Earth Afire (The First Formic War)

forward. “That’s why I have to go back, Bingwen. I’m not going home until I help end this war. Not because it might absolve me of ignoring the order, but because I owe it to my friends to make their deaths mean something. Because I owe it to you and to your parents and your grandfather and everyone in China who has suffered. Does that make sense?”
    “No. It doesn’t. It’s boneheaded. You’re not responsible for what has happened here, Mazer. You’re not responsible even for your friends. They wanted to help. It was their decision to disobey that order as much as yours. It’s not your fault they died.”
    “It is actually. I was their commanding officer. I was responsible for their safety.”
    “So throwing yourself to the Formics is going to change that? What are you hoping to accomplish by getting yourself killed?”
    “I don’t plan on dying, Bingwen.”
    “Well the Formics are likely to spoil those plans. It’s you against hundreds or thousands of them. You, unarmed and weak, dressed in rags. And them, shielded and loaded with weapons and completely merciless. You don’t have to be an adult to see how foolish you’re being.”
    Mazer smiled. “Rest, Bingwen. This is the last break we’ll take for a while.”
    They sat in silence for several minutes. Mazer’s breathing normalized, and the burning in his side had dissipated, which suggested it was a stitch in his side and not the surgery wound … or so Mazer hoped. They got up and started moving again, this time at a much slower pace. They used the sword to cut their way through the densest parts of the jungle, but every slice was loud in the stillness, so they did it sparingly.
    After another hour of walking Bingwen asked, “Do you have a son?”
    The question surprised Mazer. “A son? No. I’m not married, Bingwen.”
    “Why not? The doctor, Kim, she cares for you. Why not marry her?”
    Mazer regarded the boy. It was hard to see him clearly in the darkness and shadows of the jungle. “I wish it were that easy, Bingwen.”
    “She loves you. I could tell. I may be eight, but I’m not blind.”
    “People don’t marry simply because they’re in love, Bingwen.”
    “Of course they do. Why else would they do it?”
    “Marriage and family is a commitment to someone. If you can’t be absolute in your commitment, you shouldn’t make it. I’m a soldier. I’m always away. That would be hard on a marriage.”
    “So you’ll never marry?”
    “One day, I hope. After I’m a soldier.”
    “Would you ever consider having a son before you were married?”
    Mazer saw where this was going. When he spoke his voice was kind and quiet. “You can’t be my son, Bingwen.”
    “But I’d work hard,” said Bingwen. “And I’d obey. You wouldn’t have to scold me or punish me because I would always listen. I wouldn’t even complain when you had to go off somewhere on assignment. I could take care of myself. I could cook my own meals. I can cook other things besides rice and bamboo, you know. I can cook meats and vegetables. I could cook for you, too.”
    Mazer stopped and knelt in front of the boy, placing a hand on his shoulder. “If I have a son one day, Bingwen, I hope he’s as brave and smart and strong as you. But China is your home, and New Zealand is mine.”
    “China was my home. But it’s a new China now, one that’s as strange to me as it is to you. I don’t belong here any more than you do.”
    He’s like me, thought Mazer. Displaced, alone, coping with a new culture, having lost the one he knew. It was exactly how Mazer felt as a boy when his mother died. She had angered her Maori family by marrying an Englishman. They were pure Maoris, and they saw Father as an intruder, stealing their daughter from her heritage. So they expelled her from the tribe.
    Later, when Mazer was born, Mother repented by immersing Mazer in the Maori culture. She still loved Father—she would never leave him—but she wanted Mazer raised as she had been. So she plunged him into the culture and taught him the language, dances, and songs. She fed him Maori food, instilled in him the warrior spirit. She made him super Maori.
    Then she died when he was ten. And now there was no one to champion Mazer’s inclusion in the group. Father, after having been excluded for all those years, certainly wasn’t going to do it. Instead, he took Mazer back to England and tried to erase all the Maori in him. Father was the scion of a noble family, and he