Earth Unaware (First Formic War) (12 page)

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 pointed 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.

Concepción, Toron, and Edimar emerged from Concepción’s office, and everyone fell silent. The three of them made their way to the holotable, and Concepción 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 Concepción.

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 Concepción 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 Concepción. “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 Concepción,” 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.”

“They wouldn’t have to believe us,” said Toron. “If we showed them where to look and they had a decent sky scanner, they could see it themselves.”

“You said we could send the message to people we trust,” said Marco. “Since when do we trust corporates?”

There was a murmur of assent from the crowd.

“They’re the closet ship,” said Toron. “And therefore, they’re the best qualified vessel to see exactly what we’ve seen. If we want to corroborate our data, they’re the most sensible choice.”

“I don’t like working with corporates,” said Marco.

“Nor do I,” said Toron. “But if this object is indeed a starship, who better to tell than corporates? Their communication systems are far superior to ours. They have relay satellites across the system. If a warning has to be sent to Earth, they’re the people to do it, not us.”

The room was quiet a moment.

“Whatever this object is,” said Concepción, “it won’t be close for at least several weeks and probably not for a few months. I think Toron’s recommendation to proceed with caution is wisest at this point. I am as alarmed as all of you, but if and when we send a warning, I want to have some degree of certainty as to what we’re dealing with. I suggest we notify this Juke vessel and give the Italians the same message in ten days. With all three of us analyzing this, we have a much better chance of understanding it. In the meantime we maintain our position, we continue with the dig, and we let Toron and Edimar track this thing. Any objections?”

“Yes,” said Victor.

Everyone turned to him. Concepción looked surprised. “You have an objection, Victor?”

Victor scanned the room. Everyone stared. Some looked annoyed. It wasn’t his place to question Concepción. He shouldn’t even be here.

“I mean no one any disrespect,” said Victor, “least of all you, Concepción. But I don’t think this is our decision to make.”

“Of course it’s our decision,” said Toron. “Who else could make it?”

“Everyone,” said Victor. “This affects everyone. This changes everything. This is an alien starship. We have no right choosing when it’s revealed to everyone else. It affects the entire human race. We all agree that there are basically two scenarios here. Either it’s peaceful or it isn’t. If it’s peaceful, than we have nothing to lose by detaching from the rock now and sending out a transmission to as many ships and stations as we can hit. If there
are
pirates, they will react to the information, not to the people giving it. We should spread the word. We should inform the world. We get the news to Earth as quickly as possible. We let
them
decide how to proceed for themselves. And if this ship’s intentions are
not
peaceful, then we do the exact same thing. We warn as many people as we can and we start building defenses immediately. Toron suggests that by sending out a blanket transmission we might draw the attention of the alien ship and make ourselves its first target. But even if that’s true, so what? We’re eighty-seven people. There are over twelve billion people on Earth. If we have to sacrifice ourselves to protect millions or billions more, then we would do that.”

“It isn’t that cut and dried,” said Toron. “You’re making big assumptions about this ship when we don’t know yet if it
is
a ship. We know next to nothing.”

“That’s my point,” said Victor. “What right do we have to assume to be experts on this? Isn’t it far more likely that someone else will be better equipped to interpret this thing than we are? And who’s to say the Italians or even the Juke ship will be experts either? We should tell them, yes, but we should tell everyone else, as well. That creates the greatest likelihood of us learning as much as we can as quickly as we can.”