Earth Afire

by Orson Scott Card

  Lem had arranged for the engineering staff to be on hand to help unload the shuttle. So when Victor and Imala stepped out of the umbilical and onto the warehouse floor there was a small crowd of people waiting for them. An older woman of African descent with long gray braids and a slight accent greeted Victor and Imala with a smile and handshakes. "Mr. Delgado, Ms. Bootstamp. I'm Noloa Benyawe." She gestured to the man beside her. "This is our chief engineer, Dr. Dublin."

  Dublin's face was kindly, and his expression softened even further when he shook Victor's hand. "I am sorry about your family, Victor. Dr. Benyawe and I were there in the battle. Your captain and family were determined to protect Earth. They have my utmost respect."

  Victor nodded. "Thank you, Dr. Dublin. That is very kind of you to say so."

  "Lem wants to be certain this remains a private endeavor," said Benyawe. "He asked that I emphasize to the staff that this is not a company project. That means we can't help you during normal working hours. Lem's afraid company lawyers could use that as a basis to seize whatever we do. Silly, I know, but he's insistent. But don't worry, I've spoken with everyone here, and we're all happy to help you after hours for as long as you need us."

  "Again, that's very kind," said Victor. "I'd appreciate your input."

  "Our understanding is that you hope to place a propellant on a few of the debris objects and fly them toward the ship so that the gun doors will open."

  "That's correct," said Victor. "That's how I'm hoping to get inside. That may not be the best idea, though. If you have a better approach, I'd be thrilled to hear it. I'm making this up as I go along."

  "We think it's a smart tactic," said Benyawe. "And we've taken the liberty of proposing a few mechanisms that might do the job, if you'd allow us to share them with you."

  "By all means," said Victor.

  They escorted him and Imala to a corner of the warehouse where a holotable projected a narrow cylindrical thruster two meters in length. "These are designed for quick acceleration," said Dr. Dublin. "Each can produce quite a jolt of propulsion, so you'd want to secure them soundly to the surface of the debris. You don't want them snapping off and zipping through space like a deflating balloon. So the anchor structure is as important as the thruster itself." He waved his stylus through the holofield, and an unadorned cube appeared. "Let's assume this is the hunk of debris you want to use." He grabbed the thruster and placed four copies of it on four sides of the cube. "You can place as many of these thrusters as you like on the surface of the debris. You'll obviously want to place them equidistant from each other or as close to equidistant as possible to evenly distribute the thrust. This will likely be a challenge since the shape of the debris chunk won't be uniform. It will be odd shaped and unstable. You'll also want to install the thrusters so that their orientation is the same. That way, when you reach the surface of the ship and ignite the thrusters via remote control, they will all act as one, swiveling in their anchor braces and responding to your flight commands on the remote. If you position yourself near a gun door, you can fly the chunk directly toward you, which would increase the likelihood that the gun nearest you would open."

  "This is brilliant," said Victor. "Let's do this, but may I make a suggestion? Let's not attach these thrusters to a debris chunk already floating in space around the Formic ship as I initially proposed. You've shown me that there are too many issues with that. What if I don't secure the anchors well enough? What if the chunk is so unstable that the thrusters rip it apart? Plus there's the challenge of me doing a spacewalk so close to the Formics. That would require a lot of time, and if I slip up, I might inadvertently alert the Formics of my presence before I even reach them, which for the sake of my health, I'd rather not do. So here's what I propose: Let's do exactly as you suggest and use these thrusters, but let's build the chunk of debris here in the warehouse. Let's manufacture it. That will allow us to control the structure. We can place the thrusters equidistant. We can reinforce the anchor braces. We can ensure the whole thing is fortified and won't break apart when I initiate the thrusters. We'd control all the variables, and most important, we can test it here and be sure it flies how we want it to. That way I won't needlessly endanger myself by trying to do all that in space. We can attach this chunk to the shuttle, then I can release it among the other debris, continue on to the Formic ship, and fly it toward me when the time is right."

