Earth Awakens (The First Formic War) (31 page)

“What’s a nonprofit?”

“A charity. A group of people who help for free. In this case, doctors. There are some charities in the U.S., Europe, South America, two in Africa. Give me a few hours to contact them. We can probably find several who speak Chinese. In the meantime, we need equipment for the transmissions and numbers for the uplinks.”

“I’ve seen some holo equipment here on site,” said Bingwen. “I’ll work on that.”

“Should I speak to someone in charge?” asked Kim. “A commanding officer? Get the military’s help?”

“I don’t even know who that is. I’ll ask around. If we can’t find out who to ask, I say we do it without permission and ask for forgiveness later.”

He could hear the smile in her voice. “Bucking authority for the good of the people? I think Mazer is starting to rub off on you, Bingwen.”

Bingwen beamed. It was the greatest compliment anyone had ever given him.

CHAPTER 15

Reunion

FROM: [email protected]

TO: [email protected]

Re: El Cavador

Rena Delgado and others from El Cavador are no longer here. They left almost two months ago aboard a salvage ship named Gagak. Captained by a Somali named Arjuna. Sorry. No additional information.

The message was projected on the wall-screen in Lem Juke’s office, and Victor read it a second time as a mix of emotions welled up inside him. Mother? On a salvage ship? Victor couldn’t imagine it. Why would she get on a salvage ship? And with a Somali, no less.

“If she got on a ship, I’m sure she had a good reason,” said Imala. She and Lem were standing behind him. They had all seen the message.

Victor turned to face her. “You don’t know Somalis, Imala. They’re vultures. Pirates. They strip derelict ships to the bone. Sometimes with the crews still inside them. They don’t care. They rape, kill, and
then
they’ll rob you.”

“That can’t be who these Somalis are,” said Imala. “It says she left on a salvage ship. If she had been abducted, the message would have said so. I take this to mean she went voluntarily.”

“Imala’s right,” said Lem. “If this Gagak were a crew of vultures, they never would have reached the outpost. The WU-HU defenses would have pulverized them before they got within ten klicks of the place.”

Victor glowered. “What do you know about it?”

“Plenty. WU-HU is a competitor. We know their operations inside and out. Those outposts are fortresses. They’re engineered to fend off pirates. And speaking of which, not all Somalis
are
pirates. There are crow crews as well. They live by salvage law. They hate vultures as much as anyone, maybe even more so because vultures give Somalis such a bad rep.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Victor. “Why would they leave? They would have been safer at an outpost.”

“Apparently your mother didn’t think so,” said Imala. “If she left, she had reasons. She had women and children with her. Maybe these Somalis offered them passage somewhere.”

“Yes, but where? My mother and aunts have nowhere to go.”

“We have the name of the ship,” said Lem. “We’ll find it and contact it directly.”

“They’re a salvage ship,” said Victor. “They’re not going to have an account with Luna. They won’t likely be in the network. We may not be able to reach them until they dock somewhere. That could be months from now. And if they do their trade off the market, as most salvage crews do, they won’t register when they dock. Which means we may never find them.”

“Leave that to me,” said Lem.

By late the following day, Lem had located them. He approached Victor in the warehouse and handed him the coordinates on a portable datascreen. “They’re near an asteroid called Themis in the outer rim of the Belt.”

Victor flipped up his welding visor and stared at the datascreen. “But … how did you find them?”

“Black magic. You’ll also be happy to know they’re on the network. And since we know they’re near Themis, we know their relay route. There are probably a dozen to twenty stations between them and us, so at best it will take several hours to get a response, and that’s assuming all the switchboards are operational and the laserline gets through clean. But hey, it doesn’t hurt to try.”

Victor looked down at the datascreen and then back up at Lem, feeling sheepish. “I can’t afford to send a message through that many relays. I have some money that my family gave me, but it’s probably not enough.”

“I’ll cover the expense,” said Lem. “Whatever it is, and for however long you talk. I owe you that much.”

“Thank you.”

