Fuzzy Nation

by John Scalzi

  “I’m telling you so you understand, Holloway,” Aubrey said. “Because it could become your problem, if you want.”

  Holloway looked over to Landon. “I’m guessing that’s your cue to speak.”

  Landon smiled. He opened the folder he was carrying and walked the few steps to Holloway to hand him a paper document from inside it. Holloway examined the document. “It’s a map,” he said.

  “Do you know what it’s a map of?” Landon asked.

  “Yes,” Holloway said. “It’s a map of the northeast continent.”

  “It’s a map of the one continent on Zara Twenty-three that ZaraCorp has not begun exploiting,” Landon said. “We only this last month received the go-ahead from the Colonial Authority to work the continent.”

  “Okay,” Holloway said. “So?”

  “So it’s yours,” Aubrey said.

  “Excuse me?” Holloway said.

  “Zarathustra Corporation is initiating a pilot program in which a single surveyor will be responsible for the exploration and exploitation of a continent,” Landon said. “This surveyor can handle the job however he wants, probably by operating exactly how ZaraCorp currently does in dealing with its surveyors. The difference is that the head surveyor will receive five percent of the exploitation revenues for his administration of the continent.”

  “Minus operating costs and whatever percentage he allows his own contractors, of course,” Aubrey said.

  “Yes,” Landon said. “So call it four-point-seven-five percent.”

  Holloway grinned. “I suppose this means you’re not kicking me off the planet at the end of my contract,” he said.

  “It would appear not,” Landon allowed. “If you agree.”

  “And you’re keeping this from looking like a completely transparent bribe to me how?” Holloway asked.

  “Because it reduces the amount of staffing ZaraCorp has to have on planet, which saves us money,” Landon said. “And also because the five percent contracting fee is tax-deductible.”

  “ZaraCorp already pays almost nothing in taxes,” Holloway said.

  “Call it insurance,” Aubrey said.

  Holloway hooked a thumb at Bourne. “So I become a multibillionaire by doing his job,” he said.

  “On a somewhat larger scale,” Landon said. “But, yes. Best of all, you can staff out the whole job. You don’t even need to be on planet. You can be back home on Earth, watching the revenues by the pool.”

  “What do I have to do for all of this?” Holloway asked.

  “Destroy Miss Wangai’s credibility,” Aubrey said.

  “That’s not going to be easy,” Holloway said, after a minute. “Not to mention it will look really bad for you to give me a continent after this.”

  “Give us credit for subtlety, Mr. Holloway,” Landon said. “We will wait an appropriate amount of time before we make the announcement. And Miss Wangai will not be punished in the slightest for asking for the inquiry, which by law she was required to ask for. Indeed, she will be promoted to head up one of our labs back on Earth.”

  “Which is to say, kicked upstairs, far away from here and the fuzzys,” Holloway said.

  “You’ll do something good for her career for once,” Aubrey said. “She’ll get kicked upstairs, you’ll get kicked upstairs, even Bourne here will get kicked upstairs.”

  Holloway looked at Bourne. “Really,” he said.

  “Well, sort of,” Aubrey said. “We told him he could work for you. Figured you’d be motivated to take care of him.”

  “I suppose I would be,” Holloway said. Bourne, for his part, looked thoroughly miserable, as he had through the entire conversation. He knew he was being used as cover for Aubrey’s trip out to Holloway’s compound, and knew what happened to little people caught in the middle of big people’s plans. Holloway almost pitied him. “So that takes cares of the humans,” he said. “What about the fuzzys?”

  Aubrey shrugged. “If they’re important to you, take them with you to the continent,” he said. “Give them their own reservation. Whatever. ZaraCorp will even chip in for a ‘save the fuzzys’ fund. Make us look good to the folks back home. Just as long as no one gets the idea these things are people.”

  “Isabel has video of the fuzzys,” Holloway said. “Secure and unmodifiable video, showing them doing things she believes indicate sentience.”

  “You taught your dog to blow up things, Mr. Holloway,” Landon said.

