Orson Scott Card - Earth Afire

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To Stefan Rudnicki, for giving life to words on paper and to those who call you friend

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many people helped make this novel happen, and they must be thanked.

Brett Rustand, a former Blackhawk helicopter pilot for the U.S. Army, helped us understand why rotor blades are more of a curse than a blessing and why combat birds in the future would be much better off without them. And his insight regarding sling-loading and tactical maneuvering helped shape our thinking as we developed the military hardware in these pages.

Special thanks also goes to artists Nick Greenwood and Giancarlo Caracuzzo, whose art gave life, color, and an eerie strangeness to the Formics, long before a page of this book was written.

Jordan D. White gave great counsel and encouragement when this story was still in its infancy. Thanks to Beth Meacham, our tireless editor at Tor, for her insight and wisdom. Kathleen Bellamy caught errors that you thankfully will never see.

Additional thanks goes to Melissa Frain, Aisha Cloud, Andy Mendelsohn, Rene Roberson, Karl Dunn, Rick Bryson, and everyone else at Tor and Erwin Penland who contributed in some way, large or small, to allow us to focus on writing.

Above all, thanks to our wives, Lauren and Kristine, and to our faithful children, for their endless patience, calm reassurance, and unflinching support. This is and always has been a story about family, the ones were born into, the ones circumstance throws upon us, and the ones formed in battle and blood. That is what the Formics do not understand, the micro community, the strength of the few, the deep-rooted attachment we feel to those we love. Somos familia. Somos uno. We are family. We are one.

And that is why we win.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

Bingwen

The librarian watched the vid on Bingwens monitor and frowned and said, This is your emergency, Bingwen? You pulled me away from my work to show me a spook vid about aliens? You should be studying for the exams. I have people waiting to use this computer. She pointed to the line of children by the door, all of them eager to get on a machine. Youre wasting my time and theirs.

Its not a spook vid, said Bingwen. Its real.

The librarian scoffed. There are dozens of stories about aliens on the nets, Bingwen. When it isnt sex, its aliens.

Bingwen nodded. He should have expected this. Of course the librarian wouldnt believe him. Something as serious as an alien threat would need to come from a credible source: the news or the government or other adults, not from an eight-year-old son of a rice farmer.

Now you have three seconds to get back to your studies, or Im giving your time to someone else.

Bingwen didnt argue. What good would it do? When adults became defiant in public, no amount of evidence, however irrefutable, would make them change their minds. He climbed back up into his chair and made two clicks on the keyboard. The vid of the alien disappeared, and a complex geometry proof appeared in its place. The librarian nodded, gave him one final disparaging look, then crossed the room back to her desk.

Bingwen pretended to busy himself with the proof until the librarian was occupied and her mind was elsewhere. Then he tapped the keypad and reopened the vid. The face of the alien stared back at him, frozen in place from when Bingwen had paused the vid. Had the librarian seen something he hadnt? Some glitch or inconsistency that flagged the vid as a fake? It was true that there were hundreds of such vids on the nets. Space duels, alien encounters, magical quests. Yet the mistakes and fakery of those were glaringly obvious. Comparing them to this one was like comparing a pencil sketch of fruit to the real thing.

No, this was real. No digital artist could create something this vivid and fluid and alive. The insectlike face had hair and musculature and blood vessels and eyes with depth. Eyes that seemed to bore right into Bingwens and signal the end to everything. Bingwen felt himself getting sick to his stomach, not from the grotesque, unnatural look of the thing, but from the realness of it. The clarity of it. The undeniable truth of it.

What is that?

Bingwen turned around in his seat and saw Hopper standing behind him in that awkward way that Hopper had, leaning to one side because of his twisted foot. Bingwen smiled. A friend. And not just any friend, but Hopper. Someone who would talk to Bingwen straight and tell him that of course its a fake, look, see right there, theres a glitch you missed, silly, theres proof that youre working yourself into a frenzy for no reason.

Come look at this, said Bingwen.

Hopper limped forward. Is that a spook vid?

What do you think?

Looks real. Whered you get it?

Yanyu sent it to me. I just checked my mail.

Yanyu was one secret that he and Hopper shared. She was a research assistant to an astrophysicist on Luna. Bingwen had met her on the nets a few months ago in a forum for Chinese grad students looking to improve their English. Bingwen had tried other forums in the past, logging in as himself and showing no pretense. But as soon as he divulged his age, forum administrators always kicked him out and blocked his access.

Then he had found the forum for grad students. And rather than be himself, Bingwen had pretended to be a second-year grad student in Guangzhou studying agriculture, the only subject Bingwen thought he could speak to with any believable degree of competency. He and Yanyu had become friends almost immediately, e-mailing and instant messaging each other in English several times a week. Bingwen always felt a pang of guilt whenever they communicated; he was, after all, maintaining a lie. Whats worse, now that he knew Yanyu well, he was fairly certain she was the type of person who would have befriended him anyway, whether he was eight years old or not.

But what could he say now? Hey, Yanyu. Guess what? Im really a kid. Isnt that hilarious? What shall we talk about today?

No. That would be like admitting he was one of those pervs who pretended to be young boys so they could chat with teenage girls.

What did she say in her message? asked Hopper.

Only that she had found this vid and that she had to talk to me about it.

Did you message her?

She didnt respond. Its sleep time on Luna. Our schedules only cross in the morning.

Hopper nodded at the screen. Play it.

Bingwen tapped the keyboard, and the vid began from the beginning.

On screen a figure emerged from a hatch on the side of a ship. Its pressure suit had an extra set of arms. A tube with plenty of slack extended from the figures spacesuit and snaked its way down into the hatch, presumably carrying oxygen and heat and whatever else the creature needed to sustain itself in the cold vacuum of space.

For a moment the creature didnt move. It stayed there, sprawled on the side of the ship, stomach down, arms and legs out like an insect clinging to a wall. Then, slowly, it lifted its head and took in its surroundings. Whoever was filming was about twenty meters away, and the front of the creatures helmet was still in shadow, concealing its face.