Earth Unaware (First Formic War)

by Card, Orson Scott

  * * *

  Victor stood in the airlock in his pressure suit, waiting for the ship to stop. Father was beside him, along with ten miners, all of them facing the massive bay doors. The three repaired PKs floated among them, with the miners holding them in place with bracing cables. Victor could hear the retros firing outside, slowing the ship. After a moment, the rockets stopped, and then Concepción’s voice sounded in Victor’s helmet. “Full stop, gentlemen. Let’s make this repair quick, if we can.”

  The Council had agreed to Concepción’s recommendation: El Cavador would come to a complete stop, Victor and Father would install the repaired PKs, and the ship would accelerate to the Italians, still a day away. It hadn’t been an easy decision. Mother had told Victor after the fact that quite a heated discussion had preceded the vote, with many people siding with Toron and urging extreme caution, preferring to stop immediately and observe the scout ship among the Italians from a safe distance. The final vote to continue on as soon as repairs were made had passed by the slimmest of majorities.

  Victor punched a command into the keypad on the airlock wall. There was a brief warning siren followed by a computer voice telling them the wide cargo doors were about to open. The computer voice counted down from ten, then the doors unlocked and slid away. All of the air inside the airlock was sucked out into space, and the star-filled blackness of the Kuiper Belt stretched out before them.

  Victor’s HUD in his helmet immediately got to work. The temperature outside was negative three hundred and seventy degrees Fahrenheit, prompting the heating mechanism on his suit to compensate. Other windows of data told him oxygen levels, heart rate, suit humidity, and the vitals of everyone else in the group. A note from Mother also popped up: CHILI WAITING WHEN YOU GET BACK. BE SAFE. KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR FATHER. LOVE, PATITA.

  Father led the group outside, moving slowly in their boot magnets as they stepped beyond the airlock and out onto the hull. The miners pulled the weightless PKs along like floats at a parade. Once everyone was outside and clear, Father led them to a spot where one of the PKs had been sliced away. Victor had made new network and power sockets to replace those that had been cut, and he spliced in the new socket while the miners applied the new mounting plates. Victor then drilled in new holes for the bolts and stepped clear. Father and the miners moved the PK into position, and Victor bolted it in and plugged in the new socket. When done, Victor blinked out the necessary commands to reboot the laser and restore it to the collision-avoidance system.

  Two hours later, after they had finished installing the last of the three lasers without any problems, Father asked them all to gather in a circle. Victor had known this moment was coming, but he hadn’t been looking forward to it. Gabi, Marco’s wife, had asked Father to release Marco’s ashes, as was the custom, and Father had agreed.

  Victor and the ten miners silently formed a circle around Father, their boot magnets clinging to the hull, their hands folded reverently in front of them. Father pulled a canister from his hip pouch and spoke into his helmet comm. “We’re ready,” he said.

  There was a moment’s pause, then Concepción’s voice answered on the line, “We’re here, Segundo. Gabi and Lizbét and the girls and I. We’re all here on the line.”

  Victor pictured Marco’s family gathered around one of the terminals at the helm. The crew would be giving the family space, standing off to the side, silent, with heads bowed.

  Father crossed himself, placed a hand on the canister lid, and said, “Vaya a Dios, nuestro hermano, y al cielo más allá de este.” Go to God, our brother, and to the heaven beyond this one. Father unscrewed the cap and gently shook the canister upward. The ashes left the canister in a clouded clump and moved away from the ship without dispersing. The men in the circle slowly dropped to one knee, crossed themselves, and repeated the words. “Vaya a Dios, nuestro hermano, y al cielo más allá de este.” The men then held their position in silence while the family on the bridge bid their farewells.

  “Vaya a Dios, Papito,” said eleven-year-old Daniella.

  “Vaya a Dios, Papá,” said sixteen-year-old Chencha.

