Caliban;s war

He knew that just past the dark metal lip that marked the edge of the ship, the creature was digging at the walls, clawing through the flesh of the ship toward its heart. If it figured out what was going on-if it had the cognitive capacity for even basic reasoning-it could come boiling up out of the bay at him. Vacuum didn’t kill it. Prax imagined himself trying to clomp away on his awkward magnetic boots while the creature cut him apart; then he took a long, shuddering breath and lifted the bait.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m in position.”

“No time like the present,” Holden said, his voice strained with pain but attempting to be light.

“Right,” Prax said.

He pressed the small timer, hunched close to the hull of the ship, and then, with every muscle in his body, uncurled and flung the little cylinder into nothing. It flew out, catching the light from the cargo bay interior and then vanishing. Prax had the nauseating certainty that he’d forgotten a step, and that the lead foil wouldn’t come off the way it was supposed to.

“It’s moving,” Holden said. “It smelled it. It’s going out.”

And there it was, long black fingers folding up from the ship, the dark body pulling itself up to the ship’s exterior like it had been born to the abyss. Its eyes glowed blue. Prax heard nothing but his own panicked breathing. Like an animal in the ancient grasslands of Earth, he had the primal urge to be still and silent, though through the vacuum, the creature wouldn’t have heard him if he’d shrieked.

The creature shifted; the eerie eyes closed, opened again, closed; and then it leapt. The un-twinkling stars were eclipsed by its passage.

“Clear,” Prax said, shocked by the firmness of his voice. “It’s clear of the ship. Close the cargo doors now.”

“Check,” Naomi said. “Closing doors.”

“I’m coming in, Cap’n,” Amos said.

“I’m passing out, Amos,” Holden said, but there was enough laughter in the words that Prax was pretty sure he was joking.

In the darkness, a star blinked out and then came back. Then another. Prax mentally traced the path. Another star eclipsed.

“I’m heating her back up,” Alex said. “Let me know when you’re all secure, right?”

Prax watched, waited. The star stayed solid. Shouldn’t it have gone dark like the others? Had he misjudged? Or was the creature looping around? If it could maneuver in raw vacuum, could it have noticed Alex bringing the reactor back online?

Prax turned back toward the main airlock.

The Rocinante had seemed like nothing-a toothpick floating on an ocean of stars. Now the distance back to the airlock was immense. Prax moved one foot, then the other, trying to run without ever having both feet off the deck. The mag boots wouldn’t let him release them both at the same time, the trailing foot trapped until the lead one signaled it was solid. His back itched, and he fought the urge to look behind. Nothing was there, and if something was, looking wouldn’t help. The cable of his radio link turned from a line into a loop that trailed behind him as he moved. He pulled on it to take up the slack.

The tiny green-and-yellow glow of the open airlock called to him like something from a dream. He heard himself whimpering a little, but the sound was lost in a string of profanity from Holden.

“What’s going on down there?” Naomi snapped.

“Captain’s feeling a little under the weather,” Amos said. “Think he maybe wrenched something.”

“My knee feels like someone gave birth in it,” Holden said. “I’ll be fine.”

“Are we clear for burn?” Alex asked.

“We are not,” Naomi said. “Cargo doors are as closed as they’re going to get until we hit the docks, but the forward airlock isn’t sealed.”

“I’m almost in,” Prax said, thinking, Don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me in the pit with that thing.

“Right, then,” Alex said. “Let me know when I can get us the hell out of here.”

In the depth of the ship, Amos made a small sound. Prax reached the airlock, pulling himself in with a violence that made the joints of his suit creak. He yanked on his umbilical to pull it the rest of the way in after him. He flung himself against the far wall, slapping at the controls until the cycle started and the outer door slid closed. In the dim light of the airlock proper, Prax spun slowly on all three axes. The outer door remained closed. Nothing ripped it open; no glowing blue eyes appeared to crawl in after him. He bumped gently against the wall as the distant sound of an air pump a

“I’m in,” he said. “I’m in the airlock.”

“Is the captain stable?” Naomi asked.

“Was he ever?” Amos replied.

“I’m fine. My knee hurts. Get us out of here.”

“Amos?” Naomi said. “I’m seeing you’re still in the cargo bay. Is there a problem?”

“Might be,” Amos said. “Our guy left something behind.”

“Don’t touch it!” Holden’s voice was harsh as a bark. “We’ll get a torch and burn it down to its component atoms.”

“Don’t think that’d be a good idea,” Amos said. “I’ve seen these before, and they don’t take well to cutting torches.”

Prax levered himself up to standing, adjusting the slides on his boots to keep him lightly attached to the airlock floor. The i

“What is it, Amos?” Naomi asked.

“Well, I’d have to clean some of this yuck off it,” Amos said. “But it looks like a pretty standard incendiary charge. Not a big one, but enough to vaporize about two square meters.”

There was a moment of silence. Prax released the seal on his helmet, lifted it off, and took a deep breath of the ship’s air. He switched to an outside camera. The monster was drifting behind the ship, suddenly visible again in the faint light coming out of the cargo bay, and slowly receding from view. It was wrapped around his radioactive bait.

“A bomb,” Holden said. “You’re telling me that thing left a bomb?”

“And pretty damn peculiar too. If you ask me,” Amos replied.

“Amos, come with me into the cargo airlock,” Holden said. “Alex, what’s left to do before we burn that monster up? Is Prax back inside?”

“You guys in the ’lock?” Alex said.

“We are now. Do it.”

“Don’t need to say it twice,” Alex said. “Brace for acceleration.”

The biochemical cascade that came from euphoria and panic and the reassurance of safety slowed Prax’s response time so that when the burn began, he didn’t quite have his legs under him. He stumbled against the wall, knocking his head against the i

Then an angry god kicked the side of the ship and sent it spi

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Avasarala

There was another spike. A third one. Only this time, there didn’t seem to be any chance of Bobbie’s monsters being involved. So maybe… maybe it was coincidence. Which opened the question. If the thing hadn’t come from Venus, then where?

The world, however, had conspired to distract her.

“She’s not what we thought she was, ma’am,” Soren said. “I fell for the little lost Martian thing too. She’s good.”

Avasarala leaned back in her chair. The intelligence report on her screen showed the woman she’d called Roberta Draper in civilian clothes. If anything, they made her look bigger. The name listed was Amanda Telele. Free operative of the Martian Intelligence Service.