They found an empty office in the warehouse filled mostly with boxes of junk and broken equipment. Lem cleared the desk with his arm, knocking most of the items onto the floor and kicking up a cloud of dust. Then he set down the terminal and made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “It’s not a luxury suite, but it’s private at least. And maybe the only quiet place in the warehouse. I won’t tell anyone where you are. I set up a laserline account in your name. It’s there onscreen. Take your time.”

Lem began to leave.

“Why do this?” asked Victor. “Why help me?”

Lem paused at the door. “I’m not a monster, Victor. I know I may appear that way to you after everything I’ve done, but I’m trying to make things right here. Besides, I have a mother, too, you know.”

“Here on Luna?”

“No. Home. In Finland.”

“Are you close?”

Lem laughed sadly. “I haven’t spoken to her since I was five years old. She abandoned me and my father. She’s a despicable person. I can’t stand the thought of her. But I see what you feel for your mother, and I envy that.”

He walked out and closed the door behind him.

Victor shook out the contents of a crate, turned it over to use it as a seat, sat down in front of the terminal, and began to type.

*   *   *

Just outside the women’s restroom on the Gagak
,
Rena Delgado rubbed her eyes with her thumb and index finger and tried to stay calm. Julexi and Sabad had ambushed her in the corridor as Rena had left the restroom, and now she was getting an earful.

“We’re not engineers, Rena,” said Julexi. “We can fix things here and there, but we can’t turn this ship into a digger. It’s ludicrous.”

The restroom was at the end of the corridor, so Rena had a wall behind her. She couldn’t retreat that way. Julexi and Sabad had her boxed in.

The two women made an unlikely pair. Julexi had lost her husband Pitoso on El Cavador
,
and she had argued and questioned every one of Rena’s proposals and decisions ever since. Sabad, Arjuna’s youngest wife, despised everyone from El Cavador. How these women had formed an alliance, Rena could only guess. What was the saying? The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

“Your stay here was intended to be temporary, Rena,” said Sabad. “Arjuna, in his kindness, took you in for a time because he pitied you. It was not an invitation to alter our entire operations. What gives you the right to come onto
our
ship and tell us we’re doing everything wrong? Do you think yourself so much better than us?”

Arjuna took us in because he needed laborers, Rena wanted to say. Which is what we’ve been doing since we got here—working our fingers to the bone, which is more than I can say for you, Sabad, whose only occupation seems to be whining, backbiting, and flirting with the other men on your husband’s ship.

But aloud Rena said, “No one is implying that your operations are flawed, Sabad.”

“Then what are you implying? That our work is beneath you? That the salvage trade is for a lower class? Is that what we are to you, Lady of El Cavador? A lower class? Because we are Somali?”

Rena sighed inside. Why did Arjuna persist in calling her Lady of El Cavador? Didn’t he see that it angered Sabad?

Of course he saw, thought Rena. That was probably the reason why he was doing it. To annoy her, a way of publicly poking her with a stick. Everyone saw how Sabad would move around the ship half naked, lingering in the engine rooms where the men would ogle at her healthy breasts. It wasn’t uncommon for the Somali women to go bare chested, but Sabad put hers on parade, twisting her hips as she moved through the room, so her breasts would sway back and forth in zero gravity like an invitation. Arjuna had told her to cover herself on more than one occasion, but Sabad had merely found ways to avoid him.

Is that what you’re doing, Arjuna? Rena wondered. Annoying your wife through me?

“There is no caste system on this ship,” said Rena. “There are two tribes. Ours and yours. We are equals.”

“We are not equals,” said Sabad. “This is
our
ship. You are guests here.”

“We have formed a partnership,” said Rena. “Making the Gagak a mining ship is Arjuna’s wish as well.”

“It is a false partnership,” said Sabad. “You cannot form an alliance without a male leader among you.”

“Our male leader is on Luna,” Rena said—although in truth she wasn’t sure if that was accurate. Once the ship had logged in to the network, Rena had trolled through the news feeds until she had found Victor’s name. It hadn’t been difficult. When the invasion began, several news outlets had recalled the video a young free miner named Victor Delgado had uploaded onto the nets and that everyone had dismissed as phony. Rena had done some additional digging and learned that Victor had been arrested by the Lunar Trade Department for various ridiculous charges involving his flight into Luna. He had escaped custody, however, and that’s where the trail ended. Maybe he was on Luna, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he had gone to Earth. Maybe he had tried to return to the K Belt. Maybe he was trying to find El Cavador. She wished she knew.

