Earth Unaware (First Formic War) (3 page)

“What time are you going out this morning?” asked Victor.

Marco raised an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”

“I’ve been working on something,” said Victor, “an enhancement for one of the drills. It’s still a prototype, but I’d like to test it. And since you can’t fire up the drill until the Italians pull out, I thought maybe I could install it before your guys get out there and start digging.”

Marco eyed the satchel.

“It’s a stabilizer for the drill,” said Victor, “for whenever we hit ice pockets. It’s a way to keep the ship from pitching forward and the drill steady.”

Victor could see Marco’s curiosity nibbling at the bait. “Ice pockets, huh?”

Nothing was more annoying to a miner in the Kuiper Belt than ice pockets. Asteroids this far from the sun were dirty snowballs, masses of rock laced with an occasional pocket of frozen water, methane, or ammonia. The laser drill could bore through it all, but it produced a rocketlike reaction. Unless the ship was moored to the rock with the retrorockets firing as a counterforce, the laser would simply knock the asteroid away from the ship.

So as long as the laser was digging through rock—for which all of the retrorockets had been calibrated—the ship held steady and the dig went smoothly. But the moment the laser hit a pocket of ice, the laser would burn right through it, losing the ship’s upward force. The retrorockets were still firing, however, so the whole ship would pitch forward, causing chaos inside for the crew. People fell over, babies couldn’t sleep.

Then, after the laser had seared through the ice and hit rock again, the upward force would return, the two forces would then equalize, and the ship would pitch back again. Everyone called it the ice pocket rodeo.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Victor. “The drill is working. What if my ‘improvement’ damages the drill?”

“The thought crossed my mind,” said Marco. “I don’t like anyone touching the drills unless absolutely necessary.”

“You can watch everything I do,” said Victor. “Step by step. But in truth, the installation isn’t that invasive. The main sensor goes up by the retrorockets. Another piece is wireless and goes down by the blast site on the asteroid. All I’m doing with the drill is installing this third piece, the stabilizer. It makes minor adjustments in the drill’s aim when the ship moves because of an ice dip. It’s designed to keep the laser pointed straight down into the blast site, instead of wavering or shifting mid-drill.” Victor pulled the device from the satchel and handed it to Marco. It was small and intricate, and Marco clearly had no idea what he was looking at—though this was to be expected since nothing like it existed. Victor had built it from junked parts, scrap metal, and polycarbonate plastic.

Marco handed back the stabilizer. “So this will take care of ice dips?”

“Not completely,” said Victor. “But it should minimize them, yes. Assuming it works.”

Victor could see Marco’s mind working. He was considering it. Finally, Marco pointed a finger and said, “If you damage the drill, I’ll have you sucked back into the ship through your lifeline.”

Victor smiled.

Marco looked at his watch. “You got forty-five minutes. We’ll be checking equipment until then.”

“Not a problem,” said Victor.

“And that’s including however long it takes for you to suit up,” said Marco. “Forty-five minutes total, from this moment.”

“Got it,” said Victor.

“And work on the
old
drill,” said Marco. “Not the new one.”

Victor thanked him, and he and Mono hurried to the lockers. As they changed into their pressure suits, Mono peppered Victor with questions, as Mono was always prone to do. Most of them were mechanical in nature, so Victor was able to answer them without much thought. The rest of his mind was at the airlock. How had Janda looked when she left? Had she acknowledged Victor’s absence or pretended not to notice it? Probably the latter. Janda was too smart to risk revealing her feelings now.

“Hola,” said Mono, waving a hand in front of Victor’s face. “Earth to Vico. We’ve got a green light, and the clock is ticking.”

Victor blinked, snapping out of his reverie. They were in the airlock, sealed and ready to go. The light over the airlock hatch had turned green indicating that they were clear to exit.

Victor entered the command in the keypad. There was a hiss of air, and the exterior hatch slid open. Mono didn’t waste any time. He pulled himself through and pushed hard off the hull, launching himself into space, whooping and hollering as he flew. Victor launched after him, his lifeline unspooling like a single strand of spider’s web behind him. Victor’s thumb found the trigger on his suit, and the gas propulsion kicked in, gradually slowing his forward motion. He rotated his body back toward El Cavador and saw the Italian ship Vesuvio as it was maneuvering away.

