Earth Awakens (The First Formic War) Read online

  There was a pause, and then Lem tore his eyes away from the screen. She had asked him a question. “Chocolatiers? Uh, I’m guessing every kid in the world would want to be one if they knew such a thing was possible.”

  “Exactly. I know I would have. You wonder though, is there a school for chocolatiers?” She laughed. “My word, can you imagine? I would get so fat.” She popped another chocolate square in her mouth. “And the curriculum. What do you minor in? Nuts?” She held up the wrapper to him and turned her head away. “Take this evil away from me. It’s too delicious.”

  Lem had no choice but to take it.

  Her hands were suddenly on his chest. “Delicious like you.” Her voice was just above a whisper. She closed her eyes, head back, lips puckered.

  Lem winced. How had this gone so wrong so quickly? Despoina was the most restrained of Father’s secretaries, the most demure. In the office she rarely said a word.

  She had been that way when he had shown up at Father’s office the day before and asked her out. She was so surprised by his invitation, so taken aback, that she had assumed she had misunderstood.

  “Are you saying you want me to reserve dinner for you and your father?” she had said. “Because Simona typically handles his dinner reservations.”

  Lem had looked at her with mild amusement, standing beside her desk, leaning on the door frame of her glass cubicle. “No. I’m asking you to come have dinner with me. The two of us. Alone. At a restaurant.”

  She had blinked, not sure how to respond.

  Her reaction hadn’t surprised him. She was not the kind of woman who drew a man’s eye. Simple haircut, modest conservative wardrobe, a small frame that made her seem younger than she probably was. She was not unattractive, really, but she wasn’t exactly glamorous either. Which, combined with her shyness, meant she probably wasn’t getting a lot of attention from the menfolk.

  Lem had come because he had needed a distraction. He had followed Father’s advice and cut the communication lines to Victor and Imala’s shuttle. The drones were on their way; there was nothing Lem could do.

  But as he had flown around in his skimmer, waiting for the inevitable to happen, avoiding going back to the warehouse, where he would have to face Dr. Benyawe and explain his actions, the thought had occurred to him to go to Father’s office. There were questions that still needed answering, after all. Why had Father met with someone from the U.S. State Department, for example? Who else was he meeting with? What was he planning?

  And who better to have the answers to those questions and the willingness to share them than an ignored young secretary low on male companionship?

  “I have a lot of work to do,” Despoina had said. “Files to prepare for your father, memos to write.” She had blushed. “Besides, it might not be … you know, appropriate.”

  Lem laughed. “Not appropriate? Why, because you work for my father and I’m his son?”

  “Because you and I both work for the company.” She could hardly look at him she was so embarrassed.

  “Why does that matter?” Lem had said. “Three-quarters of the people on this rock work for Juke. You think that precludes you from having dinner with any of them?”

  “Isn’t that against the company policy or something?” she had said. “Not that this is a date or anything, but, you know, the appearance of a date.”

  This was just sad. “First of all, this is absolutely a date. No question. Full-fledged date. Second, this can’t be the first time a coworker has asked you out.”

  She brushed a speck of dust off her desk. “I stay very busy, Mr. Jukes.”

  “Mr. Jukes is my father. I’m Lem. Can you say that? Lem. It’s not a difficult word. One brief syllable. The first half of ‘lemon.’ Or ‘lemmings.’”

  She had smiled at that, looking down at her keyboard, tracing the edge of it with her finger. “I know how to say your name.”

  “Prove it.”

  She had laughed awkwardly and shrugged. “Lem.”

  “You say it like it’s a joke. Like it’s a punch line. My feelings are hurt.”

  She had sighed, rolled her eyes, tossed a hand. “Lem.”

  “Now you say it like I’m an annoyance.”

  “That’s not far from the truth,” she said. But she was smiling.

  Now he was getting somewhere. “Just say it normal. Like we’re friends. Like we’ve known each other for years, and I’ve been away, and you’re happy to see me.”

  “This is silly.”

  “Of course it’s silly. It’s utterly ridiculous. But that’s why we’re doing it. You haven’t done anything utterly ridiculous, I bet, since you were in diapers. And I’m not leaving until you say it.”

  “I could call security, you know.”

  “Yes. That’s good. You’d have to say my name. Let’s do that.” He reached across to hit the call button.

  She swatted his hand lightly. “Hey. Nobody touches my buttons but me.”

  “There you go. A little backbone. I knew you had it in you. Just say my name one more time, and I’ll leave you alone. You won’t have to go to dinner with me.”

  “I say it and you’ll go away?”

  “I’ll vanish like a genie. Poof. Chimes will play. Smoke will appear. You’ll love it. I do it at parties. But you have to say it right.”

  She exhaled and settled back in her chair, giving in. “Like we’re old friends. Like you’ve been away awhile.”

  “Which I have been, you know. Two years in the Kuiper Belt.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  “Did you miss me while I was gone?”

  “I didn’t know you. I wasn’t working for your father when you left. I’m relatively new.”

  “But you would have missed me. We’re old friends, remember?” He was kneeling at her desk now, his elbows on the desktop, his chin in his hands.

