He couldn’t stay here. He had nothing to do but sit in his office and brood while everyone out in the warehouse chatted and twittered about what a monster he was. Thanks, Benyawe. Just as I feel a jolt of optimism, just as I’m rising out of the funk Ramdakan put me in, you have to throw the proffered olive branch back in my face.
He left his office, left the warehouse, not looking anyone in the eye. He climbed into his skimmer without knowing where he was going. The AI told him he had a message from Despoina. It started playing before Lem could object.
“It’s me,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “Your father had a conference call today with several delegates from the European Union. Thought you might want to know. Also, I’m making lemon chicken tonight. Tell me what time you’re coming.”
Great, he thought. Now she wasn’t even inviting him. He was expected to come over. And was she calling him from the office? Didn’t she realize that all of those holo records were likely recorded?
He erased the message, flew back to his apartment, and threw his jacket to the floor. Let the cleaning crew pick it up. He went to the dispenser in the kitchen and poured himself a drink.
Father, Benyawe, Ramdakan, Des. To hell with them.
He downed the drink and replayed in his mind his conversation with Ramdakan. You’re arrogant, Lem. You’re too handsome, Lem. You’re not your father, Lem. If you only had a different last name, Lem.
A child of privilege, they say. Ha. A child of a curse, is more like it.
Lem turned around, glass in hand, and stopped cold. The gun was an inch from his face.
“Welcome home,” said Victor. “We’ve been waiting.”
CHAPTER 11
Options
Victor got no pleasure from the look of surprise and shock on Lem’s face. If anything, Victor felt only shame. Mother would never approve of something like this, he thought. Father neither. Waving a gun in someone’s face, breaking into his home, frightening him, threatening him. This wasn’t the family way. You’re better than this, Vico, he could hear Mother say. We taught you better than this. The Lord said to turn the other cheek.
Yes well both my cheeks have been slapped so many times, Victor thought, they’re red and tender and ready to do a little slapping of their own.
Yet even as he clung to that thought and wanted to seem menacing, the tightness in Victor’s face relaxed and the gun lowered to his side.
“Go sit on the sofa,” Victor said, gesturing back to the living room with the gun. “And if you so much as twitch in a way that I don’t like, I will shoot you in the kneecap.” He sounded tired and not altogether threatening, but Lem did as he was told.
Imala was sitting by the hearth with her back against the stone chimney, arms folded across her chest. It had been her idea to confront Lem before they uploaded the vid onto the nets. She and Victor had read the news reports as soon as they were within range of Luna: Ukko Jukes had fired the drones, not Lem. The company’s drone fleet was destroyed, and the market was in a panic. “Just because the press doesn’t mention Lem doesn’t mean he’s innocent,” Victor had said. “His father could be taking the fall to protect him.” But even as Victor said it, he knew it probably wasn’t true.
“There are still unanswered questions,” Imala had said. “Until we get those answers, we should give Lem and Benyawe the benefit of the doubt.”
Victor hadn’t liked it. He had argued the matter repeatedly as they had returned to Luna, but Imala had persisted.
Lem sat on the couch. “I see you both raided my closet.”
“We needed to shower and change,” said Victor. “And since you have more clothes in your closet than my entire family did on El Cavador, we didn’t think you’d miss two outfits.”
“Be my guest,” said Lem. “Take ten. Although I’m not exactly your size.”
It was true. Lem was much taller than both of them, and Victor and Imala had rolled up the sleeves and pant legs.
“Let me bring someone up here to get you clothes that fit,” said Lem.
Victor sneered. “Do you take us for idiots? You’re not calling anyone. Take off your wrist pad and throw it to me. If you touch the screen at all, I’ll shoot you in the kneecap.”
“You’re determined to shoot my kneecaps,” said Lem, unfastening his wrist pad and tossing it over.
Victor caught it easily in the lesser gravity. “The kneecaps are where I would start. Then I move my way up.”
