Orson Card - Earth unavare

“The bed is comfortable, but I’m a prisoner. The two kind of cancel each other out.”

She nodded. “Seems clean at least.”

They were sitting alone in a stark white room with a glass wall and ceiling, affording them a view of the city and the ship traffic high overhead.

“Haven’t you been here before?” asked Victor “You work with the LTD. You’re a caseworker. All injured immigrants come here. Are you telling me you’ve never actually done this job before?”

“Let’s say I’m new,” she said.

He could tell he was annoying her. He didn’t care.

“Incidentally,” Victor said, “do you actually know who your boss is? Because you seemed rather unsure when I asked a second ago.”

“I thought I was supposed to be the one asking the questions.”

“Are you unsure of that, too?”

She forced a smile. “All right, Victor. If we’re going to be perfectly honest with each other, no, I don’t know who my boss is. I got this assignment about twenty minutes ago from someone who doesn’t even work in Customs. So he’s technically not my boss. I haven’t even been to the Customs offices yet. I came directly here from my previous job. So I don’t even have a computer terminal or a desk or a mail account yet. If the door was locked, I couldn’t get in the building because I don’t yet have an access ring. Fair enough? That’s my resume.”

“Wow,” said Victor. “I can’t tell you how much confidence that instills in me to know that my assigned caseworker, the person responsible for getting me out of here, is so deeply experienced in the field. Boy am I going to sleep well tonight.”

“You’re welcome to file an appeal and request a new caseworker, but you should know that there’s a three-week turnaround. Don’t expect a new person to walk in here tomorrow.”

He leaned forward. “Look, Ms. Bootstamp-”

“Call me Imala.”

“Fine. Imala. I’m sure you’re a nice person. And I’m not normally a jerk, but you are not the answer to my problem. You are so far removed from the answer to my problem that you and I shouldn’t even be talking. I wish you well in your new job, but the best way for you to help me is to find out who your boss is and to bring me that person. Make sense?”

She was quiet a moment. Then she smiled again. “You broke the law, Victor. Maybe that hasn’t been explained to you clearly enough, but you entered lunar gravity in a manned spacecraft without clearance or authorization. A rather serious offense. You also illegally disrupted a government flight-control frequency. Another serious offense.”

“I didn’t know it was a restricted frequency. I was trying to-”

“I’m not finished,” she said. “You also have no passport, no birth certificate, no proof of identity, no right whatsoever to be on this moon. You may have broken these laws in ignorance, but the law doesn’t care. My job is to review the law with you and hear your case to see if your situation warrants legal leniency based on extenuating circumstances beyond your control. These are defined as potential loss of life and potential property damage of a ‘significant’ value. You may not like the fact that I’m new and inexperienced. But I am the person assigned to your case. This is my job and I’m going to do it. Now, you obviously think I’m stupid. And apparently you have no social skills because you’re unable to conceal the fact that you think I’m stupid. But here’s the thing, I’m not actually stupid. I know how this world works. You don’t. I know trade and customs law. You don’t. I know what’s necessary to get you freed. You don’t. So you can make demands until you’re purple in the face, but you will never see anyone above me until I say so. And right now I don’t say so. As far as I’m concerned, you have two options: You can submit to my questions and possibly let me help you. Or you can sit in your room until your grace period expires and the judge plops you on a shuttle back to wherever it was you came from. Your choice. When I come back tomorrow, you can give me your answer.”

She got up. And without waiting for him to respond, she was out the door and gone.

Great, thought Victor. It’s not enough that I have a nobody. She has to be a snooty nobody. He sighed. He wasn’t helping the situation. And now another precious day was wasted.

He was waiting for her the following day in the same room.

“I obviously can’t go above you without going through you,” said Victor. “So let’s do this your way. And let me preface this by saying, everything I am about to tell you can be proven. I have evidence. It’s all on my data cube, which the staff locked away with all my other belongings when I got here. Should you want more evidence, I can tell you exactly where to look to verify its veracity for yourself. Fair enough?”

“Works for me,” said Imala.

“You’ve heard about the interference in space scrambling all transmissions?”

“Every day on the news.”

“Well, I know what’s causing that interference. And if you can get my data cube, I’ll show you.”

She was gone for ten minutes. When she returned she had a clear bag with all of Victor’s personal items. He took out the data cube, placed it on the table, and turned it on, creating a holospace in the air above it.

“The interference is being caused by a near-lightspeed alien starship on a direct course to Earth.”

“An alien ship?”

“That’s right.”

“Coming to Earth?”

“That’s what I said.”

“I see.”

“I know that sounds insane to you. I know you think I’m insane. But my family put me on a quickship from the Kuiper Belt. Eight billion klicks from here. I was on that ship for nearly eight months. There was a very good chance that I wouldn’t make it to Luna alive. And if you know anything about free-miner families, you know we simply don’t do that. We protect our own. Family first. And if you don’t know anything about free miners, then why do you have this job?”

“I didn’t say you were insane.”

“You didn’t have to. It was written all over your face. And frankly I can’t afford that. I need you to have an open mind and look at this evidence without having dismissed it beforehand. I don’t care what you think of me. I only care that the information I have gets to everyone on Luna and Earth. That won’t happen if we do this with you trying to disprove it.”

“I told you I would listen, Victor.”

“Listening isn’t enough. You need to have an open mind. If you play bureaucrat and worry about how this will affect your standing with that new boss of yours, you’ll only find excuses to bury it.”

“Remember, I’m not stupid,” said Imala. “I will keep an open mind. You’re simply going to have to trust me.”

He didn’t want to trust her. He wanted to trust the person five or six steps up the org chart, but what choice did he have.

He showed her everything: the charts, the trajectory, wreckage from the Italians, video of him and Father and Toron attacking the pod, the hormigas fiercely fighting back, Toron’s death, interviews with the surviving Italians recounting the pod attacking their ships. There was even footage of Victor modifying the quickship and launching it toward Luna. It took nearly two hours to go over it all, and Imala sat in silence the whole time. When Victor finished, Imala remained quiet for a few moments.

“Play back the part where we see the aliens,” she said.

Victor found the spot and played it.

“Stop right there,” said Imala.

Victor freeze-framed on the hormiga’s face.

Imala stared at it for a full two minutes. Finally she looked at Victor. “Is this a hoax?”

“Yes, it’s big elaborate hoax, Imala. I went out and invented a near-lightspeed ship just so I could prank you.”