Earth Awakens (The First Formic War) (53 page)

“Or here’s a possibility,” said Father. “I wanted my son to have a future leading this company. And by making that vid, I made it impossible for the board to disapprove of you.” He handed Lem one of the drinks. “I’m offering you a future, Lem. Take it or leave it.”

“Don’t act like you’re giving me a choice, Father.”

Ukko grinned, clinked his glass against Lem’s, and took a swallow. “Wonderful. I’ll take that as a yes.”

CHAPTER 26

Kim

Mazer took a civilian flight to Auckland, rented a car, and drove south to Papakura. It felt good to be on solid ground again. He had been ordered to report to base immediately, but he drove to Kim’s office instead. He told the receptionist in the lobby that he was here to see Dr. Kim Arnsbrach.

“Is she expecting you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Who shall I say is visiting?”

“Tell her I’m a friend of Bingwen’s.”

The receptionist delivered the message, and a moment later Kim stepped off the elevator. She looked the same. Her hair was up in the back with her stylus stuck through it, holding it in place. He had sent her a brief text from Luna to let her know he was alive and well and soon coming back to New Zealand. But he hadn’t called ahead today to tell her he was coming.

“I know I should have called first,” he said. “But I was worried you might not want to see me.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to see you?”

He suddenly felt awkward. “Because of how things ended last time. You were angry.”

“I was a lot of emotions. Anger might have been one of them. I’m also a big girl, Mazer. I cooled off. Life goes on. Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to go on.”

This wasn’t going well. Five seconds in, and it was already awkward again.

“Sorry,” she said. “That sounded snippy. I’m happy you’re here. I’m just surprised is all.” She examined his face. “You’ve lost weight. Your cheeks are sunken.”

“It’s been a rough few months.”

She was quiet a moment and nodded. “I’m sorry about Patu and Fatani and Reinhardt. And Wit O’Toole and everyone.”

“Me too. Do you have a minute? Can we talk somewhere?”

“The park across the street.” She moved for the door, and he followed.

“Do you need to tell anyone?”

She gave a dismissive wave. “You pulled me from a boring meeting. I was about to throw myself from the building to get out of it anyway. They won’t notice I’m gone.”

The park was lush and green with rows of mature oaks along the paths that created a thick canopy overhead. The walkway was cracked and old and dappled with light. It smelled of flowers and cut grass.

“First off, thank you for helping Bingwen,” he said.

Her face lit with a quick smile. “How is he?”

“He’s in a military school in northern China. I spoke with the director yesterday. Now that the military is transitioning to the International Fleet, the director was unsure about the school’s future, but he assured me that Bingwen was safe and would continue to be of interest to China. A lot is in flux, but I suspect they’ll transition the school into a youth training facility for the IF.”

“Can I contact him?”

“E-mail only. I’ll send you his address. He would love to hear from you.”

“This International Fleet,” she said, “are you enlisting?”

“I already did.”

She nodded but didn’t look at him.

There was an old wooden gazebo with ivy growing up the sides. They sat on the bench inside. Mazer positioned himself so he was facing her.

“Everything I said before I left, Kim, about not wanting to be an absent father or husband is still true. I resolved to be single when I joined the military because I didn’t want to subject my wife to that life. But I’ve been living that life every day since, Kim. I’ve been living it moment by moment, and I hate it. I hate it so deeply it makes me sick.”

Her hands were in her lap. She watched his face, listening.

“I hate it because you are not in it, Kim. I know I told you to move on. I know I told you to find someone who could make you happier. And maybe you have. But I am going to fight for you, Kim Arnsbrach. I am going to fight to convince you to forget everything I said before. I don’t want a life without you. And if there
is
another man in your life, I am going to scare him until he wets himself and runs away.”

She allowed herself a smile.

He waited a moment before continuing. “My mother taught me when I was young that all of us are filled with
mana
. It means ‘energy’ or ‘power,’ and it flows into us from the natural world. Trees, animals, the wind. I know that probably sounds ridiculous, especially to a doctor, but—”

“It doesn’t sound ridiculous,” she said.

He nodded. “Well it sounded ridiculous to me. After my mother died, the older I got, it all sounded ridiculous. All of it. The dancing, the music, the fish gods and creature guardians. It was laughable, fantasy. My father scorned it, and so did I.”

