Earth Unaware (First Formic War)

childish words, but they always helped Mother stop crying when she said them, and so Mono didn’t mind.
    He noticed then how the other women were clinging to their husbands and saying their good-byes. Mother had no one. Father had gotten sick when Mono was too young to remember, and the medicine Father had needed hadn’t been on board.
    Mono watched as Mother gathered their things and moved into the line, still wiping at her eyes. How could he leave her now? She would be terrified to discover him not on the ship. It would break her heart. She would be furious.
    But hadn’t she told him that he was the man of the house? Hadn’t she called him her little protector? Always in a way that was cute, yes, always in a way that suggested she really didn’t mean it. But wasn’t it true? He was the man of the house. He was her protector. And if he could prove that to her, if he could make it real for her, maybe she wouldn’t cry so much. Maybe all the sadness she felt for Father would go away.
    “I want to go to the front of the line with Zapa,” said Mono. Zapatón, or Big Shoes, was a boy Mono’s age—probably his best friend if you didn’t count Victor or Mother or Segundo.
    “Stay with me, Monito.”
    “Please. I want to see inside the ship.”
    “We’ll be in the ship in a moment.”
    “But Zapa’s father gave him a handheld that has a Chinese translator on it so we could greet the crew in Chinese.”
    It was a lie. And it was the lowest of lies to use on Mother. He knew that if he inserted another child’s father into the story, if he made it seem like he was missing out on some privilege or opportunity because he had no father to give him such things, Mother would relent.
    She sighed, annoyed. “Stay where I can see you.”
    Mono didn’t wait for her to change her mind. He launched upward, grabbed a handhold, turned his body, launched again, and landed beside Zapa, who was sniffling and wiping at his eyes.
    “What are you crying for?” asked Mono.
    “My papito. He’s staying behind.” Zapa had six bothers and sisters, all of whom were ahead of him in line, as was his mother.
    “I need you to pretend that I came with you on the ship,” said Mono.
    Zapa wiped his nose across his sleeve. “What?”
    “I’m not getting on the WU-HU ship, but I need you to make it look like I did.”
    “You’re not getting on the ship?”
    “Listen. When you get inside, my mother is going to come looking for me. Tell her I’m in the bathroom.”
    “Which bathroom?”
    “The bathroom on the WU-HU ship.”
    “But you said you weren’t getting on the WU-HU ship.”
    “I won’t be in the bathroom, meathead. I’ll be here, hiding on El Cavador.”
    Zapa’s eyes widened. “Are you stupid? You’re going to get me in trouble.”
    “I need to stay and help. Just tell my mother I took the handheld with the translator into the bathroom to study Chinese.”
    Zapa made a face. “You’re talking loco, Mono. Está tostao.”
    “Just tell her.”
    They reached the hatch. Mono looked back. Mother was talking to someone else, not paying attention. Mono stepped away from the line and hid behind some crates as Zapa and his family went through the hatch. Mono stayed there, not moving until long after the hatch closed and the WU-HU ship flew away.
    *   *   *
    Lem brought up the rendering of the Formic ship and enlarged it as much as he could in the holospace over his desk in his room. Benyawe and Chubs floated nearby, watching him. “Why not simply shoot the thing with the glaser?” asked Lem. “Why not blast the Formics to smithereens and be done with it? None of this flying down to the surface and planting explosives. We fire the glaser and turn the ship to dust.”
    “It wouldn’t work,” said Benyawe. “The Formic ship is too big and too dense. The glaser wasn’t designed for that type of mass. It was designed for rocks.”
    “Asteroids are filled with dense metals,” said Lem. “Compositionally they’re essentially the same thing.”
    “Let’s not forget what happened that last time we fired the glaser,” said Benyawe. “It’s too unstable. We have no idea what type of gravity field would result, if any at all. Nor can we assume that the same metals we find in asteroids are the ones used to construct this ship. The Formics may use alloys unlike any we’ve ever seen. All we know is that the surface of that ship is designed to resist collisions and high radiation at near-lightspeed, which