“They killed the Italians,” said Chubs. “If someone doesn’t answer your hello, you don’t waste them.”
“I’m trying to look at this scientifically,” said Dublin.
“It doesn’t matter if they tried to communicate or not,” said Chubs. “They wanted to kill us. Did you watch the vids? Did you see the face of that Formic climbing up the mooring cable? It wasn’t coming to introduce itself. It was coming to rip Lem’s head off.”
Dublin held up two hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not defending them. I’m reminding us that they come from a completely different social structure with completely different behaviors and values.”
“There is one theory we haven’t discussed,” said Benyawe. She walked to the sketch of the Formic ship on the wall, studied it, then faced them. “What if it’s a colony ship?”
“Colony?” said Chubs. “Can’t be. The planet’s taken. We own it. No vacancy.”
“Maybe they don’t care,” said Benyawe. “Maybe they come from a civilization where aliens share planets.”
“Or maybe they intend to take it for themselves,” said Lem. He turned and studied the diagram of the Formic. “We’ve been assuming all this time that they consider us as equals. But what if they don’t? What if they think of us in the same way we think of houseflies or rabbits? If you want to build a house on a lot and you find a family of rabbits living on the land, you don’t think of the land as belonging to the rabbits and build elsewhere. You shoot the rabbits or you scare them off.”
“There are twelve billion people on Earth,” said Chubs. “With cities and industry and tech. That’s more than a family of rabbits.”
“Fine. Pick a different animal. Say, earthworms. How many worms are on the plot of land? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Or what about ants? A million? They have colonies and homes, but what do we care? We level the land and build anyway. My point is, maybe they don’t consider the planet ours. We only happen to live there. Maybe they see it as theirs for the taking.”
“There’s a hole in that theory,” said Dublin. “The interference. If the Formics didn’t consider as us equals or at least near their place on the species hierarchy, why are they working so hard to cloak their approach with the interference? What they’re doing to our radio suggests they fear us and have developed tactics to avoid our detection. It implies they consider us a threat.”
“Only if the interference is deliberate,” said Lem. “But what if it isn’t? What if it’s nothing more than a by-product of their propulsion system? What if they have no idea they’re wrecking our radio? Yes, it’s working to their advantage, but that doesn’t mean they meant for it to happen.”
“If that’s true,” said Benyawe, “then Earth is in more danger than we thought. If the Formics aren’t doing anything deliberate to hide their approach, if they don’t care if we notice them or not, then they don’t consider us a threat at all. They’re so confident they can destroy us that it doesn’t matter if we know they’re coming.”
The more they talked, the less Lem liked what we he was hearing. “So what do we do?” he asked. “We can’t communicate with anyone. We can’t surpass the ship and get ahead of it—not at its current speed anyway. It’s moving too fast. We can’t even catch it if we wanted to.”
“Which we most definitely don’t want to do,” said Chubs.
“I see two options,” said Benyawe. “We can either deviate and take a gamble that there’s a way out of this interference. Or we can continue to track the ship and gather intelligence and hope that it decelerates enough for us to zip past it and beat it to Earth.”
“Also a gamble,” said Lem.
“There’s no easy answer,” said Benyawe.
“Option B gets my vote,” said Dublin. “That puts us closer to Earth. That’s our destination.”
“I agree,” said Benyawe. “There might be something else we can learn about the Formics, a weakness perhaps. That would be more valuable to Earth than anything. If we lose sight of the ship, we lose that chance.”
“The Formics are leaving a wake of destruction,” said Chubs. “People may need help. I say we stay the course.”
Benyawe said, “An odd philosophy for you, considering you’ve left quite a wake of destruction yourself.”
“Always to protect us,” said Chubs, annoyed.
A navigator from the helm appeared on the wall-screen. “Sir, sensors indicate that the Formic ship has vented again.”
“Decelerate immediately,” said Lem. “I don’t want us flying into the gamma plasma. Bring us to a full stop if necessary.” It was the second time the ship had vented since the battle with El Cavador.
