John Scalzi - The Last Colony

The Last Colony

Old Mans War Book 3

John Scalzi

Let metell you of the worlds Ive left behind.

Earth you know;everyone knows it. Its the birthplace of humanity, although at thispoint not many consider it our home planetPhoenix has hadthat job since the Colonial Union was created and became the guiding force forexpanding and protecting our race in the universe. But you never forget whereyou come from.

Being from Earthin this universe is like being a small-town kid who gets on the bus, goes tothe big city and spends his entire afternoon gawking at all the tall buildings.Then he gets mugged for the crime of marveling at this strange new world, whichhas such things in it, because the things in it dont have much time orsympathy for the new kid in town, and theyre happy to kill him for whathes got in his suitcase. The small-town kid learns this fast, because hecant go home again.

I spentseventy-five years on Earth, living mostly in the same small Ohio town andsharing most of that life with the same woman. She died and stayed behind. Ilived and I left.

The next world ismetaphorical. The Colonial Defense Forces took me off Earth and kept the partsof me they wanted: my consciousness, and some small part of my DNA. From thelatter they built me a new body, which was young and quick and strong andbeautiful and only partially human. They stuffed my consciousness inside of it,and gave me not nearly enough time to glory in my second youth. Then they tookthis beautiful body that was now me and spent the next several years activelytrying to get it killed by throwing me at every hostile alien race it could.

There were a lotof those. The universe is vast, but the number of worlds suitable for humanlife is surprisingly small, and as it happens space is filled with numerousother intelligent species who want the same worlds we do. Very few of thesespecies, it seems, are into the concept of sharing; were certainly not.We all fight, and the worlds we can inhabit swap back and forth between usuntil one or another gets a grip on it so tight we cant be pried off.Over a couple of centuries, we humans have managed this trick on several dozenworlds, and failed this trick on dozens more. None of this has made us verymany friends.

I spent six yearsin this world. I fought and I nearly died, more than once. I had friends, mostof whom died but some of whom I saved. I met a woman who was achingly like theone I shared my life with on Earth, but who was nevertheless entirely her ownperson. I defended the Colonial Union, and in doing so I believed I was keepinghumanity alive in the universe.

At the end of itthe Colonial Defense Forces took the part of me that had always been me andstuffed it into a third and final body. This body was young, but not nearly asquick and strong. It was, after all, only human. But this body would not beasked to fight and die. I missed being as strong as a cartoon superhero. Ididnt miss every alien creature I met trying very hard to kill me. Itwas a fair trade.

The next world islikely unknown to you. Stand again on Earth, our old home, where billions stilllive and dream of the stars. Look up in the sky, at the constellation Lynx,hard by Ursa Major.

Theres astar there, yellow like our sun, with six major planets. The third one,appropriately enough, is a counterfeit of Earth: 96 percent of itscircumference, but with a slightly larger iron core, so it has 101 percent ofits mass (you dont notice that 1 percent much). Two moons: onetwo-thirds the size of Earths moon, but closer than Luna, so in the skyit takes up the same amount of real estate. The second moon, a capturedasteroid, is much smaller and closer in. Its in an unstable orbit;eventually it will tumble and fall into the planet below. Best estimate is thiswill happen in about a quarter of a million years. The natives are not terriblyconcerned at the moment.

This world wasfound by humans nearly seventy-five years ago; the Ealan had a colony there butthe Colonial Defense Forces corrected that. Then the Ealan, shall we say,checked the math on that equation and it was another couple of years before itwas all sorted out. When it was, the Colonial Union opened the world tocolonists from Earth, mostly from India. They arrived in waves; the first one afterthe planet was secured from the Ealan, and the second shortly after theSubcontinental War on Earth, when the Occupation-backed probationary governmentoffered the most notable supporters of the Chowdhury regime the choice ofcolonization or imprisonment. Most went into exile, taking their families withthem. These people didnt so much dream of the stars as had them forcedupon them.

Given the peoplewho live on the planet, you would think it would have a name that reflectstheir heritage. You would be wrong. The planet is called Huckleberry, named nodoubt by some Twain-loving apparatchik of the Colonial Union.Huckleberrys large moon is Sawyer; the small one is Becky. Its threemajor continents are Samuel, Langhorne and Clemens; from Clemens there is along, curling string of volcanic islands known as the Livy Archipelago, set inthe Calaveras Ocean. Most of the prominent features were dubbed in variousaspects Twainania before the first settlers arrived; they seem to have acceptedthis with good grace.

Stand on thisplanet with me now. Look up in the sky, in the direction of the constellationLotus. In it there is a star, yellow like the one this planet circles, aroundwhich I was born, two other lives ago. From here it is so far away as to beinvisible to the eye, which is often how I feel about the life I lived there.

My name is JohnPerry. I am eighty-eight years old. I have lived on this planet for nearlyeight years now. It is my home, which I share with my wife and my adopteddaughter. Welcome to Huckleberry. In this story, its the next world Ileave behind. But not the final one.

The story of how Ileft Huckleberry beginsas do all worthy storieswith a goat.

SavitriGuntupalli, my assistant, didnt even look up from her book as I cameback from lunch. Theres a goat in your office, she said.

Hmmmm,I said. I thought wed sprayed for those.

This got an upwardglance, which counted as a victory as these things go. It brought theChengelpet brothers with it, she said.

Crap,I said. The last pair of brothers who fought as much as the Chengelpet brotherswere named Cain and Abel, and at least one of them finally took some directaction. I thought I told you not to let those two in my office when Iwasnt around.

You said nosuch thing, Savitri said.

Letsmake it a standing order, I said.

And even ifyou had, Savitri continued, setting down her book, this assumesthat either Chengelpet would listen to me, which neither would. Aftab stompedthrough first with the goat and Nissim followed right after. Neither of them somuch as looked in my direction.

Idont want to have to deal with the Chengelpets, I said. Ijust ate.

Savitri reachedover to the side of the desk, grabbed her waste-basket and placed it on top ofher desk. By all means, vomit first, she said.

I had met Savitriseveral years before while I was touring the colonies as a representative ofthe Colonial Defense Forces, talking it up to the various colonies I was sentto. At the stop in the village of New Goa in the Huckleberry colony, Savitristood up and called me a tool of the imperial and totalitarian regime of theColonial Union. I liked her immediately. When I mustered out of the CDF, Idecided to settle in New Goa. I was offered the position of village ombudsman,which I took, and was surprised on the first day of work to find Savitri there,telling me that she was going to be my assistant whether I liked it or not.

Remind meagain why you took this job, I said to Savitri over the wastebasket.

Sheerperversity, Savitri said. Are you going to vomit or not?