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“Because you’re a xig,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  “That’s really unfortunate,” Sorvalh said. “Because, you see, if I am not talking to Mr. Smyrt in ten of your minutes, then those particle beams I mentioned to you will cycle through their targets, and you’ll all be dead, again. But I suppose if Mr. Smyrt would rather you all be dead, it’s all the same to me. You might want to spend those moments with your families, gentlemen.”

  “I don’t believe you,” said a third colonist.

  “Fair enough,” Sorvalh said, and pointed to a small enclosure. “What do you call those animals?”

  “Those are goats,” said the third colonist.

  “And they are adorable,” said Sorvalh. “How many can you spare?”

  “We can’t spare any,” said the second colonist.

  Sorvalh sighed in exasperation. “How do you expect me to give you a demonstration if you can’t spare a single goat?” she said.

  “One,” said the first colonist.

  “You can spare one,” Sorvalh said.

  “Yes,” the first colonist said, and one of the animals exploded before he had even finished saying the word. The rest of the goats, alarmed and covered in gore, bolted toward the farthest reaches of the enclosure.

  Four minutes twenty-two seconds later, Jaco Smyrt stood in front of Sorvalh.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, to him. “I see you go in for angular markings as well.”

  “What do you want, xig?” Smyrt said.

  “Again with the ‘xig,’” Sorvalh said. “I don’t know what it means, but I can tell you don’t mean it nicely.”

  “What do you want?” Smyrt said, through gritted teeth.

  “It’s not what I want, it’s what you want,” Sorvalh said. “And what you want is to leave this planet.”

  “What did you just say?” Smyrt asked.

  “I believe I was perfectly clear,” Sorvalh said. “But allow me to give you additional context. I am a representative of the Conclave. As you may know, we have forbidden further colonization by humans and others. You are, at least to a certain approximation, human. You’re not supposed to be here. So I’ve arranged for you and your entire colony to go. Today.”

  “The fuck we will,” Smyrt said. “I don’t answer to the Colonial Union, I don’t answer to the Conclave, and I sure as shit don’t answer to you, xig.”

  “Of course you don’t,” Sorvalh said. “But allow me to attempt to reason with you anyway. If you leave, then you will live. If you don’t leave, then you’ll be killed and there will be a state of war between the Conclave and the Colonial Union, which is likely to end very poorly for the Colonial Union. Surely that matters to you.”

  “I can think of no better way to die than as a martyr for my race and my way of life,” Smyrt said. “And if the Colonial Union dies with us, then I will welcome its diluted population as our honor guard into hell.”

  “A stirring sentiment,” Sorvalh said. “I was told you were a believer in racial purity and such things.”

  “There is only one race, and it is the human race,” Smyrt said. “It must be preserved and made pure. But it is better for all of humanity to fall than to remain the denatured thing it is today.”

  “Marvelous,” Sorvalh said. “I must read your literature.”

  “No xig will ever read our sacred books,” Smyrt said.

  “It’s almost touching how devoted you are to this racial ideal of yours,” Sorvalh said.

  “I’ll die for it,” Smyrt said.

  “Yes, and so will everyone like you,” Sorvalh said. “Because here is the thing. If you don’t leave this colony today, you will die—which you are fine with, I understand—but after you’re dead, I’ll make a study of everyone in this pure colony of yours, to make sure I understand your essence. Then the Conclave will go to the Colonial Union and give it an ultimatum: Either every member of your pure race of human dies, or every human dies. And, well…you know how mongrels think, Mr. Smyrt. They have no appreciation for the perfection of purity.”

  “You can’t do that,” Smyrt said.

  “Of course we can,” Sorvalh said. “The Conclave outnumbers the Colonial Union in every single possible way. The question is whether we will or not. And whether we will depends on you, Mr. Smyrt. Leave now, or leave the human race to the mongrels forever. I’ll give you ten minutes to think it over.”

