Earth Afire

by Orson Scott Card

  It didn't take him long to find the pilot. The man had landed in the middle of a scorched field, the white, downed parachute billowing in the wind, standing out against the black landscape like a beacon.

  Mazer approached the pilot, who wasn't moving. The man lay on his back, head lolled to the side, his helmet tinted so Mazer couldn't see his face. The parachute flapped in the wind. It caught a gust, filled with air, and dragged the pilot on his back a few meters through the dirt.

  There was a knife strapped to the pilot's leg. Mazer ran for it, quickly unsheathed it, and cut through the suspension lines. The more he cut, the less pull he felt from the skirt of the chute, until at last it was loose and unable to catch wind anymore. Mazer dropped the knife and knelt beside the pilot. He tapped a sequence on the side of the helmet, and the tint of the visor vanished, revealing the pilot's face behind the reinforced plastic. The pilot's eyes were closed, and he didn't appear to be breathing. Mazer pulled back the chest patch on the man's flight suit to expose the biometric readout. The pliable screen was cracked but still functioning. The pilot had flatlined. Cause of death was a broken neck and severed spinal column. According to the data, it had happened microseconds after the pilot had ejected.

  Mazer sat back on his heels. More death.

  He looked upward, scanning the sky. He was out in the middle of a field, exposed. If the Formic should return or others pass by, he'd be an easy target.

  He grabbed the pilot by the straps of his chute harness and dragged him backward through the dirt toward some wilting scrub. It wasn't much cover, but it was better than nothing.

  There was a large auxiliary pack strapped to the pilot's legs, and Mazer loosened it and pulled it free. Inside he found a treasure trove: a sidearm with four clips of ammunition, binoculars, flares, several days worth of MREs, a full canteen plus extra bottles of water, a gas mask, a first-aid kit, a Med-Assist computer, toothbrush, and fresh socks. Mazer quickly opened the canteen and guzzled some of the water. It was cold and clean and so good he wanted to cry. He tore open one of the MREs--a pasta that heated instantly when the air hit it. It had ham and cheese and flecks of sun-dried tomatoes. He didn't find a utensil, so he poured it straight into his mouth. Then he brushed his teeth, which might have been the sweetest relief of all.

  He packed everything back into the pack, including the knife and sheath. Then he stood and considered the pilot. The man was tall for a pilot, though not quite as tall as Mazer would have liked. The flight suit was probably two sizes too small for Mazer. Yet even so, a small flight suit was better than the rags Mazer was wearing. If he made a few strategic cuts in the fabric perhaps he could wear it without any problems. He stripped the pilot of the suit then made careful slits in the armpits and crotch. Then he removed his own boots and clothes, down to his undergarments, and dressed in the flight suit, not bothering with any of the biosensors. The sleeves and pant legs were too short, but he could live with that. He was more concerned about mobility. He did a few tentative squats and knee bends and was relieved to see his movement unhindered. He sat back down and put on a new pair of socks and his old boots. Then he loaded the sidearm, stuffed it into the flight suit's holster, and placed the gas mask over his head.

  It seemed wrong to leave the pilot here unburied, but he had neither the time nor the tools for it. He gathered up the white parachute and rolled the pilot into it, wrapping him tight like a mummy. It wasn't a proper burial, but it was the best Mazer could do given the circumstances.

  He hefted the pack onto his shoulders and headed south again. He hadn't gone far when he heard someone shouting his name. The cries were faint at first, like distant whispers on the wind--so quiet in fact that he initially dismissed them as his imagination. Then a distinct shout of "Mazer!" cut through the quiet, and there was no mistaking it. Mazer turned and ran east toward the source of the sound. He knew that voice. And he sensed the terror and desperation behind it.

  His training had taught him stealth and caution and quiet, but Mazer couldn't help himself. He tore off the gas mask and shouted back. "Bingwen!"

  They continued shouting each other's names until they found one another moments later. Mazer rounded a ridge and there was Bingwen, running toward him, desperate and dirty, his face streaked with tears. He collapsed into Mazer's arms, exhausted and terrified and too upset to speak.

