Zoe's Tale (Old Man's War, #4)(17)

"Who was that?" Hickory asked.

"That was Enzo," I said. "Which I already told you. He's a boy. A cute one, too."

"Does he have impure intentions?" Hickory asked.

"What?" I said, slightly incredulous. "'Impure intentions'? Are you serious? No. I've only known him for about twenty minutes. Even for a teenage boy, that would be a pretty quick ramp-up."

"This is not what we have heard," Hickory said.

"From whom?" I asked.

"From Major Perry," Hickory said. "He said that he was once a teenage boy himself."

"Oh, God," I said. "Thank you so very much for the mental image of Dad as a teenage sack of hormones. That's the sort of image that takes therapy to get rid of."

"You have asked us to intercede for you with teenage boys before," Hickory said.

"That was a special case," I said. And it had been. Just before we left Huckleberry my parents had gone off on a planetary survey of Roanoke and I was given tacit permission to have a good-bye party for my friends, and Anil Rameesh had taken it upon himself to sneak into my bedroom and get naked, and upon discovery, to inform me that he was giving me his virginity as a good-bye gift. Well, he didn't put it that way; he was trying to avoid mentioning the whole "virginity" aspect of it at all.

Regardless, this was a gift I really didn't want, even though it was already unwrapped. I told Hickory and Dickory to escort him out; Anil responded by screaming, jumping out my window and down off the roof, and then running all the way home naked. Which was a sight. I had his clothes delivered home the next day.

Poor Anil. He wasn't a bad person. Just deluded and hopeful.

"I will let you know if Enzo presents any problems," I said. "Until then, you leave him alone."

"As you wish," Hickory said. I could tell it was not entirely pleased about this.

"What was it you wanted to talk to me about?" I asked.

"We have news for you from the Obin government," Hickory said. "An invitation."

"An invitation for what?" I asked.

"An invitation to visit our homeworld, and to tour our planets and colonies," Hickory said. "You are now old enough to travel unaccompanied, and while all Obin have known of you since you were young, thanks to our recordings, there is a great desire among all Obin to meet you in person. Our government asks you if you will not accede to this request."

"When?" I asked.

"Immediately," Hickory said.

I looked at them both. "You're asking me this now?" I said. "We're less than two hours from departing to Roanoke."

"We have only just now received the invitation," Hickory said. "As soon as it was sent to us, we came to find you."

"It couldn't wait?" I asked.

"Our government wished to ask you before your journey to Roanoke began," Hickory said. "Once you had established yourself on Roanoke, you might be hesitant to leave for such a significant amount of time."

"How much time?" I asked.

"We have sent a proposed itinerary to your PDA," Hickory said.

"I'm asking you," I said.

"The entire tour would take thirteen of your standard months," Hickory said. "Although if you were amenable, it could be extended."

"So, to recap," I said. "You want me to decide in the next two hours whether or not to leave my family and friends for at least a year, maybe longer, to tour the Obin worlds by myself."

"Yes," Hickory said. "Although of course Dickory and I would accompany you."

"No other humans, though," I said.

"We could find some if you wanted," Hickory said.

"Would you?" I said. "That would be swell."

"Very well," Hickory said.

"I'm being sarcastic, Hickory," I said, irritated. "The answer is no. I mean, really, Hickory. You're asking me to make a life-changing decision on two hours' notice. That's completely ridiculous."

"We understand that the timing of this request is not optimal," Hickory said.

"I don't think you do," I said. "I think you know it's short notice, but I don't think you understand that it's offensive."

Hickory shrank back slightly. "We did not mean to offend," it said.

I was about to snap something off but I stopped and started counting in my head, because somewhere in there the rational part of my brain was letting me know I was heading into over-reaction territory. Hickory and Dickory's invitation was last-minute, but biting their heads off for it didn't make much sense. Something about the request was just rubbing me the wrong way.

It took me a minute to figure out why. Hickory and Dickory were asking me to leave behind everyone I knew, and everyone I had just met, for a year of being alone. I had already done that, long ago, when the Obin had taken me from Covell, in the time I had to wait before my father could find a way to reclaim me. It was a different time and with different circumstances, but I remember the loneliness and need for human contact. I loved Hickory and Dickory; they were family. But they couldn't offer me what I needed and could get from human contact.

And besides, I just said good-bye to a whole village of people I knew, and before that had said good-bye to family and friends, usually forever, a whole lot more than most people my age. Right now I had just found Gretchen, and Enzo was certainly looking interesting. I didn't want to say good-bye to them even before I properly got to know them.