Earth Afire

by Orson Scott Card

  "What if Shenzu's right, Mazer?" said Fatani. "What if we're kicking the hornet's nest here? This species doesn't know what we are. They might think we're a missile fired on them. We could start a war."

  "The war is already on," said Mazer, "despite what the Chinese would like to think. If any of you disagree speak up now. I can't force you to come along. You heard the colonel. He gave us direct orders. If you come, you will almost certainly be court-martialed when this is over. You need to know that. Your career will be over. If you want to back out now, say the word and I'll set you down here. You can tell them I forced you to come this far. That goes for you, too, Reinhardt. If you want to sit out, say so. I can fly this thing if I have to."

  Reinhardt snorted. "You can't fly the HERC, Mazer. Keeping it in the air and landing it when you need to is not flying. That's driving. Flying is what I do. It's an art. And you, sir, are no artist."

  "We're all in, Mazer," said Fatani. "Nobody's for turning back. But Shenzu has a point. We might incite a response."

  "It can't be avoided," said Mazer. "We're not abandoning the people on the ground. Patu, any luck with that sat feed?"

  "You don't need one," she said. "We're there."

  Reinhardt crested the last mountain, and the lander came into view, a massive, metallic discoid, shrouded in a cloud of dust. Mazer stared. It was larger than anything he had imagined. An engineering impossibility. Perhaps sixty stories high and nearly a kilometer wide. The top of it was smooth, shiny, and slightly rotund. But the side was crude, made from thousands of metal plates of various sizes arranged in a seemingly random fashion, as if the builders had no regard for symmetry or aesthetics.

  Beneath the lander was a ring of displaced earth several hundred meters wide, tallest near the lander and tapering off near the edges, as if the lander had stepped on a giant mud pie and spilled its contents in every direction. No, not a mud pie, Mazer realized. A mountain. The lander had crushed a small mountain or large hill, leveling it to the ground and displacing dirt and unearthed trees in a mudslide that had buried much of the valley floor.

  "Patu," Mazer shouted, "turn on all external cameras and broadcast a live feed to every satellite you can access. Then get on the radio with Auckland and the Chinese and tell them the landers have shields."

  "How can you be sure?" said Patu.

  "That must be how it crushed the mountain," said Mazer. "It couldn't have been the force of the impact. The lander was moving too slow when it set down. And look at the landscape. No shockwave evidence, just the wall of displaced earth. That has to be from shields."

  "What does that mean?" said Fatani.

  "Means we may not be able to hurt it even if we try," said Mazer. "Reinhardt, circle this thing. Help Patu capture it from every angle. Fatani, you and I will scan for survivors. There's a rice field to the immediate north. There were probably workers down there when this thing hit. Look there first."

  Mazer gave his shoulder harness a shake to make sure it was tight then blinked out the command to open his door. A gust of wind and dust blew into the cockpit as Mazer's door slid back. He leaned out as far as his straps would allow and looked down, zooming in with his HUD.

  The mudslide was a blanket of brown, with broken trees and the shattered remains of houses jutting up here and there through the muck. It was total devastation. If there were survivors, there wouldn't be many. Mazer activated his thermal scanner, but the screen showed nothing promising. If there were people trapped under the muck, Mazer couldn't see them.

  He lifted his head and looked farther west, to the edge of the mudslide. There he saw his first body. Someone lay facedown in the water of a rice paddy, arms extended, half submerged, not moving. Mazer couldn't tell if it was a child or an adult, but either way, the person was beyond help.

  He looked farther west toward a village built into the side of a neighboring mountain, a kilometer away. A few people were running from their homes, heading down into the valley, presumably looking for loved ones who had been working in the fields. The rest of the villagers were scrambling up the mountain, fleeing in the opposite direction, away from the lander, their arms full of meager supplies.

  Mazer's eyes returned to the rice fields, scanning right and left. He figured he was best off sticking to the edge of the mudslide. Or even just beyond it. That's where he had the greatest likelihood of finding someone alive.

  Then he saw it.

  A large tree near the edge, half buried, branches broken. From under it, right at the edge of the mudslide, a pair of legs emerged, skinny and barefoot. The head and upper torso appeared buried. For a moment Mazer was certain the person was dead, suffocated under the mountain of mud and debris. Then the legs kicked, moved.

