The Swarm (10 page)

“I bet you've designed all kinds of cool weapons.”

“Actually, my sketches aren't weapons. That's not my area of expertise. I design tools that help marines do their jobs.”

“Have you sent any ideas to the IF?”

Victor smiled. “The IF doesn't exactly have a suggestion box, Goos. But I do send my sketches to a friend. A marine Imala and I met during the war. He gives good feedback.”

Magoosa nearly dropped his vacuum. “You know a marine?”

Victor chuckled. “His name's Mazer Rackham. You'd like him.”

“What's he like? Big guy? Strong?”

“Actually he's on the short side. But he's Maori, so he was born from a warrior culture. Smart, levelheaded, strategic. What I suspect the IF wants from every soldier.”

“First chance I get I'm enlisting. You tell your marine friend to watch out for the Goos. I'm going to take down every bug myself.”

“War is horrific, Goos. Whatever romantic idea you may have of fighting Formics is wrong. Believe me. War is no place you want to be.”

“It's exactly where I want to be. We have an obligation to defend our planet and our species. Each of us has a duty.”

“That sounds like the propaganda vids talking.”

“You don't believe the vids? You don't think we have a duty?”

“We have a duty to defend ourselves, yes,” Victor said, “but I also believe that soldiering should be left to trained soldiers.”

“I
will
be a trained soldier. I can wield a weapon as well as anyone, I bet.”

“You're fourteen, Goos. You won't get that chance for another four years.”

“There are boys out there not much older than me who have lied about their age and gotten in fine. I've read about it in the forums. I could pass for eighteen soon. I'm tall enough.”

“Chances of your father letting you go are nonexistent. Besides, we're months away from any recruiting station. You're stuck with us for the time being.”

Magoosa frowned. “For the time being.”

When they finished vacuuming, Victor called up the ship's schematics on his wrist pad, pausing at the various machines to dive inside them and analyze their components. The washing machine didn't have the right processor, but the oven had one that was similar.

The women working in the kitchen were not pleased by the news.

“You want to take the oven apart?” Ubax said. She was Arjuna's second oldest wife and Magoosa's mother. She ran the kitchen with three other members of the crew, and they looked to be in the middle of baking something. Her English was better than most, but she had a thick Somali accent. She folded her arms and glared at Victor. “How am I supposed to cook without an oven, Vico?”

“I'll only need the processor for a few hours,” Victor said. “So I can make a copy of it. Then I'll bring it back and reinstall it.”

“And if you break the processor?” Ubax asked.

“Then we'll eat cold oatmeal for the next six months. How bad could that be?” He gave her his best smile, but she was not amused.

“We'll be careful,” he said.

He and Magoosa removed the processor and carried it back to the workshop. They placed it in the scanning vat and began identifying which components they could print and which they'd have to find elsewhere.

They made good progress for several hours, and then Edimar entered the workshop and asked to speak to Victor in private. Victor could tell at once that something troubled his cousin. As the family spotter, Edimar was always the first person on board to know when danger was ahead. She worked alone in the ship's crow's nest deciphering data from the Eye—the ship's scanning computer that watched for possible collision threats. So if Edimar was uneasy, she had good reason.

Victor took her aside. “What is it, Mar?”

Edimar bit her lip and hesitated. She was eighteen now, a woman grown, but sometimes she seemed much younger.

Over the past few years, she had become a celebrity of sorts, for it was Edimar who had first spotted the Formic scout ship on its approach to Earth prior to the First Formic War when she was only fourteen. And then, after the war, while everyone on Earth was still celebrating mankind's victory, Edimar had detected the approaching Formic fleet and alerted the world of the coming second war. Now people who had really good eyesight were said to have “Edimar Eyes.” Or if something was uncovered that had long been in plain sight and yet ignored, it was called the “Edimar Effect.”

Edimar had shrugged off the attention, always turning down interview requests when they had come.

“You look worried,” said Victor.