  A shy smile. “I suppose.”

  “You suppose? Des, we’re old friends.”

  “My name’s Despoina.”

  “I know what your name is, Des. I’m using the shortened version. It’s snappier. Close friends have shortened versions of each other’s names. Like Lem. Do you know what Lem is short for?”

  “Lemminkainen.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Whoa, you didn’t even have to think about that one.”

  She blushed.

  “I usually have to give lots of clues, and people still don’t get it. We need to put you on a quiz show. How did you know that?”

  She brushed the hair out of her face, shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve seen you on the nets.”

  “So we are old friends. Good, you don’t have to pretend to be happy to see me. I’m certainly not pretending.” He pointed at his smile. “This is one hundred percent genuine, Des-induced glee.”

  Later, after dinner, as they rode in his skimmer around the surface of Luna, he had learned everything he needed to know about her. She was the daughter of the CEO of a big avionics company based out of San Diego that had a longstanding relationship with Juke Limited. Ukko and her father were friends apparently.

  “You can probably fill in the blanks,” she had said. “My father calls in a favor. ‘Ukko, she’s my girl,’ he says. ‘College degree. Good school. Very smart. She’s got job offers, but I’d like someone I trust watching over her.’”

  “That’s sweet,” Lem had said.

  “No it isn’t. My father’s overprotective.”

  “It’s better than overbearing. Trust me, I speak from experience.”

  “Anyway, your father was kind. I was mortified that my dad even asked. I really didn’t have any other job offers. Not good ones anyway. But I didn’t want a job as a favor. I was tired of my life being handed to me. Does that make sense?”

  “More than you know.”

  “Anyway, your father said, ‘She’ll be one of my office assistants. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a great way for her to meet the senior VPs. They’re always pilfering from my office staff. I don’t fo
rce them to hire anyone. I simply give my office staff a chance to shine, and the VPs come begging for them in short order.’”

  “Sounds like a respectable opportunity.”

  “I thought so, too. So I took it. And here I am.”

  Her bashfulness had eroded, and after another hour she had invited him to her place. Lem hadn’t thought this through very well. He could have said no. Sleeping with her was not on the agenda. Despoina was just out of college. He was seven, eight years her senior. Maybe more. And despite his reputation on the gossip nets, he did not sleep with every woman he met. With Despoina, he had anticipated a nice dinner, some helpful, revealing conversation, and that would be the end of it.

  And yet here they were, lip-locked in the kitchen the morning after with Despoina as giddy as a schoolgirl.

  She broke off the kiss and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Let’s do something fun today, go somewhere. I’ll call in sick. You can, too. We’ll take the skimmer out.”

  He didn’t know what to say. “Where would we go?”

  “I don’t know. Where do couples go on Luna?”

  Couples? This was veering into dangerous waters. Over wine, as he had expected, she had told him everything she knew about the State Department visit. The Americans wanted to purchase some of Father’s fleet, weaponize them, and use them to attack the Formic ship. Father, according to Despoina, had named an exorbitant price he knew the Americans couldn’t afford, and that had been the end of it.

  It was nothing Lem could use against Father, and it wasn’t even particularly interesting. All things considered, it was hardly worth the price of dinner. And yet, Lem had stayed the night anyway.

  The thought suddenly repulsed him. While Victor’s and Imala’s corpses floated in space, while Chinese families burned under the onslaught, Lem had drunk himself silly and rolled in the sheets.

  He reached back, gently took her arms from around his waist, and put her at arm’s length. “This is not a good day to call in sick, Des.”

  “Why not?”

  He gestured to the vid screen. “Formic reinforcements landed in China. They’ve killed millions more people.”

  She put a hand to her mouth. “That’s awful.” She looked back at him. “But—”

  “What does that have to do with us?”

  She nodded.

  Was she really that naïve? Were the numbers so big that they lost all meaning to her?

  He didn’t want to mention the drones. He wasn’t sure what she knew. “I need to see my father immediately,” said Lem.

  “Of course. Yes. That makes sense.”

  They left the building at different times. Lem first went home to shower and change. There were several messages from Benyawe. She was furious. Where was he? They had lost contact with Victor and Imala. Radio, biometrics, everything. The drones had attacked. Why?

  Ask my father, Lem thought.

  There were messages from Simona as well. Urgent ones. He was to call her. He ignored those as well.

  He returned to his skimmer and left the city, heading out toward Father’s office at company headquarters. He brought the skimmer down on the landing pad, and it descended below the surface. A moment later in the docking bay, the bots grabbed the skimmer and slid it into one of the parking tubes. When Lem got out, he was surprised to find Simona waiting for him, holopad held tight to her chest, lips pressed together in a hard line.

  “Who was the lucky girl this time?” she said.

  He gave her his warmest smile. “Simona, shouldn’t you be getting coffee for my father? I’ll take one as well. Sugar. Cream. Oh and a shoulder massage.”

  “I called your apartment last night. I called the warehouse. I called your wrist pad.”

  “That’s a lot of calling. I hope you didn’t overexert your fingertips.”

  “You didn’t answer or return my holos.”

