Earth Afire (The First Formic War)

by Orson Scott Card

  Later, when Mazer was born, Mother repented by immersing Mazer in the Maori culture. She still loved Father—she would never leave him—but she wanted Mazer raised as she had been. So she plunged him into the culture and taught him the language, dances, and songs. She fed him Maori food, instilled in him the warrior spirit. She made him super Maori.

  Then she died when he was ten. And now there was no one to champion Mazer’s inclusion in the group. Father, after having been excluded for all those years, certainly wasn’t going to do it. Instead, he took Mazer back to England and tried to erase all the Maori in him. Father was the scion of a noble family, and he would make Mazer a proper Englishman with studies in computers and science. Suddenly Mazer went from a fishing/taro-planting/pig-butchering life full of song and story to a life of high-tech computers in British boarding schools.

  He learned to adapt. He was never accepted by the pure Brits—they called him a wog and excluded him. But he became more British than they were. He learned every courtesy of British society. He mastered the accent. He became extremely articulate. He consumed every subject he studied. He made himself an expert in two cultures … even though he was never really a citizen of either.

  Bingwen faced the same issue. He was a primitive farm child who had crossed over and immersed himself in a different culture, learning English, learning computers, soaking up as much as he could. He had passed back and forth between worlds as Mazer did.

  “The world will always change, Bingwen,” said Mazer. “You become whoever you need to be to fit it.”

  “So I’m never really a person at all then. I’m just whatever is convenient to the world around me? That’s not who I want to be. That’s not me.”

  “That’s not who you are, Bingwen. But that’s how you survive. You’ve been doing it all your life already. It doesn’t change who you are. You still get to decide who that is. You get to choose the best of everything. The best of China, the best of what you’ve learned, the best of your parents. That is still your choice, regardless of what the world is doing, whether this is the China you know or not. You still decide who you are.”

  “Except I can’t decide to be your son.”

  “No, but you don’t have to be my son to mean something to me. You can—”

  He stopped. He had heard something. Voices perhaps. Not too distant. He put a finger to his lips, and Bingwen nodded that he understood.

  They crept forward, silent as shadows, until they reached the edge of the jungle, just a few meters away. A wide clearing opened before them in the darkness, and far out in the center of it, two hundred meters away, a red dot of firelight flickered. There were shapes moving around the fire, though at this distance it was impossible to see how many people there were or if they were friendly or not. Mazer and Bingwen crouched at the edge of the jungle and listened. Whoever they were they weren’t very smart to have built a fire in such an open space. They were practically calling the Formics to their position.

  Mazer had hoped to find a group or family that Bingwen could go with, but it wouldn’t be this lot. They were reckless and loud and likely to get Bingwen killed. The smart thing to do would be to move on and stay clear of them. Let the Formics find them. Not our problem.

  But Mazer was desperate for information. He knew nothing about the Formics’ position or movements. He might be walking Bingwen straight toward a Formic stronghold. It was a risk to talk to whoever was out there, but it was a risk Mazer knew he had to take.

  For a moment he considered ordering Bingwen to stay behind while he advanced and approached the fire, but he didn’t feel comfortable leaving Bingwen alone, and he doubted Bingwen would like the idea either. “Stay close,” said Mazer. “And step as quietly as you can until we’re certain they’re friendly.”

  They moved toward the light, Mazer leading, sword in hand. When they were halfway across the field Mazer stopped and sniffed at the air.

  “What is it?” Bingwen whispered.

  “That smell,” said Mazer. “It smells like … lobster.”

  Bingwen sniffed. “I smell it too.”

  Mazer tightened his grip on the sword hilt, and they drew closer to camp. Soon the vague shapes in the firelight took form. There were five men and one woman, all of them crouched on the ground, huddled around something, the fire behind them. There was a spit above the flames with some creature roasting on it. As Mazer drew closer he saw that the cooked creature was the bottom half of a Formic. The people were eating the top half, which they had pulled off the spit and placed on the ground, surrounding it like a pack of scavengers.

  Mazer felt sick. He wanted to retreat, but they were close to the fire now, and the woman saw them. She cried out, and the men were instantly on their feet, weapons in hand. They had staves and knives and machetes. They were peasants. Their clothes were torn and stained, their faces wild. They were thin and sallow and desperate.

  Mazer didn’t move. Bingwen hid behind him. No one spoke.

  One of the men with a machete finally said, “This is our food. There’s not enough for you.”

  “We don’t want your food,” said Mazer.