  Benyawe and Dublin exchanged glances.

  "That would be ideal, yes," said Benyawe.

  "We can use some of the space junk we just recovered," said Victor.

  "We certainly brought back enough of it," said Imala.

  Victor smiled. "See, Imala. More is always better."

  Back at the dump shuttle, Victor used lifters and cranes to unload all the pieces of space junk and place them on the floor of the warehouse in an organized system. Imala kept trying to help, but whenever she put something on the floor, Victor would tell her it didn't go there and move it elsewhere.

  "If you tell me how you're organizing it, I won't keep putting stuff in the wrong place," said Imala.

  "You're not doing it wrong per se," said Victor.

  "Well I'm obviously not doing it right either. Explain what's in your head, Vico, and save us both some time."

  He could see she was getting annoyed. "It's hard to explain. I'm separating them by how we're going to use them, either for the recon shuttle or the decoy chunk. Then I'm divvying up those pieces into categories of how ready they are for use. Some of this stuff will need disassembling, some of it will need damaging."

  "Damaging?"

  "The ship will need to look like it's been blasted," said Victor. "It should be dent up and scorched and beaten."

  "Where's that pile?"

  They crossed the warehouse floor to a heap of junk stacked as high as they were tall. "All these big pieces here," said Victor.

  "How do you plan on damaging them?" asked Imala.

  Victor shrugged. "Taking a hammer to them. Beating them senseless. Burning them with a blowtorch. Bending them out of shape."

  "I'll do that," said Imala, crossing to a wall of tools and pulling a hammer down. "I feel like pounding something at the moment."

  "Be sure to anchor your feet and the piece you're pounding," said Victor. "This is Moon gravity. You'll likely get a lot of recoil on the hammer. And you'll want to wear a face shield in case small pieces break off on impact."

  She looked at him with a hint of scorn. "I know how to whack something with a hammer, Vico. I'm not stupid."

  "I didn't mean to imply that you were. I was just reminding you that--"

  "Forget it. I got this." She yanked one of the pieces down from the pile and let it slowly clatter to the floor. Victor backed off and left her to it. He felt like he should apologize, but for what? He did have a system in place for the junk, and it was hard to explain; it was coming to him as they went along. He couldn't spell it out like she wanted; he hadn't finished defining it all in his head yet. As for the hammering, that was how he and Father had always worked: They talked to each other as they did things; they reminded each other of safety precautions; they watched out for each other. You had to. It was easy to forget things and get sloppy when you were tired, and you couldn't afford to get injured in the K Belt.

  Only, we're not in the K Belt, he reminded himself. We're in Imala's world.

  Imala was down on her knees, locked to the floor. She began pounding on the piece of metal, and the booming clang of it echoed through the warehouse.

  Victor backed off and returned to the crane he had been using. He was surprised to find Lem there waiting for him, a large duffel bag slung over Lem's shoulder.

  "You have a unique way with women, Victor. Rather than make them swoon, you make them want to beat you senseless with a hammer. A new approach. You'll have to tell me how that works out for you."

  Victor tried to keep the disdain from his voice. "Something I can do for you, Lem?"

  "Something you can take fro
m me." He unshouldered the duffel bag, set it gently on the floor, and opened it. There were two large devices inside that Victor didn't recognize and a third smaller device that looked like a detonator.

  "This is what you'll carry inside the Formic ship to the helm," said Lem. "That is, assuming you can reach the helm. There's enough explosive here to do quite a bit of damage. I'd prefer you had a tactical nuke, but those are hard to come by. I had to pull off a few small miracles to get this."

  "How does it work?" Victor asked. His family had used explosives all the time for mining asteroids, but Victor had always felt uneasy around them, even when they were disassembled like this and completely harmless. Lem showed him how the two pieces clicked together. Then, without doing so, he explained how to arm the explosive and trigger the detonator.

  "What's the range on the detonator?" Victor asked. "How far away can I get before I trigger it?"

