Earth Unaware (First Formic War)

think perhaps it would be wise to…”
    “Jettison the sensors!” Lem yelled into his headset. “Fire retros. Maximum power. Back us up now!”
    The sensors were cut away. The ship backed up suddenly. Lem, Dublin, and Benyawe were thrown forward into the observation glass. The sphere kept growing. Lem pushed himself up from the glass and watched as the sphere engulfed the sensors he had jettisoned, which instantly exploded into smaller and smaller pieces. But the cloud didn’t stop there. It grew more, now a massive ball of dust and particles and gravel. It reached the spot where the ship had been positioned, then grew farther still, expanding outward, the dust getting thinner now.
    Then finally it stopped. The particles within the field were small enough and far apart enough that the gravity field was too weak to sustain itself and dissipated into nothing. All was quiet. Lem stared out the window, eyes wide, heart racing. Had he not given the order instantly, if he had waited for dithering Dublin to make a decision, the field would have reached the ship and they all would have been torn to pieces.
    He whirled around to Dublin, furious. “I thought you said we were in the clear.”
    “I … I thought we were,” said Dublin. “Several of us did the math.”
    “Well your math is kusi! You almost killed us all!”
    “I know. I’m … I’m sorry. I’m not sure how we could’ve gotten that wrong.”
    “Benyawe told me we couldn’t predict the gravity field,” said Lem. “I see now I should have listened to her instead of you. You are excused, Dr. Dublin.”
    Dublin looked helpless, his face red with embarrassment. Lem watched the man leave then turned to Benyawe. “Is it over? Are we clear?”
    She was tapping at her holopad. “It appears to be. Our sensors aren’t as good as those we jettisoned, but it seems as if the field is gone. I’d want to do more analysis before giving a definitive answer, though.” She looked at Lem, her voice shaky. “If you hadn’t reacted so quickly—”
    Lem spoke into his headset. “Stop the retros. Bring us to a full stop.”
    The ship slowed. Lem pushed himself away from the glass and looked out at the massive cloud of dust that was once an asteroid.
    “You can’t blame Dublin for this,” said Benyawe. “Not completely.”
    “Oh?”
    “If we had done more tests on pebbles as this mission was designed to do, Dublin would have had more data and been more accurate in his calculations.”
    “So this is my fault?”
    “You went against his counsel and mine and tackled an asteroid a hundred times larger than we were prepared for. It strikes me as hypocritical to point the finger solely at him.”
    Lem smiled. “I see now why you’ve lasted so long with my father, Dr. Benyawe. You’re not afraid to speak your mind. My father respects that.”
    “No, Lem. I have lasted so long with your father because I am always right.”
    *   *   *
    Lem slept badly the next few days. In his dreams, the gravity field chewed up everything around him: the furniture, his terminal, his bed, his legs, the man with the broken neck; all of it exploding into rock fragments again and again until only dust remained. Lem took pills to help him sleep, but they couldn’t keep him from dreaming. He had ordered the engineers to analyze the dust cloud to ensure that the gravity field had indeed dissipated—he didn’t want to move into the cloud and begin collecting minerals until he was sure the field was gone and the area safe. On the morning of the fifth day, alone in his room, he got his answer.
    “The field is gone,” said Benyawe. Her head was floating in the holospace above Lem’s terminal. “We built a sensor from old parts and sent it into the cloud. It didn’t explode or experience any change in gravity whatsoever. We can begin collecting metal dust whenever you’re ready.”
    “I want to see the data from the sensor,” said Lem.
    “I didn’t know you could decipher this type of data.”
    “I can’t. But seeing it will make me feel better.”
    Benyawe shrugged and disappeared. A moment later columns of data appeared on Lem’s holodisplay. The numbers meant nothing to him, but he was pleased to see so many of them. Lots of data meant conclusive results. Lem relaxed a little, wiped the data away, and entered a command. The mining crew chief appeared in the holodisplay.
    “Morning, Mr. Jukes.”
    “We’ve been given the all-clear,” said Lem. “We’ll be