  “He’s lying,” said the man with a knife. “He wants it all right. Look at his eyes.”

  “You shouldn’t eat that,” said Mazer. “It’s the wrong arrangement of proteins. It wasn’t made for humans to eat.”

  “See?” said the man with the knife. “He’s trying to trick us and take it from us.”

  “They collect their dead,” said Mazer. “They might come for this one.”

  The men glanced up in the sky around them as if they thought a transport might descend right on top of them.

  The woman was behind the men near the fire. She turned away suddenly and began to retch. The men watched her. The woman fell to her hands and knees and emptied her stomach onto the dirt. The men recoiled and looked down at the dismembered Formic at their feet, its skin charred and black from the fire, its chest cut open and steaming in the glow of the fire.

  One of the men began to retch, and Mazer grabbed Bingwen’s hand and ran.

  * * *

  At dawn they found a highway. There were deserted cars—some intact, other smashed and shattered and wrecked. There were craters in the Earth two meters wide from explosions and laser fire. There were scorch marks everywhere, accompanied by deep cuts in the earth and asphalt. There were no bodies, but there were dark stains of blood everywhere. Mazer tried starting several of the vehicles, but the batteries and fuel cells had been stripped.

  They continued on foot, following the highway north for a few hours. They saw more destruction and deserted vehicles. When they heard aircraft, they hid and waited for it to pass.

  At midday they found a family with two young children resting in the shade of an overpass. The wife said little, but she offered Bingwen and Mazer soup, which they both gratefully accepted.

  “We stayed hidden in an underground storage shed,” said the father. “We had enough food for over a week. We thought we could hold out until help came, but no soldiers ever came for us. We’re moving north now.”

  Bingwen was off to the side, playing with the four-year-old boy, tossing wads of rags back and forth to each other like a ball. It was the first time Mazer had ever seen Bingwen laugh.

  “Can you take the boy?” Mazer asked.

  “Food is scarce,” said the father.

  “He’s smart, resourceful. I can’t pay you now, but when the war is over, I will.”

  “You may not be alive when the war is over. Or we may not win the war.”

  “We’ll win. Take the boy.”

  The father considered, then nodded. They made the arrangements, and in no time Mazer was kneeling in front of Bingwen, handing him the sword.

  “Here,” said Mazer, “your grandfather would want you to have this.”

  Bingwen took it. “I am safer with you at the lander than I am with this family in the north.”

  “They’re good people, Bingwen. They’ll feed y
ou. That’s more than I can do.” He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “When this is over, I want you to contact me. I’ll get you enrolled in a school. A good school, where they’ll feed you and take care of you.”

  “Like an orphanage.”

  “Better than that. A place where smart kids go. Special kids.”

  “How do I contact you?”

  “Memorize my e-mail and holo address. Can you do that?”

  Bingwen nodded. Mazer told him the addresses. “Now recite them back to me.”

  Bingwen did. Mazer stood and extended a hand. Bingwen shook it. “How long do I need to keep this cast on my arm?” asked Bingwen.

  “Another two weeks. Try not to let any more trees fall on it.”

  “Try not to get killed.”

  Mazer smiled. “I’ll try.” He paused a beat, not wanting to leave. “No more heroics, all right? Just get north and stay safe.”

  Bingwen nodded.

  There was nothing more to say. The family was waiting, ready to move on. Mazer smiled one last time then turned on his heels and headed south, not looking back.

  He stayed off the highway, moving parallel to it, and made good time. He had been walking slower because of Bingwen, but now he set his own pace. The soup had given him new energy. He found a patch of jungle and slept for a few hours, burying himself among the fallen leaves and staying out of site. When he woke, he got moving again. By now he was dying of thirst. He passed several puddles of rainwater, but he knew better than to drink from them. Late in the afternoon he thought he heard the faint sounds of a battle far west of his position, but he couldn’t see anything.

  As dusk approached he heard aircraft. He crouched near some wilting shrubs and watched as a Chinese fighter engaged in a dogfight with a Formic flyer directly overhead. The fighter had more firepower, but the Formic craft was more nimble. It swooped and dove and clipped the wing of the Chinese fighter with a laser burst. The fighter was suddenly consumed in flames, spinning out of control, dropping out of the sky. The pilot ejected a few hundred meters from the ground, coming down fast. His parachute opened. His body was limp. The plane crashed some distance to the south. Mazer heard the explosion. The Formic flyer flew on. Mazer watched the pilot’s parachute descend out of sight, less than a kilometer away. He jumped up and ran in that direction.

  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 un
til 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?”