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Authors: John Scalzi

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“Do you eat people?” asked another boy.

“I eat churros,” Sorvalh said, holding up her now-neglected treat. “So unless churros are made of people, no.”

“You can’t eat churros all the time,” this new boy pointed out.

“Actually, if I wanted to I could,” Sorvalh said, taking the opposite position of her earlier comment to Tony. “It’s one of the perks of being a grown-up.”

The children seemed to pause to consider this.

“However, I don’t,” Sorvalh said. “When I am on Earth, I usually eat your fruits and vegetables. I particularly like sweet potatoes and tangerines. I only rarely eat your meats. They disagree with me. And I don’t eat people, because I wouldn’t want people to eat me.”

“Are you married?” asked another child.

“My people don’t get married,” Sorvalh said.

“Are you living in sin?” asked the same child. “Like the way my mother says my Aunt Linda is?”

“I don’t know about your mother or your Aunt Linda,” Sorvalh said. “And I’m not sure what ‘living in sin’ means here. My people don’t marry because that’s just not how we do things. The best way to describe it is that we have lots of friends and sometimes as friends we have children together.”

“Like my Aunt Linda,” the child said.

“Perhaps,” Sorvalh said, diplomatically as possible.

“Are you pregnant now?” asked another child.

“I’m too old for that now,” Sorvalh said. “And we don’t get pregnant anyway. We lay eggs.”

“You’re a chicken!” said the first boy, and there was laughter to this.

“Probably not a chicken,” Sorvalh said. “But yes, like your birds we lay eggs. We tend to do this all at the same time, and then the community cares for them all at once.”

“How many eggs have you laid?” asked the latest child.

“It’s a difficult question to answer,” Sorvalh said, guessing that Mrs. Everston probably wouldn’t want her to go into great detail about Lalan reproductive matters; humans were known to be twitchy about such things. “It’s probably best to say that I had four children who lived to adulthood, and two of them now have had children of their own.”

“How do you speak our language?” asked a girl, close to Sorvalh.

“I practice it,” Sorvalh said. “Just like anyone does. I’m good with languages, though, and I study yours every night. And when I go to other countries, I use this.” She held up her PDA. “It translates for me so I can speak to other humans and they to me.”

“Do you play basketball?” asked another child.

“I don’t think it would be much of a challenge for someone of my height,” Sorvalh said.

“How do you get into rooms?” asked a different child.

“Very carefully,” Sorvalh said.

“Have you met the president?” asked a different little girl.

“Yes, once,” Sorvalh said, recalling the event. “I liked visiting the president because I can stand up easily in the Oval Office. It has high ceilings.”

“Do you poop?” asked a boy.

“Brian
Winters
,” Mrs. Everston said, severely.

“It’s a valid question!” the boy said, protesting. He was apparently the sort of eight-year-old boy for whom it made sense to have the phrase “it’s a valid question” in his repertoire. Mrs. Everston said something else to Brian while Sorvalh quickly looked up the definition of “poop” on her PDA.

“I apologize for that,” Mrs. Everston said.

“Not at all,” Sorvalh said, smoothly. “It’s not the worst question I’ve ever been asked. And to answer your question, Brian, no, I don’t
poop
. At least not like you do. I do excrete waste from time to time, and when I do, it’s otherwise very much like going to the bathroom is for you. Next question.”

“Do you know any other aliens?” asked another girl.

“Whole planets’ worth,” Sorvalh said. “I have personally met people from four hundred different races of intelligent beings. Some of them are as small as that,” she pointed to a squirrel running frantically toward a tree, “and some of them are so large that they make me look tiny.”

“Do
they
poop?”

“Brian
Winters
,” Sorvalh said, severely. “That is
not
a valid question.” Brian Winters, unused to being reprimanded by a ten-foot alien, shut up.

“Will more aliens come here?” asked a boy.

“I don’t know,” Sorvalh said. “More have been coming recently, because my government, which is known as the Conclave, has been talking to the governments here on Earth. But I think a lot will have to happen before they are so common that you don’t notice them anymore when you walk down the Mall.”

“Are we going to have a war?” asked Hannah.

Sorvalh turned her head to look at Hannah directly. “Why do you ask, Hannah?” she said, after a minute.

“My dad said to my mom that he thinks there’s going to be a war,” Hannah said. “He said that it’s going to be the humans against everyone else and that everyone else wants a war to get rid of all of us. You’ll fight us and then when we’re gone you’ll live where we live and no one will know we were here.”

“‘A monster fights and wrecks things,’” Sorvalh said. She looked out at the children and saw them quiet, waiting for her answer, the two adults standing silently as well, patient.

“I can’t say there will never be a war,” she said. “We can’t make promises like that. What I can say is that I am a diplomat. What I do is talk to people so we don’t have to fight them. That’s why I’m here. To talk and to listen and to find a way all of us can live together so that we don’t fight, and we’re not scared of each other.” She reached out and gently touched Hannah on the cheek. “It’s my job to make sure that none of us has to see the other as a monster. Do you understand what I mean, Hannah?”

Hannah nodded.

“Good,” Sorvalh said. “Then you can tell your dad, from me, that I don’t want a war either.”

“Okay,” Hannah said.

“All right, kids,” Mrs. Everston said, clapping her hands together. “Time to say good-bye to Mrs. Sorvalh now. We still have to walk to the Washington Monument.”

“Get a picture!” one of the kids said. “No one will believe us if you don’t.”

Mrs. Everston looked over. “Is it okay? I know we’ve imposed a lot on you today.”

“No you haven’t,” Sorvalh said. “And yes, it is.”

Five minutes later the pictures were done, the children were organized as much as a passel of eight-year-olds could be, and the entire crew was headed toward the Washington Monument. Sorvalh watched them go. As they walked, Hannah turned to look at Sorvalh. Sorvalh waved. Hannah smiled and turned back to her group. Sorvalh looked at the cold remains of her churros, tossed them into a nearby trash can, and went to get fresh pastries.

Tony was waiting for her with a bag of churros already gathered up.

“You are good,” Sorvalh said, taking the new churros. She reached for her money pouch.

Tony waved her off. “On the house,” he said. “You earned it today, Señora.”

“Thank you, Tony,” Sorvalh said, and pulled one out of the bag. “I think I did at that.” She smiled at her friend and then took a bite.

OTHER NOVELS BY JOHN SCALZI

Agent to the Stars

The Android’s Dream

Fuzzy Nation

Redshirts

The Old Man’s War Novels

Old Man’s War

The Ghost Brigades

The Last Colony

Zoe’s Tale

About the Author

JOHN SCALZI is the author of several SF novels, including his massively successful debut,
Old Man’s War
, and the
New York Times
bestsellers
The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation,
and
Redshirts.
Scalzi is a winner of science fiction’s John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer; he won the Hugo Award for
Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded,
a collection of essays from his popular blog,
Whatever
(
whatever.scalzi.com
). John Scalzi lives in Ohio with his wife and daughter.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE HUMAN DIVISION

The chapters in this book were previously published as individual e-books.

The Human Division #1:
The B-Team
copyright © 2013 by John Scalzi

The Human Division #2:
Walk the Plank
copyright © 2013 by John Scalzi

The Human Division #3:
We Only Need the Heads
copyright © 2013 by John Scalzi

The Human Division #4:
A Voice in the Wilderness
copyright © 2013 by John Scalzi

The Human Division #5:
Tales from the
Clarke copyright © 2013 by John Scalzi

The Human Division #6:
The Back Channel
copyright © 2013 by John Scalzi

The Human Division #7:
The Dog King
copyright © 2013 by John Scalzi