He looked down at his hands and back up at her. “And maybe most of it is fantasy. But this
mana,
this essence, that might be real. There’s truth to that. When I crashed in China, when I woke up after the surgery, I felt as if life had drained out of me, Kim. I thought it was my body, the injuries, the weakness I felt. But it wasn’t. I had lost it before then.”

He took her hands. “You’re the
mana
I lost, Kim. When I lost you, I lost life. If that sounds hokey and weird, so be it. If you think I’m crazy, fine. You wouldn’t be the first to think so.”

“You’re not crazy,” she said. “Annoying sometimes. Stubborn and bullheaded and a terrible communicator. But you’re not off your rocker. Not yet.”

“I’m a soldier, Kim. I always will be. That’s an imperfect situation for any marriage, I know. But I would rather have that, and do everything in my power to make you happy than to live one more second without you.
Kei te aroha au ki a koe.
I love you, Kim. I love you. I should have told you that a long time ago. And until you tell me to go away, I will tell you that every day of my life.”

She didn’t speak for a long moment. “Is this a marriage proposal, Mazer? Is that what this is? Because a girl dreams about this, and getting pulled out of a status meeting in the middle of the workday is not how she envisions it. You’re supposed to be this brilliant strategic mind, capable of planning every meticulous detail of an operation. Yet you don’t even have a ring, do you?”

“I have a ring. My mother’s. But it’s on base, locked up with my things. If I went to get it, I wouldn’t be able to leave again. But I re-created it as best as I could to give you an idea of what it looks like.” He pulled out his holopad and extended the antennas. A ring appeared in the holofield, hovering in the air. The gold bands were all braided together, encircling the diamond in the center.

Kim extended her hand and slid the ring on her finger. “I hope you don’t expect me to carry a holopad around for the rest of my life.”

Mazer set the holopad aside and got down on his knees, taking her hand. “Kim Arnsbrach. Will you be my wife and have my children and teach me to be as strong as you and smart as you and good as you?”

She pursed her lips, as if considering his offer. “I’m not sure. I’ve never much liked the last name Arnsbrach, but Rackham doesn’t sound much better.”

His heart fell for a moment, but then she smiled and said, “But we all must make sacrifices, I suppose. I have one condition.”

“Anything.”

“I want a Maori wedding.”

He stood and took her in his arms and kissed her right there in the open for all the world to see.

CHAPTER 27

Belt

There was a line of applicants waiting outside the office when Victor arrived. He had posted a job opening on the free-miner nets the day before, but he had not expected to get such a big turnout. He needed three men, the post had said. All mechanics, preferably with experience retrofitting a salvage ship. They needed to be healthy and fit and willing to commit to at least four months on the job, not counting travel time to the Belt. If they proved themselves a valuable asset, they could possibly earn a crew position, but no promises were made.

He had rented a small office at one of the public docks on Luna. The room number had been included on the post. The interviewing wasn’t supposed to begin for another half hour, but there was no need to keep everyone waiting. The office was bare except for a small wooden table—scratched and worn from decades of use—and two metal chairs.

The first applicant claimed to be eighteen years old, but he looked fourteen at the most.

“Have you ever installed a D-class laser or one of higher grade?” Victor asked.

“No, sir. But we had D on our ship.”

“What ship was that?”

“Hermes’s Wings. The Greek Greats Clan. Do you know the one?”

Victor shook his head. “Where’s your ship now?”

The boy was holding his hat in his hands. He looked down at it and wrung it nervously. “Gone, sir. Battle of the Belt.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘sir.’ How is it that you survived?”

The boy wouldn’t look him in the eye. “The morning we decoupled from the depot and set out, I … uh, I missed the ship, sir.”

His family wouldn’t have left him behind. He had probably run away when they docked, knowing they would soon set off to war. Victor felt sorry for the kid, but he wasn’t offering jobs out of sympathy, especially to anyone who would abandon his family. Still, the kid needed work the same as anyone. “I can’t promise you they’ll hire you, but there’s a Juke ship called the Valas. A cargo freighter. They may be looking for hands. I know the captain. You can tell her I sent you.”

The boy scoffed. “Work for a corporate? Never.”

“Those days are over,” said Victor. “Free miners and corporates, we work together now. That is, unless you want to go hungry.”

The boy’s expression fell, humbled. “I beg your pardon, sir. Very grateful for the help. Yes, I’ll visit the Valas. Very kind.”

