Earth Afire (The First Formic War)

the binoculars from the pack and crawled forward in the mud to a small outcrop of rock overlooking the valley below. The lander was as he remembered it: impossibly large and completely unscathed, sunk into the ground like a giant unearthed landmine. The biomass stood beside it, a mountain of rotting biota as wide and as tall as the lander had been before it had spun itself into the earth. Mazer had expected to be able to identify the various objects in the biomass—a tree here, a water buffalo there—and perhaps at one time that had been possible. But not anymore. Everything ran together like melting wax as cell walls broke down and the biota disintegrated into a thick viscous liquid.
    Above the biomass, a cluster of six Formic aircraft of a design Mazer had never seen before were spraying a mist onto the biomass as dense as a rainstorm.
    Mazer watched through the binocs as the mist fell and reacted to the biota, dissolving it into thin trails of goop that rolled down the side and gathered into dark pools at the mountain’s base. A metal wall had been built there, surrounding the mountain of biomass like a circular dam and feeding the goop runoff into pipes that extended outward to processing machines and small structures spread out over the valley floor like a massive industrial complex.
    It amazed Mazer to think that all of this had been built in the last ten days or so. And by the looks of it, the Formics weren’t finished building. Construction crews were everywhere, adding piping, assembling machines, extending structures. Skimmers carried building materials to the crews. Clawlike cranes held pipes in place as Formic workers welded them to the other structures.
    Yet as vast and impressive a site as it was, Mazer had never seen anything so disorganized and unattractive. There was no order to the construction at all. Everything looked slapped together haphazardly without any regard to uniformity or design. The metals were all red and gray and rough and rusting, as if they had been used a hundred times previously for other purposes and never once cleaned or cared for.
    Nor were the Formics concerned about cleanliness. Filth covered everything. The ground was littered with trash and discarded building materials. And everywhere Mazer looked he saw Formic feces. He knew with certainty what the black substance was because he witnessed a few Formics defecating as they labored, showing no regard for those around them, simply dropping it where they stood. It covered the ground and pipes and the Formics’ feet. The stench was not only from the biomass apparently.
    Mazer pointed the binoculars back at the mist-raining skimmers, zooming in as far as the lenses would go and having the computer take scans and run an analysis. The results didn’t tell him much: The mists were a microbe solution of unknown composition.
    “It’s breaking down the biota,” Bingwen said, who had crawled up beside and watched as he worked. “What are they using it for? Fuel?”
    “That, or food,” said Mazer. “Or maybe both.”
    Bingwen grew quiet, staring at the biomass. His parents are in there somewhere, Mazer thought.
    “Here,” Mazer said, offering Bingwen the binocs and hoping to direct his thoughts elsewhere. “Earn your keep. Check out the lander. Tell me if you see anything interesting.”
    Bingwen took the binocs and pressed the eyepieces against the visor of the gas mask. “This would be a lot easier if I could take this mask off.” He glanced thoughtfully at Mazer. “But considering the green, sickly look on your face, I think I’ll keep it on.”
    “Wise choice.”
    Bingwen adjusted the focus and gazed down at the lander. “For an advanced alien species, they’re not too concerned about housekeeping. The metal is all gross and rusted looking.”
    “And covered in Formic dung, if you haven’t noticed.”
    “Yes, thanks for pointing that out.”
    “At least you’re not smelling it.”
    Bingwen slowly panned the binocs across the lander then stopped when something caught his eye. “Okay, this is interesting. Near the base of the lander there’s a hole in the ground. Maybe a meter in diameter. I just saw a Formic crawl into it. And there’s another hole about four meters away from the first one, closer to the lander. A Formic crawled out of the second hole, and at first I thought it was a different Formic. But it wasn’t. It was the same one. I could tell because it had a limp in one of his legs. He crawled