  Mazer carried him to some shade where they'd be hidden from sight and opened the canteen for him. At first Bingwen's breathing was so heavy he couldn't drink, but then he forced himself to calm enough to swallow gulps of water.

  "Not too fast," said Mazer. "You'll make yourself sick."

  Bingwen lowered the canteen and began to cry anew. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse from shouting for hours on end. "They're dead. The family. All of them. A transport dropped right in front of us. It didn't make a sound. One instant it wasn't there, the next instant it was. Kwong, the father, he shouted for me to run. He and Genji each tried to carry a child, but..." He closed his eyes and shook his head, unable to go on.

  Mazer took him into his arms, and Bingwen began to sob, his little body shaking with grief and terror and perhaps a dozen other pent-up emotions all flooding out of him at once.

  Mazer held him, his arms wrapped around Bingwen in a protective embrace. He wasn't going to lie. He wasn't going to tell Bingwen that he was safe now and that Mazer wouldn't let anything happen to him. Bingwen was too smart for that. So Mazer let him have his cry and made no effort to stop the tears.

  When Bingwen calmed again, Mazer opened one of the MREs and watched as Bingwen ate it. "We'll rest here until nightfall," said Mazer. "Then, when it's full dark, we'll move north again."

  "No," Bingwen said quickly. "We're not going north. We're going south."

  "I'm not taking you to the lander, Bingwen."

  "Why not? Because I'm a child?"

  "Well, yes. It's dangerous."

  "It's dangerous everywhere. It was dangerous at the farmhouse. It was dangerous in my village. It's dangerous in the north. Nowhere is safe. We might as well push on. We're here. It can't be much farther."

  Mazer shook his head. "We've been over this, Bingwen."

  "Yes, we have. You're not my father. I'm not your son. That means you can't command me where to go."

  "If you come with me, you put me in more danger. I'd be watching out for you and not giving the threats around me the full attention they deserve. Plus you'd slow me down."

  "I'm not as helpless as you think," said Bingwen. "I can help. I'm slower, yes, but two sets of eyes are better than one. I can watch our rear. I can carry supplies. I'm not useless. I'm an asset not a liability."

  "I don't doubt your abilities, Bingwen, but we're not going on a day hike here. This is war. I'm a trained soldier. You're not."

  "I'm just as capable of killing Formics as you are."

  "Oh really?"

  "Yes, really." He gestured to Mazer's sidearm. "How much strength does it take it pull that trigger? I think I can manage."

  "Firing a weapon is more involved than that."

  "So teach me how."

  "No. Children don't fight wars."

  "Really? Says who? Is there some child rulebook I don't know about, because I'm pretty sure I've been fighting wars my whole life."

  "These are killers, Bingwen. Not village bullies."

  "What's the difference?"

  "A world of difference. Village bullies don't melt your face off." He regretted saying it as soon as the words had come out. Bingwen had witnessed such things.

  Mazer sighed and leaned back against one of the few remaining trees, his voice gentle. "You can't come because I don't want anything to happen to you, Bingwen. And because we don't know what's in that valley, and because in all likelihood I won't be able to do much damage anyway."

  "You can do recon. You can learn things, observe things, find weaknesses, see something the airplanes haven't. Then you can take that information back to people who matter. Right now you don't want to
go back because you feel like you've failed. Information is a victory, Mazer. And I can help you get it."

  Mazer said nothing.

  "I know this enemy as well as you do. Maybe even better than you do. And I certainly know the land better than you do."

  "There isn't much land left."

  "No. Nor people either." He stared at the ground a moment, picking at a rock half buried in the earth. "My parents are in that valley, Mazer. Heaped up with everything else. Maybe Grandfather too. And Hopper and Meilin. And Zihao. And everyone I've ever known. My life is in that valley. You're fighting to save your world. I'm fighting because they've already taken my world from me. Yes, I'm young. Yes, I'm a child. No, I'm not a trained soldier. But if I'm old enough to fight to stay alive, I'm old enough to fight the war."

