Earth unavare (the first formic war) Read online

  Victor stayed with Edimar as she went looking for her father. He had suggested that she speak with him alone, but Edimar had insisted that Victor come along. “He won’t be as angry with me if someone else is there,” she had said.

  Victor wasn’t eager to see Toron so soon after Janda’s departure. How would Toron react? Did he blame Victor for what had happened? Did he believe that Victor should have seen where the relationship was headed and taken greater care to end it? Did he harbor ill will? Victor would rather not find out, especially not today, with the sting of Janda’s departure still fresh in Toron’s mind. But what could Victor do? He couldn’t hide from Toron. Sooner or later their paths would cross; it was a small ship. Nor did he want to hide, really. There was a part of him that wanted to apologize, a part that wanted to assure Toron that nothing improper had happened. Victor hadn’t known anything was wrong. It had been an innocent mistake. That wouldn’t change the outcome of it all, that wouldn’t diminish the pain. But maybe it would bring him and Toron a little peace.

  Toron was in the cargo bay, making repairs to the mining gear Victor had won in the trade with the Italians. It was no secret that Toron had always wanted to work alongside the miners, but his proficiency and training with the Eye had kept him assigned to the crow’s nest instead. He was so absorbed in his work that he didn’t notice Victor and Edimar launch from the hatch and land near him.

  “Hello, Father,” said Edimar.

  Toron looked tired and defeated. When he saw Edimar, his expression turned to one of surprise. “Who’s watching the Eye?” he said.

  “It’s on auto,” said Edimar.

  “You should never put it on auto unless it’s an absolute emergency, Mar.” Toron glanced at Victor, noticing him for the first time. His brow furrowed. “What is this, Mar?”

  “The Eye detected something, Father, out beyond the ecliptic in deep space.”

  Toron gestured to Victor. “What does he have to do with it?”

  “I showed it to him,” said Edimar.

  “Why?”

  “Because I wanted to make sure I was interpreting the data correctly before I showed an adult.”

  “He’s not a spotter,” said Toron. “He can’t read the data.”

  Actually I can, thought Victor. But he said nothing.

  “Nor is he your teacher, Mar,” said Toron. “I am. If you have a question about the Eye, you call me and nobody else. Victor hasn’t been trained with the Eye. Getting his opinion is a waste of time.”

  Edimar raised her voice slightly, surprising Victor. “Did you even hear what I said, Father? The Eye detected something.”

  “I heard you perfectly,” said Toron. “And if you raise your voice at me again, young lady, you will not like the consequences. Any apprentice on this ship would lose his commission with that attitude, and I will not be any more patient with you simply because you’re my daughter.”

  “It’s a spacecraft,” said Edimar. “At near-lightspeed.”

  That gave Toron pause. He studied their faces and could see that they meant it. He motioned with his hand. “Give me the goggles.”

  Edimar passed them to him, and Toron slid them over his eyes. After a minute, he started asking Edimar questions, most of which Victor didn’t understand: What algorithms had Edimar considered? What measurements had the Eye taken? What processing sequences had she used? What coded commands had she entered? After that, Toron’s questions began to sound more like a rebuke. “Did you try such and such?” “Did you think to do this or that?” At first Edimar answered yes. She had tried everything. But as Toron continued peppering her with possible actions she could have taken, Edimar’s confidence began to wane. No, she hadn’t tried that. No, she hadn’t thought to do that. No, she hadn’t run that scenario. By the end of it, Edimar looked near tears.

  Toron removed the goggles. “Go back to the Eye, Edimar, and when I get there, we’ll look at this a little more thoroughly. If it proves to be something, I’ll go show Concepcion.”

  Edimar looked desperately to Victor, asking for help.

  “Actually,” said Victor, “we’ve already gone to Concepcion.”

  “Before you came to me?” asked Toron.

  “We thought she needed to see it immediately,” said Edimar.

