Earth Unaware (First Formic War) (22 page)

Then Victor would realize he was having such thoughts and he’d throw himself even more into the repairs, frustrated with himself for letting his mind wander.

Now here Toron was telling them that Janda might be in danger.

“Given the uncertainty of this situation,” said Toron, “we have to consider the worst-case scenario. This could be an attack on the Italians. We have no evidence to suggest that, but we would be foolish not to consider it. And if that’s the case, what do we do?”

“We get to the Italians as fast as we can is what we do,” said Victor.

“And do what?” asked Toron.

“Help. Fight back. Whatever it takes.”

“With two PKs?” said Toron scornfully. “That’s hardly enough for collision avoidance. We couldn’t possibly defend ourselves.”

“We don’t know that,” said Victor. “We have no idea what that ship’s defenses are. Two PKs might be more than enough to take it down.”

“And they might not,” said Toron. “They might just aggravate it. You want to take that gamble?”

“Absolutely.”

Toron threw his hands up, then turned to Concepción. “We are in no position to jump into a fight, if it comes to that. Look at us. We don’t even have our main generator up. Everything’s running on the backups, which barely put out enough juice for life support. We’ve got half our lights off to ration power, so we’re all bumbling around in semidarkness. The temperature on board has dropped twenty degrees because the heaters aren’t getting the power they need. We have no communication. We’re one step above a crippled ship. We can’t even help ourselves. And we’re considering fighting? The corporates just wasted us. Did we not learn anything from that experience?”

“That was different,” said Victor. “They took us by surprise.”

Toron scoffed. “Oh, well, I’ll make sure the aliens play by all the rules of chivalrous warfare and treat us ‘fairly’ when they attack.” He turned back to Concepción. “We can’t defend ourselves, much less anyone else. It might be more sensible to come to a full stop now and read the data that comes off the Eye. Let’s wait and see what happens when this ship reaches the Italians.”

“Do nothing?” said Victor. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Sit here and watch the scout ship attack them?”

“We don’t know if it’s a scout ship,” said Toron. “Nor do we know if it intends to attack. And stopping here is not inaction. It’s intelligence gathering. It’s getting the information we need to choose the safest course of action.”

Victor pointed at the dot in the holospace. “Your daughter is on one of those ships.”

“And my wife and other daughter are on this one,” said Toron. “Do you think I don’t know Alejandra is there? Do you think I’ve forgotten that fact? I’m quite capable of keeping track of my daughter’s whereabouts, thank you.”

“Let’s calm down,” said Concepción. “These walls aren’t soundproof. We’re all adults here.”

“He isn’t,” said Toron, gesturing to Victor.

Concepción ignored him. “Toron is proposing a legitimate concern, Victor. There are a lot of unanswered questions here. We have a responsibility to protect our people.”

“Maybe so,” said Father. “But I agree with Vico. We can’t sit back and wait to see what happens. If it were us out there, and the Italians out here, we’d want them with us, supporting us. I say we push on. The Italians might need us in a critical moment.”

“Each of the Italians’ ships is faster and better equipped than ours,” said Toron. “And there are four of them. If we made any contribution to a fight it would be minimal and a day and a half late. Do we really want to risk losing everything for that?”

“We’re better defended than they are,” said Victor. “That accounts for something. Their ships are fast, yes, but we have better armor. That might prove critical.”

“Again,” said Toron, “you’re basing these assumptions on human technology. Who’s to say this scout ship, or whatever it is, doesn’t have a weapon that can’t penetrate any armor.”

“Where was this violent imagination of yours when I wanted to warn everyone?” said Victor. “You were perfectly content to deflect any suggestion that this thing was dangerous before. Now you seemed convinced it’s programmed to kill.”

“I am urging caution,” said Toron, “just as I did before. And I don’t need to explain myself to you.”

“That’s enough,” said Concepción. “We get nowhere by arguing. The fact is, if this thing can move at fifty times our speed, we’re already in the fight, if there is one. The ship could easily overtake us if it wanted to, even if we turned now and ran. Yes, it’s possible that it doesn’t know we’re here, but I find that unlikely. We’d be wise to assume that it can do anything we can and more.” She turned to Father. “Segundo, you said that some of the PKs are ready to be installed.”

