Earth Afire (The First Formic War 2)

"So teach him," Mother had said.

"I'm trying," Father had said. "That's the problem. I spend half my day trying to drill a simple principle into the kid's head, and the other half of the day I'm redoing what he did wrong. I'm losing time. And all the while, this ship is continuing to break down. I've got a backlog of work orders now, some of them critical. This kid isn't helping. He's dragging me down. I do more without him. I need Victor."

And so on special repairs--ones that needed a second person to hold a pipe while Father tightened it, or ones that needed a tiny child's hand to reach into a small space and remove something--Victor had tagged along. At first these had been exceptions, but slowly, over time, Father had become more and more dependent on Victor until Victor was going with Father more than he was going to class. And then eventually, without anyone acknowledging it aloud, Victor was going with Father every day.

So perhaps Mother had taught all the children about China, and Victor had simply been elsewhere on the ship at the time, crawling through an HVAC duct or squeezed into an engine room or packed tight beside a water heater, making some repair to keep the ship moving and the family alive.

"I didn't mean to offend you, Vico," said Imala. "I was just surprised you had never heard of China before."

She was behind him, hovering there, which of course only made him blush again. He should have apologized earlier. It should be him instigating this conversation. He turned around, not caring now if she saw how embarrassed he was. "I've heard of China, Imala. I just didn't know anything about it. I shouldn't have snapped at you. I was out of line. I'm sorry." He sighed. "I just can't help but feel like an idiot. I should know all of these things about Earth, but I don't."

"You're space born, Vico. Earth has never been your world. You grew up on a ship in the Kuiper Belt. You think I know anything about the Kuiper Belt? I couldn't tell you two facts about the Deep." She smiled. "Let's help each other. Isn't that how a free-miner family works? Everybody has their expertise, and you work together, sharing skills and information. Stronger together than alone, and all that?"

He smiled. It should be him making this argument. He should be the peacemaker. "That's the gist of it, yes. Although if we were a real miner family, we'd also be yelling at each other and threatening to kill each other. You'd be calling me a pig-faced rockhead, and I'd be crying and saying how I wished I'd never been born in this family."

She held her smile. "Something tells me your family isn't like that."

He shrugged. "Not usually, but we have our moments. It wasn't a very big ship. When you have that many people in that tight of a space, everyone's faults are glaringly obvious. Believe me, we had our disagreements."

In truth, El Cavador had never felt tight or close-quartered to Victor. It was simply the life he knew. People crammed in together to sleep. That's what you did. You stacked four or five or even six hammocks on top of each other--so close together that turning over in your sleep would likely brush your hammock up against someone else's. It wasn't always comfortable--there were smells and other annoyances occasionally--but that's how you lived.

Now that Victor had spent time on Luna, now that he understood Imala's world and all the space it afforded, he realized how confining this shuttle must seem to her. It made her sacrifice to accompany him all the more selfless and significant. She was doing this for him, suffering for him, and he was acting ungrateful.

"Let's dock at the depot," he said. "A few umbilicals have opened up. Let's go inside and stretch our legs. We'll take a holopad and read the feeds in there for a while."

"They're charging ridiculous docking prices," said Imala. "They bill you by the hour. We don't have that kind of money."

"I do," said Victor.

"Yeah, money for your education."

"Which I'm not likely to get. Please, Imala, let me buy you lunch. We could both use a breather."

They docked and floated down the umbilical to the cafe. There were few people inside. Victor launched toward a table near the back, away from everyone else, and strapped himself in. Imala followed, and soon a waitress floated over.

Victor looked at the menu, but then returned it to the waitress. "Would you do a specialty order?"

"Depends," said the waitress.

"White rice, black beans, shredded beef, fried platanos, and an arepa with butter."

The waitress looked up from her wrist pad. "I don't know what platanos and arepas are, so we probably don't have those."

Victor wasn't sure what the English word was, so he looked it up on the holo. "Platanos are plantains. You know, like giant bananas, only starchier?"

The waitress looked annoyed. "I know what a plantain is."

"Do you have any?"

"I'll have to check. What's an arepa?"

He had been looking it up. It wasn't in the dictionary, which meant it was unique to Venezuela and had no English equivalent. "It's a round corn patty, maybe four to five inches across. Really thick, not thin like a tortilla. They're not hard to make."

"They are if you've never made one before. I'll have to check." She turned to Imala. "Let's hope you're easier."

"I'll have the same as him," said Imala.

The waitress sighed. "Of course you will."