Earth Afire (The First Formic War 2)

She floated back toward the kitchen.

"A family dish?" asked Imala.

"The unofficial plate of Venezuela, where my family's from. We ate it all the time on the ship, although truth be told, we usually ate it without the shredded beef and plantains. Both were practically nonexistent in the Kuiper Belt. Our diet was more about quantity than quality. We ate whatever was cheapest and would last the longest. Sometimes we'd eat nothing but rice and beans for weeks on end. Even your sweat starts smelling like beans after a while."

Imala scrunched up her nose.

"Sorry," said Victor. "Not good table conversation."

She smiled. "You miss your family."

Victor was folding his napkin into odd little shapes just to keep his hands busy. "Yes. I do. Very much."

"We'll find them, Vico. We'll get you back to them."

Victor sighed and looked up at her. "I'm not sure that we should now."

"That's why we came out here, isn't it?"

"I'm saying everything is different now, Imala. Everything we hoped and prayed wouldn't happen is happening. I never thought it would come this far. I thought I'd give the world the evidence, and they would respond, they would do something to prevent it from getting this bad."

"That's not your fault, Victor. You gave the evidence. The world didn't listen. You can't blame yourself for that."

"Well I do, Imala. If I had done more, if I had--"

"What else could you have done? You were hurt, barely alive. Your body had wasted away to nothing. You were under arrest. You couldn't go anywhere. All things considered, I'd say you did a bang-up job."

"If it had been someone else, the world would've listened. If my father had come--"

"Your father wouldn't have survived the trip. No one would have found the data cube. Or if they did, they would've thrown it away. The world would've been caught totally unawares."

"Their current situation isn't any better."

"Yes, it is," said Imala. "We don't know all the ways people have been preparing, Vico. We can't see everything. I can assure you. There are armies out there that have been training for this because of you."

"Yes, and I want to join them."

She looked surprised. "You want to join the military?"

He felt stung by her obvious disbelief again. "I'm eighteen, Imala. I'm old enough to enlist."

"Yes, but with what army? You're not a citizen of any country, Vico. You're space born. No one will take you."

"This is a fight against the human race, Imala. Last time I checked I was human."

She shook her head. "It's not that black and white, Vico. Earth doesn't work that way."

"Well why not? Why does everything have to be so constricted by regulations? It drives me insane. If there's a problem, you fix it. You don't set up fences around it and make rules about how it should be fixed. You fix it. Maybe that requires a little bit of ingenuity and doing it a way that's never been done before, but so what. If the problem's solved, why does it matter how it's done?"

"This isn't the Kuiper Belt, Vico. You can't do whatever you want and expect people to agree to your terms. There has to be an order to things."

"And look what that order has done for Earth, Imala. Look at the situation now. Stagnation. Infighting. Disagreements. Inaction. And thousands of people dead on the sidelines."

"So what, you think you can waltz in, join the military, and fix the problem?"

"I'm not useless, you know. I have skills I can offer."

"Of course you do. But that doesn't change the fact that the system is what it is. I doubt NATO would even take you."