“We’ve fixed three of the four,” said Father. “The last one needs parts we don’t have and can’t jury-rig. We intended to reinstall the three as soon as we reached the Italians. We obviously can’t do a spacewalk now at our current speed.”

Concepción looked at Victor. “And the generator?”

“I need a day at the most,” said Victor.

Concepción nodded. “What we do about this scout ship is a decision for the Council. I will call a meeting immediately. Segundo, you are excused to conduct whatever repairs you need to. I will see to it that your views are expressed to the Council. Toron will present what he’s found, and I will make my recommendation, which is that we decelerate and install the repaired PKs now. Then we punch it and get to the Italians as quickly as possible. We are wise to be cautious, but I suggest we prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

Toron didn’t argue; Father nodded in agreement; and Concepción excused them all. Victor and Father made their way down the corridor, heading back to their respective repairs. “Toron isn’t your enemy, Vico,” said Father. “I know he can seem callous, but he really does love Alejandra. He would do anything for her or this family. But if he has to choose between the two, he will always choose the family, which is the right choice.”

“Then why did you agree with me back there?”

“Because if it were you with the Italians, I wouldn’t hesitate to go get you. I’d go in with no PKs and no generator if I had to, even if that meant endangering everyone aboard. That’s not rational. It’s reckless and irresponsible. But that’s what I would do.”

“Then I’m glad
you’re
my father and not Toron.”

“Toron isn’t a coward, Vico. His suggestion to stop here and wait may seem like cowardice, but it isn’t. I’ve known Toron a long time. He isn’t motivated by self-preservation. He cares about Edimar and Lola, his wife, and Concepción and your mother and me and everyone aboard. Even you.”

“I think he’d rather see me tossed from the ship.”

“My point is, he loves Alejandra as much as I love you, son. If Toron could change places with her, he would do so in an instant. His willingness to hand her over to fate to protect the rest of us shows, to me at least, a greater courage than I possess. It’s the smarter choice. The Italians aren’t defenseless. They can hold their own. Keeping our distance and being safe is the rational thing to do. It’s because of people like Toron that this family is still alive, Vico. Were I running things, we all would have died a long time ago.” He smiled and put a hand on Victor’s shoulder. “I fear I’ve made you too much like me, rash and bullheaded. Never for your own sake, but for those you love. That’s a good trait to have. But one day you may run this family, Vico, and if that happens, you’ll need to have some of Toron in you, too.”

Victor wanted to tell him then. All he had to do was open his mouth and say, “I’m leaving Father. I don’t know how. I don’t know when. But I will never lead this family because I can’t stay. I can’t take a wife here. I can’t raise children here. Not when everything I see around me reminds me of Janda.”

But Victor said nothing. How could he? The family needed Victor now more than ever? How could he even think of leaving? It was selfish. It was abandonment. Yet what could he do? Try as he might to seal off that part of his brain where memories of Janda were stored, he couldn’t. She was forever tied to this ship, and no event, not the starship, not the corporate attack, nothing could ever change that. Father left before Victor found the courage to say anything, and Victor removed his greaves and flew back to the engine room. He found Mono there, replacing a few of the burned-out circuits. “We’ve got a day to get this thing online, Mono.”

“Good luck,” said Mono. “It’s a piece of junk. It should have seen a scrapyard four hundred years ago.”

“They didn’t have space flight four hundred years ago. Besides, we don’t have a choice.”

He told Mono about the scout ship. He knew he probably shouldn’t, but the Council would find out soon enough, and then everyone on the ship would know. At first, Victor was worried that the news would frighten Mono. But to his surprise it had the opposite effect, with Mono all the more determined to get the generator up and running.

They worked long into sleep-shift. When they finished, nearly twelve hours later, they were both exhausted and filthy. “Flip the switch, Mono.”

Victor got the fire extinguisher ready, just in case, while Mono went over to the switch box and turned on the power. They had tried to reboot the generator several times over the past few days, but every attempt had failed: knocking sounds, burning components, an array of sparks. On several occasions they had cut the power as quickly as they had turned it on. Now, however, the generator slowly came to life. The readout screen flickered on. The motor whirred and grew stronger. The turbines spun and gained speed. No knocking. No sparks. No screeching of metal.

