Cibola Burn

  Holden floated half a meter above his bed, his body soaked with sweat. Naomi drifted next to him, long and lean, hair wild from their lovemaking. He touched his own scalp, feeling the weird sweaty points his own hair had become.

  “I must look a fright,” he said.

  “Hedgehogs are cute. You’re fine.” Naomi tapped one long toe against the bulkhead and drifted a few centimeters closer to the atmospheric controls. She aimed the airflow vent at them both, and Holden’s skin tingled as the cool air dried him.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to take enough showers to wash Ilus off of me,” he added after a moment.

  “I was in a brig for a couple of weeks. Trade you.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “Not your fault. Just bad luck. Did you know that the security guy Havelock was Miller’s partner on Ceres?”

  Holden touched the bed so he could rotate his body and look at her. “You’re shitting me.”

  “Nope. Before we met him, of course.”

  “Wish I’d known.”

  “You think you do, but it would have been weird.”

  “Probably right,” Holden said, then sighed and stretched until his joints popped. “I’m never doing that again.”

  “Which that?”

  “Leaving you. When I thought I was going to die down on Ilus and you were going to die in orbit and we wouldn’t even be able to hold each other when it happened, it was the worst thing I could possibly think of.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed with a nod. “I understand.”

  “I promise it won’t happen again.”

  “Okay. Why’d you let Basia go?”

  Holden frowned. The truth was, he wasn’t really sure why he had. And it was something he’d been trying hard not to think about too much.

  “Because… I like him. And I like Lucia. And breaking up their family wouldn’t solve anything. I bought his story about blowing the landing pad early to try and save people. Plus, he’s not going to be setting any more bombs. And the one thing Murtry told me that made me really think is that we’re beyond the borders of civilization right now. Black-and-white legal arguments don’t make a lot of sense here. Someday, maybe.”

  “The frontier doesn’t have laws, it has cops?” Naomi said, but she smiled when she said it.

  “Ouch,” Holden replied and she laughed.

  They drifted together in companionable silence for a few minutes. “Speaking of which, I should probably go see our prisoner,” Holden finally said.

  “To gloat?” Naomi said, poking him in the ribs. “You love that thing at the end where you gloat.”

  “It’s what makes this all worth doing.”

  “Go,” she said, putting her feet against the bulkhead and then pushing him toward the closet with her hands. “Get dressed. And comb your hair.”

  “I’ll be back soon,” he agreed, pulling clothes out of the drawers. “I have another thing I want you to show me.”

  “Making up for lost time.”

  “Damn straight.”

  Holden stopped off at the head to brush his teeth and wash his face before visiting Murtry in the med bay. While he worked to get the knots and tangles out of his hair, Amos drifted in and then just waited.

  “Am I in the way or something?” Holden asked. “Do you need privacy?” Amos had never been shy with his toilet usage before.

  “Naomi says you’re going to see Murtry,” Amos said, keeping his tone carefully neutral.

  “Yep.”

  “You told me I wasn’t allowed to go see him.”

  “Nope.”

  “Can I go with you, then?” Amos asked.

  Holden almost said no, then thought about it for a minute and shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

  Murtry’s leg wound hadn’t been particularly serious, but Holden’s bullet had shattered his right humerus, so they were keeping him locked up in the medical bay while the expert system tracked the bone regrowth. The RCE security chief had his left arm handcuffed to the crash couch. When the arm was better healed, they’d move him to one of the crew cabins where Amos had added exterior locks.

  “Captain Holden,” Murtry said when they entered. “Mister Burton.”

  “So,” Holden said as though picking up a conversation they’d started earlier. Which, in a way, they had. “Got a message from my pal at the UN a few hours ago. She can’t wait to meet you. We’ll be dropping you at the UN complex in Lovell city on Luna. I took another prisoner there once, and that person has since ceased to exist as far as the rest of the solar system knows. Hey, maybe they can get you two adjoining cells.”

  “You keep talking like I’ve broken the law. I haven’t,” Murtry said.

  “There’s a really smart legal team on Earth right now trying to think of some. They have almost two years to work it out. Enjoy the trip back.”

  “And I,” Amos said, “am here to tell you why you won’t.”

  “I can’t hear this,” Holden said. “He’s my prisoner.”

  “Maybe you should leave, then,” Amos said.

  Holden stared at Murtry, and the man stared back. “Okay, Amos. Meet me in the galley in a minute.”

  “Roger that, Cap,” Amos said, smiling at the prisoner as he said it.

  Worried that he might have just killed the man, Holden waited around the corner outside the med bay door.

  “Going to beat a helpless man in his hospital bed just because I got the better of you?” Murtry asked, trying to hide his unease with contempt.

  “Oh, goodness no,” Amos said, mock hurt in his tone. “That’s all good. Smart move taking me from behind. I don’t hate the game. I appreciate a good player.”

  “Then —” Murtry started, but Amos kept speaking.

  “But you made me kill Wei. I liked Wei.”