  “We?” said Toron. “You mean you and Vico? This doesn’t concern him, Mar. He replaces lightbulbs and fixes toilets. What the Eye finds is my specialty, not his, and from the way you’ve responded to all this, I would add, not yours either. I don’t see how this is a difficult concept for you to grasp, Edimar. I’m the spotter. Me. I will school you in how to watch the sky. I will help you decipher the data. And I will decide if and when anything is brought to the captain’s attention.”

  Edimar’s cheeks flushed.

  “Go to the Eye and wait for me,” said Toron. “Do not ask for help along the way. Do not get the opinion of a passerby. You and I will address this alone.”

  “It’s not her fault we went to Concepcion,” said Victor. “It’s mine. I’m the one who suggested it.”

  “And who gave you that authority?” asked Toron.

  “Anyone who sees a potential threat to the ship has an obligation to report it,” said Victor, reciting policy.

  “You know all about rules, don’t you, Vico?” said Toron.

  He meant dogging. This had started as a conversation about an object in space, but it had suddenly become, for Toron at least, about Janda. Toron blamed Victor. Or he hated Victor so intensely for it that it consumed his thoughts, even now, when something as strange and potentially threatening as an alien starship was brought to his attention.

  “It’s not Vico’s fault, Father,” said Edimar. “I asked him to help me.”

  Toron kept his eyes on Victor. “Go to the Eye, Edimar.”

  “But-”

  “Go to the Eye!” It was nearly a shout, and Edimar recoiled, fearing perhaps that a hand or fist would follow. She launched off the floor toward the hatch. Toron stared at Victor until he heard the hatch door close. They were alone.

  “I want to be very clear about something, Vico. I want you to listen to what I’m saying because I am only going to say this once. It’s something I should have said to you a long time ago. You stay away from my daughters. Do you understand me? If Edimar asks for your help, you ignore her. If she begs for your opinion, you walk away. If she makes eye contact with you from across the room, you pretend she doesn’t exist. She is a ghost to you. Invisible. Am I making myself clear? Because it seems to me that you don’t know the boundaries of what’s appropriate and what isn’t.”

  It was a ridiculous accusation. The idea that Victor would do anything inappropriate with Janda was infuriating. But to insinuate that his behavior toward Edimar could be anything less than honorable was an egregious insult. It was the vilest and most cruel thing Toron could say, especially considering how pained and guilty he knew Victor must be because of Janda.

  But of course Toron knew the accusation was baseless. He knew Victor was only helping, that Victor’s intentions were purely supportive and protective of the family. That wasn’t his reason for lashing out. He was angry because his eldest daughter was gone and his second daughter had sought counsel with the very person who had lost him the first.

  Victor kept his voice calm. “Alejandra leaving has nothing to do with this, Toron.”

  The shove to the chest happened fast, and since Victor wasn’t rooted to the floor with greaves like Toron, the force of it pushed Victor back twenty feet. His back slammed into one of the big air tanks, and the metallic clang of the impact reverberated through the cargo bay. It didn’t hurt terribly, but it shocked Victor and immediately got his blood up. He reoriented himself, switched on his greaves, and let his feet lock to the floor. When he lifted his head, he could see that Toron was just as surprised as Victor was. He hadn’t meant the shove to be so hard, and he certainly hadn’t intended for Victor to fly back as he had. But then Toron’s expression darkened and he po
inted a finger.

  “Never speak the name of my daughter again.”

  Toron turned off his greaves and launched upward toward the hatch. A moment later he was gone. Victor stood erect and stretched his back. He’d get a bad bruise at the most, but it could have been worse. Had he landed wrong he could have broken something. Edimar was right to fear her father. Victor doubted that Toron had ever been violent toward his family-Janda would have told him if such a thing had ever happened, and it would be impossible to keep it a secret on the ship. Yet Toron clearly had the inclination.

  Victor wanted to feel angry. He wanted the kindling fire of rage within him to flare up and spur him to find Toron, to confront him, to grab him by the arms and shake the pride and haughtiness and spite right out of him. The ache in his back demanded it. But whatever flames there were within him were extinguished by sympathy and shame.

