"Your idea."
"I agree that gravity focusing is the future of the company, but not in its present state, not as a glaser. It's too unstable. The subsequent gravity field is too unpredictable."
"We've been working sixteen-hour days for almost two years, nearly getting ourselves killed to demonstrate this glaser for you, Lem, and suddenly you're not interested?"
"On the contrary. I'm very interested. But I think you'll agree our current model needs some work. I'm merely making a suggestion on how to improve it. If it's a terrible idea, you'll tell me. You're the engineer, not me."
"What's the idea?"
"Two glaserlike devices connected to each other like a bola that can be placed on opposite sides of an asteroid. Like earmuffs. They operate under the same principle, but their gravity fields counter each other, so the asteroid is still ripped to shreds by tidal forces, but the gravity field doesn't grow to unstable levels. It's far more contained. The rock is still ground to powder, but nobody dies."
"I'll put a team on it," said Benyawe. "I'll oversee it personally. It's a good idea. It's worth exploring."
Lem was surprised. He had expected a polite, yet slightly condescending lecture on how the idea was appreciated but far too impractical, a verbal pat on the head that essentially said, "Why don't you leave the thinking to the grown-ups?" After all, how could he presume to think of something they hadn't? They were the most brilliant minds in their fields. He wasn't a scientist; he didn't know physics, not to their level anyway. Yet Benyawe was going with the idea. Or was she merely placating him? No. It was a good idea. It did have promise. And isn't this what entrepreneurs do? They have ideas, and they call on people who can make them happen. Isn't that what Father had done?
Lem left the dining hall with a spring in his step, which was easy in zero gravity. Everything was finally working out. It was all coming together. He had four cargo bays nearly full of cylinders as a gift for the Board. He had successful tests with the glaser. Podolski was handling the snafu with El Cavador, so that would go away. And now, if Benyawe and her team pulled through, he might return to Luna with plans for the next generation glaser, an idea for which he could largely take credit.
Lem smiled.
He had gone through a rocky patch, yes, but the old Lem Jukes was back. He stopped and checked his reflection in one of the shiny metallic columns positioned throughout the ship. He hadn't shaved in two days, but he liked the stubbly facial hair. It was that rugged, devil-may-care look that women he had known seemed to swoon over. He put his shoulders back and checked his profile. It was the look of a leader, a face that demanded to be followed. He had Father to thank for that.
He straightened his jacket, checked his other profile, and continued on. He hadn't gone far when he passed a female crewmember--someone who worked in the kitchen by the looks of her. He gave her his best smile, and the woman nodded and blushed, continuing on her way. So he still had it. After almost two years out of the game, he hadn't lost his appeal.
He took the tube to his quarters and wondered whom he should call on when he returned to Earth. It probably wasn't too early to think about that. If he achieved a more prominent place in the company as he expected, it would pay to have a woman at his side. Not necessarily a wife, per se. But someone who could accompany him to corporate engagements and charm members of the Board.
Lem put on some music, took off his greaves and vambraces, and floated over to his computer terminal. There was no shortage of beautiful women in his contact list: women of enterprise, medicine, science, entertainment, even a Danish countess, though Lem had found her rather self-absorbed eventually. He clicked through their photos and smiled at the memories. Many had progressed to a third or fourth date, but rarely had they gone any further. Lem traveled too extensively and worked too heavily.
The most recent entry was over two years old, he noticed, but that was to be expected: Lem had been in space. Other entries were as old as seven or eight years, which surprised him. Had it been that long? Worse still, he hadn't maintained contact with any of them, even though he had promised to stay in touch with them all. He suddenly realized how foolish he would sound trying to contact them when he returned. Hey, remember me? We had dinner seven years ago and I was completely charming and then never called. Shall I pick you up at eight?
How classy. Lem allowed his eyes to readjust until he saw his own reflection on the terminal screen. He was kidding himself, and he knew it. He pushed off the desk, found his razor, and shaved. Stubbly hair indeed.