Ten seconds passed. Then fifteen. The roar of the turbines grew louder. Victor watched the numbers on the readout screen, his heart racing. The turbines were at 60 percent. Then 70. Then 85. The turbines were screaming now, the sound rattling the entire engine room. Then 95 percent. Victor looked at Mono and saw that the boy was laughing. Victor couldn’t hear the laughter over the roar of the generator, but the sight of it—along with the sudden release of all of Victor’s pent-up anxiety—set Victor to laughing, too. Laughs so big and long that tears came out of his eyes.

*   *   *

Victor stood in the airlock in his pressure suit, waiting for the ship to stop. Father was beside him, along with ten miners, all of them facing the massive bay doors. The three repaired PKs floated among them, with the miners holding them in place with bracing cables. Victor could hear the retros firing outside, slowing the ship. After a moment, the rockets stopped, and then Concepción’s voice sounded in Victor’s helmet. “Full stop, gentlemen. Let’s make this repair quick, if we can.”

The Council had agreed to Concepción’s recommendation: El Cavador would come to a complete stop, Victor and Father would install the repaired PKs, and the ship would accelerate to the Italians, still a day away. It hadn’t been an easy decision. Mother had told Victor after the fact that quite a heated discussion had preceded the vote, with many people siding with Toron and urging extreme caution, preferring to stop immediately and observe the scout ship among the Italians from a safe distance. The final vote to continue on as soon as repairs were made had passed by the slimmest of majorities.

Victor punched a command into the keypad on the airlock wall. There was a brief warning siren followed by a computer voice telling them the wide cargo doors were about to open. The computer voice counted down from ten, then the doors unlocked and slid away. All of the air inside the airlock was sucked out into space, and the star-filled blackness of the Kuiper Belt stretched out before them.

Victor’s HUD in his helmet immediately got to work. The temperature outside was negative three hundred and seventy degrees Fahrenheit, prompting the heating mechanism on his suit to compensate. Other windows of data told him oxygen levels, heart rate, suit humidity, and the vitals of everyone else in the group. A note from Mother also popped up:
CHILI WAITING WHEN YOU GET BACK. BE SAFE. KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR FATHER. LOVE, PATITA
.

Father led the group outside, moving slowly in their boot magnets as they stepped beyond the airlock and out onto the hull. The miners pulled the weightless PKs along like floats at a parade. Once everyone was outside and clear, Father led them to a spot where one of the PKs had been sliced away. Victor had made new network and power sockets to replace those that had been cut, and he spliced in the new socket while the miners applied the new mounting plates. Victor then drilled in new holes for the bolts and stepped clear. Father and the miners moved the PK into position, and Victor bolted it in and plugged in the new socket. When done, Victor blinked out the necessary commands to reboot the laser and restore it to the collision-avoidance system.

Two hours later, after they had finished installing the last of the three lasers without any problems, Father asked them all to gather in a circle. Victor had known this moment was coming, but he hadn’t been looking forward to it. Gabi, Marco’s wife, had asked Father to release Marco’s ashes, as was the custom, and Father had agreed.

Victor and the ten miners silently formed a circle around Father, their boot magnets clinging to the hull, their hands folded reverently in front of them. Father pulled a canister from his hip pouch and spoke into his helmet comm. “We’re ready,” he said.

There was a moment’s pause, then Concepción’s voice answered on the line, “We’re here, Segundo. Gabi and Lizbét and the girls and I. We’re all here on the line.”

Victor pictured Marco’s family gathered around one of the terminals at the helm. The crew would be giving the family space, standing off to the side, silent, with heads bowed.

Father crossed himself, placed a hand on the canister lid, and said, “Vaya a Dios, nuestro hermano, y al cielo más allá de este.” Go to God, our brother, and to the heaven beyond this one. Father unscrewed the cap and gently shook the canister upward. The ashes left the canister in a clouded clump and moved away from the ship without dispersing. The men in the circle slowly dropped to one knee, crossed themselves, and repeated the words. “Vaya a Dios, nuestro hermano, y al cielo más allá de este.” The men then held their position in silence while the family on the bridge bid their farewells.