  The Council met on the helm after the young ones had all been put to bed. Everyone wore greaves, and as they gathered they spoke quietly, trying to garner whatever information they could from the others about the purpose of the meeting. Victor had come early and found a corner in the back of the room where the lighting was dimmer and the shadows more pronounced. He wouldn’t be invisible, but he’d go unnoticed by some.

  It felt odd to be in attendance, partially because this was a side of the family Victor had never seen before, but also because he couldn’t shake the thought that the last time the Council had met they had been discussing him and Janda. It left him feeling awkward. What’s more, he had no reason for being here. The near-lightspeed ship was Edimar’s find, not his. He had nothing to contribute.

  Mother and Father arrived. They saw Victor and came to him. Mother looked concerned. “What’s this all about, Vico?”

  “The Eye detected something,” said Victor. “I only know about it because Edimar showed me. Toron will explain everything, I’m sure.”

  She put a hand on his arm. “How are you?”

  It was her way of asking about how he was dealing with Janda leaving. “Fine, Mother. It’s been a long day.”

  To everyone else, Mother was Rena. Her original clan was from Argentina, and Victor had seen them only once as a child when El Cavador had linked with their ship for a zogging of Victor’s cousin. The experience had instilled in him a sense of awe for Mother. She had left a vibrant, loving family behind to join El Cavador and marry Father, and it must have taken incredible courage.

  “I heard about the drill stabilizer,” said Father, smiling. “When were you going to tell me about that one?”

  “I wasn’t sure it would work,” said Victor. “I’ll need your help refining it.”

  “From the way Marco was gushing about it,” said Father, “I don’t know that it needs much refining.”

  Father’s given name was Segundo, which meant “second” in Spanish. His parents had given him the name because he was their second child, and Victor had always found the name a little cruel. Who slaps a number on their child? Numbers were for livestock. And what’s worse, didn’t Father’s parents realize that to call him Segundo was like labeling him “runner-up” or “second best,” always inferior to the first child? Victor doubted that had been their intent, but it bothered him nonetheless, especially since Father had always been the first to do everything in his family. He deserved a better name.

  Concepcion, Toron, and Edimar emerged from Concepcion’s office, and everyone fell silent. The three of them made their way to the holotable, and Concepcion faced the crowd. “I’ve called this meeting because we have some important decisions to make.”

  Victor was surprised to see how informal the whole affair was, with everyone standing where they were, clustered in small groups of husbands and wives and friends. There was no counter to stand around, no gavel to hit, no ritual or procedure or order to follow. It was simply everyone coming together.

  “I’ll let Toron and Edimar explain the whole thing,” said Concepcion.

  She stepped aside, and Toron plugged the goggles into the holotable. A holo of the image Victor had seen earlier that day in the crow’s nest appeared in the holospace. It wasn’t much, mostly dots of light representing stars.

  Toron was brief. He merely gave context to the image they were seeing, explaining when the data had been collected and what quadrant of sky they were looking at. Then, to Victor’s astonishment, he turned the floor over to Edimar. She was clearly nervous, and one person had to ask her to speak up so everyone in the room could hear, but Edimar immediately raised her voice and projected toward the back of the room. The increased volume seemed to steel her courage, and she dove right in. She spoke for ten minutes, being clear and thorough in her explanation. She went into great detail explaining the procedures she had undertaken to verify the data, including calling in Victor to validate her initial assessment. This caused several people to glance briefly at Victor before Edimar continued. There were a few highly technical details and procedures that were unique to the Eye that Edimar knew no one would understand, but she deftly explained these in layman’s terms so that everyone got the gist of it all. She then detailed the cross-checks that she and her father had subsequently performed and how everything had led her and him to believe what by now was obvious to everyone in the room. It was an alien starship decelerating toward the solar system. No, we don’t know its trajectory yet. No, we don’t know when it will get here. And no, we don’t know what its intentions may be.

