Fuzzy Nation Read Online Free PDF

near Holloway. Holloway reached over, picked up one of the bindi slices, and slowly moved it toward the animal, holding the slice by pinching the smallest amount of the fruit possible with his thumb and index finger.
    “Here you go,” Holloway said.
    Oh, smart, said his internal sensible person. Now you’re going to get the Zara XXIII equivalent of rabies.
    The cat thing likewise appeared dubious about this new development and shrank back from the proffered slice.
    “Come on, now,” Holloway said to the thing. “If I were going to kill you and eat you, I would have done it already.” He jiggled the piece of fruit.
    After a few seconds the cat thing cautiously moved forward, apparently hesitant, and then snatched at the slice, using both its hands. And they were hands; Holloway noted three fingers and a long thumb, riding lower on the palm than its human equivalent. Holloway blinked and the little hands were gone as the creature retreated to its far corner, never taking its eyes off Holloway as it began to devour its second bindi slice.
    Holloway shrugged, turned away from the creature again, and then knelt and started shelving the books and binders strewn across the floor.
    After a few minutes of this, he became aware he was being watched. He looked up and saw the cat thing peering down at him, blinking.
    “Hello,” he said to the thing. “Done with your food? Want more?” The thing opened its mouth as if to respond, but no noise come out. Holloway saw the thing’s teeth, which were decidedly not catlike, and were more like human teeth than not. Omnivore, said a voice in his head that was not his own, but belonged to someone he used to know quite well. The voice gave him an idea.
    Holloway stood up and moved over to his work desk. He took the porkpie hat off his security camera, which he then righted because it had been knocked over while Carl chased the creature. The camera featured an omnidirectional image sensor; it could see in every direction except for directly below, where it was blocked by its own stand. He took his spare infopanel, clicked it into its own stand and turned it on, keying it to show the image feed from the security camera. Then he picked up the last slice of bindi and held it up to the cat thing. The creature, now substantially less afraid of Holloway, held out its hands to receive it.
    “No,” Holloway said, and placed the slice back on the work desk. Then he picked up the chair from the floor and positioned it so that if the cat thing were to work its way back down to the floor, it could use the chair to climb up and get the fruit. “You want it, come and get it,” Holloway said. He put on the porkpie hat and then went to the cabin door, opening it just enough to let himself out without letting Carl in.
    Carl was deeply displeased with this development and barked at Holloway in frustration. Holloway patted his dog’s head and walked over to his skimmer. He reached in for his infopanel, powered it up and accessed the security camera feed.
    “Let’s see how smart you really are,” he said. He adjusted the image to show a panorama view of the cabin.
    For several minutes, the creature did nothing. Finally it started down the bookcase, taking rather more time to climb down the case than it had to fling itself up it. For a minute, Holloway couldn’t see the cat thing, because the work desk blocked the floor. Then the chair moved slightly and the catlike head popped up, scanning for the piece of fruit.
    It spied the fruit, and then suddenly gave a look of alarm and disappeared. Holloway grinned; the creature had just caught the image of itself in the infopanel he’d set the fruit in front of. Holloway had wondered whether the thing would recognize itself in a mirror, or in this case a video feed acting like a mirror. The immediate answer seemed to be that it did not, but then Holloway could remember times he’d been startled by his own reflection. What would be interesting was what