  “It’s not the same thing,” Holloway said, seeing where Landon was going and echoing Isabel’s arguments to him. “And if you’re suggesting I say Isabel taught the fuzzys tricks to perpetrate a hoax, I’m curious how you think you’re then going to be able to turn around and promote her.”

  “She didn’t train the fuzzys, you did,” Landon said. “Admit to the judge that you trained the animals to do these things before Miss Wangai arrived. We’re not disputing the animals are smart. You could easily have taught them how to do these things. Say that you perpetrated an innocent hoax. As a prank. She was taken in and filed a request for an inquiry before you could come clean. That way she’s completely blameless, and you just look like you were playing a mean but innocent joke.”

  “It’ll make me look like an asshole,” Holloway said.

  “Everyone thinks you’re an asshole anyway, Holloway,” Aubrey said. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Holloway said.

  “Besides, for the amount of money we’re talking about, you can afford to be an asshole,” Aubrey said.

  “Well, when you put it that way,” Holloway said.

  “Mr. Holloway, this is a very serious offer,” Landon said. “There’s too much at stake here. This inquiry has to end with the judge ruling against our filing an SSR. Every other option is failure. You have the power to get the right ruling here for everyone.”

  “Sure,” Holloway said. “And all I have to do is make Isabel look like a fool.”

  “Not to put too fine a point on it, Holloway, but you’ve done that before, haven’t you?” Landon said, nodding at Bourne. “Mr. Bourne here tells us that you sold her out before during an inquiry. She said you taught your dog to blow things up. You called her a liar. You didn’t have a problem with it then, when the only thing at stake was your surveyor contract. Now that you have the potential to become one of the richest men in the universe, you might have some extra motivation.”

  “I suppose I might,” Holloway said.

  “Good,” Aubrey said. “Then we have a deal.”

  “I have to emphasize, Mr. Holloway, that we were never here,” Landon said.

  “Of course not,” Holloway said. “Only your cover man Bourne was here, and he just came out to see the animals.”

  “We understand each other fully,” Landon said.

  “Oh, we do,” Holloway said. “We really do.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  When his guests had left, Holloway reached over for his infopanel and punched up the feed from the security camera. If any of the three men who had been in the house had seen the camera, they didn’t note it, which was just as well since Holloway planned it that way. There was a reason he kept the hat on the camera stand.

  For the first several minutes the video showed nothing but the skimmer with Joe DeLise in it, fiddling with the dash buttons and the key fob and generally looking bored. Holloway fast-forwarded through this and then slowed down the feed when something popped up on the hood of the skimmer. Holloway zoomed in; it was Pinto, the rambunctious fuzzy.

  Pinto walked over to the windshield of the skimmer, clearly curious about the human inside. The human inside appeared to view the fuzzy sourly. Pinto pressed its little face against the glass to get a better look at DeLise. DeLise smacked the inside of the glass with his hand.

  Pinto drew back, startled, but then seemed to realize that the human smacking the glass was not any sort of trouble for it. Pinto smooshed its face up to the glass again. DeLise smacked the glass again. This time Pinto didn’t move. DeL
ise smacked the glass a third time, and again. Holloway zoomed in on DeLise’s face; he was yelling. The skimmer was too far away to pick up the words, and the microphone had been muted in any event.

  Holloway frowned at this. He’d had the security camera on DeLise, but having an audio record of what was said in the cabin would have been useful insurance. He must have accidentally hit the microphone’s mute button when he moved it to get a better angle on the outside. Nothing for it now.

  Holloway zoomed out again to see Pinto, back away from the glass now, watching the yelling DeLise with interest, perhaps wondering why the human didn’t get out of the skimmer and try to catch it or hurt it. After a few minutes, after DeLise calmed down, the fuzzy moved up to the glass again. DeLise was resolutely ignoring the little creature.

  Pinto turned around, squatted, and very deliberately rubbed its ass on the glass, right in front of DeLise’s face.

  DeLise exploded into rage, leaning back into his seat to kick up at the windshield. Apparently only DeLise’s absolute certainty that Holloway would blow his head off with a shotgun kept him in the skimmer. Otherwise Pinto would have been dead meat at this point.

  Holloway tracked back the video to watch this part again, a huge grin on his face.

