Father was answering Lem’s message in pieces, probably responding to it as he read it. Again, it was classic Father. Give an inkling of praise and then squash it with stated disappointment. It took courage, then “had you stopped it, all these people wouldn’t have died.” As if it were Lem’s fault that the Formics were killing civilians, as if all those deaths were on Lem’s hands because he had failed in the battle.
Nobody else would probably read it that way, Lem knew, but nobody knew Father as well as he did. Pat you on the back with one hand, stab you in the back with the other.
A third message. A short one.
“Send me the names of the crewmen you lost. I want to notify their families immediately.”
It surprised Lem. A bit of humanity from Father. Lem hadn’t intended to share that information, but of course he should have. He had been the insensitive one this time. Why hadn’t he thought of that? It should have been the first thing he shared.
Lem typed in the names he remembered. Only two-thirds of them came to mind, and some of those were probably wrong. Was it O’Brien or O’Ryan? Canterglast? Or Caunterglast? He needed to get the spelling right for Father to find them in the company’s database and look up the next of kin. Lem searched through his holopad. The names weren’t there. Embarrassed, he stepped out into the hall and found Chubs, hovering by the door. Lem explained the situation.
“I’ll type them in for you,” said Chubs. He pulled himself into the room and tapped away at the keyboard, making corrections to the names Lem had put in and adding in the ones Lem had forgotten. No hesitating, no stopping to jog his memory; the names just came out of him. He knew these people. They had meant something to him.
He finished. “There you go.”
Lem didn’t meet his eye, embarrassed. “Thank you.”
“You ready for some food? You’ve been in here a few hours.”
“Please,” said Lem.
Chubs nodded and left. Lem watched him go, feeling a pang of guilt for having taken away the man’s authority. Chubs deserved to be the captain. He knew the crew. They respected him, followed him.
Lem pushed the thought away. Chubs would have his reward. When the company was Lem’s, he would need good men, and if Chubs were willing, Lem would have him at his side.
Lem closed the door and pushed send. Ten minutes later Chubs returned with a container of pasta. “Don’t expect much from this. The café is no better than the lobby.”
Lem offered his thanks and said, “What happened to the free miner? Victor and Imala?”
“They left. Their shuttle took off toward Luna or Earth. I had the ship track them for as long as we could. I figured if you had wanted me to stop them you would have said so in the lobby.”
Lem nodded, wondering what Chubs meant exactly by “stop them.” Had Chubs killed for Father before? Would he have killed for Lem if Lem had asked?
Lem ate in silence. When he finished, a final message from Father came through.
“I’ve been talking with the Board. Get to Luna in eight days. That’s a Tuesday. Come to the Juke north port at three p.m. Luna time. I’ll be waiting for you. I need your help with this Formic situation, son. We’ve got work to do.”
Lem reread the message. Father was actually asking for his help. The great Jukes was actually admitting that Lem had something to contribute, that the two of them would work as a team. He had even called Lem “son.”
For half a second Lem believed it was genuine. Then all rational thought returned. Father was intending to use him somehow. That was obvious. How, Lem wasn’t sure, but experience had taught Lem to expect the worst and be on guard. He shook his head. You laid it on too thick, Father. Calling me “son”? You’re getting sloppy in your old age.
Lem typed. “Understood. Leaving now.”
He waited for the message to send, then he logged off. His messages had passed through each of the ships in the bucket brigade as encrypted messages, so he wasn’t worried about those. But he had entered them as original text here. The system immediately had encrypted them, but somewhere on the memory drive was the original text. Lem couldn’t allow that. He took the surge device from the packet at his hip, plugged it into the system, and pressed the button, melting all the circuits. There were a few harmless sparks, a bit of smoke, and everything shut down.
Lem and Chubs found Felix back in the lobby near the docking airlock.
Felix was all smiles. “Mr. Jukes, I take it you were able to contact Luna?”
“It worked fine, thank you,” Lem said, extending his wrist pad. “Here, Mr. Montroose, allow me to pay you more for your troubles.”