  Mazer said nothing. It amazed him that Bingwen could be so young and so frail in some ways and so old and so unbreakable in others. Children are more capable than we give them credit for, he thought. Yet even so, he knew he shouldn't take Bingwen with him. Common sense and his training told him it was a tactical mistake. Yet what could he do? Bingwen was right. They'd find danger in the north as well.

  Mazer reached into the pack and pulled out a small bedroll. He pushed the button on the side, and the pad inflated. "You've been running for most of the day," said Mazer. "Get some sleep. I'll take first watch." He handed him the gas mask. "Put this on first."

  "That's for an adult."

  "I'll adjust the straps as far as they'll go. It should form a seal."

  "How am I supposed to sleep with that on? It will swallow my head."

  "You'll breath fine. And it will be cleaner air than what's out here."

  "What about you?"

  "I'll manage." He slipped the mask over Bingwen's head and fiddled with the straps until the seal was good.

  "How do I look?" Bingwen asked, his voice muffled by the mask.

  "As alien as the Formics."

  Bingwen smiled. "Perfect. It'll be my disguise. We'll use it to infiltrate. I'll be the Formic, and you'll be my weak human hostage. Works every time."

  "Go to sleep, Bingwen."

  Bingwen lay down on the bedroll. "You'll be here when I get up, right? You're not going to sneak off while I'm asleep?"

  "I won't sneak off. You'd only find me anyway."

  "You bet I would. I'd track you down." Bingwen rolled over onto his side and pulled his legs up, getting into a comfortable sleep position.

  "How long had you been shouting my name before I found you?" Mazer asked.

  "A few hours."

  "The Formics could have heard you, you know. You could have called them down right on top of you."

  "I know. Especially since 'Mazer' in their language means 'Here I am. Come kill me.'"

  "Not funny," said Mazer.

  "I tried looking for you. It wasn't working. If I had kept silent, I never would have found you. It knew it was a risk. I got lucky."

  "Lucky is an understatement ... But I'm glad you found me. Now close your eyes."

  Bingwen did so. "I feel like I have a bucket on my head. This thing is pressing into my ear. I can't sleep this way."

  "Then don't sleep on your side."

  "I have to sleep on my side. That's how I sleep."

  Mazer shushed him. "If you're talking, you're not sleeping."

  Bingwen fell silent. Soon, his breathing had slowed and he was asleep. Mazer leaned back against the tree, listening to the wind blow in from the south and rustle the wilted leaves overhead. The wind carried with it faint traces of a putrid smell--a smell Mazer hadn't noticed in a while. He sniffed the air and grimaced. It was the scent of bodies rotting in the sun.

  He pulled his old shirt from his pack, ripped up the fabric, and tied a makeshift bandana over his mouth and nose. Then he took the sidearm from his hip and silently removed the clip. He took out the rounds and counted them. Then he reloaded the gun and did the math in his head, adding up the number of rounds from the other clips. About eighty rounds total. Not much at all.

  So why was he going to the lander? Why was he being so insanely stubborn? Why did he think he could face an army of Formics?

  Because of Kim, he told himself. Because he had left her so that she might have a life she deserved, and he wasn't going to let the Formics ruin that. Because of Patu and Reinhardt and Fatani and Bingwen's parents and Ye Ye Danwen. Because this was Bingwen's China, not theirs.

  He settled back against the tree and recited the words of the haka his mother had taught him so long ago. A song of the Maori warrior. The dance of death.

  Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!

  Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!

  Tenei te tangata puhuru huru

  Nana nei i tiki mai, whakawhiti te ra

  A upane! ka upane!

  A upane! ka upane!

  Whiti te ra! Hi!

  I die! I die! I live! I live!

  I die! I die! I live! I live!

  This is the hairy man

  Who has caused the sun to shine again

  The Sun shines!

  Then Mazer turned his face into an ugly grimace and stuck out his tongue. Let them see the face that will strike them down. Let them see anger. Let them feel fear.

  CHAPTER 25

  Space Junk

  The rings of junk around Earth were like the rings of Saturn, only instead of ice and silicates, Victor saw thousands of discarded satellites and long-forgotten space stations and old, outmoded weapons from the time when countries were all arming in Earth orbit.