  Moving forward again, Pinto looked up, as if calling to someone or something. Sure enough, a minute later another fuzzy showed up on the hood of the skimmer: Grandpa. The two of them stood on the hood as if they were holding a conference on something, and then Pinto rubbed its butt on the windshield again, prompting another kick against the glass from DeLise.

  Grandpa Fuzzy, clearly not impressed, whacked Pinto across the head and pulled the smaller fuzzy off the glass, then pushed it off the hood. Pinto took off for the nearest spikewood. Grandpa then turned and looked back at DeLise, walking up to the glass to do so. DeLise spat and fumed.

  After several moments of this the fuzzy appeared to reach a decision, squatted, and rubbed its own ass against the glass. Then it slowly walked off the hood of the skimmer as if it were taking a Sunday stroll. Holloway laughed out loud, alarming Carl.

  Holloway fast-forwarded past several minutes of DeLise doing nothing, then stopped again when the security guard’s three fellow travelers returned to the skimmer. At the sight of them, DeLise opened the front passenger door and risked taking a step out of the skimmer to stand up and start yelling at them as they approached. This was followed by a minute or two of DeLise gesticulating and pointing toward the spikewood Pinto and then Grandpa had climbed up when they departed. Aubrey and Landon briefly walked over to glance up at the spikewood, as if to look for the creatures. Then they returned to the skimmer and the vehicle lifted off, going out of frame several meters above Holloway’s platform.

  Note to self: Give Pinto and Grandpa a beer the next time you see them, Holloway thought. He wouldn’t actually give them a beer; he tried giving a little to Papa and Mama Fuzzy once, just to see how they liked it, and they had both spit it out. Fuzzys liked water, preferably from the running faucet, which still fascinated them, and fruit juice. Every other liquid they gave a pass. But in this case, it would be the thought that counted. Anyone who didn’t like DeLise was all right by Holloway at this point, regardless of species.

  Anyone, said a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Isabel.

  Holloway shook it off. Yes, anyone, but that didn’t mean the fuzzys were sentient. Carl was someone, too, but that didn’t make him the equivalent of a human. It was entirely possible to think of an animal as a someone—as a person—without attributing to them the sort of brainpower that accompanies actual sentience.

  Holloway glanced down at his dog, splayed out on the floor. “Hey, Carl,” he said. Carl’s eyebrows perked up; well, one of them did, anyway, giving the animal a rather unintentionally sardonic look.

  “Carl, speak!” Holloway said. Carl did nothing but look at Holloway. Holloway never taught him the “speak” trick. The idea of having a dog intentionally bark its head off for no particular reason never appealed to him.

  “Good dog, Carl,” he said. “Way to not speak.” Carl snuffled noncommittally and then closed his eyes to get back to sleep.

  Carl was a good dog and good company and not a sentient creature in any standard that would matter to the Colonial Authority. Neither were chimpanzees or dolphins or squids or floaters or blue dawgs or wetsels or punchfish or any other number of creatures who were clearly more clever than the average animal species and yet still not quite there. In over two hundred worlds explored, only two creatures matched up to human sentience: the Urai and Negad, both of whom shared enough common examples of big-brained activities that it would have been impossible not to ascribe them the sentience humans had.

  Well, no, not impossible, some pedantic part of his brain reminded him. In both cases, there was a substantial minority of the exploration and exploitation industry community who argued against their sentience. Both Uraill and Nega (formerly Zara III and BlueSky VI) were rich enough in resources that it was worth their time to take a stab at it, particularly in the case of the Negad, whose civilization at time of contact was roughly equivalent to the hunter-gatherer tribes of the North American continent around 10,000 B.C. Pointing out to E & E lawyers that by their standards they would deny sentience to some of their direct ancestors didn’t seem to bother them any. Lawyers are trained to disregard such irrelevancies. The Negad didn’t read, didn’t have cities, and only arguably had agriculture. Three strikes and they were out, as far as the E & Es and their lawyers were concerned.

