Earth Afire (The First Formic War) (32 page)

Victor looked at the menu, but then returned it to the waitress. “Would you do a specialty order?”

“Depends,” said the waitress.

“White rice, black beans, shredded beef, fried
platanos,
and an
arepa
with butter.”

The waitress looked up from her wrist pad. “I don’t know what
platanos
and
arepas
are, so we probably don’t have those.”

Victor wasn’t sure what the English word was, so he looked it up on the holo. “
Platanos
are plantains. You know, like giant bananas, only starchier?”

The waitress looked annoyed. “I know what a plantain is.”

“Do you have any?”

“I’ll have to check. What’s an
arepa
?”

He had been looking it up. It wasn’t in the dictionary, which meant it was unique to Venezuela and had no English equivalent. “It’s a round corn patty, maybe four to five inches across. Really thick, not thin like a tortilla. They’re not hard to make.”

“They are if you’ve never made one before. I’ll have to check.” She turned to Imala. “Let’s hope you’re easier.”

“I’ll have the same as him,” said Imala.

The waitress sighed. “Of course you will.”

She floated back toward the kitchen.

“A family dish?” asked Imala.

“The unofficial plate of Venezuela, where my family’s from. We ate it all the time on the ship, although truth be told, we usually ate it without the shredded beef and plantains. Both were practically nonexistent in the Kuiper Belt. Our diet was more about quantity than quality. We ate whatever was cheapest and would last the longest. Sometimes we’d eat nothing but rice and beans for weeks on end. Even your sweat starts smelling like beans after a while.”

Imala scrunched up her nose.

“Sorry,” said Victor. “Not good table conversation.”

She smiled. “You miss your family.”

Victor was folding his napkin into odd little shapes just to keep his hands busy. “Yes. I do. Very much.”

“We’ll find them, Vico. We’ll get you back to them.”

Victor sighed and looked up at her. “I’m not sure that we should now.”

“That’s why we came out here, isn’t it?”

“I’m saying everything is different now, Imala. Everything we hoped and prayed wouldn’t happen is happening. I never thought it would come this far. I thought I’d give the world the evidence, and they would respond, they would do something to prevent it from getting this bad.”

“That’s not your fault, Victor. You gave the evidence. The world didn’t listen. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“Well I do, Imala. If I had done more, if I had—”

“What else could you have done? You were hurt, barely alive. Your body had wasted away to nothing. You were under arrest. You couldn’t go anywhere. All things considered, I’d say you did a bang-up job.”

“If it had been someone else, the world would’ve listened. If my father had come—”

“Your father wouldn’t have survived the trip. No one would have found the data cube. Or if they did, they would’ve thrown it away. The world would’ve been caught totally unawares.”

“Their current situation isn’t any better.”

“Yes, it is,” said Imala. “We don’t know all the ways people have been preparing, Vico. We can’t see everything. I can assure you. There are armies out there that have been training for this because of you.”

“Yes, and I want to join them.”

She looked surprised. “You want to join the military?”

He felt stung by her obvious disbelief again. “I’m eighteen, Imala. I’m old enough to enlist.”

“Yes, but with what army? You’re not a citizen of any country, Vico. You’re space born. No one will take you.”

“This is a fight against the human race, Imala. Last time I checked I was human.”

She shook her head. “It’s not that black and white, Vico. Earth doesn’t work that way.”

“Well why not? Why does everything have to be so constricted by regulations? It drives me insane. If there’s a problem, you fix it. You don’t set up fences around it and make rules about how it should be fixed. You fix it. Maybe that requires a little bit of ingenuity and doing it a way that’s never been done before, but so what. If the problem’s solved, why does it matter how it’s done?”

“This isn’t the Kuiper Belt, Vico. You can’t do whatever you want and expect people to agree to your terms. There has to be an order to things.”

“And look what that order has done for Earth, Imala. Look at the situation now. Stagnation. Infighting. Disagreements. Inaction. And thousands of people dead on the sidelines.”