  “That’s a disgusting tactic you used,” Gau said, as Sorvalh recounted her encounter with the Deliverance colonists.

  “Well, of course it was,” Sorvalh said. “When you are dealing with disgusting people, you have to speak their language.”

  “And it worked,” Gau said.

  “Yes, it did,” Sorvalh said. “That ridiculous man was happy to let all of the human race die, but when it was just his tiny phenotypical slice of it, he lost his nerve. And he was convinced that we would have done it, too.”

  “You assured the other humans we wouldn’t, I presume,” Gau said.

  “Colonel Rigney, whom I was dealing with, did not need the assurance,” Sorvalh said. “He understood what I was planning from the start. And as soon as I got that wretched man to agree to leave, he and his team had them in shuttles and off the planet. It was all done by local sundown.”

  “Then you did well,” Gau said.

  “I did as you asked,” Sorvalh said. “Although I do feel bad about the goat.”

  “I’d like for you to keep this back channel with Rigney open,” Gau said. “If you work well with him, maybe we can keep out of each other’s way.”

  “Your consideration of the humans is going to become a sticking point, General,” Sorvalh said. “And although this one meeting went well, I think that sooner or later our two civilizations are going to be back at each other. No back channel is going to change that. The humans are too ambitious. And so are you.”

  “Then let’s work at making it later rather than sooner,” Gau said.

  “In that case, you’ll want this,” Sorvalh said, and took the manuscript page from her robes and gave it to General Gau. “Let the information on it—all of it—find its way to Representative Hado. Let him bring it to you in the Grand Assembly. And when he does, announce that you have seen the list, too, and that our forces have been to each of the planets and found no record of human habitation—as they will not, because the Colonial Union was thorough in removing traces. You may then accuse Hado of warmongering and possibly fabricating the document. You will break him there, or at least damage him for long enough that he will cease to be a factor.”

  Gau took the document. “This is what I mean when I say you are scary in your own special way, Hafte,” he said.

  “Why, General,” Sorvalh said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Also by John Scalzi

  Old Man’s War

  The Ghost Brigades

  The Android’s Dream

  The Last Colony

  Zoe’s Tale

  Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded

  Fuzzy Nation

  Redshirts

  Edited by John Scalzi

  Metatropolis

  About the Author

  JOHN SCALZI is the author of several SF novels including the bestselling Old Man’s War and its sequels, and the New York Times bestsellers Fuzzy Nation and Redshirts. He is a winner of science fiction’s John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and he won the Hugo Award for Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded, a collection of essays from his wildly popular blog Whatever (whatever.scalzi.com). He 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.

  HUMAN DIVISION #6: THE BACK CHANNEL

  Copyright © 2013 by John Scalzi

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by John Harris

  A Tor Book

  Published by T
om Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  e-ISBN: 978-1-4668-3056-1

  The Human Division

  John Scalzi’s stirring new novel in the universe of his bestselling Old Man’s War

  New e-episodes will appear every Tuesday from January 15 to April 9, 2013, on all your favorite e-book sites. Don’t miss a single one:

  January 15: The Human Division #1: The B-Team

  January 22: The Human Division #2: Walk the Plank

  January 29: The Human Division #3: We Only Need the Heads

  February 5: The Human Division #4: A Voice in the Wilderness

  February 12: The Human Division #5: Tales from the Clarke

  February 19: The Human Division #6: The Back Channel

  February 26: The Human Division #7: The Dog King

  March 5: The Human Division #8: The Sound of Rebellion

  March 12: The Human Division #9: The Observers

  March 19: The Human Division #10: This Must Be the Place

  March 26: The Human Division #11: A Problem of Proportion

  April 2: The Human Division #12: The Gentle Art of Cracking Heads

  April 9: The Human Division #13: Earth Below, Sky Above

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Contents

  Begin Reading

  Also by John Scalzi

  About the Author

  Copyright