Earth Awakens (The First Formic War 3)

"Nicest," corrected Mazer. "Nicer is for two. Nicest is the superlative."

"I don't know what 'su-per-lative' means. Stop using words I don't know."

Mazer nodded. "Give me a list of all the words you don't know, and I'll be sure not to use them."

"You're one to talk," said Bingwen. "Your Chinese is awful."

&nbs

p; "I thought I did okay."

"You talk Chinese as well as Mongo did."

"Who was Mongo?"

"Our family water buffalo."

"Your English is better than my Chinese. I'll give you that."

"So you will call Kim?"

Mazer took a breath. "It's complicated, Bing. When you get older life gets more complicated."

"I think she loves you. Like how my mother loved my father. She didn't say that to me. But she does."

She did. Mazer knew she did. She had told him so. Just once. But it was enough. He thought of that moment often. They had gone to the salt marshes of Manukau Harbor. She had wanted to see the thousands of migratory godwits who had gathered there to feed. He and Kim had stood in one of the many wooden towers built along the shore for birdwatchers. Mazer had brought her a pair of military binoculars.

"They'll fly over eleven thousand kilometers without taking a single break," Kim had said.

"Sounds like the military," Mazer had said.

"From here to northern China and then on to Alaska and back. The longest single flight of any species."

A salty breeze was blowing in from the water, lifting her hair away from the nape of her neck. The air smelled of brine and mud and eelgrass. The song of thousands of chittering godwits was not as loud as Mazer had thought it would be. And he marveled at how they moved on the water, lifting together as a single unit, undulating in the air like a giant wave as they shifted, circled back, landed, and took to the air again, like a single organism with a thousand different sets of eyes.

"They're monogamous, you know?" Kim had said. "All that flying, all that distance; tens of thousands of them crammed into a small space like this, all of them looking exactly alike. And yet somehow they snuggle up next to their mate at day's end. Somehow they find each other."

"In Maori culture, the birds are the messengers of the gods," Mazer had said. "Legend has it that the first of our people came here in a fleet of waka, or canoes, following the flight of the godwits. They were the guides the gods had given us. There's a song about it that the children sing."

"Do you know it?"

"Most of it."

"Let's hear it."

He laughed. "What, you want me to sing it? Now?"

"We're alone. I won't laugh, I swear. I think it's fascinating. You don't talk about this kind of stuff. Your culture, I mean. I want to know about it."

"It's a children's song, Kim. It's in Maori."

"I'll never ask you to sing anything ever again. I promise."

He had felt silly, but there was such pleading in her eyes that he had acquiesced and sung it. He had even done the hand motions: the paddling canoes and the flapping and swooping of the godwits. She had watched his every move, the corners of her mouth curling up into a smile. When he finished, her eyes were misted with tears and she had told him that she loved him. The words had come out of her almost in a whisper.

He had not expected it. But to hear her say it was like lightning in his chest.

He didn't know how to respond. Did he love her as well? And if he did, what were the consequences of him saying so?