“So what, you think you can waltz in, join the military, and fix the problem?”

“I’m not useless, you know. I have skills I can offer.”

“Of course you do. But that doesn’t change the fact that the system is what it is. I doubt NATO would even take you.”

“What’s NATO?”

“An intergovernmental military alliance. A bunch of countries who agree on defense measures and military action as a combined force.”

“Why aren’t they doing anything already?”

“I’m guessing they will, eventually, though not in China. Not unless the Chinese change their mind and allow outside troops, which isn’t likely to happen any time soon. NATO will be focused on space, taking out the mothership.”

“That’s perfect for me. I’m built for space. That’s where I can help.”

“If they’ll take you,” said Imala, “which I doubt they will. And even if they did take you, you’re not likely to see action any time soon. They’ll want to train you, specialize you, shape you into what they need you to be.”

“Fine. As long as I’m helping.”

She watched him for a moment. “Are you sure about this?”

“I wasn’t five minutes ago, but I am now, yes.”

“And what if we go back and NATO won’t take you?”

“Then I’ll do my own thing.”

She laughed. “Your own thing? Meaning what? Take on the mothership by yourself?”

“If I have to.”

Imala laughed again, and then her smile faded. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why not? Why should we sit back and accept someone else’s inaction or failure? I have just as much right to protect the human race as they do.”

“And how do you propose to take on the mothership by yourself, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I have no idea. I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”

“And what about your family?”

“I’m doing this
for
my family, Imala. If we lose Earth, we lose everything. How long do you think miners would last without supplies? If Earth loses, my family loses.”

“The landers are only in China, Vico. Earth is a big planet. It doesn’t hang in the balance just yet. We don’t even know what the aliens want.”

“The report said the aliens were dropping bacteria into the sea, right?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Why would they do that?”

“Kill marine life? I don’t know.”

“Terraforming, Imala. They’re seeding bacteria in the oceans for the same reason they’re using defoliants to kill all plants and animals. They want the planet. They want Earth. But they can’t have it in its current state. It has to be a planet that conforms to their biology, not ours. All existing life in the sea, all biology on land, evolved here without them. That makes it hazardous to them. They don’t have natural defenses against our biota. Our strains of bacteria are different from theirs. So they’re going to change Earth to be more like the world they do know. They’re going to burn it down and start all over. If we were going to seize a planet, we would do the same thing. We’d drop stuff in the atmosphere, wipe out all existing biological life, seed Earth-born plants and animals, make the new planet as much like Earth as we could. It’s the ecosystem we were engineered for. Why else would they have come, Imala? Why else would they be acting the way they are? They don’t want to communicate with us. They don’t want to negotiate. They’re not going to ask us for Earth. They’re already taking it. And I’ve seen these creatures, Imala. I’ve seen how they attack and how they think, how relentless they are. If they can land on Earth, if missiles and weapons can’t hurt them, they won’t quit until Earth is theirs.”

The waitress floated back over. She wasn’t carrying any food. She looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask both of you to leave.”

“Why?” said Imala.

“Someone is renting out the entire depot. They want everyone else off.”

“We paid a docking fee,” said Victor. “We just got here.”

“I know. I’m sorry. We’ll refund the fee.”

“Why does someone need the entire depot?” asked Imala. “Do they have that many people in their party?”

“No,” said the waitress. “There are just the two of them. They docked a few minutes ago. They said they needed their privacy. I guess when you have that kind of money, you can do whatever you please.”

“Who is it?” asked Imala.

“Lem Jukes,” said the waitress.

CHAPTER 17

Transmissions

The supply depot was exactly what Lem had expected it to be: a dump. A sad excuse for an outpost that didn’t appear to have been renovated since the first days of space commerce. The whole structure looked like it might break apart at any moment. There were metal plates crudely welded at random spots all along the inner walls, supposedly sealing off leaks or breaches that had occurred over the years. There were lines of grime where all the walls met, as if the mops they used to clean the place didn’t reach the corners. There were several old neon signs for brands of alcohol or travel food that Lem had never heard of and that probably didn’t exist anymore. None of the signs were turned on. Lem doubted any of them could.