  Lem adjusted his cufflinks “I was indisposed.”

  “Indisposed or inverted?”

  He looked perplexed. “Are you calling me a vampire, Simona, or was that supposed to be vulgar?”

  She brushed it aside, tapped at her holopad. “Forget it. I don’t want to know.”

  “Really? You seem quite interested to be uninterested.”

  She gave him a “spare me” look. “Discovering your perverse exploits is the last thing on my mind, Lem.”

  “So it is on your mind somewhere. I’m flattered.”

  She hugged her holopad again and sighed. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed we have a crisis on our hands here.”

  Lem tapped his cheek with his index finger, pretending to be deep in thought. “Crisis, crisis, hmm, nothing’s ringing a bell. Oh wait, do you mean that my father singlehandedly flushed the company down the toilet by doing exactly what I told him not to? Or is there some other crisis I haven’t heard about?”

  She rolled her eyes and turned away. “Just get in the shuttle.”

  He noticed the shuttle then, parked off to the side of the terminal. One of Father’s security men opened the back door, and Simona climbed inside. Lem followed her in and sat beside her. They took off a moment later, zipping through the vehicular traffic tunnels, which meant they obviously weren’t going to Father’s office.

  Lem took in the interior of the shuttle and bounced a little in the posh seats. “Since when do I get the executive treatment? Maybe you’ve forgotten I’ve been demoted. I thought these digs were for people my father liked?”

  She was tapping at her pad and didn’t look up. “Will you stop being a child for once?”

  He spoke in a pouty voice. “Someone rolled off the wrong side of the bed this morning and fell in a bucket of sourpuss.”

  Simona made no reply.

  “How did you know I was going to be at the parking tubes?” Lem asked. “I know you haven’t been waiting there all morning. I wasn’t scheduled to be here at all.”

  “Do you really have to ask?”

  “I have a hunch, but I’d like to hear it from you.”

  She looked up at him. “Next time you steal a proximity chip, be a little more discreet about how you use it. And try an erasing program so no one can backtrack all your movements and know where you are at all times.”

  “If you’ve been able to track me why did you call my apartment and the warehouse last night? You would have known I wasn’t there.”

  “Because I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to keep the proximity chip after such flagrant abuse of it. I thought you would have dumped it or traded it. We picked up the signal south of town, but I didn’t think it was you. Why would you go down there? I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. Silly me.”

  “Well don’t I feel like the village idiot.” He was quiet a moment. “So you know where I went last night? You have an address?”

  “Who you spend your recreational time with is your business, Lem. I’ve already erased the address from the memory banks. Believe me, I’m not particularly eager to find out whoever it was who gave you an STD last night.”

  “You’re really annoyed about this, aren’t you?”

  “Damn right I am. I couldn’t get you when I needed you.”

  The bite in her tone angered him. “Well I’m sorry if I’m not at your every beck and call, Simona. But if you turn back the dials of your memory just a hair, you’ll recall that I asked for your help to stop my father and this drone attack, and you didn’t exactly spring to my side.”

  Her voice was calm, but there was steel behind it. “Let’s not point fingers, Lem. What’s done is done. My loyalty is with your father. I’ve been clear on that. He pays my salary.”

  “Are you really that cheap, Simona? Is that all that matters to you? A paycheck? Well, let’s hope the Formics don’t make you a better offer.”

  He regretted saying it as soon as the words came out, and he could see that they had stung. She stared at him, jaw set, then turned away, shaking her head.

  He should apologize.

  There was a line, an
d he had crossed it.

  She tapped at her holopad, her head bowed, her long hair obscuring her face from him.

  He was on the verge of apologizing when he recalled that she had kept information from him. He wasn’t the bad guy here. He had needed critical information about the drone launch dates, and she had knowingly kept him in the dark. Where were the apologies she owed him, huh?

  And ever since he had come back from the Kuiper Belt, she had snapped at him and ordered him around like a dog, like some mindless mutt. Go here, Lem. Say this, Lem. Don’t say that, Lem. Follow me, Lem. Smile for the cameras, Lem. Double time, hurry up. Snap, snap.

  She was Father’s puppet, and he had been hers, jumping from one PR interview to the next, playing his part like the trick dog he was.

  And Simona, always in her laughably long, modest skirts and high necklines and self-righteous holier-than-thou attitude. It was so infuriating, so condescending, so—

  Simona sniffed.

  He looked at her. She rotated farther away from him, hiding her face.

  Was she … crying?

  Suddenly he felt guilty. He had never seen her exude any emotion other than impatience and annoyance.

  He should say something.

  “Simona—”

  She cut him off, her voice like a dagger. “Do. Not. Speak to me.” She was crying. There was a crack in her voice. She didn’t look at him. “Say one more word, one word, and I will scream rape and tell Charles to pull over and knock your teeth out. And don’t think he won’t. Charles knows who signs the checks.”

  She spat out the last words like venom.

  Lem said nothing, not because he thought she’d make a scene, but because whatever he said would only make it worse.

  They rode in silence for another minute. When they stopped, Charles, the driver, got out and opened the door for them. Simona exited first, then Lem.