Read Online Earth Afire (The First Formic War) by Orson Scott Card, Aaron Johnston - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Orson Scott Card, Aaron Johnston
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outside this room who will need a lot more convincing than us. If we work together, we might be able to win them over.” He gestured again to the table, and this time Victor and Imala each took a seat.
Prescott sat at the head of the table. “You have to realize, people in our field are even more skeptical of claims of extraterrestrial life than normal people. We have to be. Scientists are bred to doubt and question everything. Plus the prevailing belief has always been that we would hear extraterrestrial life before we saw it. We’d pick up their transmissions long before they showed up on our scopes. But so far no one in the science community has heard anything.”
“You can’t hear anything,” said Imala. “The interference is crippling communications.”
“True,” said Prescott. “But that makes the whole claim of extraterrestrial life all the more difficult to believe. Impaired communications strike a lot of people as enormously convenient to a charlatan trying to justify the sky’s silence.”
“I’m not a charlatan,” said Victor.
“I’m not saying you are,” said Prescott. “I’m telling you what the chatter is out there. Nobody wants to back you because it’s a claim they can’t independently validate. So they keep quiet and hope someone else will take the risk. No one wants to look like a fool supporting what might be the biggest hoax of the century.”
“The biggest discovery of the century,” Victor corrected. “Not to mention the biggest threat to our species.”
Prescott settled back in his chair. “That’s the question, isn’t it? Yanyu has shown us a few observations she’s made. We’ve all seen the vids you and Imala uploaded. We’ve combed through the evidence. We’ve argued about it for hours. Now we want to hear it straight from you. If we believe you, we’ll make things happen. The floor is yours, Victor. Convince us.”
Victor glanced at Imala, who gave him an encouraging nod. Then he looked at the faces of the people gathered around the table, all of them older than him and well educated and experts in their field. Most of their expressions were unreadable, but a few had a hard time hiding their skepticism.
He cleared his throat and began to speak.
For the first hour no one said a word. Then Yanyu would occasionally speak up, throwing in astronomical data that seemed to validate Victor’s story.
When he finished, the questions came fast. How is this ship causing the interference? Where is the ship now? Has anyone attempted to communicate with it, not with radio but by other means? Infrared light perhaps? What are the ship’s intentions?
“I don’t know,” Victor said for the tenth time. “I don’t know where the ship is or what damage it’s caused or what lives it’s taken. I wish I did know. I wish I had answers. I wish I knew my family was safe.”
The mention of his family pricked some well of emotion inside him, and for a moment, he thought he might lose his composure. He swallowed, took a breath, and buried the emotion. “I don’t have the answers. I’m not a navigator. I know basic fight mechanics and trajectory mapping, but that wasn’t my job on my ship. I’m a mechanic. I build things, fix things. My family sent me because I was young and healthy. I had the best chance of withstanding the physical beating the trip would inflict on my body.
“Plus I could repair the quickship if anything went wrong. No one on board had that level of mechanical expertise. It had to be me. I know you’d rather have someone who understands science as much as you do, but I’m not that person. I’m the messenger.” He paused and looked at each of the researchers in turn. “The ship is real and it’s coming. A few days, a few months, I don’t know. But it’s coming. If we could talk to the ships in the Belt, we’d have thousands of people validating my claim. But since we don’t, I recognize that it makes my story all the less believable. But ask
Prescott sat at the head of the table. “You have to realize, people in our field are even more skeptical of claims of extraterrestrial life than normal people. We have to be. Scientists are bred to doubt and question everything. Plus the prevailing belief has always been that we would hear extraterrestrial life before we saw it. We’d pick up their transmissions long before they showed up on our scopes. But so far no one in the science community has heard anything.”
“You can’t hear anything,” said Imala. “The interference is crippling communications.”
“True,” said Prescott. “But that makes the whole claim of extraterrestrial life all the more difficult to believe. Impaired communications strike a lot of people as enormously convenient to a charlatan trying to justify the sky’s silence.”
“I’m not a charlatan,” said Victor.
“I’m not saying you are,” said Prescott. “I’m telling you what the chatter is out there. Nobody wants to back you because it’s a claim they can’t independently validate. So they keep quiet and hope someone else will take the risk. No one wants to look like a fool supporting what might be the biggest hoax of the century.”
“The biggest discovery of the century,” Victor corrected. “Not to mention the biggest threat to our species.”
Prescott settled back in his chair. “That’s the question, isn’t it? Yanyu has shown us a few observations she’s made. We’ve all seen the vids you and Imala uploaded. We’ve combed through the evidence. We’ve argued about it for hours. Now we want to hear it straight from you. If we believe you, we’ll make things happen. The floor is yours, Victor. Convince us.”
Victor glanced at Imala, who gave him an encouraging nod. Then he looked at the faces of the people gathered around the table, all of them older than him and well educated and experts in their field. Most of their expressions were unreadable, but a few had a hard time hiding their skepticism.
He cleared his throat and began to speak.
For the first hour no one said a word. Then Yanyu would occasionally speak up, throwing in astronomical data that seemed to validate Victor’s story.
When he finished, the questions came fast. How is this ship causing the interference? Where is the ship now? Has anyone attempted to communicate with it, not with radio but by other means? Infrared light perhaps? What are the ship’s intentions?
“I don’t know,” Victor said for the tenth time. “I don’t know where the ship is or what damage it’s caused or what lives it’s taken. I wish I did know. I wish I had answers. I wish I knew my family was safe.”
The mention of his family pricked some well of emotion inside him, and for a moment, he thought he might lose his composure. He swallowed, took a breath, and buried the emotion. “I don’t have the answers. I’m not a navigator. I know basic fight mechanics and trajectory mapping, but that wasn’t my job on my ship. I’m a mechanic. I build things, fix things. My family sent me because I was young and healthy. I had the best chance of withstanding the physical beating the trip would inflict on my body.
“Plus I could repair the quickship if anything went wrong. No one on board had that level of mechanical expertise. It had to be me. I know you’d rather have someone who understands science as much as you do, but I’m not that person. I’m the messenger.” He paused and looked at each of the researchers in turn. “The ship is real and it’s coming. A few days, a few months, I don’t know. But it’s coming. If we could talk to the ships in the Belt, we’d have thousands of people validating my claim. But since we don’t, I recognize that it makes my story all the less believable. But ask
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