“More like confused,” Edimar said. “It's about 2030CT.”

Asteroid 2030CT was the ship's current destination. It was a water-ice asteroid with a likely composition of iron, nickel, and precious metals. It wasn't a particularly interesting rock. Just under two kilometers long. Slightly atypical orbit. No different than billions of others.

“What about it?” said Victor.

“Well, it's not reflecting light properly anymore. It's dark. Darker than it's ever been on the cameras. And it happened within the last few weeks. The filters are fine. I checked them all. The rock is simply dimmer. Any idea why that might happen?”

Victor considered for a moment. “Your guess is as good as mine. Something obstructing our view, maybe? Space dust?”

“Maybe,” she said. “But the dimness has persisted. If it were small particles, you would think they would have dissipated by now.”

“Okay, well, we're in the Kuiper Belt,” Victor said. “So this rock is probably covered in a layer of ice and frozen ammonia. Maybe it collided with something, and ice broke off. So more of the rock is exposed and less light is reflected.”

“I thought of that. But I would have seen another object, and a collision that strong would have knocked it off its orbit.”

“Maybe it's a snowball,” said Victor.

Snowballs were frozen wads of gravel held together by ice. Unlike traditional asteroids, which were one solid hunk of rock, snowballs shattered into pieces the instant you started digging.

“Are you sure the asteroid is unoccupied?” said Victor. “Maybe there's a family there digging at it and breaking it up. If it's smaller, it would certainly reflect less light.”

“No one's there. I've watched it for two months. There haven't been any cinders in or out.”

A cinder was a heat signature, usually from a ship's propulsion system. They were typically visible in the infrared spectrum, even from a considerable distance, especially out here where there was so much open space. Cinders were like big flashing signs that alerted everyone remotely close that you were in the neighborhood.

Victor shrugged. “I'm stumped, Mar. Have you talked to Arjuna?”

“I wanted to talk to you first, in case I'm missing something obvious.”

“You know the equipment, Mar. I don't. If you trust it, if you checked the filters and everything seems to be working, I'd talk to Arjuna.”

She hesitated. “He won't like that.”

“He needs to know. Arjuna may want to send a probe ahead or reconsider our approach as a precaution.”

She nodded. “Right. I'll talk to him.”

She left. Victor returned to work, but the idea of an asteroid growing dimmer stuck with him. It didn't make sense. Was the International Fleet testing a new weapon? Something powerful enough to chip away at an asteroid piece by piece? That seemed plausible. A lot of corporates tested new tech in the Kuiper Belt, far from the prying eyes of competitors. Perhaps the IF was doing the same.

When the scanner was done, Victor returned the processor to the oven.

He and Magoosa worked in the engine room well into their sleep shift. There were more boards to print and more components to borrow from elsewhere on the ship—and they had to alter the design of the OE slightly to fit what they had available—but finally, after nearly twenty hours, Victor finished soldering and turned the OE back on. It hummed quietly and woke Magoosa, who had fallen asleep nearby.

Magoosa patted Victor on the back. “You see? This is what the IF needs. Mechanics who can work miracles. Engineers who have the skills.”

Victor smiled. “Go to bed, Goos. It's late. We've neglected all our other repairs. Tomorrow we've got a backlog waiting for us.”

But Magoosa's words stayed with him long after the boy had left and all was quiet. Was Victor right not to enlist? Did he have a duty with the Fleet?

He pulled out his wrist pad and checked his messages, pleased to see an e-mail from Mazer. He read it, surprised to hear that Mazer was being court-martialed. We're doomed, Victor thought. If the leadership of the IF are the type that would imprison their best asset, the human race didn't have a prayer.

There was an attachment. Mazer had made notes on Victor's newest design. Victor read through the notes and agreed with them all. The hook-and-release mechanism
was
too slow. He would need to rethink that. Or better yet, perhaps it was time to scrap this design and start anew.

