Free Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi

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