  The silence between the two men stretched, and Holden almost went back into the room, expecting to find Amos choking the man to death. Then Amos spoke again.

  “And when I do finally beat you, you won’t be helpless. Think that’ll matter?”

  Holden didn’t wait to hear the rest of what was said.

  Epilogue: Avasarala

  V

  yakislav Pratkanis, the Martian congressional Speaker of the House, had an excellent poker face. Over three days of meetings and meals and evenings at the theater and cocktails, he’d never registered more than a milquetoast kind of surprise. Either he was panicking on the inside, or he simply didn’t understand the situation. Avasarala’s guess was the latter.

  I’m sorry I can’t come with you this evening,” he said, his hand shaking hers with a crisp, dry efficiency.

  “You’re a good liar,” she said with a smile. “Most men who’ve spent so much time with me seem convinced their cocks will fall off if they can’t get away from me.”

  His eyes widened with a gentle laughter that he’d almost certainly practiced in a mirror. She responded in kind. The government houses were in Aterpol, the highest-status of the buried neighborhoods of Londres Nova. Six more communities were scattered under the soil of Mars’ Aurorae Sinus. She had to admit, the Martians had done a respectable job recreating the world here underground. The false dome of Aterpol was high above her and lit with a carefully balanced spectrum that managed to convince her lizard brain that she was in the open air of Earth. The government buildings were designed with a light airiness that almost forgave the fact that the entire city – the entire planetary network – was built like a fucking tomb. The absence of a magnetosphere had made Mars’ first priority protection from the radiation. Between that and the low gravity that left her unintentionally skipping down the corridors like a schoolgirl, she hadn’t fallen in love with the planet.

  “It has been an honor to share perspectives with you,” he said.

  She bowed her head. “Really, Vyakislav. We’re off the clock now. You can stop blowing smoke up my ass.”

  “As you say,” the man said, his expression not changing at all. “As you say.”

  I
n the corridor down to the atrium, she tugged at her sari, pulling the cloth back into place. Not that it had particularly been out, but the weight was wrong and the back of her head kept wanting to pull on it until it was right. Soft lights nestled in stone sconces along the walls. The air smelled of sandalwood and vanilla and chimed with gentle, soothing music. It was like the government was a middle-grade day spa.

  “Chrisjen!” a man called out as she reached the high-vaulted atrium. She turned back. He was a large man with skin several shades darker than her own and hair only a little whiter than her steel gray. He held out his arms as he walked forward and she embraced him. No one would have guessed, seeing them, that they ran the governments of two of the three great political organizations of humanity. Earth might fear the Belt, and the Belt might resent Earth, but the OPA and the United Nations had diplomatic decorum to maintain, and in truth, she halfway liked the old bastard.

  “You weren’t going to leave without saying goodbye, were you?” he asked.

  “I don’t ship until tomorrow,” she said. “I was just going out for dinner with friends.”

  “Well, I’m pleased to see you all the same. Do you have a minute?”

  “For the military head to the largest terrorist organization in known space?” she said. “How could I not. What’s on your mind?”

  Fred Johnson walked forward slowly and she fell into step with him. The atrium was polished stone. A fountain in the center let water flow slowly down the sides of an abstract and genderless human figure. He sat at the fountain’s edge. She thought the slow ripples made the liquid seem oily.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t support you more in there,” Fred said. “But you understand how it is.”

  “I do. We’ll do what we can around the edges, the same as we always do.”

  “We have a lot of Belters in those ships. If I take too hard a line with them, it’ll be worse than taking one that’s too soft.”

  “You don’t have to apologize to me,” Avasarala said. “We’re both constrained by the realities of the situation. And anyway, at least we’re not as fucked as Pratkanis.”

  “I know,” Johnson said, shaking his head.

  “Is Anderson Dawes still managing the political side out there?”

  Johnson shrugged. “For the most part. It’s herding kittens. If kittens had a lot of guns and an overdose of neo-Libertarian property theory. What about you? How’s Gao doing as secretary-general?”

  “She isn’t stupid, but she’s learning to fake it,” Avasarala said. “She’ll say all the right words and make all the right hand gestures. I’ll see to it.” Fred Johnson grunted. The fountain burbled and the crappy soothing music failed to soothe. She felt like they were on the edge of something, but that was an illusion. In truth, they’d gone over the edge a long time back.

  “Take care of yourself, Fred,” she said.

  “We’ll be in touch.”

  Joint Martian and UN security had blocked off the tube station for her. She sat in a tube car with blacked-out windows and three armed security men at the doors. The shaped-plastic seat faced the side, and she could see herself in the reflection. She looked tired, but at least the low g made her seem younger. She was afraid age had been making her jowly. The car hissed along its track. Outside, the tube was in vacuum to reduce drag. She laid her head against the side of the car and let her eyes close for a moment.