“Can we dial back the testosterone please?” said Imala. “We came here for answers, Lem. If we like them, Victor doesn’t put holes in your legs. If we don’t like them, I make no promises.”
“I didn’t launch the drones,” said Lem. “That was my father’s doing. If you want to be angry at someone, go shove a gun in his face. I tried to stop him, he wouldn’t listen.”
“Prove it,” said Victor. “I find it hard to believe you weren’t working with dear old Dad on this one.”
Lem scoffed. “You and your father might have been all chummy chum, Victor, but my dear old dad and I don’t particularly see eye to eye on much of anything. He can’t stand to be in the same room with me.”
“Then he and I have more in common than I thought,” said Victor.
“Ask Benyawe if you don’t believe me,” said Lem. “I fought to protect you. Do you honestly think I would go to the trouble of getting you the equipment and helping you reach the ship just to send drones after you? Do you think I would place more value on silencing you than on killing the Formics?”
“Maybe you were killing two birds with one stone,” said Victor.
“Wow,” said Lem. “Just wow. You know, I had heard of cases of severe paranoia, but I’ve never actually seen one in person. Fascinating.”
“You forget I’m holding a gun,” said Victor.
“Who cut off our communication?” said Imala.
Lem hesitated before answering. “I did. And I had very good reasons, though I doubt you’ll agree with me.”
Lem explained them. He was right. They didn’t agree.
“Can I shoot him in the kneecaps now?” Victor asked.
“You take the right kneecap, I’ll take the left,” said Imala.
Lem held his hands up. “I did everything I could to save you. You may not agree with my decisions, but I did what I thought was right for you. We can still help each other in this. I want to stop the Formics as much as you do. I’m taking steps independent of my father to further protect Earth. We’re setting up a shield of ships to stop any additional reinforcements. Benyawe and her team have developed a weapon to help in this effort. I can take you to the warehouse and show it to you. I want the team to see you anyway. Maybe they’ll stop hating me once they know you’re alive.”
“Why would they hate you?” asked Victor. “Other than the obvious reasons of you being a lying snake and a selfish slug, I mean.”
“Cutting your communication was my decision alone. Benyawe and the other engineers had nothing to do with it. They all despise me because of it.”
Victor gave a face of mock surprise. “Someone despises you? I can’t imagine why.”
“You’ve asked your questions,” said Lem. “Now I ask mine.”
“Why should we tell you anything?” said Victor.
“Because I’m your benefactor. Because I made your expedition possible. And since the Formic ship is still hovering in space, you obviously failed to disable it. I want to know why, what happened, and what the next steps are. I know you were inside the ship, Victor. What did you see?”
Victor looked to Imala as if to ask how they should proceed.
“Victor took several hours of vids,” said Imala. “He explored much of the interior of the ship and he has an idea on how to disable it. How to really disable it this time.”
“Our first attempt didn’t work because of the drone attack,” said Victor. “I lost the explosive before I could plant it. But I doubt the explosive would have been sufficient anyway. We need to kil
l every Formic aboard and then seize the ship for ourselves.”
“Wonderful,” said Lem. “I agree. How do we do that?”
“There is no we here,” said Victor. “We go our way and you go yours. Taking down the ship is our business now. Protecting Earth can be yours.”
“You’ll need resources,” said Lem. “People, equipment. No one will give you the freedom that I will.”
“We’ve heard this sales pitch before,” said Victor. “And we nearly died because we listened to it. Do you honestly think either of us would ever work with you again?”
“Where will you go?” said Lem. “The military? They will cut you out of the equation. They’ll take your vids and they’ll brush you aside. In their minds, you’re nobodies. You don’t know infiltration, you don’t know demolition, you’re not soldiers, you’re not qualified to even think about this kind of thing, much less execute an op. You’re an auditor and a free miner with criminal records. Period. They’ll commend you for your bravery and intel, then they’ll show you the door. That is, assuming they don’t call the police on you. Then they’ll do their own thing based on what they see in the vids. Their own plan, their own approach. And guess what? It will fail. Why? Because they’re the military, led by careerist generals who are more interested in elevating themselves and preserving their dynasties than in taking risks and breaking convention.”
