Orson Card - Earth unavare

“I need to stay and help. Just tell my mother I took the handheld with the translator into the bathroom to study Chinese.”

Zapa made a face. “You’re talking loco, Mono. Esta tostao.”

“Just tell her.”

They reached the hatch. Mono looked back. Mother was talking to someone else, not paying attention. Mono stepped away from the line and hid behind some crates as Zapa and his family went through the hatch. Mono stayed there, not moving until long after the hatch closed and the WU-HU ship flew away.

Lem brought up the rendering of the Formic ship and enlarged it as much as he could in the holospace over his desk in his room. Benyawe and Chubs floated nearby, watching him. “Why not simply shoot the thing with the glaser?” asked Lem. “Why not blast the Formics to smithereens and be done with it? None of this flying down to the surface and planting explosives. We fire the glaser and turn the ship to dust.”

“It wouldn’t work,” said Benyawe. “The Formic ship is too big and too dense. The glaser wasn’t designed for that type of mass. It was designed for rocks.”

“Asteroids are filled with dense metals,” said Lem. “Compositionally they’re essentially the same thing.”

“Let’s not forget what happened that last time we fired the glaser,” said Benyawe. “It’s too unstable. We have no idea what type of gravity field would result, if any at all. Nor can we assume that the same metals we find in asteroids are the ones used to construct this ship. The Formics may use alloys unlike any we’ve ever seen. All we know is that the surface of that ship is designed to resist collisions and high radiation at near-lightspeed, which means they’re incredibly strong. Far stronger than any asteroid.”

“If that’s the case, then what good will explosives do?” asked Chubs.

“How the ship responds to the explosives will tell us a great deal about the hull’s strength,” said Benyawe. “But that’s not the only reason why I question the glaser. Consider our speed. We’re traveling at a hundred and ten thousand kilometers per hour. The glaser wasn’t built for that. If we extended it out of the ship to fire, it would likely be struck by something and ripped to shreds. Even tiny space particles would render it useless. It was designed to fire from a stationary position. Our spacesuits have heavy shielding. The glaser doesn’t.”

“Then we build some shielding for it,” said Lem. “You’re engineers. You figure it out.”

“Easier said than done,” said Benyawe. “This would require time we don’t have and resources we may not have.”

“We’ve got four cargo bays full of metal cylinders,” said Lem. “You have all the metal you need.”

“Yes, which would require smelting and reshaping and building,” said Benyawe. “We’re engineers, Lem. We’re not manufacturers. We draw up plans. Someone else makes them.”

“Free miners can build engines with space junk and bonding glue,” said Lem. “Surely we can build a shield for the glaser.”

“I am not a free miner,” said Benyawe. “I wish I had the capabilities you’d like me to have, but I don’t. We can poll the crew and perhaps find people with all the skills required, but again, the glaser is not the answer, even with shielding. In all likelihood, all the glaser would do is alert the Formics of our presence and seal our own doom. We’d accomplish nothing, and they would blow us to dust before we knew what hit us.”

“Well then,” said Lem. “That’s a pessimistic position if ever I heard one.”

“You asked for my scientific opinion,” said Benyawe, “and as an engineer on the very weapon you want to use, I’m giving it to you. You’re the captain, Lem. You’re the one who will decide, not me. I’m merely giving you considerations so that you can make an informed decision.”

Lem sighed. “I know. I’m being a snot. It’s good counsel. I’ll relay to El Cavador that we have explosives.” He excused them then, put his face in the holospace, and called El Cavador. After a short delay, Concepcion’s head appeared.

“We can contribute twenty-five men,” said Lem. “We’re not operating on a full crew, so I’m putting in all the men I can afford. And we have explosives.”

Concepcion showed no emotion. “Thank you.”

He waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. “Now to another matter, Captain,” he said. “When we last met, you downloaded files from my ship.”

“When we last met, you killed one of my crew, crippled my ship, and risked the lives of everyone in my family, including women and children.”

He had to be careful how he responded. She was probably recording this transmission, and he couldn’t make any statement that could be used against him in court. An apology would be an admission of guilt, as would telling her that he hadn’t intended to hurt anyone. But it was best to avoid such statements anyway. Unless he broke down and sobbed like a penitent churchgoer, she’d probably think him insincere. Better to ignore the issue entirely.

“Downloading our files constitutes theft,” he said.

“Killing my nephew constitutes murder.”

Lem resisted the urge to sigh. “Come now, Captain,” he wanted to say. “Must we play this tit for tat game of who is guiltier of the greater crime? Besides, it would be involuntary manslaughter, not murder, and probably a much lesser charge if Juke lawyers jumped into the fray.” But aloud he said, “What are your intentions with this data?”

If she was going to blackmail him, he wanted to be done with it. If she intended to sell it to a competitor, maybe he could convince her otherwise. He was more than willing to dip into his personal fortune to make this go away.

“Our intentions were to find out who the captain of your ship was,” said Concepcion. “We wanted to know who would be cruel enough to do such a thing.”

“Yes, but what are your intentions now?”

She seemed confused. “What do you expect our intentions to be? That we will use your corporate secrets against you, sell them on the black market perhaps, contact one of your competitors?”

“Yes, actually.”

She laughed. “We’re not like you, Lem. As difficult as it might be for you to believe, there are decent people in the universe who don’t scheme or push aside others for profit. I haven’t given your files any consideration since we took them. We’ve been occupied with trying to stay alive. If you would like me to erase them from our system, I will gladly do so. They are of no use to me.”

“Right now?” Lem couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’ll erase them immediately.”

“I’ll give the order, the moment we terminate this call.”

“How do I know you’re not lying? How do I know you won’t keep them or sell them?”

She shook her head, pitying him. “You won’t know, Lem. You’ll have to take my word for it.” She moved as if to end the call, then turned back. “Incidentally, we sent you a laserline before you attacked us, warning you about the Formic ship. But since you had left your position to conduct your unprovoked strike against us, you didn’t receive that message. Which is too bad. If you had received it maybe you wouldn’t have killed my nephew and destroyed our laserline transmitter. Which means we could have warned Weigh Station Four and everyone else a long time ago. If you have an ounce of soul, Lem, I suspect that knowing that-knowing the ramifications of your decision, knowing how damaging your selfishness really is-will keep you up at night far longer than losing your precious corporate files.”

Her face disappeared, ending the transmission.

How dare she, thought Lem. How dare she blame him for the destruction of Weigh Station Four. He pushed away from the desk. Free miners. Dirty little scavengers. He shouldn’t have mentioned the files. Now she’ll suspect they have great value. She’s probably contacting the WU-HU ship to try and sell them right now.