  "I got somebody," Mazer shouted. "Computer, lock on this position."

  The HERC's AI tracked where Mazer's eyes were looking and put a targeting icon on the moving legs. The coordinates were immediately entered into the computer, and the image of the survivor was shared with the team.

  "I see him," said Reinhardt. He banked the HERC to the right, moving in that direction. "How are we going to get him out?"

  "Drop me at the site," said Mazer. "I'll get him an oxygen mask, then we'll use the talons to lift the tree away and pull him out. Patu, get the triage kit ready."

  A deafening noise filled the air. Metal creaking, screeching, grinding. A machine as big as a city coming to life.

  "What is that?" said Fatani

  "Swing us back around," said Mazer.

  Reinhardt rotated the HERC until they were facing the lander again. They hovered there, high in the air, a hundred meters away from it, with a clear view of its top, watching it.

  The noise was unbearable. Piercing, painful stabs of volume. Mazer wanted to rip off his helmet and press his palms to his ears.

  Then in an instant everything changed. The lander began to spin clockwise like a top. Fast, urgent, and easy, as if it lay atop water or air instead of earth and stone.

  "What's it doing?" shouted Patu.

  The lander picked up speed, spinning faster, screaming like a turbine, slinging up dirt and debris. Small clods of earth and crushed stone pinged against the windshield.

  "Take us higher," shouted Mazer.

  Reinhardt didn't need to be told twice. He yanked up on the stick, and they flew straight up, well beyond the reach of the slung dirt.

  The lander was a blur of motion. The sound was worse than before, high and shrill. Mazer could feel it in his teeth. He looked west. The people running into the fields from the village were falling over, screaming, unable to stay on their feet, the earth shaking beneath them.

  "It's digging into the ground," said Fatani.

  It was true. The lander was burying itself into the surface, sinking deeper and deeper, spraying gravel and dirt across the valley like hail. Is this its weapon? Mazer wondered. To cause earthquakes? Or will it dig with its shields straight through us, putting a hole through the center of the Earth like a bullet through the brain?

  Mazer looked back at the valley floor. The fallen villagers were curled up on the ground, their arms raised protectively over their faces as dirt and stone rained down on top of them. The villagers fleeing up the mountainside were doing no better, stumbling, falling, dumping their possessions from their arms, scrabbling to get purchase and keep from tumbling down the mountainside.

  Mazer shouted over the roar of the noise and pointed to the villagers getting pounded in the valley. "Reinhardt! Get us down there to those people."

  Reinhardt turned the HERC and dove straight into the maelstrom of flying dirt. Clods of it slammed into the sides and top of the aircraft. Fatani and Mazer closed their doors, cowering under the onslaught. A rock hit Reinhardt's window hard, spiderweb cracking an area of it a half-meter wide.

  "There," Mazer shouted, pointing to a cluster of women huddled together.

  Reinhardt flew in fast.

  "Patu," Mazer shouted. "Help me get them inside."

  The HE
RC leveled out and touched down beside the women, using the side of the aircraft as a shield against the dirt. Mazer and Patu were out in an instant, helping the women climb aboard. To Mazer's relief no one resisted. The women practically jumped inside. Fatani made room for them and told them where to hold on. In seconds, the doors were closed and the HERC was airborne again. They stayed low to the ground and picked up four more people on three more stops. One of the men had a bad head wound where a stone had hit him. He was dazed and in shock, and his face was covered in blood. Patu cradled his head, while Fatani dressed the wound.

  "Take us up," said Mazer. "I don't see any more, and this is all we can carry."

  "Where to?" said Reinhardt.

  "Over this ridge to the north," said Mazer. "Not far. These people will need to hook up later with the others from the village. We'll set them down somewhere safe and then go back and search for others."

  "We need a hospital," said Reinhardt.

  "We need a lot more than that," said Mazer.

  Reinhardt hopped the HERC over the ridge. Two women in the back clung to each other crying, their bodies bloody and filthy, their clothes bedraggled. They looked like the end of the world. Mazer didn't want to leave them anywhere; he wanted to rush them into a triage center where doctors would tend to their wounds and nurses would calm and reassure them. But what choice did he have?