The navigator made a series of hand movements offscreen, then returned. “Deceleration commenced, sir.”
“Were there any ships near the Formics that may have been affected by the plasma?”
“Don’t know, sir. The only reason we can detect the Formic ship at this distance is because of its size. Anything smaller doesn’t show up on the sensors.”
“Keep scanning. Let me know if we find anything that might have been hit by the plasma.”
“Yes, sir.”
The navigator disappeared. Benyawe walked to the systems chart that stretched across one wall. A line representing the Formics’ trajectory cut across space. Benyawe touched various points on the line, leaving blinking red dots. “The first venting happened here, near Weigh Station Four. The next venting was here, roughly six au later. Now we have a third venting that’s approximately six au after that.”
“So they vent every six au,” said Dublin.
“Which means we can approximate where it will likely vent again,” said Benyawe. She tapped her finger down the line every six au and left more dots. As she reached the inner Belt, she placed a dot near an asteroid.
“What asteroid is that?” asked Lem.
Benyawe enlarged it until it filled the screen. Lem thought it looked like a dog bone: thin shaft in the middle, with two knobby lobes at either end. “It’s called Kleopatra,” said Benyawe. “M-class. Measures two hundred and seventeen kilometers across. She moved her fingers on the screen and rotated the asteroid until the opposite side came into view. There, on the surface of one of the lobes, was a small cluster of lights.
“What is that?” asked Lem. “Zoom in.”
Benyawe moved her fingers and zoomed in on the lights, revealing a massive mining complex at least five kilometers across. Buildings, smelting plants, diggers, barracks. A mini industrial city.
“It’s a Juke facility,” said Benyawe.
“One of ours? How come I’ve never heard of it?” asked Lem.
“Your father has over a hundred of these facilities throughout the Belt,” said Chubs. “By building a facility, we’re basically claiming the entire rock. We’re sticking a flag in the ground and telling competitors to back off. Which is smart. That much iron is worth a fortune.”
“If the Formics vent near Kleopatra, even if the plasma hits the opposite side of the asteroid, those people don’t stand a chance,” said Dublin.
“How many people work there?” asked Lem.
Benyawe tapped the complex with her finger, opened a window of data, and began reading. After a moment, she turned to them, troubled.
“How many?” asked Lem.
“Over seven thousand,” said Benyawe.
CHAPTER 20
Solitude
At first Victor thought little of the pain in his back. After five months of traveling in the quickship, unexplained aches and pains had become second nature. His muscles were atrophying, his bones were weakening; dull aches were to be expected. But then the backache worsened and became so excruciating at times that it felt like a knife stabbing and twisting inside him. It came in waves, and no matter how Victor positioned his body in the quickship, the pain continued. Then the pain spread to his side and groin. Then blood appeared in his urine, and he knew he was in trouble.
All symptoms pointed to kidney ston
es. His bones were becoming osteoporotic and the released calcium was coalescing in the kidneys. Sleep was difficult. He felt anxious and nauseated and worried about being sick in his helmet. He drank lots of water, but it didn’t help. He had brought a few mild pain meds, but he had taken those months ago to get through a few days of migraines. Now he cursed himself. The migraines were a gentle kiss on the cheek compared to this.
After three days, he worried that the stone might be too big to pass, and he wondered what would happen if that were the case. Would he get an infection? Could it kill him? Would Earth never receive warning because of a stupid clump of crystallized calcium?
He passed it on the fourth day, and the pain was so unexpectedly searing and intense that for a moment he thought he was dying. When it was over, he fell instantly asleep, exhausted.