  Holloway picked up his infopanel again and backed up the video feed once more to watch Pinto and Grandpa. If the E & Es would argue against the Negad, they would have a field day with the fuzzys. No cities, literacy, or agriculture here, either, as well as no language, no tools, no clothing, and apparently no social structure beyond the family unit—or something close enough to it given their weird unisexual biology that it was a distinction without difference.

  It would be better for them not to be sentient, Holloway thought. Just because they were sentient wouldn’t be a guarantee they’d be recognized as such. Not when so many people had such a vested interest in them not being so. Better to be a monkey and not be able to understand what’s been taken from you, than to be a man and be able to understand all too well—and be helpless to stop it.

  Carl scrambled up from the floor and headed to the cabin door, tail wagging. He poked his snout at the dog door, swinging it out slightly. It was caught by something, which held it open, and Carl backed away.

  A second later the Fuzzy Family made its way through, back from whatever small, furry adventure they had been having with their day. Each of them greeted Carl with a pat or a rub, with the exception of Baby, who wrapped itself around Carl’s neck for a hug. Carl tolerated this well, and gave Baby a lick when it disentangled itself from him.

  Papa Fuzzy walked over to Holloway and stared up at him in that way Holloway knew was the fuzzy telling him it required his assistance. Holloway, thus reminded of his role as fuzzy butler, grinned and followed the creature into the kitchen area, where Papa stopped at the cooler. Holloway, who knew the fuzzy was capable of opening the cooler if it chose, appreciated that it was asking permission. He opened the cooler.

  “Well, go on,” Holloway said, motioning. The fuzzy dived in and a few seconds later hauled out the very last of the smoked turkey.

  “I don’t think you want that,” Holloway said. “It’s on the verge of going bad.” He took the turkey from the fuzzy, fished out the last two remaining turkey pieces, and held them up for Carl, who was passionately interested. “Sit,” he said to Carl, who sat with an altogether enthusiastic thump. Holloway tossed the turkey to Carl, who snapped it out of the air and swallowed it in about a third of a second.

  Papa watched this and then turned to Holloway and squeaked. Holloway assumed the squeak to mean I’m sorry, but I must kill you now.

  Holloway held up his hand. “Wait,” he said, and went
into the cooler, pulling out a second package. “My friend,” he said, holding out the package to the fuzzy, “I think it’s time to introduce you to a little something we humans call ‘bacon.’”

  Papa looked at the package doubtfully.

  “Trust me,” Holloway said. He closed the cooler and went looking for a frying pan.

  Five minutes later, the smell of bacon had attracted all the Fuzzys and Carl, who stared up at the cabin’s tiny stove with rapt attention. At one point Pinto attempted to climb up to snatch some semi-cooked bacon out of the pan; it was pulled down by Mama and handed over to Grandpa, who smacked the younger fuzzy across the head. Head-smacking was apparently Grandpa’s major mode of communication with Pinto.

  Soon enough, six strips of bacon were cooked and sufficiently cooled for consumption. Holloway handed each excited fuzzy a bacon strip and kept the last one for himself. Carl, sensing the abject injustice of a situation in which everyone had bacon but him, whined piteously.

  “Next batch, buddy,” Holloway promised. He peeled off the next batch of strips and turned to place them into the pan. He turned around again to see how the Fuzzys were enjoying their cured, nitrated treat, and saw Papa Fuzzy holding out a piece of its bacon to a very attentive Carl. Papa squeaked. Carl sat. Holloway smiled at the fact that Papa Fuzzy was trying to copy what he’d done with the turkey.

  Papa opened its mouth again. Carl instantly lay down. Papa opened its mouth a third time and Carl rolled onto his back, tongue lolling out. Papa tossed the bacon piece to Carl, who gobbled it up greedily. Then it continued to enjoy the rest of its treat.

  A spatter of bacon grease on Holloway’s arm brought his attention back to the fact that he was still actually cooking food. He finished up the second round of bacon, distributing it equally among the Fuzzys and Carl, each of whom was delighted at the second serving; bacon had now clearly replaced smoked turkey as the king of all meats, at least for the Fuzzys. Holloway put the rest of the uncooked bacon into the cooler, cleaned and stowed the pan, and then walked back over to his desk and picked up his infopanel.