  Reinhardt found a clearing on the far side of the ridge and set down the aircraft. Patu slung open the door, and she and Fatani carried out the man with the dressed head wound and set him down gently in the grass. The others followed. The lander was over a klick away, but the screeching digging noise was still so loud that Mazer had to shout to be heard. He spoke in Mandarin, his voice clipped and authoritative, not to be questioned. "We're going back for more people. Stay here and stay together. Help each other. We'll be back."

  One of the village women knelt beside the wounded man, taking over for Patu and Fatani. Patu pulled more sterile dressings and pain meds from the med kit, gave them to the women, then followed the rest of the team back into the HERC. Seconds later, they were airborne again, heading back over the mountain.

  Once again, the lander came into view. Spinning, screaming, digging like a drill. Two-thirds of it was now submerged into the ground. Mazer turned his thermal scans back on and leaned out his window, combing the valley for more survivors. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, the deafening noise began to diminish, like giant turbines winding down.

  "It's slowing," said Reinhardt.

  Mazer turned back to the lander. It was true. The spinning was decelerating. The slung detritus wasn't getting as much altitude. It dropped even lower as the spinning continued to slow. Then, like a top in its final rotations, the lander went around once, twice, then stopped, settling firmly into the earth as the noise died away.

  In an instant Mazer realized what the lander was doing. "It's a fortress," he said. "They were digging in. Literally. Anchoring their position. Getting ready."

  "For what?" said Reinhardt.

  "For whatever is inside that thing," said Mazer.

  They hovered there a moment, waiting, watching.

  Nothing happened.

  A tree near the lander caught Mazer's attention, and the site of it sprung a memory in his mind. The legs. "Reinhardt," he said. "Swing us west again. Pull up those coordinates of the first survivor we saw."

  The HERC turned to the west. Mazer leaned out, searching, suddenly afraid that he had been too late. Then he saw it. There, in the same place, was the tree. Only now the legs weren't sticking out. A man was standing beside the wall of mud, leaning on the exposed trunk of the tree, injured or exhausted or both.

  "There!" Mazer said, pointing.

  "I see him," said Reinhardt. He brought the HERC down quickly. There wasn't any level ground to land on among the paddies, so he stopped the HERC just above the paddy nearest the old man, hovering there, holding his position. Mazer took off his helmet and hopped out, sinking to his knees in the water and muck of the rice paddy.

  The old man was short and bald and covered in mud, his eyes wide, his cheeks streaked with tears. He looked to be in his seventies or eighties. How he had survived, Mazer could only guess.

  "My grandson," said the old man, gesturing at the tree. "He's stuck. I can reach his hand, but I can't pull him out. Please. Hurry."

  "Where?" said Mazer.

  The old man crouched down and pointed into a hollow impression in the mud beneath the felled tree. Mazer got down on all fours in the water to get a closer look. The hole was small, not even big enough for him to squeeze his shoulders in. He couldn't see anything in the darkness. He unclipped the small light from his hip and shined it inside. There was the boy, maybe two meters in, pinned down.

  Mazer turned to the old man. "What's the boy's name?"

  "Bingwen. But hurry. He's in pain. His arm is broken."

  Mazer stuck his head in the hole and shined the light on his own face so the boy could see him. "Bingwen. My name is Mazer Rackham. We're going to get you out."

  The boy turned his head to him. He looked weak.

  Mazer turned back to the HERC. "Patu, throw me the shovel."

  Patu unhooked a collapsible shovel from the back wall and brought it out, sinking in the muck of the paddy beside him. Mazer took it. "Bring me an oxygen mask and the winch cable, too." He clicked on the radio on his collar. "Reinhardt, get the talons ready. We're going to have to gently pull this tree away."

  Mazer gripped the shovel and worked quickly, digging around the hole to make it wider without unsettling the mud above the tree. The boy inside was in a little bubble of protection thanks to the thick branches above him, and Mazer had to be careful not to cause an avalanche and bury him alive.

  Patu returned with the winch cable and oxygen.

  Mazer looped the cable around his waist. "If it caves in when I go in there, use the cable to pull me out."

