Abaddon's Gate

“You’re making me nervous,” he said.

“You’re getting smarter,” she said. “Ready?”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.”

The crate slid open. The mech inside looked complicated, blocky, and thick. Bull laughed for lack of anything he could think to say.

“It’s a standard lifting mech,” Sam said, “but we carved a bunch of the reinforcing out of its tummy and put in a TLS orthosis the medics gave me. We swapped out the leg actuation with a simple joystick control. It won’t take you dancing, and you’re still going to need help going potty, but you’re not stuck in bed. It’s not as comfortable as a top-end wheelchair, but it will get you anywhere in the ship you want to go, whether it was built for accessibility or not.”

Bull thought he was about to cough again until he felt the tears welling up in his eyes.

“Aw shit, Sam.”

“None of that, you big baby. Let’s just get you in and adjust the support plates.”

Sam took one shoulder, the nurse the other. The sensation of being carried was strange. Bull didn’t know the last time anyone had picked him up. The brace in the guts of the mech was like a girdle, and Sam had put straps along the mech’s struts to keep his legs from flapping around. It was an inversion of the usual; instead of using his legs to move the mech, he was using the mech to move his legs. For the first time since the catastrophe, Bull walked down the short hall and into the general ward. Sam kept pace, her gaze on the mechanism like a mother duck taking her ducklings for their first swim. His sense of wrongness didn’t leave, but it lessened.

The worst of the injured from all three sides were here, men and women, Belter and Earther and Martian. A bald man with skin an unhealthy yellow struggled to breathe; a woman so young-looking Bull could hardly believe she wasn’t a child lay almost naked in a bed, her skin mostly burned away and a distant look in her eyes; a thick-bodied man with an Old Testament prophet’s beard and body hair like a chimp moaned and shifted through his sedation. In the disposable plastic medical gowns, there was nothing to show who belonged to what side. They were people, and they were on his ship, so they were his people.

At the end of the corridor, Corin stood in front of a doorway, a pistol on her hip. Her salute was on the edge between serious and mocking.

“Macht sly, chief,” she said. “Suits.”

“Thank you,” Bull said.

“Here to see the prisoners?”

“Sure,” Bull said. He hadn’t meant to go anywhere in particular, but since he could, he could. The lockdown ward was smaller, but other than one of his security staff at the door, there weren’t any signs that the patients here were different. Prisonerswas a strong word. None of them were legally bound. They ranged from high-value civilians from Earth to the highest-ranking Martian wounded. Anyone whom Bull thought might be particularly useful, now or later. All of the dozen beds were full.

“How’s it feeling?” Sam asked.

“Seems like it lists to the right a little,” Bull said.

“Yeah, I was thinking maybe—”

The new voice came from the farthest bed, weak and confused but unmistakable:

“Sam?”

Sam’s attention snapped to the back, and she took a couple tentative steps toward the woman who had spoken.

“Naomi? Oh holy crap, sweetie. What happened to you?”

“Got in a fight,” the XO of the Rocinantesaid through bruised and broken lips. “Whipped her ass.”

“You know Nagata?” Bull asked.

“From the bad old days,” Sam said, taking her hand. “We were roommates for about six days while she and Jim Holden were having a fight.”

“Where,” Naomi said. “Where’s my crew?”

“They’re here,” Bull said, maneuvering his mech closer to her. “All but Holden.”

“They’re all right?”

“I’ve felt better,” a balding, slightly pudgy man with skin the color of toast said. He had the drawl of Mariner Valley on Mars or West Texas on Earth. It was hard to tell the difference.

“Alex,” Naomi said. “Where’s Amos?”

“Next bed over,” Alex said. “He’s been sleepin’ a lot. What happened, anyway? We get arrested?”

“There was an accident,” Bull said. “A lot of people got hurt.”

“But we ain’t arrested,” Alex said.

“No.”

“Well that’s all right, then.”

On her bed, Naomi Nagata had visibly relaxed. Knowing her crew were alive and with her carried a lot of weight. Bull filed the information away in case it was useful later.

“The woman who attacked you is under arrest,” Bull said.

“She’s the one. The bomb,” Naomi said.

“We’re looking into that,” he said, trying to keep his tone reassuring. Another coughing fit spoiled the effect.

Naomi frowned, remembering something. Bull wished he could take her other hand. Build some rapport. The mech was a fine way to walk around, but there were other ways it was limiting.

“Jim?” she said.

“Captain Holden has been taken into custody by the Martian navy,” Bull said. “I’m trying to negotiate his release into our custody, but it’s not going very well so far.”

Naomi smiled as if he’d given her good news and nodded. Her eyes closed.

“What ’bout Miller?”

“Who?” Bull asked, but she was already asleep. Sam shifted to Alex’s bed and Bull stepped over to look down on the Rocinante’s sleeping mechanic. Amos Burton. They were a pretty sad bunch, and far too small a crew to run a ship like theirs safely. Maybe Jakande could get some pointers from them.

Until he got Holden, they were going to be at a disadvantage. The man was a professional symbol, and creating calm when there was no reason for it was all about symbols. Captain Jakande wouldn’t bend, because if she did, she’d be court-martialed when they got back. If they got back. Bull didn’t like it, but he understood it. If they’d been anywhere but the slow zone, they’d all have been rattling sabers and baring teeth. Instead, all they could do was talkc

Bull’s mouth went dry. Sam was still looking at Naomi Nagata’s bed, her face angry and despairing.

“Sam,” Bull said. “Got a minute?”

She looked up and nodded. Bull flicked the little joystick, and the mech trod awkwardly around. He steered it back out through the door and back to his own private room. By the time they got there, Sam’s expression had shifted to curious. Bull closed the door, coughing. He felt a little light-headed and his heart was racing. Fear, excitement, or being vertical for the first time since they’d passed through the Ring, he didn’t know.

“What’s up, boss?”

“The comm laser,” Bull said. “Say I wanted to make it into a weapon. What’s the most power we could put through it?”

Sam’s frown was more than an engineer making mental calculations. The spin gravity made her seem older. Or maybe bathing in death and fear just did that to people.

“I can make it about as hot as the middle of a star for a fraction of a second,” Sam said. “It’d burn that side of the ship down to a bad smell, though.”

“What’s the most we could do and get, say, three shots out of it? And not melt our ship?”

“It can already carve through a ship’s hull if you’ve got time to spare. I can probably pare that time down a bit.”

“Get that going, will you?”

Sam shook her head.

“What?” Bull asked.

“That big glowy ball out there can turn off inertia when it feels threatened. I don’t feel comfortable making light into a weapon. Seriously, what if it decides to stop all the photons or something?”

“If we have it, we won’t need to use it.”

Sam shook her head again.

“I can’t do that for you, Bull.”

“What about the captain? Would you do it for a Belter?”

Sam’s cheeks flushed. It might have been embarrassment or anger.

“Cheap shot.”

“Sorry, but would you take a direct order from Captain Pa?”

“From her, yes. But not because she’s a Belter. Because she’s the captain and I trust her judgment.”