  Lem winced, looking uncomfortable. "That's the tricky part. These things are designed for asteroids. They're made for open space, easy communication between detonator and explosive. You drop them into a dig site, back up your ship, then boom. They weren't designed to be placed deep within the bowels of a ship that's--in all likelihood--intricately tunneled and made with layers upon layers of strange metallic alloys. And if you're right about the helm, if it's at the center of the ship, that's quite a distance from the hull."

  "You're saying you don't know the detonator's range," said Victor.

  "I'm saying there's no way to tell without knowing what's inside the Formic ship. You might be able to get halfway back to Luna and still be in range. Or you might be out of range the moment you leave the helm. There's no telling."

  "What about a timer?" Victor asked.

  "That's option B. Plant the explosive where it won't be discovered then set it to detonate twelve hours later or twenty-four or however long you think it will take you to get out. Personally, I'm not a fan of timers. We used those when we attacked the Formics the first time. It didn't work out well."

  He says we, thought Victor, and he means him and my family, him and Father. Victor still hadn't gotten used to that image: Lem fighting alongside Concepcion and Father and the other men of the family.

  "Thanks," said Victor. "I'll figure it out."

  Lem walked over to the recon shuttle that Imala and Victor had purchased. It sat on the floor of the warehouse near the piles of collected space junk. It was a small, boxy two-seater, no bigger than a skimmer. The side door was open. Lem bent his knees and looked inside. It was comfortable and outfitted with all the latest flight controls. "Nice little ship. Seems a shame to trash it."

  "We'll only be trashing the exterior," said Victor.

  "How are you going to do this?" Lem asked. "There's no airlock in here, and the Formics aren't likely to extend an umbilical. Once you open this door to go outside, you're in a vacuum."

  "I'll be in a spacesuit the whole way," said Victor. "I'm carrying all the oxygen I'll need from the moment I leave Luna to the moment I return."

  "What about anchoring the ship? How will you keep it from drifting off when you leave it to go inside the mothership? The hull of the Formic ship is as smooth as glass. There's nothing to hook on to. And I don't know that I'd trust a ship to magnets."

  "I'll be flying it," said Imala. Victor turned to see Imala approaching. She carried the hammer in one hand and wiped sweat from her brow with the other.

  "I'll keep it in position," she said. "I'll make sure it doesn't drift."

  "You're not coming with me, Imala," said Victor.

  "Yes, Victor. I am. I'm a better pilot than you are. We both know that, and maneuvering this thing through that debris field will require a steady hand."

  "I'll be drifting at a negligible speed," said Victor. "I think I can manage."

  "A thousand things could go wrong, Victor. We drastically increase our chances of success if there are two of us."

  "Absolutely not, Imala. I'm not letting you put yourself in danger like that."

  She raised an eyebrow. "You're not letting me? You're not my supervisor, Vico."

  "I know that. Of course not. What I mean is ... this is my fight, Imala. I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you because of me. You shouldn't have to take this risk."

  Imala breathed out, brushed a long errant hair out of her face, and turned to Lem. "Would you excuse us, please?"

  Lem smiled. "As much as I'd hate missing the rest of this conversation, I'll leave you two to figure it out." He moved to leave then turned back. "But whatever you decide, choose the method that will most likely result in success. I'm not paying all this money to see that tiny shuttle blown to smithereens." He walked away, leaving the duffel bag at Victor's feet.

  When he was gone Imala said, "I appreciate you being concerned about me, Vico, and I recognize that you have a lot invested in this fight. You've lost half your family, and I can't begin to imagine the kind of hurt that brings. But you're wrong about one thing. This is not your fight. This is my fight, too. I haven't lost my family, true, but if the Formics don't stop, I will lose them. I'll lose everything. And I'm not going to sit here and do nothing and allow that to happen when there's a way for me to contribute. You've lost your home, Vico, but I'm losing mine as we speak. Right now Earth is burning, and that gives me just as much right as you have." She leaned against the recon ship and folded her arms. "But even if none of that were true, Vico, even if I had no stake in this whatsoever, practically speaking it makes sense for both of us to go. You can broadcast to me what you see and find inside the ship. That way, if you die I can carry what you've learned and recorded back to Luna. I can make sure that intel gets to people who can use it and act upon it and end this war. I don't want anything to happen to you, of course, but that intel would be more valuable than both of our lives."

