Earth Awakens (The First Formic War 3)

"There was a volunteer evacuation three weeks ago," said Li. "Most people left then. Those who stayed behind had nowhere to go in the north, or maybe they had never been anywhere else and were afraid to leave. Either way, it's mandatory now. That's who you saw at the station. The stragglers. The foolish. Let that be a lesson as well. When an order is given, you better obey it."

"Permission to pose a question, Lieutenant Li, sir?"

"Ask."

&nb

sp; "Will the trains keep running until everyone is safe?"

"Some will get out. Most won't. The trains will stop soon. We can't afford to let them become contaminated. The people left behind will have to make do." He smiled at Bingwen. "So you see, I saved your friends' lives. I'm not as cruel as you think."

You put them on a train as you were ordered to do, thought Bingwen. You did the minimum required of you. You were cruel when you could have been kind.

Aloud he said, "Thank you, Lieutenant Li, sir."

The track turned north, and Chenzhou was suddenly behind them. Bingwen began to wonder where they were going. Surely they weren't taking a maintenance car all the way north.

After a few hundred meters, the trees and vegetation began to thicken into dense forest. Bingwen inhaled deep. The wind in his face was cool and clean. It carried the smells of greenery and earth and a coming rain. Bingwen had almost forgotten the world could smell this way--free of the stench of death and smoke and rotted vegetation. It made him think of the fields of home, of the way the cool mud would squeeze between his toes as he worked alongside Father in the paddies. It made him think of Mother, of how she would scold him one moment and then take him into her arms and laugh with him the next. It made him think of Hopper and Grandfather and running through the fields in the morning before sunrise so he could get more study time on the computers.

All of that was in this smell, the smell of China, of freedom, of home.

Ahead was a checkpoint. The car stopped at the gate. A soldier looked over Li's credentials and waved them through. Half a kilometer later they reached the military depot. The train was so long that Bingwen couldn't see where it ended. Soldiers were everywhere on the two platforms on either side, loading equipment and supplies. Pallets of food, blankets, medicine--enough to fill a city.

Li parked the maintenance car on a side track and then led Bingwen up onto one of the platforms. They weaved their way among workers, heading toward the front of the train. Li paused at a pallet of food and opened a box, coming away with two MREs.

By the time they reached the end of the platform and boarded the train, Bingwen had worked up a sweat. They found an empty passenger car near the front and sat facing each other.

Li tossed Bingwen an MRE. "Eat."

Bingwen peeled back the wrapper and bit into the wafer. It tasted like pork and cheese.

"Permission to pose a question, Lieutenant Li, sir?"

Li rolled his eyes. "I'm beginning to regret teaching you that. It's annoying." He bit into his wafer. "What?"

"Why do the Formics leave our nonaggressive aircrafts alone?"

"You don't have a theory?"

"Yes, but it's based on little information."

"Let's hear it anyway."

"Back at my village, we would sometimes get these gnats. They'd buzz around in small swarms over the paddies, hovering in place and not really bothering us. Normally we would ignore them. But if you weren't paying attention and walked into their swarm, they'd get in your face and bite you."

"So the Formics are gnats."

"No," said Bingwen, "we're the gnats. I think the Formics leave the nonaggressive aircraft alone because they don't consider us a threat until we start biting. As soon as we get in their face, they realize we're there and brush us aside. Otherwise, we're insignificant to them."

"So humans are gnats. Doesn't sound like you hold much confidence in the human race."

"It's how the Formics perceive us. We think of them as an enemy. An equal. But maybe they see us as something far, far inferior, something barely worth their notice."

"Maybe," said Li.

"And if that's true," said Bingwen, "it makes me wonder what their true purpose is. A rice farmer doesn't come down to his paddies to swat at gnats. He comes to tend rice."

"What's your point?"