  Their voices cracked and trembled with emotion, and Victor couldn’t bear it. He blinked out a command and muted the audio in his helmet. He didn’t want to hear Gabi say good-bye to her husband, or hear four-year-old Alexándria bid farewell to a father she would not likely remember a year from now. Marco deserved to raise his daughters. And Gabi, widowed and broken, deserved to grow old with such a man. Now, however, none of that would happen. Thanks to Lem Jukes all of it was lost.

  Victor watched the ashes drift away, surprised that so great a man could be diminished to so little.

  * * *

  Victor and Father fixed the radio that evening in the workshop, though they had to dismantle a few holodisplays to get the parts they needed. When they were certain it was fixed, they took it directly to Concepción’s quarters, which she shared with three other widows on the ship. Concepción had insisted that they wake her the moment it was ready, and the three of them took the radio into one of the more spacious storage rooms and sealed the hatch.

  “Have you checked all the frequencies?” asked Concepción.

  “Only two,” said Father. “Just enough to know it’s working.”

  Concepción took her handheld and called Selmo to the room. When he arrived, still drowsy from sleep, he began working with the radio. The four of them sat in silence while Selmo checked every frequency, searching for chatter. Once, they caught a few faint clicks and snippets of speech, but it was so fragmented and the moments of sound so brief and so sparse that they couldn’t make out anything.

  “The Italians?” asked Concepción.

  “Maybe,” said Selmo. “Hard to say. I thought we’d get a better transmission as close as we are. If I had to guess, I’d say this was probably just rubbish from somewhere far away.”

  “So the Italians are silent?” asked Concepción.

  “Seems odd that we wouldn’t hear something,” said Victor. “They have four transmitters. They should be talking to each other. We’re still a distance away, but not too far that we shouldn’t pick up something.” He turned to Concepción. “How long ago did the scout ship arrive at their position?”

  “Eighteen hours ago,” she said.

  “And no one has left their position since?” asked Father.

  “Not according to the Eye,” said Concepción.

  “Maybe this scout ship is causing interference,” said Victor.

  “Maybe,” said Concepción.

  “Or maybe they’re not transmitting because they can’t transmit,” said Selmo.

  They were all silent a moment. Victor had been thinking the same thing. They all had. Either something had happened to all four of the Italians’ transmitters or something had happened to the Italians.

  “How long until we reach their position?” Concepción asked.

  “Twelve hours,” said Selmo.

  Concepción considered this.

  “There’s still time to turn and run,” said Father. “I’m not advocating it. I’m just saying that if we start decelerating now, we could stop and change course if you wanted to.”

  “We’re not stopping,” said Concepción. “We’re all going to bed and getting some sleep. Especially you and Victor. You haven’t slept in two days. Selmo, get whoever is working the helm tonight on this radio, checking frequencies. They are not to transmit, only listen. Wake me if anything changes.”

  * * *

  Alejandra was floating in the corridor in a white gown. The material was thin but not so thin that Victor could see through it. Her hair was down, floating out beside her in zero gravity. He thought it odd to see her dressed this way. Janda didn’t own any gowns—certainly not ones so white and pristine and that fit her so well, as if made only for her. The Janda he knew wore jumpsuits and sweaters, all frayed and worn, having been handed down by other girls before her. Never something so new or unblemished or womanly.


  Nor did she ever have her hair down, not out in the corridor at least, not where everyone could see it. Once, Victor had seen it down when he had gone to her family’s quarters and found the door ajar. Janda’s mother was inside the room braiding Janda’s hair. It had surprised Victor to see how long and full it was. He had left immediately before anyone had noticed him, feeling awkward, as if he had witnessed something no boy should ever see.

  Yet now, seeing her here, he had no such feelings. This was how her hair and dress should be, how he was meant to see her.

  Janda smiled to him, and Victor felt such instant relief. He had worried that the scout ship had done something to her, harmed her somehow, yet here she was. He had so many questions. What was the scout ship? Had she made any friends among the Italians? Had she spotted any potential suitors whom she might one day consider taking as a husband? It lifted his heart to consider that last question without feeling a pang of guilt or loss. It meant he was moving on, that Janda was still the friend he had always taken her to be and not someone he had fallen in love with. It meant they could see one another and not be clouded with awkwardness and shame.