  "That might rip you in half," said Patu. "Let me go in. I'm thinner."

  She was right. She was the more logical choice. But Mazer didn't want her taking the risk. "I've got it," he said. "Get the med kit ready."

  He chiseled away at the mud with the shovel. The earth fell away easily. When it was big enough, he crawled in up to his waist, one hand carrying the oxygen mask. "Bingwen. Can you hear me?"

  The boy looked at him, blinked as if waking, and--to Mazer's surprise--spoke in English. "My grandfather. Is he all right?"

  "He's right outside. We're getting you both out of here. But first I need to put this mask over your mouth. I want you to take some deep breaths for me when it's on, okay?"

  Mazer placed the adult-sized mask over the boy's face and turned on the oxygen. Bingwen took a shallow breath. Then another, stronger this time. Then a deep one, filling his lungs. The color slowly returned to his face. He blinked again, getting his bearings, waking up.

  Mazer pulled his stylus from his pocket, turned on the light beam, and passed it over Bingwen and then himself. "Reinhardt, I'm sending you our position. When you bring in the talons, be sure to avoid us."

  "I see you. Stay put and you'll be fine. Talons are ready."

  "Go," said Mazer. "Straight up if you can."

  There was movement to Mazer's left and right as the tips of the talons dipped into the earth, grabbing at the tree. The boy seized Mazer's hand and shut his eyes tight. The talons shifted, clawing, tightening their grip. Mud rained down. Bingwen turned his head away. Mazer leaned forward, shielding the boy's face.

  Then the whole tree lifted up and away, branches swaying, cracking, dumping dirt. Sunlight poured into the hole. Bingwen blinked at the light.

  Patu was beside them with the med kit in an instant. Mazer took out the Med-Assist Kim had given him and examined Bingwen's arm. There was a hairline fracture on the boy's lower radius. Mazer scanned again to be certain and smiled. "Your arm's going to be fine, Bingwen. Lieutenant Patu here is going to give you something for the pain, then we'll slip a cast on yo
u. Have you ever had a cast before?"

  "No."

  "You'll love it. It's like having a giant muscle on your arm."

  Patu readied a syringe, wiped at a spot on the boy's arm, and administered the shot. Bingwen flinched. The drug worked quickly. Mazer could see the boy relax, as if a knot inside him was unraveling. The old man hovered over them, watching their every move.

  "Let's get him in the HERC," said Mazer. He got his arms under Bingwen's back and legs and lifted, holding the boy's frail body close to his chest. He weighed next to nothing.

  Bingwen winced, cradling his arm.

  Reinhardt flew the HERC in close. The talons were tucked away and secure, the tree tossed off to the side in the mud.

  Patu helped the old man aboard, and Mazer and Bingwen followed. Fatani slammed the door shut behind them, and they were soaring upward again, leaving the valley far below.

  Mazer lay Bingwen gingerly on the floor and secured him with a strap. Patu knelt beside him, carefully taking the boy's arm in her hand and wiping it clean with gauze.

  "What's the status on the lander?" said Mazer.

  "No movement," said Fatani. "All's quiet. But if it so much as flinches, the whole world will know. Every major network is running our feed live."

  "Good," said Mazer. "Keep the cameras rolling."

  Patu took the sleeve cast out of its bag. It was long and loose and fibrous and made for an adult. She dug a pair of scissors out of the med kit, eyed the length of Bingwen's arm, and cut the cast down to his size. Then, moving slowly so as not to jostle his arm, she slid Bingwen's hand into the sleeve cast. "Now hold your arm up a bit so I can slide this on. That's it, nice and straight."

  She slipped the sleeve cast up his arm, stopping just below the shoulder. Then she pulled the pin. The cast inflated, molding to Bingwen's arm. Then the fibrous exterior tightened and went rigid. A single beep issued, signaling the cast had set.

  "How does that feel?" asked Patu.

  Bingwen gave it a tentative wiggle. "Heavy."

  Then his eyes widened, and he tried to sit up. "Stop! We have to go back. My friends. Hopper and Meilin. They're still down there. Turn around. Please. We have to go back."

  Mazer exchanged a glance with Patu.

  The old man came over and put an arm around Bingwen. "Lay down, boy."