  Mars had been the first. Not the first station or the first colony, but the first attempt by humanity to cut ties from Earth. The upstart colony that declared its independence. And if Solomon Epstein hadn’t been a Martian and hadn’t perfected his drive just when he had, Mars would have been the site of the first true interplanetary war. Instead, Earth and Mars had made the kind of rough friendship where each side could feel superior to the other and they’d set about carving up the solar system. So it had been for as long as she could remember.

  That was the danger of being old and a politician. Habits outlived the situations that created them. Policies remained in place after the situations that inspired them had changed. The calculus of all human power was changing, and the models she used to make sense of it shifted with them, and she had to keep reminding herself that the past was a different place. She didn’t live there anymore.

  The tube stopped in Nariman, and Avasarala got out. The station was packed with locals who’d been put off until her journey was complete. On Earth, they would have been a mishmash of Anglo and African, Asiatic and Polynesian. Here, they were Martian, and she was an Earther. As the security detail ushered her out to an electric cart, she wondered what they would be next. New Terrans, she supposed. Unless the squatters’ naming schema won out. Then… what? Ilusians? Illusions? It was a stupid fucking name.

  And God, but she was tired. It was all so terribly large and so terribly dangerous, and she was so tired.

  The private room at the back of the restaurant had been closed off for her. A space made for two, maybe three hundred people. Crystal chandeliers. Silverware that was actually silver. Cut crystal wineglasses and carpeting that had been manufactured to mimic centuries-old Persian carpets. Bobbie Draper sat at the table making everything around her seem small just by being near it.

  “Fuck,” Avasarala said. “Am I late?”

  “They told me to come here early for the security check,” Bobbie said, standing up. Avasarala walked to her. It was odd. She could embrace Fred Johnson with ease and grace, and she barely cared about him as anything more than a political rival and a tool. Bobbie Draper she genuinely liked, and she wasn’t sure whether she should hug the former gunnery sergeant, shake her hand, or just sit down and pretend they saw each other every day. She opted for the last.

  “So veteran’s outreach?” she said.

  “It pays the bills,” Bobbie said.

  “Fair enough.”

  A young man with sharp, beautiful features and carefully manicured hands ghosted forward and poured water and wine for them both.

  “And how have you been?” Bobbie asked.

  “All right, over all. I got a new hip. Arjun says it makes me cranky.”

  “He can tell?”

  “He’s got a lot of practice. I fucking hate the new job, though. Assistant to the undersecretary was perfect for me. All the power, less of the bullshit. Now with the promotion, I have to travel. Meet with people.”

  “You met with people before,” Bobbie said, sipping the water and ignoring the wine. “That’s what you do. You meet with people.”

  “Now I have to go there first. I don’t like being on a ship for weeks to have a conversation I could have had over a link from my own fucking desk.”

  “Yeah,” Bobbie said, smiling. “I think I see what Arjun meant.”

  “Don’t be a smartass,” Avasarala said, and the beautiful young man brought them salads. Crisp lettuce and radishes, dark, salty olives. None of it had ever seen the sun. She picked up her fork. “And now this.”

  “I’ve been following it in the newsfeeds. Right-to-gate access treaties?”

  “No, that’s bullshit. We feed that to the reporters so they have something to talk about. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

  Bobbie’s fork paused halfway to her mouth. She frowned. Avasarala swigged down half a glass of wine. It was good, she supposed.

  “The problem,” she said, pointing her fork at Bobbie for emphasis, “is that I trusted James Holden. Not to do anything I told him to. I’m not an idiot. But I thought he would be himself.”

  “Himself, how?”

  Avasarala took a bite of the lettuce. “Do you know how many ships are on track to the Ring? Right now, right now, we have sixteen hundred ships, and every one of them has been watching New Terra like they were reading fucking tea leaves. Johnson and I sent Holden to mediate because he was the perfect person to show what a clusterfuck it was out there. How ugly it could be. I was expecting press releases every time someone sneezed. The man starts wars all the fucking time, only this time, when I needed a
little conflict? Now he’s the fucking peacemaker.”

  “I don’t understand,” Bobbie said. “Why did you want conflict?”

  “To put the brakes on,” Avasarala said. “To save Mars. Only I couldn’t.”

  Bobbie put down her fork. The beautiful young man had vanished. He was good at this job. It was time for them to be truly alone.

  “A thousand suns, Bobbie. Three orders of magnitude more than we have ever had before. Can you even imagine that, because most days, I can’t. And some – maybe all – have at least one planet with a breathable atmosphere. A place that can sustain life. It’s what they were selected for. Whatever those fucking boojums were that made the protomolecule, they were looking for places like Earth. And places like Earth are what they found. Places a lot more like Earth than Mars is. New Terra was the precedent, and the precedent is a fucking feel-good story about how we all come together in a pinch. We have an example of how, if you just get out to one of these planets fast enough and squat hard enough, you get to keep it. Welcome to the greatest migration in the history of human civilization. Fred Johnson thinks he can keep control of it because he’s got the choke point at Medina Station, but he’s also got the OPA. It’s already too late.”