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?”