  When she finished there was silence. Mother and Father stared at the holo, their faces a little pale.

  Finally Concepcion spoke. “The question we have to answer is: What do we do about this information?”

  “Have we heard any chatter about this?” asked Father. “Have any of the other families reported anything?”

  “Not a word,” said Concepcion. “There are few clans out this far right now, and it’s unlikely that any of them are looking beyond the ecliptic.”

  “We obviously need to warn everyone,” said Mother. “We should send transmissions out as quickly as we can. Everyone needs to know about this.”

  “As I said to Concepcion,” said Toron, “I’d advise us to proceed with caution. We don’t want to incite a panic. Consider the implications. If this is an alien starship moving at near-lightspeed, it clearly has technological capabilities far beyond our own. If it can move at near the speed of light, what else can it do? Can it detect radio? We don’t know. If we send a hundred focused, laserized transmissions out in every direction, we might unintentionally attract its attention. We might bring it down on top of us. It’s done nothing to acknowledge that it knows we exist. It’s probably best to keep it that way.”

  “We can’t do nothing,” said Marco. “This could be an invasion for all we know.”

  “Or it might be completely peaceful,” said Toron. “We don’t know. We have some information, yes, but not much. Hardly any, really. Is this a research vessel? Do they even intend to enter the inner solar system? Is it even manned? We have no idea. It could be a drone or a satellite sent to take images of our planetary system. If that’s true, it has to be an enormous satellite, bigger than anything humans have every constructed. But that doesn’t mean that’s not its intent. It might be completely benign.”

  “Or it might not be,” said Marco.

  “Yes,” said Toron. “Or it might not be. All the more reason not to rush to action and draw attention to ourselves. Edimar and I will watch it closely. We’ll be evaluating the data constantly, and we’ll make everyone aware of any new developments.”

  “That’s not enough,” said Father. “I agree with Marco. This thing may be peaceful, but we shouldn’t assume that it is. We should prepare for the worst.”

  “We should remain calm,” said Toron. “I suggest we take cautionary action.”

  “Like what?” asked Father.

  “If we send out a wide transmission that anyone can receive, we will draw unwanted attention to ourselves. We might attract pirates or thieves or worse
. But, if we identify a few ships in the vicinity we trust, we can send out very focused laser transmissions only to them.”

  “We haven’t seen pirates in a while,” said Selmo.

  “That doesn’t mean they aren’t out there,” said Toron. “We can’t be too cautious. Particularly not in an unknown situation like this.”

  “Who’s close to us right now?” asked Marco.

  Selmo came to the holotable and flipped on the system chart. “The Italians are closest. They only left this morning. But they’re moving fast. We might hit them if we sent them a message now, but I doubt it.”

  Laserized radio transmissions, or laserlines, had to be sent with extreme accuracy. Stationary ships and space stations could receive them fairly easily over short distances since the sender knew their exact position in space. But few ships remained perfectly stationary, especially if they were moored to an asteroid. Even the slightest deviation in position would result in a missed message. Trying to hit a ship in flight was next to impossible. It had been done, but only when the ships were extremely close.

  “If the Italians stick with their scheduled flight path,” said Selmo, “they’ll decelerate in ten days. They gave us a point to target for communications when they stop. If we wanted to send them a laserline at that point, we could.”

  “So we basically do nothing for ten days?” asked Marco. “If this is an invasion, we could be losing precious time. What if this thing is headed to Earth? Ten days could make all the difference.”

  “There’s nobody closer?” asked Father.

  “There’s a corporate ship a few days from here,” said Selmo. “A Juke vessel. They’ve been sitting there for a while doing nothing as far as we can tell. Assuming they haven’t moved since our last scan, we could send them a message.”

  “What would we tell them?” asked Javier, one of Victor’s uncles. “‘Hey, there’s an alien ship out there. Keep your eyes peeled.’ They wouldn’t believe us.”