He drew three more sketches of new designs, but by the end of the third he was fighting back sleep. He rubbed at his eyes and yawned.

“It's a lot more comfortable in the barracks,” a voice said.

Victor looked up, startled. Imala was drifting up between two of the water storage tanks to his right, snaking her way into the center of the engine room.

“You've got the OE working,” she said. “Nice to know we won't die. I never doubted you.” She drifted over to where he had stretched out and snuggled up next to him.

He put an arm around her and pulled her close. She was wearing soft fleece pajamas and smelled of fresh detergent. Her long, black Apache hair was braided into a ponytail that floated behind her. Victor gently lifted her chin and studied her face. Some people lost their beauty up close, where every minor imperfection became painfully obvious. But not Imala.

She had believed him about the invasion when everyone else thought him delusional. She had stood by him, fought with him, saved his life. And now she loved him. Even now, after several years together, he still couldn't wrap his head around the notion. Him. Ordinary, plain-looking him. It left him feeling inadequate sometimes, even slightly guilty, as if he were committing some great injustice by asking her to be his wife, robbing her of the actual person she deserved.

Yet he had asked her nonetheless. He couldn't imagine himself ever being happy otherwise. They had not yet set a date, but there wouldn't be much to prepare when they did. They would probably wed in the cargo bay.

“You're staring at me, Victor Delgado.”

“Admiring.”

“It's still staring.”

She took his wrist pad and flipped through the sketches. “What's this?”

“Sketches for Mazer. Some good ideas, some bad ideas. Mostly bad ideas.”

“They all look brilliant to me.”

“You're biased.”

“How is Mazer?”

“He's being court-martialed.”

She looked at him, startled. “Why?”

Victor shrugged. “Because they're more worried about saving their careers than the human race. Because they feel threatened by people smarter than themselves. Because they despise those who have talents they don't also possess. Take your pick.”

Imala sighed in exasperation. “Why is it that the people who should be in authority are usually the people who don't want it, while the people who hold authority are usually the two-faced schemers who've stepped on people's backs to get it?”

Victor was quiet a moment. “Did we make the right decision, Imala? Coming out here to reunite with my family?”

She broke away from him and studied his face. “Why do you say that? You love your family.”

“Yes, but this isn't really my family anymore. Or at least it's not the family I left before the war.”

“We knew that when we came, Vico. When Arjuna took in your mother and your aunts and all their children, this became a new family. It's not the one you grew up with, but it's a family all the same. They accepted us on sight even though the ship was already full, they've treated me like one of their own. If anyone should feel like an outsider here it's me. I'm not related to anyone.”

“Not yet,” Victor said with a smile.

“Not yet,” she agreed.

Victor's smile waned. “I know you're right. But is this where we
should
be?”

“Why are you even asking this?” she said. “Is this about Copernicus? Vico, you're the one who said we weren't going to get into this war, that it was someone else's turn to fight this time.”

“I know I said that. And I still believe that. But I look at Mazer and I think about the IF and all the bureaucracy and all the obstacles they're imposing on us, even before the Formics get here, and I think, how can I just float here and let all of that happen?”

“You can't fight the bureaucracy, Vico. I tried fighting it at the Lunar Trade Department, and it got me nowhere. The IF is a thousand times bigger and a thousand times more powerful, with all of the resources of the world at its disposal. That's not a fight you can win.”

“I'm not suggesting that I take on the International Fleet, Imala. I'm merely asking the question: Are we doing the most good here? You should have heard Goos today. He's dead set on enlisting. I told him to erase the idea from his mind and to leave the fighting to the soldiers, but I felt like a hypocrite saying so, as if I were trying to convince myself.”

“Goos is fourteen,” said Imala. “He can't enlist anyway.”

Victor waved a hand. “Yes, obviously. That's not the point.”

“Then what is?”

“The point is, maybe he's right. The IF needs mechanics as much as it needs pilots and soldiers and doctors.”