He continued to drink a lot of water over the next few weeks, but it didn’t stop him from having stones. He passed four in all. None of them were as painful as the first, but they all left him anxious and restless. He was now keenly aware of the fact that his body was deteriorating, and he constantly worried about a dozen other ailments that might afflict him at any moment. His bone density was his primary concern. Would the weight of his own body break his legs when he stood on Luna? Gravity on Luna was only a fraction of what it was on Earth, but perhaps it would be enough to overstress his weakening bones. Then there was the issue of his appetite. It had greatly diminished recently. Was he malnourished? And what about his heart? It was weakening, too. Would it give out before he reached the Moon? And what about radiation? Was the shield holding? He needed to strengthen it, he realized. He needed to add another plate to the exterior. He was sure he’d get cancer if he didn’t.
Victor entered the commands in his handheld to initiate deceleration. The ship had been moving at a constant, high velocity for months, and if he maintained that speed and went outside, the ship would appear to him as if it wasn’t moving at all since he would be moving at the same velocity. But going outside at a high velocity was risky. He’d expose himself to gamma radiation and the threat of micrometeoroids. Getting hit by a tiny rock particle would likely be fatal. Victor couldn’t take that risk. Not with so much at stake. It would be safer to decelerate and repair the shields at a full stop. He’d add a lot of time to his trip, yes, and he wouldn’t reach Luna as quickly as he had hoped, but he felt the extra shielding and precautions were worth the delay.
It took the ship almost two full days to decelerate. Victor didn’t want to rush the process and put any undue burden on his body, weak as it was, so he had slowed the ship gradually. When it had reached a full stop, he detached his air hose and screwed a canister of oxygen into the back of his suit. Next came his tool belt, which he fastened around his waist. Then he opened the hatch and crawled outside. Using the handholds recessed into the hull, Victor pulled himself toward the back of the ship to check how the rear plates were holding up. His hand slipped from one of the handholds, and Victor instinctively reached for the safety cable fastened to his chest harness to steady himself.
Only the safety cable wasn’t there.
In his haste to come outside he had forgotten to anchor himself to the ship.
Victor clawed at the hull, trying to get purchase, desperate to stop himself, but his body was in motion now, moving toward the rear of the ship, and he had already passed the last handhold. His bulky gloves slipped along the metal surface, stopping on nothing. He was screaming now, his voice hoarse and cracked from lack of use. He was slipping down the side of the ship. There was nothing to grab. He was going to die.
Then he saw it ahead of him. A tube of some sort, a small metal pipe at the back corner of the ship. Beyond it was space. If he missed it, he was gone. He would drift until he ran out of air. He approached the pipe, and just before he reached it he knew he wouldn’t be able to grab it. It was too far away, just beyond the reach of his fingers.
In a single swift movement, his hand whipped to his tool belt and came back with a long wrench that he reached out and hooked around the pipe at the last possible moment, stopping himself. His heart was pounding. His breathing was labored. The wrench’s hold on the pipe was slight and precarious. It could easily slip off. He gently pulled and drew himself back to the ship.
The wrench slipped from the pipe, but he was moving in the right direction now. He slowly drifted toward the cockpit, climbed inside, and fastened the safety cable onto his harness. He cursed himself for being so stupid. He had come all this way, risked his life, with intelligence that the whole world needed to see, and he nearly ruined it all by failing to fasten a single metal ring to his harness. Brilliant, Victor. Real genius.
With the cable secured, he returned outside, checked the plates, found them in order, but then decided to install the spare plates anyway on top of the existing ones. Might as well. The spares weren’t doing any good inside the ship. Besides, he needed the labor. He needed to occupy his mind with work for a little while. He had built and engineered every day of his life since becoming Father’s apprentice, and the past five months had been nothing but mind-numbing idleness.
When he finished the installation, he resealed the seams twice to be sure they would hold. He knew he was stalling. The seals were fine. He simply didn’t want to get back in the ship.
