the vast expanse of native grasses we had landed on, toward a line of what looked like—but weren't exactly—trees. For that matter, the native grasses weren't exactly grasses, either.

Whatever they were precisely, not-grasses and not-trees both, they were a lush and impossible green. The extra-rich atmosphere lay moist and heavy on us. It was late winter in this hemisphere, but where we were on the planet, latitude and prevailing wind patterns conspired to make the temperature pleasantly warm. I was worried what midsummer was going to be like; I expected I was going to be perspiring a lot.

I caught up with Jane, who had stopped to study a tree thing. It didn't have leaves, it had fur. The fur seemed to be moving; I leaned in closer and saw a colony of tiny creatures bustling about in it.

"Tree fleas," I said. "Nice."

Jane smiled, which was rare enough to note. "I think it's interesting," she said, petting a bough of the tree. One of the tree fleas jumped from the fur to her hand; she looked at it with interest before blowing it off her with a gust of breath. "Think you could be happy here?" I asked. "I think I could be busy here," Jane said. "General Rybicki can say what he wants about the selection process for this colony. I've read the colonist files. I'm not convinced most of these colonists aren't going to be a danger to themselves and others." She nodded in the direction of the shuttle, where we last saw Kranjic. "Look at Kranjic. He doesn't want to colonize. He wants to write about other people colonizing. He's under the impression that once we get here he's going to have all the time in the world to do his show and write his book. He's going to get to the edge of starvation before he figures it out."

"Maybe he's an outlier," I said.

"You're an optimist," Jane said, and looked back at the fur tree, and the crawly things in it. "I like that about you. But I don't think we should operate from an optimistic point of view."

"Fair enough," I said. "But you have to admit you were wrong about the Mennonites."

"I'm provisionally wrong about the Mennonites," Jane said, looking back to me. "But, yes. They're much stronger candidates than I expected."

"You just never knew any Mennonites," I said. "I never knew any religious people at all before I got to Huckleberry," Jane said. "And Hinduism didn't do much for me. Although I can appreciate Shiva."

"I'll bet," I said. "That's a little different than being a Mennonite, though."

Jane looked up over my shoulder. "Speak of the devil," she said. I turned and saw a tall, pale figure coming toward us. Simple clothes and a wide hat. It was Hiram Yoder, who had been chosen by the Colonial Mennonites to accompany us on the trip.

I smiled at his form. Unlike Jane, I did know Mennonites—the part of Ohio I had lived in had a lot of them, as well as Amish, Brethren and other variations of Anabaptists. Like all sorts of folks, individual Mennonites had the usual range of personalities, but as a class they seemed to be good and honest people. When I needed work done on my house I'd always picked Mennonite contractors because they would do the job right the first time, and if something didn't turn out right, they didn't argue with you about it; they'd just fix it. That's a philosophy worth getting behind.

Yoder raised his hand in welcome. "I thought I'd join you," he said. "I figure if the leaders of the colony are looking so intently at something, I might want to know what it is."

"It's just a tree," I said. "Or, well, whatever it is we end up calling this thing."

Yoder looked up at it. "Appears to be a tree to me," he said. "With fur. We might call it a fur tree."

"Just my thinking," I said. "Not to be confused with a fir tree, of course."

"Of course," Yoder said. "That would be silly."

"What do you think of your new world?" I asked.

"I think it could be a good one," Yoder said. "Although much will depend on the people in it."

"I agree," I said. "Which brings me to a question I'd meant to ask you. Some of the Mennonites I knew in Ohio kept to themselves— would separate themselves from the world. I need to know if your group will do the same."

Yoder smiled. "No, Mr. Perry," he said. "Mennonites vary in how we practice our faith, from church to church. We are Colonial Mennonites. We choose to live and dress simply. We don't shun technology when it's required, but we don't use it when it's not. And we choose to live in the world, as the salt and the light. We hope to be good neighbors to you and the other colonists, Mr. Perry."

"I'm glad to hear that," I said. "Looks like our colony is off to a promising start."

"That could change," Jane said, and nodded off toward the distance again. Kranjic and Beata were heading our way. Kranjic was moving animatedly; Beata was moving at a distinctly more sluggish pace. Chasing after colonists all day was clearly not her idea of fun. "There you are," Kranjic said to Yoder. "I have comments from every other colonist here—well, except for her," he waved in the direction of Jane. "And now I just need something from you to put into the pool stock."

"I've told you before, Mr. Kranjic, that I would prefer not to be photographed or interviewed," Yoder said, pleasantly. "This is a religious thing, isn't it," Kranjic said. "Not really," Yoder said. "I'd just prefer to be let alone."

"The folks back on Kyoto are going to be disappointed if they don't see their hometown…" Kranjic stopped, and stared behind all three of us. "What the hell are those?"

We turned, slowly, to see two deer-sized creatures about five meters into the fur trees, eyeing us placidly. "Jane?" I asked.

"I have no idea," Jane said. "There's not a whole lot on the local fauna in our reports."

"Beata," Kranjic said. "Go get closer so we can get a better shot."

"The hell I will," Beata said. "I'm not going to get eaten so you can get a better shot."

"Oh, come on," Kranjic said. "If they were going to eat us they would have done it by now. Look." He started to inch closer to the things.

"Should we let him do that?" I asked Jane.

Jane shrugged. "We haven't technically started the colony yet."

"Good point," I said.

Kranjic had snuck up to within a couple meters of the pair when the larger of the two decided it had had enough, bellowed impressively, and took a quick step forward. Kranjic shrieked and took off like a shot, nearly stumbling as he sprinted back toward the shuttle.

I turned to Beata. "Tell me you got that," I said.

"You know I did," she said.

The two creatures in the trees, their work done, sauntered casually away.

"Wow," Savitri said. "It's not every day that you get to see a major colonial news figure wet himself in fear."

"This is true," I said. "Although to be entirely honest I'm pretty sure I could have gone my entire life without having seen that and still died happy."

"Then it's just a bonus," Savitri said.

We were sitting in my office on the day before my final departure from Huckleberry. Savitri was sitting in the chair behind my desk; I was sitting in one of the chairs in front of it.

"How do you like the view from the chair?" I asked.

"The view is fine. The chair is kind of lumpy," Savitri said. "Like someone's lazy ass had deformed it beyond all recognition."

"You can always get a new chair," I said.

"Oh, I'm sure Administrator Kulkarni would be delighted with that expense," Savitri said. "He's never gotten over the idea of me as a troublemaker."

"You are a troublemaker," I said. "It's part of the job description of being an ombudsman."