Strangetown: Smith
PT9 is known to his neighbors as Mr. Smith or Smith in the case of his close friends and family. He enjoys his life in Strangetown away from the heated intersteller politics. Given early retirement by his hive queen, Smith was permitted hive leave as a result of his prolific career despite a messy end to an otherwise spotless service record. He'd been too intimidated to openly voice his true opinions on his species plans but in recent years he's seen others fight against hive status quo. Sometimes he thinks he lived a coward's life. But most days he appreciates the lazy days in his backyard watching his children grow up. Not simply the exotic nature of the experience living on land but the fact that he has something to protect and cherish.
Jenny Smith knows very little about her husband. She's content knowing that his species are refuges from their own planet who've been trying to eek out an existence in space. She always says, "that is all I need to know" and kisses her husband when some new alien development surfaces. Jenny's favorite hobby is searching through thrift stores, antique stores and rummage sales for opulent furniture she imagines resembles the planetary homes of her husband's species. Although Jenny wanted many children with her husband they struggled to have Johnny and Jill. Her fondest memories are of the chaos in the Curious household with her brothers. Her children, however, seem content with their small quiet family but Jenny remains convinced they'd be happier if they had a larger family. She's seeking a specialist to help her have one more child with Smith but worries for her sake that Jenny's reproductive years have passed. Work, however, keeps her busy enough that she doesn't dwell much.
Track star, voted "Most Likely to Succeed", class President, Johnny Smith considers himself a gentleman of the highest order. He loves chivalry and romance. He thinks the value of a man comes from his inner passions and from the value others place on him as a result. There's very little about his father's heritage that interests him but he would love to be an interstellar rock star. In this final summer of his teens he's still undecided about college, his father sent in an application but Johnny is afraid that schoolwork will take his focus away from music. What he'd really like to do is move to SimCity, crash on Chloe and Lola's couch and form a band. Though he's never met his half-sisters, Johnny is the first one to read Chloe and Lola's holiday letters.
Jill is the only one in the family who has ever asked Smith about the hive ship more than once. She's inherited her uncles' sensibilities of inquiry. Once, in passing, her father had mentioned there were planetary outposts on all sorts of planets even a largely oceanic planet brimming with sea life. She wonders why her father would abandon the stars for a home on a planet as boring as hers when there were planets where dolphin-like creatures dominated. Sometimes she wishes she could have green skin like her brother. She likes to slip away with Buck Grunt to compare familial woes.
