Part 47 (2/2)

”Great,” Alex said. ”Let's go.”

The stations on Luna were the oldest non-terrestrial habitation humanity had. They sprawled across the face of the moon and sank below its surface. The lights set into the walls glowed with a warm yellow and splashed across vaulted ceilings. The gravity even lighter here than on Mars or Ceres or Tycho felt strange and pleasant, like a s.h.i.+p ambling on without being in a rush to get anywhere. It was almost possible to forget the tragedy still playing out a little under four hundred thousand klicks over their heads. Almost, but not quite.

Amos went on about everything that had happened while he was down the well, and Alex listened with half his attention. The details of the story would be grist for a hundred conversations once they were back in the s.h.i.+p and going somewhere. It didn't matter that he get all of it now, and the familiar cadences of Amos' voice were like hearing a song he liked and hadn't listened to in a long time.

At the dock, Amos looked up and down the halls until he saw someone he knew sitting on a plastic storage crate. The crate was blue with white curls of sc.r.a.pes along the side like a painting of waves. The woman was thickly built with black cornrows, dark brown skin, and an arm in a cast.

”Hey, Butch,” Amos said.

”Big man,” the woman said. She didn't acknowledge Alex at all. ”This is this.”

”Thanks, then.”

The woman nodded and walked off, her low-g shuffle a little stiffer than the people around her. Amos rented a loading mech, grabbed the crate, and started for the Roci, Alex trotting along beside him.

”Should I ask what's in that?” Alex said.

”Probably not,” Amos said. ”So anyway, there we are on this island where all the rich people used to be before they f.u.c.ked off up the well, right? And the s.h.i.+ps are pretty much not there...”

The Rocinante had an actual hangar bay complete with atmosphere, not just a s.p.a.ce on a pad and a tube to her airlocks. The new outer hull was t.i.tanium alloy and ceramic, the polished metal and flat black paint of the hull studded with PDCs and sensor arrays. The maw of the keel-mounted rail gun was like a little surprised o at her bow. In the artificial light of the hangar, she looked less dramatic than she had in the unfiltered light of the sun, but no less beautiful. Her scars were gone now, but it didn't make the s.h.i.+p seem less herself. Amos drove the mech to the aft airlock and cycled it open without breaking the slow, easy lope of his story. Inside, Amos lowered the crate to the deck, but didn't turn on the electromagnetic clamps that would hold it there. Instead, he slipped out of the mech and went into the s.h.i.+p itself. Engineering, cargo bay, the machine shop. The stern had always been Amos' domain.

”So those others,” Amos said. ”Johnson's people? They're done messing with my s.h.i.+t now, right?”

”Yeah,” Alex said. ”She's ours again. Just ours.”

”Good.” Amos shuffled into the cargo bay.

”So the servants, the maids and chauffeurs and whatever,” Alex said. ”They called security and then they just changed sides? Or... I mean how did that work?”

”Well,” Amos said, popping the latches on the crate. ”We had an introduction, see?”

The folds of the crate's lid rose of their own accord. Alex jumped back, misjudged the gravity, stumbled. A dark-haired head came up over the crate's edge, a thin ghost-pale face with ink-black eyes. Alex's heart started going triple time. Clarissa Mao, psychopath and murderer, smiled at him tentatively.

”Hey,” she said.

Alex took a long, shuddering breath. ”Ah. Hey?”

”See?” Amos said, clapping the girl's shoulder. ”Told you it wouldn't be a problem.”

”You have to tell him,” Alex said, keeping his voice low. Bobbie was telling Holden about the work she'd been doing with veterans' affairs in Londres Nova, so he wasn't paying attention to them.

”I'm gonna,” Amos said.

”You have to tell him now. She's on our s.h.i.+p.”

Amos shrugged. ”She was on our s.h.i.+p for months when we were coming back from the slow zone.”

”She was a prisoner. Because of all the people she killed. And now she's on our s.h.i.+p by herself.”

”I'll give you that does make this situation a little different,” Amos said.

”Is there a problem?” Holden asked. ”What are we talking about?”

”Little something I wanted to run past you,” Amos said. ”It'll wait until after the dog and pony show.”

The meeting room in the security compound was built in an outdated architectural fas.h.i.+on: open archways and wide, sky-blue ceilings with indirect light and subtle geometric patterning. Everything about it was pointedly artificial, like the idea of an afternoon courtyard without the afternoon or the courtyard. Avasarala's voice came before she did, staccato and impatient. When she stepped through one of the archways, a young, seriously dressed man at her side, Bobbie stood up. Holden followed her lead.

”- if they want a voice in the decision. We're not going to f.u.c.k around bulls.h.i.+t electoral posturing.”

”Yes, ma'am,” the young man said.

Avasarala waved that they should sit back down as she took her own seat even as she kept talking to her a.s.sistant. ”Take it to Kleinmann first. Once he's behind me, Castro and Najjar will have the cover they need.”

”If you say so, ma'am.”

”If I say so?”

The a.s.sistant inclined his head. ”With permission, Chung is in a stronger position than Kleinmann.”

”Are you second-guessing me, Martinez?”

”Yes, ma'am.”

Avasarala shrugged. ”Chung, then. Now go.” As the young man left, she turned her attention to them. ”Thank you all for Where's Nagata?”

”Medical bay,” Holden said. ”The doctors are still deciding whether she's stable enough to release.”

Avasarala hoisted an eyebrow and tapped a message onto her hand terminal. ”They can make a f.u.c.king exception. I want her here. Thank most of you for coming. I'd beat around the bush and make everyone feel at home, but I've been in meetings for the last thirty-six hours, and I'm cranky. We're all clear that Earth is f.u.c.ked, yes?”

”h.e.l.l yeah,” Amos said.

”Good,” Avasarala said. ”Then I won't belabor the point. Along with that, the Martian Navy just shattered into tiny little pieces and Smith's too scared to call it treason.”

”Can I ask,” Bobbie said, sitting forward. Her hands, splayed on the table, seemed like she was trying to brace herself against a blow. ”How bad does that look?”

”We're not making any official statements, especially when James Holden's in the room. No offense, but your track record for blurting information at inopportune moments is the stuff of legend.”

”I'm getting better about that,” Holden said. ”But yeah. I understand.”

”There's a thing that happens,” Avasarala said, ”when unthinkable things become thinkable. We're in a moment of chaos. Everything's up for grabs. Legitimacy itself is up for grabs. That's where we are now. This t.u.r.d biscuit Inaros? He's out tooling around the Jovian moons where we can watch him play pirate. He's made his play to set the narrative. The Belt has risen up after generations of oppression, and is now taking its rightful wah, wah, wah. The position I'm in -”

”He's not wrong, though,” Holden said, and Avasarala's eyes hardened. If looks could kill, Holden would have left in a bag, but he shook his head. ”If the Belters fall in line with this Free Navy thing, it's going to be because they're all out of any other kind of hope. The new systems and colonies -”

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