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

by John Scalzi

“What the hell is wrong with you? We come out all this way and you sing at them. Sing. Like you’re at a hootenanny. We are not doing this again. Ever.”

They don’t need me coming in and saying that while they were out I faced down four werewolves who were about to kill two more colonists, and defeated them using only the power of song.

Dad and Hickory bantered back and forth a little about what being able to lie brings to a conversation (in my opinion, mostly the ability to not have to argue about stupid things it’s just better to lie about, but no one asked me),

The second is I wondered what she would think of my ability to keep a secret if she had known what I had just done with my evening.

“They all live,” I said. “No,” Jane said. “They exist. Even with their consciousness implants they hardly know what to do with themselves, Zoë. It’s all too new to them. Their race has no experience with it. They don’t just watch you because you entertain them. They watch you because you’re teaching them how to be. You’re teaching them how to live.”

“You are Zoë,” General Gau said. “The human who has the Obin to do her bidding.”

“It must be nice to have an entire race at your beck and call,” Gau said. “You should know,” I said. “You have four hundred races at yours. Sir.”