He was towel-drying his face when an alert popped up in the holospace above his desk. Lem waved his hand through it, authorizing the message. Chubs's head appeared in the holospace. "We're getting a high-bandwidth radio message over an emergency frequency, Lem. And you won't believe who it is."
"Someone we know?"
"El Cavador," said Chubs.
Lem froze. El Cavador? How was that possible? "I thought the radio was down. I thought we had interference." They hadn't received any messages for days now.
"The interference mostly affects long-range transmissions," said Chubs. "If a transmission is close enough and strong enough, it gets through apparently."
"How close is El Cavador?"
"A day behind us. Matching our speed."
Lem swore under his breath. A single day. They were practically on top of them. Well that was just perfect.
"It's worse than you think," said Chubs. "They're asking for you personally."
Lem closed his eyes. Everything was coming apart again. Podolski couldn't have wiped El Cavador already. It was too soon. The free miners had been tracking him. They must have read Lem's files and now they're coming to name their price for the files' safe return.
"What do I tell them?" asked Chubs.
For a moment, Lem considered not taking the transmission. If he ignored them, maybe they'd go away. But no, if extortion was their agenda, they'd only go somewhere else and sell the data, which would be worse. "Put it through," said Lem. "But I want you watching and recording this holo, Chubs. You alone."
"Understood."
Chubs winked out, and the woman's head appeared in the holospace. She looked exactly as she had months ago: old and commanding and made of steel.
Lem checked his collar then leaned his face into the holospace so that she could see him as well. There would be a time delay in their conversation, and the length of the delay would depend entirely on how close the two ships were.
The old woman spoke first. "Mr. Jukes, I had hoped that our paths would never cross again, but circumstances demand it. I am Concepcion Querales, captain of El Cavador. We are contacting you because we require your assistance. Weigh Station Four has been destroyed. I am sending you all the files I have to prove this fact to you and your crew."
Lem said nothing. If files were coming, he knew Chubs would immediately start combing through them. But Weigh Station Four destroyed? Impossible. Lem had left there, what, less than a week ago? This was a trick. They were plotting something.
As if Concepcion could read his mind, she said, "Everything I am about to tell you will sound ludicrous to you, and you will no doubt think this some ploy on our part to seek revenge for your attack on our ship. I assure you this is not the case. I am contacting you, Mr. Jukes, because we are desperate for your assistance. An alien ship has entered our solar system. Among the data I have sent you are its trajectory and coordinates. You can look for yourself and see that it's there. This ship is already responsible for the deaths of an estimated six hundred people, including everyone aboard Weigh Station Four and three members of my own crew. Among the data I've sent you is a video of the alien species. This is not a joke, Mr. Jukes, and I would not be contacting you unless we were in dire need. I am sending you rendezvous coordinates. A WU-HU vessel in the area has agreed to join us in an attack on the ship six days from now. Our hope is that you will add your ship's strength to ours. The alien ship continues to decelerate, and if we all accelerate and c
hange our course slightly, we can intercept it and save countless lives, perhaps Earth itself. I will give you and your crew three hours to review our data and respond. Please acknowledge message received and intention to respond."
Lem didn't move, trying to keep his face free of any surprise. "Message received. We will respond. Makarhu out."
He pulled his face out of the holospace. Chubs's head appeared almost instantly in front of him. "We got their files. I thought it might be loaded with a virus, but it's clean. The navigator ran the coordinates she gave us for the ship."
"And?"
Chubs shook his head. "You better get up here, Lem. There's something out there. Something like I've never seen."
*
Lem and Chubs spent two hours going over all of the data from El Cavador. When they finished, they immediately went looking for Benyawe. They found her down in the engineering room with six other engineers, drawing rudimentary designs on the wall of Lem's new idea for the glaser.
Benyawe smiled when Lem entered. "Mr. Jukes, we were just discussing this bola-shaped design of yours. Perhaps you could explain to the engineers what you explained earlier to me?"