Felix blinked, surprised. “How kind.”
Lem bumped the two wrist pads together, making the transfer, then Montroose read the sum.
“Mr. Jukes! My goodness. Thank you. This is most generous!”
“That’s probably two to three times what a new transmitter will cost you,” said Lem. “The rest of it you can use to pay some good technicians to install it for you.”
Felix was hardly listening now. He was staring at the numbers on his wrist pad.
Lem and Chubs floated into the airlock.
“He doesn’t understand,” said Chubs. “He doesn’t know we just fried his current system.”
“He’ll find out soon enough,” said Lem.
CHAPTER 18
Rescue
Bingwen stared at the place where Mazer’s aircraft had fallen below the horizon, willing it to come back up again. He knew it wouldn’t happen. He had seen everything. He had watched Mazer’s aircraft take the hit. He had seen the antigrav give out. He had witnessed it drop like a bag of rice out of the sky. A cluster of alien crafts had dived after it, firing at it, pounding it downward. Those ships had dipped below the horizon as well. But a moment later, they had come up and flown on. Mazer’s hadn’t. Instead, a line of black smoke rose, twisting upward like a charmed snake.
Bingwen sprinted back into the farmhouse. “They went down! We’ve got to help them.”
Everyone turned toward him. Grandfather shuffled over, hunched slightly. “Who, Bingwen?”
“The soldiers. The ones who brought us here. A new column of ships rose up out of the big disc. Hundreds of little ships. They’re everywhere. They shot down the soldiers. Their plane went down over there, to the south.” He pointed. “We need to get over there. They need our help.”
No one moved. The old woman who had given the soldiers clothes bowed her head and offered a prayer. The others looked worried and defeated again. The small light of hope the soldiers had given them was extinguished in an instant. Grandfather put a hand on Bingwen’s shoulder and kneeled in front of him. “There’s nothing we can do, Bingwen.”
Bingwen recoiled a step, shrugging off Grandfather’s hand. “They saved my life.” He turned toward the others. “They saved all of our lives. Aren’t we going to do something?”
No one spoke.
Grandfather’s voice was calm. He reached out again. “Bingwen, listen—”
“No,” Bingwen said, jumping back. He took a few steps away, facing everyone. “We can’t leave them out there to die.”
“If they were shot down, they’re already dead,” said another of the women. “There’s nothing we can do.”
“We don’t know that,” said Bingwen. “They might be hurt. I saw where it went down. I can take us straight there.”
The old man with the bag of clothes said, “They said they would be coming back. They said they would send help our way. Doctors and supplies. Now help won’t be coming.”
“He’s right,” said his wife. “No one is coming with supplies now.”
“Is anyone even listening to me?” said Bingwen.
“We listened, boy,” said the old woman. “You told us what we needed to know, now let the grown-ups talk for a minute.”
The teenage girl was at the open windows, looking down at the valley below. “Look,” she said, pointing downward. Everyone came over. Bingwen
muscled his way to the front and looked down. Several of the alien aircraft had landed in the valley and opened their doors. Aliens were stepping out into the rice fields, shooting out mists from their backpacks. The rice shoots withered and turned black as the mist wafted over them. The aliens were over three hundred meters away, well out of earshot, but the old woman spoke in a hushed tone anyway. “That’s the mist the soldier spoke of.”
They watched a moment longer then backed away from the window, fearful of being seen … and fearful perhaps that the wind might carry up whatever was killing the rice below.
Bingwen ran to the old woman’s bag of clothes and pulled out an old shirt frayed at the edges. He moved it in his hands until he found a small tear. Then he gripped the fabric on both sides of the tear and pulled. The old, brittle cotton fibers put up little resistance, and the shirt ripped in half. The pulling motion sent a shot of pain down Bingwen’s bad arm, however, and he almost dropped the fabric.
“What are you doing?” the old woman demanded, rushing over and raising a hand to strike him.
