Orson Card - Earth unavare

When they finished, twenty-six charred bodies lay in a line, some of them burned beyond recognition. Many of them were children. A block away another fire was burning in the street. Some of the villagers had dragged the dead Remeseh militants into a heap and set the bodies on fire. Bogdanovich remained untouched, and now more of the village’s elderly women kneeled beside him, offering their respect and prayers.

Wit spoke in his broken Indonesian to one of the men, asking if anyone in the village had seen in which direction the surviving Remeseh had fled. As he suspected, no shortage of people came forward. They all pointed to the south.

“I will leave one of my men here with you,” Wit told them in Indonesian. “He will protect you. He is as good a soldier as Bogdanovich, if not better.”

“No one is better,” the crowd cried. “No one is braver. More would have died if not for him.”

Wit got the stretcher down from the chopper, then he and Calinga delicately lifted Bogdanovich into a body bag. They kept him wrapped in the sheets, then loaded the body into the Air Shark. Calinga stayed behind. Wit took the pilot’s seat, and Averbach sat shotgun.

When they were up in the air, Averbach said, “This is my fault. Bog had gone local. He had fallen in love with one of the women in the village. Nothing ever happened between them. They were never alone. But I noticed the furtive looks she gave him. And I noticed that he noticed and didn’t seem to mind. He never said anything to me, but I should have told you. We should have pulled him out. It clouded his judgment.”

“I figured as much,” said Wit. “It wasn’t like Bog to disobey an order.”

“The villagers said Bog would have taken down all the Remeseh if not for the chapel. The woman was inside. When the Remeseh set it on fire and padlocked the door, Bog went for it. He tried to give himself enough cover to reach the door, but it was a trap. They had three snipers waiting. They burned the church, not to kill the people inside but to flush Bog out.” Averbach shook his head. “I should have been with him. I could have taken the snipers.”

“I sent you south,” said Wit. “You obeyed orders. That’s what you should have done.”

They flew south, but saw little through the jungle canopy. After an hour of searching they headed back to Pakuli and delivered Bogdanovich’s body to the medical team who would prepare it for shipment back to Russia.

Another one lost, thought Wit. That was four in Indonesia. Four too many.

He had hoped that the Indians would join in the fight. He could use the PCs; they were excellent trackers. But the Indians were being skittish. The PCs were willing, but the powers that be didn’t want to commit troops.

I need more men, thought Wit. I should have taken that Maori bastard, Mazer Rackham. I could use him about now.

He sent a squad up into the jungle south of Toro village, but he didn’t expect them to find much. The Remeseh were long gone by now-they had likely been long gone before Wit had even reached the village.

He returned to his tent and set up his terminal. Calinga had collected all the video he had taken at the village and sent it to Wit’s inbox. Wit reviewed the footage along with his own and edited a three-minute piece that showed the horror and suffering in Toro. He didn’t censor himself. He showed everything. The bodies. The mourning. The ashes. He added no music. He didn’t need to sensationalize it. The raw video would speak for itself. He titled the file “Victims of the Remeseh,” then added the date and location. He then uploaded it to the nets and waited. The following morning several news organizations had picked up the video, though even these had buried it.

The story getting the most attention on the nets was an unexplained interference of space communications. Scientists on Earth and Luna said it was an increase in cosmic radiation, although no one could determine a source. In fact, the interference seemed to be coming from all directions at once, raising background noise to a shout and making it impossible to communicate in space. A reputable astronomer was doing the rounds on the talk-show circuit prattling on about unexplained gamma bursts, but he offered up no explanation. Many commercial and passenger flights to and from Luna were temporarily suspended, and representatives from the space-mining industry were making official statements to the press, assuring the families of corporate miners that the companies were doing all they could to ensure the safety of their employees and to determine the source of the problem.

Wit’s first thought was terrorists. It was a brilliant way to cripple commerce and devastate the economy, particularly in those countries that had become so dependent on the space trade. But he eventually dismissed this idea. He couldn’t imagine a terrorist group with enough scientific talent and resources to construct a device powerful enough to pull off this level of interference, to say nothing of getting the thing in space.

What’s more, the inference was gradually getting louder: The background noise was increasing in volume, suggesting that the device in space was either increasing in power, or whatever was causing it was getting closer to Earth.

A news site had a related headline stating: NUTTY NETTERS PEG INTERFERENCE ON ALIENS.

Wit selected the link and read the article. The reporter was having a laugh at the hundred or so vids that had popped up on the nets recently, claiming that the interference was caused by aliens. Wit followed the links and watched a number of the vids. Many were talking heads: mostly conspiracy theorists rattling off quasi-science and making vague references to government cover-ups. (Nutty indeed.) Others were quite entertaining. They ranged from the ridiculous to the comical to the sadly pathetic. Poems, songs, even a puppet show, which Wit couldn’t help but laugh at. Most of them had zero production value, but several had been made using every device of movie magic to create creatures and environments so lifelike and so believable that Wit had to watch them two or three times to find the imperfections that disproved their authenticity.

The comments for most of the vids were what he would expect. Hate, mockery, cruel personal attacks. But occasionally, particularly on those vids that had re-created aliens with striking realism, the comments were more congratulatory: Well done! Looked real. You almost had me. Peed my pants!

Wit knew the vids were fake. But he couldn’t help but wonder: What if the radio interference is aliens? What if the conspiracy theorists were right? What if an alien army was approaching Earth at this very moment? It was a far-fetched idea, yes, but it was possible. And if it were true, his troops would be completely unprepared. He couldn’t allow that. He had to train them for such a contingency. They would scoff, yes, laugh at him even, but he had his duty. And yet, how do you train soldiers for an enemy you don’t understand? How do you prepare them for a completely unpredictable situation? Would the aliens be hostile? There was no way to tell for certain until it was too late. No, the only training I can give my men is to analyze before they act in a strange situation, and to presume hostile intent in all cases.

The following morning, Wit gathered all of the MOPs in Indonesia. Many were in the camp in Sulawesi and joined him in the mess hall. The others stationed in nearby villages or in New Guinea joined him via holo.

Wit stood in the holospace facing them. “I have some vids I want you to see,” he said. He played them a few of the alien vids from the nets. Their reaction was not unlike the comments online. They laughed. They scoffed. They mocked. They applauded and whistled at the realistic endeavors.