"Some other time," said Lem. He touched a button, made the drawings disappear, and turned to the gathered engineers. "If you'll excuse us, we need a moment with Dr. Benyawe in private on an urgent matter." He gestured to the door. The engineers exchanged glances, startled, then quickly gathered their things and left. Chubs locked the hatch behind them.
"You've got my attention," said Benyawe, with a look of concern.
Lem first played the holo message from Concepcion. Then he played the vids from El Cavador on the wall. Benyawe watched everything in silence, showing little reaction, like a calculating scientific observer. She didn't even jump as Lem had when the hormiga showed itself on the surface of the pod. When the vids were over, she asked specific questions, and Chubs answered by putting the rest of the data from El Cavador up on the wall. Benyawe was silent as she read through it, clicking through the various windows, checking the math, rechecking the coordinates.
When she finished, she turned and faced Lem. "We can't call them hormigas. That's Spanish for 'ant.' The scientific community would never approve of a living language classification. It needs to be the Latin. Formic. At least that's my professional recommendation."
Lem blinked. "Who the hell cares what we call them? I've just showed you a damn alien species, Benyawe. What difference does their name make?"
"All the difference in the world," said Benyawe. "This is the greatest scientific discovery in our history, Lem. This changes everything. This answers the most fundamental scientific question out there. Are we alone in the universe? The answer, obviously, is no, we are not. And further, we're not the most technologically advanced species, either, which will sting every human's pride, I suspect."
"I am not interested in science, Doctor," said Lem. "Your scientific mind might be tickled pink at this discovery, but my mind, my logical, practical, reasoning mind, is peeing in his mind pants. There is an alien ship out there rocketing toward Earth with unimaginable firepower and likely malicious intent. Now, if there is any chance whatsoever that this is a hoax and Chubs and I are gullible idiots, tell me now."
"No," said Benyawe. "This is legitimate. The evidence is incontrovertible."
"No doubt in your mind?" asked Chubs.
"None. We need to relay this information to Earth immediately."
"We can't," said Chubs. "Long-range comm is currently shot because of the interference."
"Even the laserline?" asked Benyawe.
"The transmitter's out," said Chubs. "El Cavador believes the venting of the alien ship may have damaged external sensors as far away as a million kilometers. We hadn't tried sending a laserline in a while or we would have noticed the problem sooner."
"Now you know what we know," said Lem. "How do we respond to El Cavador? I've already gotten Chubs's opinion. Now I want yours."
Benyawe looked surprised by the question. "We tell them we'll fight, of course. We tell them we'll be at their side, giving them everything we've got. We have to stop that ship, Lem. Destroy it if we can, though I suspect their captain is correct. Crippling it is the best we can hope for. But as for our answer, it must be a resounding and absolute yes. The Makarhu will join the fight."
Lem nodded gravely. "That's what I thought you would say."
"You disagree?" asked Benyawe. "It's my vote against both of yours?"
"No," said Lem. "The decision's unanimous. We attack these bastards."
CHAPTER 18
Formics
Two heads floated in the holospace in front of Concepcion: Lem Jukes and Captain Doashang of the WU-HU Corporation. Their ships were still several days away from intercepting the Formic ship, but they were now close enough to each other that a three-way conference was possible without much interference. Concepcion, despite feeling exhausted and suffering through a flare-up of arthritis in more places than she cared to count, put her best face forward in the holospace. Let them see my eyes and know that we as a family will not fail them.
There were introductions. Doashang seemed a most capable captain. Lem Jukes had an air of his father about him, which was to say confident in a way that was both alluring and off-putting at the same time. He was in his mid-thirties if Concepcion had to guess. A child, really. Less than half her age. Goodness she was old. She had still been on Earth when she was that age, working in her father's bodega in Barinitas, Venezuela, convinced that she would be stuck there in the heat and dust for the rest of her life, selling cold bottles of malta to the banana farmers as they came down from the fields.