“There are good people in the military,” said Imala.
“Of course there are,” said Lem. “Ninety-nine percent of soldiers and officers are the salt of the Earth, heroes in every sense. I salute them. Too bad those ninety-nine percent won’t be the ones making the decisions about your intel. You want evidence? Look at every military op that has been conducted since this war began. Fail, fail, fail. All because of incompetent leadership.”
“And you think your leadership is better?” asked Victor.
“I’m not volunteering to lead anything,” said Lem. “This would be your op. You pick the staff, you pick the equipment. You manage it. I simply supply the resources.”
“Then you pull the plug when it’s not going your way,” said Victor.
“Wrong,” said Lem. “I would give all oversight to Benyawe. I trust her judgment now more than my own. I learned that the hard way.”
“There are other avenues besides you and the military,” said Victor. “We could go public with this. We could release the vid on to the nets.”
Lem laughed. “What would that accomplish? Giving the world a glimpse inside the ship doesn’t cause it to suddenly explode. You still have to strike it. You still need a team to conduct an op.”
“We would get a team,” said Imala. “People would rally behind this. People with skills and talents and ideas. They’d volunteer.”
“Yes, and in practical terms what you’re describing is a logistical nightmare,” said Lem. “How do you manage the deluge of volunteers from all over the world? How do you manage their ideas? Their resources? How do you determine if you even want their help? They could be nutcases. Or worse. Most of them won’t have any of the skills you need or be qualified to help. Who’s going to tell them that? You?”
“There are ways to filter people and find who we need,” said Imala.
“True,” said Lem. “But who’s going to set up those systems? You? Do you even know how to do that? That takes time and man hours. And anyway you’re not looking for individuals. You’re looking for a team. Soldiers. Experienced professionals. Men and women with very specific combat expertise. How do you form a cohesive team when you have people coming from different cultures, languages, opinions? Many of these people will be enemies. You can’t just throw them together and hope for the best. Assuming you even get them to be cooperative, they would need time to train as a team. And who’s going to command them? Who makes that call? You two? It’s not an easy choice to make. When soldiers don’t have a preexisting command structure, they’re at each other’s throats in minutes.”
“You make it sound like humans have never worked together before,” said Imala.
“Have you forgotten what happened the last time you uploaded something onto the nets?” said Lem. “You warned the world of an invasion, and did they come together, did they unite under a flag, did they make rational decisions and value the opinions of others and work as one? No. They yelled at each other and floundered around like imbeciles and left us with no global defense. They practically rolled out the red carpet for the Formics. And when the Formics blew them to hell, did Earth get its act together? Did we suddenly wake up and say, Gee we should probably unite on this, folks. No, we did a little more floundering and a little more imbecilic posturing, and now we have no fleet in space to protect us and a fractured global leadership.”
Victor and Imala glanced at each other and said nothing.
“And why does Earth fail to learn its lesson?” Lem said. “Why do we persist in this divided idiocy? Because the world is full of prideful bastards, that’s why. Everyone believes they’re smarter than everyone else, more capable than everyone else, more justified than everyone else. Humility went extinct a long time ago.”
“Sounds like you’re describing yourself,” said Imala.
“You’re right,” said Lem. “That’s exactly what I’m describing. And the world is more like me than either of you. Earth isn’t a free-miner family, Victor. It might have been all harmony and roses on your ship, but it’s the opposite on Earth.”
“We had our disagreements,” said Victor.
“Of course you did,” said Lem. “Every family does. But when it was decision time, the family moved forward as one. Even if half or more disagreed with the direction, everyone went along with the plan to maintain the integrity of the group. You won’t have that luxury with Earth. Nobody cares about the group.”
