“Anyway, an eco exception request means extra work,” Isabel continued. “I’m getting through it as fast as I can, but I don’t see me being able to get out there for three more days at least, and more likely four.”
“Four days works for me,” Holloway said.
“All right,” Isabel said. “I’ll see you then, then. Don’t make any more major biological discoveries until then, okay?”
The cat thing looked up into the spikewood and opened its mouth. It gave another little coughing sound, as it had at the door. The leaves of the spikewood moved slightly, and out of the foliage four forms emerged, small, furry, catlike. They looked down at the cat thing and then slowly descended.
“I promise nothing,” Holloway said.
“You always were difficult,” Isabel said.
“I thought you liked that about me,” Holloway said.
“Not really,” Isabel said.
“You could have told me that earlier,” Holloway said.
“I’m pretty sure I did,” Isabel said.
“Oh,” Holloway said. “Sorry.”
By this time the first of the new cat things had made its way over to the creature Holloway knew. The two animals appeared to bump foreheads gently, and then Holloway’s cat thing took one of the bindi slices, broke it, and offered half of it to the new creature. It did the same to each of the creatures when they came up to it. Soon all the new creatures were munching quite contentedly on the fruit.
“I’ll forgive you this time because you’re being so nice to me,” Isabel said.
“Thanks,” Holloway said.
“I’ll give you a call when I’m ready to head your way,” Isabel said.
“Sounds good,” Holloway said.
“I know you bought supplies when you came to town, but is there anything you need from here?” Isabel said. “Something you forgot?”
By now the creatures had finished their food and were looking at Holloway and Carl curiously. Carl was waving his tail furiously at the new arrivals. Traitor, Holloway thought again. Carl’s mind-reading powers seemed to be suppressed for the moment.
“I could use some more bindi,” Holloway said.
“All right,” Isabel said. “How many do you want?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Holloway said, staring at his new guests. “You might as well bring a lot.”
Chapter Eight
They were fuzzy, and it seemed like they were family, so for lack of a better description, Holloway called his five visitors “the Fuzzy Family.” And over the next couple of days he got to know them very well, because the Fuzzys decided they were moving in. There were five of them in total, and Holloway gave them names based on what they did and how they reacted to one another.
His original visitor was Papa Fuzzy, because it was obvious he was the leader of the little clan, the one who did the initial foraging and exploring and who had given the rest of the family the “all clear” to come down out of the trees and meet the human and the dog.
Holloway knew that if Isabel were already there, she would gently upbraid him about his patriarchal assumptions, starting with the assumption that Papa Fuzzy was in fact male. Holloway admitted to himself that Papa Fuzzy could very well be female, or something else entirely. Not every life system or life-form tracked precisely with the sexual divisions humans were used to. Hell, they didn’t even on Earth; Holloway recalled Isabel lecturing him about sea horses, and how the males had a “brood pouch” which female sea horses deposited eggs into, which the male then fertilized and carried around until birth.
It was informative in its way, but fundamentally Holloway hadn’t cared much about sea horses and brood pouches and whatever. He feigned interest because it had been early on in his relationship with Isabel, and he was hoping that after the lecture, there might be study hall. Eventually Isabel would figure out his I’m not actually listening look. That was one of their earlier problems, which never did get resolved satisfactorily. Which was, Holloway supposed, why he was now alone.
Well, alone with a dog and five little creatures he was now willy-nilly assigning gender and social roles. Holloway figured there was a way to check to see who was male and who was female, but he didn’t figure that was actually his job. A biologist would be on-site in a few days. He could wait. And if he had guessed wrong, he could change his mind. Just ask Carl about that. He’d originally been named Carla, after Holloway’s aunt, until someone pointed out his new puppy’s plumbing in greater detail. Carl had been Holloway’s first dog. This was the excuse he gave when people pointed and laughed.
So: Papa (for now) Fuzzy, leader and patriarch. Holloway watched him interact with the other fuzzys and wondered again at the thing’s intelligence. He was damn smart, as far as animals went. Definitely smarter than Carl, whom he had apparently entirely coopted, given that the dog had now taken to following Papa around the treetop compound, tail wagging. It takes a certain kind of dog to willingly demote himself from alpha dog, and that dog was Carl. Holloway would have to speak to him about it, for what little good it would do, Carl being a dog and all.
Holloway rummaged through his brain to find an equivalently smart animal. If he had to guess, he’d say that Papa Fuzzy was about as smart as a capuchin monkey, a comparison Holloway was qualified to make because he had an acquaintance with one when he’d first landed on Zara XXIII. A “cap” had been the pet of Sam Hamilton, another surveyor, who worked the territory directly next to Holloway’s. The rumor was the monkey might have been smarter than Hamilton, who was rumored to have children’s reading primers on his infopanel so as to catch up for a lifetime of functional illiteracy.
Whether that was true or not, the monkey was clever as hell and also a little thief; Sam was repeatedly and apologetically handing back people’s keys and wallets, although the latter were often missing the printed ZaraCorp credit scrip that surveyors used to buy supplies and to gamble with. Credit cards were also occasionally found to have balances lightened. No one believed the monkey was responsible for that. Holloway had had to have a talk with Sam about it at one point.
Now Sam and the monkey were gone: Sam hadn’t taken care of his skimmer very well and had made an unscheduled hard landing on the jungle floor after one of his rotors flamed out. Sam had never bothered to get himself an emergency perimeter fence; by the time a neighboring surveyor had gotten to his location, the only thing left of Sam and his monkey had been a trail of blood leading into the jungle. Sales of emergency perimeter fences doubled in the next week.
The more Holloway thought about it, the more he figured that Papa Fuzzy might actually be smarter than that monkey. For one thing, he and his family were still alive in the same jungle that ate that monkey whole. He was also smart enough to realize that hanging out with Holloway might be an easier life than avoiding the predators in the trees and down on the jungle floor.
Next in the Fuzzy Family hierarchy had been the fuzzy who had first come down out of the trees to greet Papa. This fuzzy was slightly smaller than Papa, and lighter—golden-haired where Papa Fuzzy was more of a deep tortoiseshell coloring, but with a darker face. She (another assumption, Holloway realized) reminded Holloway of a Siamese or Himalayan breed of cat. This fuzzy was clearly Papa Fuzzy’s companion; the two of them were often close together and seemed openly affectionate, petting and nuzzling each other frequently. Holloway was mildly concerned that it might go further than that and then he would be an unwilling witness to fuzzy sex, or something. But the two kept it in their metaphorical pants, at least when he was around.