  "Look at all of this, Imala," said Victor. "It's just floating out here waiting for someone to scoop it up and use it. Do you have any idea what my family could have done with all this?"

  Imala piloted the shuttle toward a spot in the junk heap where several different satellites were relatively close together. "This is as near as you've ever been to Earth, Victor. You've got a breathtaking view of the planet directly in front of you, and all you see are the completely worthless, broken shiny objects."

  Victor was floating at the artificial windshield, taking in the scene in front of him, a sea of metal and plastic and polycarbonates, all glinting in the sunlight. "I see the planet, Imala. It's beautiful. But you have to realize, out in the K Belt, when something broke, we couldn't simply go out and get a replacement part. We had to make one. Or pull the necessary pieces from scrap, which were rare and hard to come by. You have everything you could possibly need out here. And a lot of it is new."

  "It's not new, Vico. It's crap. It's old junk."

  "If you think this is old, Imala, you should see the scrap we normally worked with."

  Imala fired up the retros and started the shuttle's deceleration. Victor was already in his spacewalk suit, a long lifeline extending from the back of it. He wore a propulsion pack and carried a laser cutter, which he would use to snip off pieces of the junk to haul back to the shuttle.

  "Some of these pieces were weapons once," said Imala. "So don't go cutting willy-nilly. Use the schematics I uploaded to your HUD. You'll be able to see where it's safe to cut and where it isn't." She had used her LTD access back on Luna to dig through the agency's archives and pull files on as many of the objects out here as there was still a record for.

  "Thanks," said Victor. "I'll try not to blow us up."

  "That's not even remotely funny," said Imala.

  "Don't worry. This isn't explosive material. I know what I'm doing."

  Imala moved the shuttle alongside the first of the satellites and Victor excused himself to the airlock. Once outside he got right to work. The reconnaissance shuttle needed to look like a hunk of debris, so Victor was most interested in the worthless guts of the satellites. The conduit and structural braces and insulation, all the stuff that would be exposed to space if a ship were ripped in half. All the really valuable pieces--the processors and chips and fuel cells and lenses--were typically small and therefore unimportant. Even so, Victor couldn't pass up the temptation to cut away a few process
or chips and sneak them into his chest pouch.

  He also had to keep in mind that while these were satellites, he was camouflaging a ship. He would be wise to ignore the pieces that were unique to sats, such as solar arrays or thermal blankets--all the thin membranous material that might reflect a lot of light and draw attention to the recon ship.

  At first he was slow and methodical about what he selected. But as the day wore on, and as they moved from object to object, he cut faster and thought less about what he was gathering. Quantity, not quality was what mattered now. He could be meticulous and selective in the warehouse. Out here he was reaping the wheat. Back on Luna he would make the bread.

  After twelve hours, the cargo bay was full floor to ceiling. Victor had convinced Imala to get a dumper shuttle four times as large as she thought they needed, and Victor had filled every square meter of it.

  "This is enough junk to camouflage an asteroid," said Imala. "You're covering a tiny two-seater, remember?"

  "We won't be using all of this," said Victor. "We'll have to sift through it and find the right pieces. The ship has to look somewhat uniform, Imala. All of the pieces have to appear to have come from the same ship. It can't be a multicolored potpourri of parts. It will look fake and slapped together."

  "The Formics don't know human ships well enough to tell the difference," said Imala.

  "You don't know that," said Victor. "It's a mistake to underestimate them, Imala. They may resemble ants, but they invented near-lightspeed travel. They're far more intelligent than we are. I'm not taking any chances."

  Imala shrugged and didn't argue.

  The flight back to Luna was long, but Victor stayed busy the whole time. First he disassembled some of the larger junk pieces that were accessible in the cargo bay. Then he took the smaller, disassembled pieces and scanned them in the holofield, making 3-D models of each. He had already built a holographic model of the small recon ship he and Imala had purchased back on Luna. He called it up now in the holofield and began attaching the 3-D models of junk pieces to it, virtually building the camouflage design in the holofield and trying several different approaches. By the time he and Imala reached the Juke warehouse, he had a pretty good idea of how he wanted to attack the project.