Janda was leaving.

The other three ships of the Italian clan—also named after volcanoes in Italy: Stròmbuli, Mongibello, and Vulture—were a short distance away, waiting for Vesuvio. Soon they would accelerate and disappear.

Victor refused to watch them leave. Better to stay busy. “Let’s go, Mono. No time for flying.”

Victor hit the propulsion trigger and shot forward back to the ship, heading toward the side facing the asteroid, back where the old laser drill was housed. Several thick mooring cables extended from the ship down to their anchors on the asteroid. Victor moved past them, being careful not to entangle his lifeline. When he reached the drill, he stopped, brought up his feet, and turned on his boot magnets. The soles of his boots snapped to the surface, and Victor stood upright.

He and Mono got to work removing the panels on the drill and exposing its inner components. The stabilizer was a quick install. It was just a matter of bolting it in and plugging it in to one of the drill’s mod outlets. Most big machines allotted a certain number of modifications and had built-in power outlets and boards to accommodate them. Victor would have to reboot the drill before it recognized the stabilizer, but his lifeline carried hardware lines to the ship, and he could do it from here using his heads-up display. He blinked and called up the display. The helmet tracked his eyes, and Victor gave the necessary blink commands to reboot the drill. When it came back online, he saw on the display that it recognized the stabilizer. “We’re in business, Mono. Now for the retros.”

They replaced the drill paneling and flew up to the retrorockets. Victor looked to his left as he went. The Italians were gone. A small dot of white in the distance might have been their thrusters, but it could just as easily have been a star. Victor looked away. Back to work.

The installation on the retros was more difficult since their mod inputs were so dated, and Victor had to make an adapter from parts in his tool belt. Mono asked questions every step of the way. Why was Victor doing this or that? Why wouldn’t he try this instead?

“That’s how we do it, Mono. We make do with what we have. Corporate miners have stores of spare parts and resources on their ships. We have nothing. If something needs fixing, we pull out the junked parts and use our imagination. Now let me ask
you
a few questions.”

It was then that the instruction began. Victor passed the tools and pieces to Mono and asked him questions that didn’t explicitly tell Mono how to finish the installation but that pointed him in the right direction. That way, Mono was discovering the steps himself and seeing the logic behind everything. It was how Father had trained Victor, not only letting him get his hands on the repair, but getting his mind in it as well, teaching Victor how to think his way through a fix.

As Mono worked, Victor allowed himself another look out to space. There wasn’t a trace of thrusters now. Just blackness and stars and silence. Victor wasn’t a navigator, but he knew the big asteroids that were currently in this general vicinity, and he wondered where the Italians might be going. It wouldn’t be anywhere close, of course. In the Kuiper Belt it took several months to travel between asteroids. But even so, maybe Victor could guess.

He closed his eyes. It was pointless. There were thousands of objects in the Kuiper Belt. They could be heading anywhere. And what good did it do to know their destination anyway? That wouldn’t change anything. That wouldn’t bring Janda back. And yes, he wanted her back. He realized that now. He had never been physically affectionate with her in any way that wasn’t innocent. And yet now, when he couldn’t have her, he suddenly longed for her to be close to him.

He loved his cousin. Why hadn’t he seen that before? I’m exactly what the Council feared. Whatever they think of me now, I deserve it.

Mono was asking him a question. Victor returned to the task at hand. They finished the installation and then made their way down to the blast site on the asteroid.

In mining terms, the asteroid was a “lumpy,” or a rock rich in iron, cobalt, nickel, and other ferromagnetic minerals. Miners used scanners to look for concentrations of metal in the stone, which they called “lumps.” The more lumps or seams of metal they found, the higher the metal-to-stone ratio. No lumps meant the rock was a “slagger” or a “dumpy,” a worthless chunk of nothing.

Victor and Mono touched down on the asteroid. Their boot magnets were set to the highest setting, and the minerals in the rock were just enough to hold their feet to the surface. They walked to the lip of the mineshaft and looked down. The laser drill had burned a nice circle into the asteroid, though not with a continuous cutting motion. It actually fired a series of close, single bursts that perforated the rock to a predetermined depth, creating a tight ring of holes. Miners then broke the narrow walls between the holes with the shake-hammers, then pulled out the rock in chunks, building the shaft.