Bingwen offered her half of the shirt. “Wrap it around your mouth and nose, like a bandana. To breathe through.”
The woman paused, then understood. “Yes, yes. Of course.” She called her husband over. “Find more pieces,” she said, gesturing to his bag. “Tear up your shirts. Make masks for all these people.”
“Why don’t we tear up your clothes?” said the old man.
“Just do it,” said his wife.
Bingwen wrapped the other half of the shirt around his face. He waited a moment while everyone gathered around the old man, their attention focused on the prospect of fabric, then Bingwen rushed outside to the barn. If Mazer or any of the soldiers were hurt, he would have to move them, which of course he couldn’t do without help.
Bingwen sized up the two water buffalo in the barn. The one on the right was fatter and wider and therefore stronger. But that didn’t necessarily make it better. Bingwen clapped loudly and whistled and waved his arms for the water buffalo to come to him. The smaller of the two stepped toward him until the rope around its neck pulled taut and stopped it. The bigger one merely stared at Bingwen, slowly chewing something.
Obedience trumps strength, thought Bingwen.
He untied the smaller of the two and threw a burlap tool pouch over its back, the kind with two wide pockets on the sides for carrying supplies. Bingwen looked around him. He didn’t know what he needed. He wasn’t even sure he needed anything. There was a coil of rope in one corner, covered in dust and spiderwebs. He packed it in the pouch. There was a hatchet on the wall, old and rusted and probably not very sharp. He put that in the pouch as well. There were huge cotton harvesting bags with a single shoulder strap piled in one corner. If he needed to dress wounds, those might come in handy. He stuffed as many as he could into the pouch.
“Bingwen.”
The voice was mild and kind. Bingwen turned around and faced Grandfather.
“You cannot go, little one. You cannot help the soldiers.”
“Why not?” asked Bingwen. “Because I am small?”
Grandfather gave a rueful smile. “Size is no measure of ability, child. See how you chose the smaller of these two water buffalo.”
“Because he obeyed me.”
“Just as you must obey me. It is not safe in the valleys.”
“Which is why I need to hurry. The mist will get them if I don’t reach them first.” He untied the animal and pulled on the lead rope. The water buffalo responded, falling into step behind him.
Grandfather sidled to his left, blocking Bingwen’s path, his face hard now. “You disrespect your elder, child.”
Bingwen stopped and bowed his head, staring at the dirt.
“I disagree with my elder, Grandfather. There is a difference. I have nothing but love and respect for you. You are wise beyond wise. Loyal and of great courage. You find strength despite your injuries. I can only hope to become half the man you are. But virtue does not make a man right every time. Please, Grandfather. Without these soldiers, who will protect us? Who will lead us?”
“If they are injured, Bingwen, they can do neither.”
“We don’t know the severity of their injuries, Grandfather. And even if they are gravely wounded, do we not owe them our lives? If injury discounts a person’s worth, then you and I are worth nothing. We’re the most wounded of our group.”
Grandfather chuckled. “Such a tongue. Look at me, Bingwen.”
Bingwen lifted his head. Grandfather knelt down in front of him, putting a hand behind his head. “I think only of you, little one. I cannot let you go. I could not live with myself if something happened to you.”
“Survival is why I must go, Grandfather. We need these men. Mother and Father are still out there. And right now these soldiers are the only ones trying to bring us all together.”
That gave Grandfather pause. He pursed his lips, considered, then painfully got to his feet. “I will go then.” He held out his hand for the lead rope.
Bingwen sighed. This was wasting time. Every moment counted. “Grandfather, you might be able to walk down this mountain, but you can’t walk back up it. Not yet anyway. Not until you’ve mended. We both know that.”
He didn’t wait for Grandfather to respond; he tugged on the lead rope and led the water buffalo onto the access road.
“And how will you bring back a wounded soldier?” Grandfather asked.
“Very carefully,” said Bingwen.