But for the moment, what she did know was enough: He was alive. He had made it to Luna. He had done the impossible.

It struck her as ironic that he had made such a sacrifice only to have the world reject him. All that way, all that suffering, and what does Earth do? How do they thank him? By throwing him into prison. It was a wonder more families hadn’t fled the insanity of Earth and taken up the mining trade.

“If your son is on Luna, why doesn’t he talk to us?” said Sabad. “How do we know this alliance is his wish? Are we to take your word on it?”

“Our Council of women met and voted on the matter,” said Rena. “Victor is our chief in absentia. The Council makes decisions in his absence.”

“First off,” said Julexi. “Victor is not our chief. I don’t care if he’s the oldest male or not. That doesn’t make him our leader in our culture. Second, the Council’s vote is meaningless. We’re not a true council. We haven’t been a true council since the Incident.”

She meant the destruction of El Cavador and the death of all the men. That’s the name Julexi had given it. The Incident. Rena found the word offensive. It sounded so insignificant. Uncle Jorge having too much to drink at a birthday party. That was an incident. Victor as an infant peeing into the air during his baptism and unleashing droplets of urine throughout the cargo bay. That was an incident. But the death of half of their crew, the shattering of their livelihood, the orphaning of their children, the widowing of the wives, the ripping in half of their families, was not an incident. It was far more than that.

“Our true Council included our husbands, Rena,” said Julexi. “Sensible men. And if they were here, they would laugh this idea of yours to scorn. It never would have been put to a vote. The group you call the Council now is a grieving pack of terrified widows who will jump at the chance at any return to normalcy. What’s that, you say? A mining ship? Just like El Cavador? Why yes, let’s do that! Even though they have no idea how to actually pull it off.”

“Our women are making intelligent, informed decisions, Julexi. We discussed the challenges in detail. We debated the issue five times. Everyone’s voice was heard, including yours. This was not an emotional decision. It was a financial one. We are much more likely to achieve the independence we want if we make this move. I honestly think it’s in our best interest as women and in the best interest of our children.”

Julexi threw her hand up in exasperation. “That’s what you always say. It’s in the best interest of
our
children.” She pointed in the direction of the cargo hold. “None of those little ones are your children, Rena. Not one. They’re ours. So I don’t see why you think you have the right to speak on their behalf.”

Rena forced herself to smile and keep her voice calm. “Forgive me, Julexi. I misspoke. I say ‘our’ because that’s what I’ve always said, ever since Victor was born. But you have kindly reminded me that my inability to have more children after Victor removes my right to use that possessive pronoun once Victor is gone. I assure you, hereafter, I will say ‘your.’”

Julexi folded her arms. “Now you’re being snide.”

“No, Julexi, I am apologizing. Whether you accept it or not, is your decision. As for the Council, nothing would make me happier than to have Pitoso and Segundo and the others back among us. But that’s not going to happen. As much as we want it to, it’s not. That leaves us with two options. We can be paralyzed by our husbands’ absence and make no decisions whatsoever and float through the rest of our existence. Or we can adapt to this and still function as a family, and take control of where we’re going. I prefer the latter option. And I strongly suspect that our husbands would prefer that, too.”

Julexi burst into tears.

Rena had to bite her tongue. This is what Julexi always did when her arguments fell apart. The moment she realized that logic was against her, she resorted to her one defense mechanism. Tears.

She knew, of course, that this would silence any argument. All she had to do was open the floodgates and suddenly anyone who had held a contradictory position now found themselves taking Julexi into their arms and whispering words of comfort.

Rena had fallen for it the first few times Julexi had done it, especially shortly after losing the men. When any one of them would cry, Rena would swoop in and embrace them and hold them close. She felt like crying herself, and mourning together was one way to cope.