But this shaft wasn’t deep enough. The miners hadn’t yet reached the lump. When they did, they’d bring in the cooker tubes and refine and smelt the metal on-site, shaping it into cylinders that could be floated back up to the ship. It was tedious, hard labor, but if the lump was big enough, it was well worth the effort.

Victor found a spot on the inner wall of the shaft where the steam sensor could be installed, and then called up Marco. “We’re nearly ready to test this thing. Do you have a moment to come help us out?”

“On my way,” said Marco.

Victor thought it best if Marco was the one who installed the steam sensor. It was a simple procedure, and it would allow Marco to feel some ownership for the device. Besides, the miners would be the ones moving the steam sensor every time they moved the drill, so they needed to know how to install it at the blast site. It made sense for Marco, as team leader, to have the first go.

Marco didn’t come alone. Word had spread, and every miner in the family now gathered around the mineshaft, ready to watch.

“When ice melts it produces steam,” said Victor. “This sensor goes down in the shaft and detects steam. The moment the level of steam in the detritus goes up a certain amount, it tells the retros to ease off. Then, when the rock particulate goes up again and steam diminishes, the retros accelerate. Meanwhile, it’s sending adjustments to the drill, to keep it from waffling as the ship moves. So the beam always stays dead center on the blast site.”

“Won’t the heat from the laser burn the steam sensor?” asked Marco.

“That’s what the casing is for,” said Victor. “It’s pretty tough stuff. I’m thinking it will hold.”

“So no more ice dips?” asked one of the miners.

“It won’t rid the ship of all movement entirely,” said Victor. “There would still be some slight shifting since it will take a moment for the sensor to detect the steam, but the movement will be far more gentle, like slight waves instead of sudden, jarring jolts.”

Marco flew down into the hole and drilled the steam sensor into the inner rock wall as Victor suggested. When he returned, he ushered everyone back to a safe distance and had them lower their blast shields over their visors.

“It’s still a prototype,” Victor reminded them. “I can’t guarantee the beam won’t go off center. It’s bound to need some serious adjustments.”

“Shut up and drill,” said Marco.

Victor blinked the commands into his heads-up display, and the laser blasted down into the rock. Within seconds the laser hit ice, and the ship began to dip. The retros adjusted and the drill countered. It wasn’t perfect; the beam still wavered a bit.

“Needs tweaking,” said Victor. He called up the commands on his display. His eyes moved quickly, and he gave the appropriate blink commands, making the needed adjustments. Twenty seconds later the laser hit another pocket of ice. Steam issued from the hole, but the retros responded quickly and smoothly this time. The drill responded perfectly as well, without the slightest waver from side to side.

Everyone cheered. Mono was punching the sky, whistling.

Marco was smiling. “She handles light. Sweet.”

“So I’m on the right track,” said Victor. “Now I can get to work on the
real
version.”

“Does Concepción know about this?” asked Marco

“We didn’t want to tell anyone until we knew it worked. Now that it shows some promise, I’ll get my dad involved. He may have some improvements in mind.”

“I’ll take two,” said Marco, smiling. “One for the new drill as well.” He gave Victor an affectionate knuckle tap on the helmet.

When Victor and Mono finally returned to the ship, Mono was on an emotional high. “You’d be rich on Earth, Vico. Stinking rich. All these ideas of yours. They’d pay you millions of credits.”

“I’m seventeen, Mono. I’d be lucky to get an assembly-line job. No one would take me seriously. Out here we can do whatever we want. On Earth it’s different. Besides, you and I did this together. The stabilizer was both of us.”

“I helped with mindless welding and soldering in the workshop. The ideas were yours.”

“Your hands are way steadier than mine. You do the micro work far better than I do. Even Father can’t solder like you.”

Mono beamed.

When they floated out of the decompression chamber and back into the cargo bay, Isabella was waiting for him. She was Chilean, zogged by the family when Victor was just a kid and married to Mother’s second cousin. More importantly, she was very close with Janda.