He hurried down the road, eager to get away before Grandfather made some additional argument and forced Bingwen, out of respect, to stop and address it with a rational rebuttal—neither of which Bingwen had time for. The water buffalo didn’t like the speed and kept yanking back on the lead rope and forcing Bingwen to slow down. Twice the animal stopped altogether to stick its nose in the air and smell the smoke that kept wafting across their path. Bingwen gave it a hard slap on the rump and got it moving again.
At the top of the mountain Bingwen had been fearless. But the farther he went down the road, the more his courage failed him. The trees that covered the road were suddenly hiding places for the aliens. The thick scrub on the shoulder was suddenly the perfect place for an ambush. The thin braches that stuck out from the forest were suddenly wands waiting to spray a mist into his face. There were aircraft sounds as well, loud and fast, some close, others far away, and every time Bingwen heard one, he was convinced the aircraft was falling toward him, like a burning meteor, targeted directly to his position. The water buffalo seemed to feel the same way. The closer they got to the valley floor, the more resistant and agitated it became.
Soon the trees began to thin, and the whole of the valley plain came into view. It was the back side of the mountain, a valley Bingwen hadn’t been able to see from the farmhouse, and the sight of it stopped him cold.
There were bodies on the ground. People. Not clumped together in a big group, but spread out all over the valley in ones and twos and threes, as if a big crowd of villagers had all decided to find a spot away from the others to lie down and go to sleep.
Only, they weren’t sleeping. There was no rise and fall to their chests, no casual repositioning of their bodies as sleeping people do. No movement of any kind except for wisps of hair and corners of clothing blown back and forth in the wind.
The closest body was thirty meters away under the shade of a tree. A woman, Mother’s age, lying on her side, facing Bingwen, her shirt hanging loosely off her shoulder in a way that no modest woman would ever consciously allow. One of her shoes lay on the ground beside her. Her eyes were open, her mouth slightly ajar, as if she had been waiting for Bingwen to arrive and was just calling out his name when time had stood still and frozen her in that position.
Around her, the rice shoots were curled and black and dead.
The mist had caused this, Bingwen realized. The chemical the creatures sprayed from their wands had killed everything it had touched: the crop, the fleeing villa
gers, even a few animals here and there: dogs and birds and two water buffalo. There were large patches of healthy crop as well—green rice shoots that had been spared the mist, some of them as tall as Bingwen’s shoulders—but these were in the minority. Most of the valley floor was mud and death and withered shoots of rice.
On the far side of the valley, a downed Chinese aircraft billowed black smoke and ash into the air. Bingwen could hear the crackle and sizzle of the flames and the popping and breaking of components inside. He could smell it, too, an acrid stench of melting plastic and rubber and other synthetics.
It wasn’t Mazer’s aircraft, he knew. That crash had occurred elsewhere, at least another kilometer away and probably farther. Yet the sight of this one didn’t fill Bingwen with much confidence. The aircraft was barely recognizable as such. Perhaps it had been a helicopter once, but now it was nothing more than a heap of twisted, burning metal, with the entire front half of it crushed by the impact. It lay on its side like a wounded animal, burning and hissing and spewing black smoke.
Bingwen wondered how many people had been aboard. Ten? Twenty? It was certainly big enough to carry that many. Perhaps it had been loaded with supplies: fresh water and food and medical equipment, everything he and Grandfather and the others would need to survive at the farmhouse. Whatever it had held, there was no salvaging it now. Nor would there be any survivors.
Maybe Grandfather was right, he told himself. Maybe this was a fool’s errand. Why should Mazer’s crash be any different? All he would likely find there was more fire and death.
Beside him the water buffalo raised its head and sniffed at the air. It must have caught the scent of death or smoke because the next instant it pulled so hard on the lead rope that it yanked Bingwen off his feet. Bingwen landed hard on his good arm, but the jolt sent another shot of pain through his bad one. He cried out in agony despite himself. The shout spooked the animal further, and it took off back the way it had come, yanking the lead rope free of Bingwen’s grip and giving him a serious rope burn.
Earth Afire (The First Formic War) Page 27