  She beckoned him to follow her, then turned her body and pushed off with her bare feet. They moved through the ship. The halls were empty. Neither of them spoke. They didn’t need to. Not yet. They were with each other, and for now that was enough. She looked back and smiled often, seeing him there behind her, still following her.

  The airlock was open. The bay doors were open. They went through both of them. There were stars everywhere, silent and small. They faced one another. A star behind Janda moved, sliding across the sky to her, as if attracted to her, as if it were hers and she were calling it home. It reached her and disappeared, winking out. Then other stars came, slowly at first and then all at once, sweeping to her. Janda seemed not to notice. Her eyes were on Victor, her smile still strong.

  His hands were in her hair. Her hand was around his waist, drawing him. Her lips were warm.

  A hand shook Victor awake. He was in his hammock. Father looked down at him. “The scout ship has gone.”

  Victor was out of his hammock instantly. He and Father went directly to the helm. Toron was moving his stylus through the holospace above the table, drawing a line across the system chart. “It left ten hours ago,” Toron was saying. “We didn’t know it because the Eye is only giving us muddy data now.”

  “Why?” asked Concepción.

  Toron shrugged. “We may be hitting some dust. I don’t know. It’s not clean data around the site, that’s all we know. As for the pod, it’s now heading in this direction, away from us, which is good.”

  “Pod?” Victor asked.

  “That’s what Edimar and I are calling the scout ship now,” said Toron. “It’s not shaped like anything we’ve seen before. It’s very smooth, very aerodynamic.”

  “Any word from the Italians?” asked Father.

  “Still nothing,” said Selmo. “Radio is silent.”

  There were a lot of reasons why the data from the Eye might be “muddy” or unclear—any obstruction in space, however small, could throw off the data. But all of the reasons that Victor could think of, all of the reasons that Toron no doubt had already considered, seemed unlikely save one. There wasn’t dust between El Cavador and the Italians’ position. There was dust at the Italians’ position. Where there had been four solid ships, there was now something else, something harder for the Eye to interpret. Smaller, more random pieces that didn’t coincide with any ship design within the Eye’s database. Moving dust, spinning scraps, unrecognizable clumps of steel. Victor refused to believe it. It was too dark a possibility. The Italians were fine. Janda was fine. El Cavador was a piece of junk. Why should they put any faith in the Eye? It was just another part on a ship of broken parts and barely-held-together machines. Muddy data meant nothing.

  They flew for eight more hours, but by the time they reached the site Victor knew what they would find. The wreckage from the four ships was a scattered trail of scorched debris at least five kilometers wide.

  CHAPTER 10

  Wreckage

  Victor flew down to the lockers in the cargo bay, moving fast. He landed, threw open his locker, grabbed his pressure suit, and quickly began putting it on. There were miners all around him doing the same, stepping into suits, grabbing rescue equipment: winch hooks, coiled cable, medical pouches, hydraulic spreaders, and shears. Victor’s mind was racing. The Italians were dead. The pod had attacked, and the Italians were dead. Janda. No, he wouldn’t think it. He wouldn’t even consider the idea. She wasn’t dead. They were putting together a search party. They would look for survivors. There were big pieces of wreckage out there. Some would have people inside them. Janda would be one of them. Shaken perhaps, frightened even, an emotional wreck, but alive.

  How long ago had the pod left? Eighteen hours? That was too long to go without fresh oxygen. If there were survivors, they would have to have masks, with plenty of spare canisters of oxygen. Most canisters held up to forty-five minutes of air, but maybe the Italians had canisters that held more. It was possible. Plus there would be air in whatever room the survivors had sealed themselves up in. And that’s what survivors would do. They’d seal themselves off in a room somewhere that hadn’t been breached and wait for rescue. The Italians were smart. Surely they had rehearsed for emergencies like this. Surely they had emergency gear throughout the ship. They would be prepared. They would have a stockpile of canisters and masks. Both for adults and for children.