“You don’t think much of people, do you?” said Imala.
“I managed companies before I came to Juke,” said Lem. “I know how people think. The kind of global come-together you’re talking about is a pipe dream. It would fall on its face in a week. It’s not sustainable, particularly without any system of government. The minute volunteers disagree with your approach, they’ll either quit or splinter off. They have no incentive to stick with you. Then everyone will try to do their own thing, and we’ll accomplish nothing. We’ll be right back where we started. Nowhere.”
“So it’s your way or failure,” said Victor. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“I am offering you what no one else will,” said Lem. “Go public with this, and I can guarantee you you’ll be cut out of it, faster even than the military will do. The military will consult with you at least, initially anyway, because they’ll recognize the significance of what you’ve accomplished. Not the public. And certainly not your financiers. They’ll protect their investment. They’ll use their own people or people they consider more qualified than you. You’ll be kicked aside. No one on Earth will feel confident putting the planet’s future or their money into the hands of wanted criminals, both under the age of twenty-five. Sorry. That’s a fact.”
“But you will,” said Victor. “But you we can trust. Excuse me if I seem a little skeptical.”
“You have every right to be,” said Lem. “But if what I’ve said hasn’t convinced you, this will: If you go public with this and ask for Earth’s help, all of your equipment and people would need to be launched into orbit. Do you have any idea how much time that would require to prep and execute, how much money that would take? By the time you’ve gathered funding and a team and organized a launch, Earth could be a charcoal briquette. I’m already out here. I’m a hop away from the Formic ship. My resources—which are vast—are here, in space. I am ready to move right now.”
“Engineers and equipment aren’t enough,” said Victor. “We need soldiers as well. You said so yourself. Those you don’t have.”
“True,” said Lem. “But I know how to get them.”
“So you say,” said Victor. “Why should we beli
eve you?”
“You shouldn’t believe me. I’ve given you every reason not to believe me. But that doesn’t change the fact that I am the best chance you’ve got. You may despise me, but I can help you like no one else can. I will give you freedom to operate like no one else can. I would equip you like no one else can.”
“Yes, and then you’d cut us loose the moment we’re no longer convenient,” said Victor.
“No. That won’t happen.”
“It did before,” said Victor.
“I thought I was doing you a favor. You may not believe that, but it’s true. And up until that moment I had done everything in my power to stop the drones. I have witnesses who can testify to that fact.”
“You can pay people to say anything, Lem. You certainly have the money for it. Testimony means nothing.”
Lem laughed and tossed up his hands. “Fine. You win, Victor. I’m Mr. Evil. I’m Beelzebub himself. The Lord of Darkness. That’s me. Is that what you want me to say? Is that why you broke into my apartment? To gloat?”
Victor said nothing.
“Why are we even having this conversation?” said Lem. “Nothing I say is going to convince you otherwise. You want to walk out of here and put everything you’ve learned into the hands of incompetent idiots? Be my guest. You want to condemn the human race to extinction, by all means, don’t let me stop you. But if you want to end this and send these bugs back to whatever rock they crawled out of, let me help you. I care about people, Victor. You can scoff and roll your eyes all day if you’d like, but it’s true. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble I did to find your mother.”
The words were like a blow to Victor’s chest. He suddenly felt unsteady on his feet.
“She’s alive, Victor. And if you put down that gun, I can show you exactly where she is.”
CHAPTER 12
Rena
On a salvage ship in the outer rim of the Asteroid Belt, Rena Delgado sat alone at the helm, typing a report at a terminal. It was three hours into sleep shift, and the lights in the helm were dark save for the glow of the screen and the small spotlight above her. The report was a detailed description of all the parts the ship had recovered in its most recent salvage jobs. Navigational equipment, heating systems, wiring, furniture, everything they had stripped from the derelict ships they had come upon. Most of the descriptions were simple and brief. Year, make, model, condition, and any noticeable defects that would influence its price.
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