How wrong she had been.
After the introductions, Lem wasted no time getting into tactics. He had surprised Concepcion by accepting the call to help so readily, and Concepcion had assumed that it was Lem's conquering spirit--his need to subdue and bully--that had motivated him. But now, as he offered up ideas and showed concern for the safety of the other ships as well as his own, it occurred to Concepcion that perhaps Lem's compulsion to help might be driven by a genuine desire to protect Earth. That put Concepcion's mind at ease. Selfish motivations led to abandonment and betrayal in a fight, and if any of them hoped to survive, they would have to trust each other implicitly.
"If the pod took direct hits from the Italians and suffered no visible damage," Lem said, "we can only assume that the main ship has the same shielding."
"We won't win this with lasers," said Concepcion. "The moment we open fire, the Formics will know we're there. The instant they're aware of us, we're in trouble. They could vent their weapons like they did near Weigh Station Four, and we wouldn't know what hit us."
"Then how will we attack them?" asked Doashang.
"The Italians couldn't damage the pod with laser fire," said Concepcion, "but a few of my men were able to land on the pod and cripple its sensors and equipment with tools."
"There are no sensors or equipment on the surface of the Formic ship," said Lem. "It's smooth. There's nothing to attack. Besides, it's moving at a hundred and ten thousand kilometers per hour. Are you suggesting we put men on the surface of that ship at that speed?"
"That's exactly what I'm suggesting," said Concepcion. "The only way we know of to penetrate their shielding is to be on the surface, right there on the hull. We know the surface of the pod was magnetic, so there is a high probability that the surface of the main ship will be as well. If our men are equipped with magnets, they could crawl on the surface of the ship and plant explosives. We could set these on a timer with enough of a delay to get our men back to our ships and to move the ships a safe distance away. If we're lucky, we can get in and out without the Formics even knowing we were there."
"That avoids a firefight," said Doashang. "I like that aspect."
"What if the hull is so strong that explosives don't damage it?" asked Lem. "We don't know what material the ship is made of. It could be impervious to attack. It could be ten
meters thick."
"If that's the case, then nothing we do can stop them," said Concepcion. "But we won't know that until we at least try. And if the hull is impenetrable, then we've learned something valuable. That's intelligence that will help whoever fights them next."
"I'm assuming you have explosives," said Lem.
"I'm assuming all of us have explosives," said Concepcion. "Don't you occasionally use explosives to break up surface rock or open up a shaft?"
"I'll have to check with our quartermaster," said Lem.
"Aren't you outfitted?" asked Concepcion. "You very forcefully took our dig site. I assumed you wanted it for mining purposes. What were you going to do with it if not extract minerals?"
There was an awkward silence. Doashang looked back and forth between them.
"I'll check with our quartermaster," Lem repeated.
"You do that," said Concepcion. "Because the more explosives we plant, the more damage we'll obviously inflict."
"How would this work?" asked Doashang. "How do we safely get men onto the surface of the ship after we match its speed?"
"We make ziplines using mooring cables," said Concepcion. "Then we fire cables with magnetic anchors down to its surface. When the cables are secure, our miners clip onto the line and fly down to the surface with their propulsion packs. They can't be wearing lifelines because we can't fly that close to the Formic ship. But they could wear portable oxygen and batteries. They plant the explosives, crawl back to the mooring cable, then they either fly back up or we pull them up with the winch."
"That's a lot of moving parts," said Doashang. "A thousand things could go wrong. What if the magnetic anchor hitting the ship alerts them? Or what if the surface of the ship can detect movement?"
"Possibilities," said Concepcion. "But unlikely. When we attacked the pod, the Formics only surfaced after we had damaged their equipment. We literally crashed into the side of them and spent several minutes on their hull before they responded."
She was silent then, letting them mull it over.
Finally Doashang said, "I don't have a better idea. And I agree that stealth is best. We don't have a winch on our ship, though. So we'd be no help with the cables."