Eventually, he returned to the cockpit. His hand lingered on the hatch for a moment before he closed it, his eyes scanning the expanse of space above him. He was only a few months away from Luna. He could endure this a little longer. He sealed the hatch and began to accelerate. The computer reconfigured his flight path to account for the delay and revised the time of arrival, putting him at Luna three weeks later than originally expected. Victor felt like hitting something. Three weeks. That was much longer than he had anticipated. But it was too late now. What’s done is done, he thought. Sighing, he sat motionless in the flight seat as the quickship picked up speed.
* * *
A month later a feeling of hopelessness overcame Victor. He felt certain he was off course. Or the computer had a glitch in it. Or he was running short of air. He kept catching himself staring at nothing. Food lost all appeal. His sense of taste was gone. Or maybe the proteins in the food had broken down so much from radiation that the food no longer had any taste to deliver. Either way, he had no appetite. He lost weight. His wrists and ankles felt thin and flimsy. He had brought rubber strips for resistance exercises, which he had been doing religiously every day since setting out. Now he ignored all exercise. Why bother? Little good it was doing. His bones were probably twigs at this point. He had struggled for months with insomnia. Now he seemed to sleep all the time. He hadn’t touched his handheld in days. There were books he had started and hadn’t finished, puzzles he had left unsolved. He didn’t care.
A hand was gently shaking his shoulder, rousing him from sleep. Alejandra was beside him, wearing the pristine and pressed white gown. She smiled at him and folded her arms across her chest. “You’re losing your mind, Vico. You’re psychologically frito. You’ve been cooped up in this thing so long and your sleep is so unregulated that you’re only sane when you’re dreaming.”
Victor’s voice was dry and frail, and the sound of it surprised him. “Am I dreaming?” He looked around him. Everything seemed normal. The instruments. The equipment. The air tanks.
“You won’t find any pink elephants, if that’s what you’re looking for,” said Alejandra. “I’m here. That should be evidence enough for you.” She sat down in front of him, with her legs bent demurely to the side. “You’ve stopped exercising and eating. Have you looked at yourself? You’re wasting away to nothing.”
“I don’t have a mirror.”
“Probably best. You’d break it. Also, you need a haircut.”
“I’m going crazy, aren’t I?”
She ticked off his problems on her fingers. “Severe anxiety. Depression. You’re ignoring life-sustaining food and exercise. Your sleep patterns are completely out of whack. You can’t thi
nk straight, and you’re talking to a dead person.”
“It’s a very good choice of dead person. That should win me some points.”
She rolled her eyes. “Isabella gave you pills to help regulate your sleep. Why did you stop taking them?”
“I don’t like taking pills. I like being in control.”
“You’re not in control. That’s the problem, Vico Loco. You’re not yourself. If you’re not careful they’ll throw you in a padded room when you reach Luna. It won’t take much to convince them. They’ll already think you’re crazy for flying from the Kuiper Belt in a quickship. As soon as you start yapping about aliens, their suspicions will be confirmed. You need to be a model of sanity, Vico. Looking like you do now isn’t going to help.”
“You, on the other hand, look quite the opposite. I never told you how beautiful you are. I never even thought to say it, but it’s true.”
“We’re talking about you at the moment.”
“I wish we wouldn’t. You’re much more interesting.”
She smiled and said nothing.
“They sent you away because of me, Janda. If I had known that’s what they would do, I would have changed things.”
“How? By pretending not to be my friend? By avoiding me? By being formal around me and treating me like a mere acquaintance? That would have been worse.”
“These aren’t your thoughts,” he told her. “They’re mine, projected on to you. You’re only saying what my mind is telling you to say.”
“But you knew my thoughts, Vico. You always did. The only reason why you didn’t know that I loved you was because I didn’t know it myself. But I did.”
“Don’t use the past tense,” he said. “That means it’s over.”
He awoke. Alone. Everything was where it always was. The instruments. The equipment. The air tanks. He forced himself to eat. He drank water and took vitamins. He did the resistance exercises and was shocked to learn how weak he was. He checked the instruments. He had seven weeks to get back to health. He drank more water and did another rep of leg exercises.
Earth Unaware (First Formic War) Page 36