Victor gave him the information and sent him on his way. The other applicants came in one by one, but none of them fared much better than the first. Some were in their sixties. Another kept coughing throughout the interview as if he had some upper-respiratory disease. Several were fathers and husbands and asked if they could bring their wives and children along. Victor took their information and told them he’d contact them if they got the job. The truth was, he needed husbands for the survivors of El Cavador as much as he needed mechanics. If they were going to be a thriving family again, some of the women would have to remarry. He couldn’t say that on the job posting, however. Wanted: Handsome men of honest disposition willing to marry one of eighteen widows and adopt all of her children. Spanish speakers preferred.

He was beginning to despair after hours of interviews when Imala came into the room.

“Imala. I’ve been calling you for days, ever since I left the clinic. I must have left half a dozen messages.”

“I’ve had a lot on my mind.” She sat in the chair opposite him.

He didn’t know what to say. “It’s great to see you. I
want
to see you. But … I’m in the middle of something. I’m interviewing people. But maybe I could get another chair. You could help me. I’d like to know what you think.”

“I’m here for the interview, Vico.”

“What? You mean you’re applying?”

“That’s what an applicant does. She applies. She gets interviewed. Hopefully she gets a job.”

“You want the job?”

“This isn’t a difficult concept to grasp, Vico. You’re offering a job. I need a job.”

“Yes, but … you
want
to come?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to come, Vico.”

“But I’m going to the Belt, Imala. That’s far out there.”

“I know how far it is. We went once before, remember?”

“I’ll be going much farther than that, Imala. And once we get out there, it won’t be easy to get back. This isn’t auditing. This isn’t a desk job. It’s mining.”

“You think I can only handle desk jobs?”

“No, of course not. You can do anything. That’s my point. This is grunt work. You’ve got a college degree, real-world experience. A reference from Lem, and you could work wherever you wanted. Luna, Earth. The International Fleet would take you in a hot second. The Hegemony would as well if anyone other than Ukko Jukes was running the show.”

“So you don’t want me to come?”

“Of course I want you to come. But … I can’t ask that of you. You have a future, Imala. The Belt is the last place in the system to find opportunities.”

“Maybe I don’t want opportunities, Vico. Maybe I want something else.”

He was quiet a moment. “What do you want, Imala?”

“To be happy, Vico. I want to be happy.”

*   *   *

They left three days later on a cargo ship. Victor didn’t end up hiring anyone other than Imala. He’d wait until they reached the Belt, where he might find better applicants. Or perhaps Imala was right. Maybe he didn’t need to hire anyone else. Maybe he and Imala and the women of El Cavador could do it all.

“Arjuna has crewmen as well,” Imala told him. “This is a partnership, remember? He’ll want to invest laborers, too.”

Victor frowned. “I still can’t get used to that idea. These people aren’t my family.”

“No, but they took your family in. That counts for something.”

One week into the trip, the captain came to call on them. “Mr. Delgado, Ms. Bootstamp, would you please follow me to the cargo hold?”

Victor and Imala exchanged glances and flew with the captain to the hold. “I’m instructed to give you this holo,” said the captain, handing Victor a holopad.

“From who?” asked Victor.

The captain smiled and flew off, leaving them alone. The hold was brimming with equipment. All of the bays were packed tight with parts and supplies. Victor turned on the holofield, and Lem Jukes’s head appeared. “Hello, Victor. By the time you get this message, you’ll be a week into your voyage. I’m not one for longwinded apologies, or any type of apology for that matter, but I owe you one. You and Imala both. I wasn’t always as honest or forthcoming as I should have been. I know you still harbor some deep resentment toward me, and I can’t say I blame you. Some of my decisions have been inexcusable. I can’t make up for those mistakes, but what I can do I will. You will find on this ship everything you and your family needs to retrofit your mother’s salvage ship. The captain has a full inventory. I made it as comprehensive as I could. Giving you a completely new mining ship would have been less expensive, but knowing you, I worried you might not take it. So don’t salvage crappy parts from derelict ships. That’s a recipe for disaster. Take these new ones and save yourself a lot of heartache. You can still have the pleasure of installing them all yourself. And since they’re already loaded and you can’t turn back, you have no choice but to take them. You’ll find quickships, two A-class lasers, suits, helmets, wearable diggers, smelters, hand tools, nav equipment. You’re pretty much set for life. If you’re going to do this, you might as well do it right. Best of luck.”