  Victor was quiet a moment. She was right of course. He couldn't argue with any of it. "We'll both have to wear suits the entire trip, which means we'll have to double our oxygen supply, which means we'll be crammed inside the cockpit practically on top of each other the whole trip. It will be very uncomfortable. There will be zero personal space."

  She smiled. "At least we'll have helmets on. That way, if either of us has bad breath, only the culprit will suffer for it."

  "I'm serious, Imala. It won't be pleasant. We'll be cramped."

  Imala put a hand on his shoulder. "Victor, we're going up against an indestructible alien ship that just wiped out most of Earth's space fleet. Uncomfortable seating is the least of our problems."

  CHAPTER 26

  Biomass

  Mazer and Bingwen set out for the lander three hours before dawn under the cover of darkness. Bingwen led the way, the gas mask pulled down securely over his head, his boots padding quietly through the mud. They moved quickly, talking little, Mazer scanning the sky around them for any sign of troop transports.

  They weren't likely to see any, Mazer knew--not until it was too late anyway. The transports were near silent and used no exterior lights, making them practically invisible at night. If one did come into view, it would likely be right when the lander was on top of them. And what could Mazer and Bingwen do at that point but fight and hope for the best? They couldn't run for cover. There was none. Not anymore. In the north there had been patches of jungle in which to conceal themselves, but here, near the lander, the Formics had left nothing. Every sprout and sapling and blade of grass had been stripped or burned away, leaving a landscape so barren and devoid of any life that it was as if Mazer and Bingwen had stepped off of Earth and walked onto another planet entirely.

  "If I tell you to run, you run," said Mazer. "Do you understand? No questions asked, no hesitating. Immediate obedience."

  "Immediate obedience," Bingwen repeated.

  "It could mean your life, Bingwen. It could mean both of our lives. If I tell you to drop, you drop. If I say jump in the river, you jump in the river."

  "The river's probably polluted," said Bingwen. "
All of the runoff from the mist is in that water. I might die if I swim in that."

  "You see? That's the type of hesitation I'm speaking of. You can't question my orders. Ever. If I tell you to jump in a polluted river, it's only because every other option means death. It means the chances of surviving a polluted river, however slim, are greater than the chances of surviving not jumping in it."

  "River. Jump. I got it."

  Mazer stopped and took a knee, facing him. "I'm serious, Bingwen. If I give you an order, it's only to keep you alive. It may contradict what you think is best or what you want to do, but you must obey it. That has to be instinct. You have to believe with absolute certainty that anything I tell you will be for your good."

  Bingwen nodded. "I believe that."

  "So if I tell you to crouch down and take cover..."

  "I crouch and take cover."

  "And if I tell you to hide in a hole..."

  "I make like a snake and hide."

  Mazer unholstered his sidearm. "And if I tell you to take this and go north..."

  "I thought you weren't going to teach me how to shoot."

  "I'm not. Not really. This is a last resort. This is when all other options have failed. But if I tell you to take this gun and run north, you take it and protect yourself and run north. Understand?"

  "But why would you give it to me?"

  Mazer made a move to speak, but Bingwen continued, cutting him off.

  "I wouldn't question you in the moment," said Bingwen. "If you told me to do it, I'd do it, no hesitation. I'm asking the question now, when you can still answer it. If you're alive enough to give me the gun and give me the order, then aren't you alive enough to keep fighting with it yourself?"

  "If I give you the gun and tell you to run, it's because it's the only way to keep you alive and get you away."

  "Me ... but not you."

  "I don't want to die, Bingwen. I will do everything to get back home. But more important to me is that at least one of us survives. If I can hold them off long enough for you to get away, I prefer that than something happening to both of us. Do you understand?"