All this gave the lobby a scarred, postapocalyptic vibe and made Lem more than a little uneasy. He was suddenly wishing he had come in a spacesuit just in case the whole thing split apart and dumped him and Chubs out into the black.

“Mr. Jukes. A pleasure to have you. Welcome. Welcome.”

A thin, balding man was floating toward them from across the room. The proprietor. Lem disliked him immediately. He was the kind of person you could read in a blink. False expression, false demeanor, false cadence in his voice. Everything about him said dishonest.

The man’s clothes weren’t helping either. They had been fashionable at one point, years ago, but never together. The pants and shirt screamed at each other, fighting for attention, one fluffy and exploding outward with fabric, the other tight and form fitting. It was like he had won both in two different poker games and had convinced himself they were a matching set.

The man caught a handhold nearby and righted himself so that he had the same orientation as Lem and Chubs.

“Felix Montroose, Mr. Jukes. At your service. Welcome to Last Chance.”

“The price we settled on over laserline will have to be renegotiated,” said Lem.

Felix’s face fell a little, though to his credit, he tried hard not to show it. “Oh? How do you mean, sir?”

“I mean I’m not paying you what I told you before. I was expecting a nicer establishment.” He gestured to the room. “No offense, but I don’t exactly feel safe here.”

Felix smiled. “Oh, I assure you, Mr. Jukes. Last Chance is one of the most structurally sound outposts this side of the Belt. She was built in the early days, you know, back when ships were made by hand.”

“Yes, and she should be dismantled by hand. I’ll give you half of our original price.”

Felix gave a sharp intake of breath and put a hand to his chest, aghast.

Lem suppressed a smile. He wasn’t even sure why he was being a stickler about the money. It was hardly a large amount. Lem’s investments had likely made that much in the time it had taken him and Chubs to dock the shuttle from their ship.

Yet Lem also hated it when people thought they could take advantage of him. It was silly, he knew, but he had always carried the belief that people assumed he was a less intelligent, weaker shadow of his father. And as such, he would be easy prey in a transaction. It made Lem more than a little shrewd. At the negotiation table he was downright deplorable, showing far less mercy even than Father at times. But it also made him a brilliant businessman and was largely the reason he had amassed such a large fortune independent of Father.

“That strikes me as most dishonest, sir,” said Felix. “We had an arranged amount. We agreed upon the terms. I’ve ordered all other patrons off the depot to give you the privacy you requested. I will not settle for anything less than the predetermined sum.”

“And I will not settle for anything less than a decent establishment. I suppose that puts us at an impasse. Good day to you, Mr. Montroose.”

Lem turned on his heels and made as if to launch for the docking airlock.

“Wait,” said Montroose. “Surely we can reach an agreeable amount. I remind you that we are the only laserline link with Luna. You can’t get a message through any other way.”

“My message isn’t critical. I’m on my way to Luna now. I can wait to deliver it in person. Besides, from the reports I’ve heard in the Belt, your bucket-brigade system isn’t as foolproof as you implied. I should expect heavy data deterioration.”

Felix waffled then, seeing his sale slip away. He and Lem argued for a moment on the price, and when they finally agreed, Felix dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief, as if he had just surfaced from a feverish bout with an enemy, which, Lem supposed, he had.

“And I have your absolute assertion that the ships in your bucket brigade will relay my conversation with Luna as promised?” said Lem. “I don’t want my messages held hostage, Mr. Montroose. I assure you that a legal battle with Juke Limited attorneys would result in you losing everything, including your personal freedom as a result of the criminal charges they would place against you.”

Montroose swallowed and checked his watch, as if this whole affair couldn’t end soon enough.

Lem tapped the amount into his wrist pad and held out his hand. Felix extended his own, and the two bumped pads. There was a transaction sound, and then Lem smiled. “Now, Mr. Montroose, I would appreciate you escorting me to your laserline transmitter.”