  But air wasn’t the only problem, Victor told himself. They would need heat as well. Without battery heaters or warmer blocks or some other emergency heat source to keep out the cold, survivors would freeze to death. It wouldn’t take long. The cold this far out was relentless. It made Victor nervous. That was too many variables. If the survivors had sealed themselves off, and if there were no breaches, and if they had masks and canisters to spare, and if they had a heat source, then maybe they had a shot.

  The locker beside Victor opened abruptly, startling him. It was Father, who grabbed his own pressure suit and hurriedly climbed into it.

  “What are someone’s chances after eighteen hours?” asked Victor. “Seriously.”

  “This could have happened more than eighteen hours ago,” said Father. “The pod was here for twelve hours. It might have attacked when it got here instead of immediately before it left. In which case we’re thirty hours in, not eighteen.”

  Victor had considered this, but he said nothing. Thirty hours was too long. That drastically reduced the likelihood of them finding anyone alive, and he wasn’t going to accept that as a possibility. Besides, it didn’t seem likely anyway. Why would the pod stay after it attacked? To scan for life? To make certain the job was done? No, it seemed more plausible that it had tried to communicate or observe or scan. And when those efforts had ended or failed, it had attacked and run.

  Father closed his locker and faced Victor. “You sure you’re up for this, Vico?”

  Victor understood what he was asking. There would be bodies. Death. Women. Children. It would be awful.

  “You’ve never seen something like this,” said Father. “And I would rather you never did. It’s worse than you can imagine.”

  “I can help you, Father. In ways none of these miners can.”

  Father hesitated then nodded. “If you change your mind, if you need to come back, no one will think less of you.”

  “When I come back inside, Father, it will be with you and with survivors.”

  Father nodded again.

  Bahzím, who had replaced Marco as chief miner, was calmly shouting orders from the airlock entrance. “Have two people check your suit and lifeline inside the airlock. Two. Head to toe. Every seam. Do not rush inspections. The debris outside will be jagged and sharp and will puncture your suit or your line. Keep your line slack to a minimum. Stay with your partner. Segundo, I want you and Vico on saws.”

  Father nodded.

 
; Victor went to the equipment cage and took down the rotary saws. They were dangerous tools outside since they could so easily slice suits and lines, but the blades had good guards and Victor and Father had experience using them. Victor carried them to the airlock.

  Toron entered from the corridor, flew down to the airlock, and faced Bahzím. “I’m coming with you.”

  “This is for experienced walkers only, Toron. I’m sorry.”

  “I know how to spacewalk, Bahzím.”

  “You don’t have enough hours, Toron. If the sky was clear, I wouldn’t have any issue, but there’s a lot of debris out there. Anything could happen.”

  “My daughter is out there.”

  Bahzím hesitated.

  “There’s one lifeline left,” said Toron. “I just counted. You have room for one more person.”

  “He can come with me and Vico,” said Father. “We’ll need someone to hold our lines clear while we work the saws.”

  Bahzím looked unsure. “You don’t have a suit, Toron.”

  “He can wear Marco’s,” Victor said. “They’re about the same height.”

  Bahzím considered this then sighed. “Hurry. I’m closing this hatch in two minutes.”

  Toron nodded his thanks to Father and Victor then quickly changed into Marco’s suit.

  They hurried into the airlock, and Bahzím sealed the hatch behind them. Everyone unspooled a lifeline from the racks along the wall and attached it to the back of his partner’s suit. Then came the helmets. Bahzím typed in the all-clear, and fresh air and heat filled Victor’s suit. Everyone took a moment to inspect the suits and lifelines of those around them. When all was clear, Bahzím punched in another command, and Victor’s HUD blinked on. Live video of the wreckage outside appeared on Victor’s display, taken from the ship’s cameras. El Cavador’s spotlights cut through the darkness, lighting momentarily on a piece of wreckage, as if considering it, judging by its size and shape if it were a likely candidate for survivors. Apparently it wasn’t. The lights moved on. Victor’s heart sank. There was so much debris. So much destruction. How could he possibly find Janda in all this?