Abaddon's Gate

Holden saw the words wash over Naomi, a sudden pain in her eyes that he didn’t understand. She pulled back her lips, baring her teeth. Her whisper was obscene and so quiet that no one but him could hear it. He squeezed her hand, feeling the bones of her fingers against his own.

“Okay,” Naomi said. “We’ll keep quiet.”

The rage flared in his breast. Speaking was suddenly easy.

“I won’t,” Holden said. “We’re talking about an insane member of the Mao clan, the people who’ve twicetried to kill everyone in the solar system, who followed us all the way to the Ring, tried to kill us. To kill you. She blew up a spaceship full of i

There was a long moment of silence. Holden watched A

“Yeah,” Alex said in his drawling voice. “I mean, Naomi only got beat half to death. She can cut this Clarissa slack, it’s no big deal. But the captain’s girlfriendgot hurt. He’s the realvictim here.”

The room got quiet again as everyone stopped breathing. Blood flushed into Holden’s face, rushing like a river in his ears. It was hatred and pain and outrage. His mind seemed to flicker, and the urge to strike out at Alex for the insult was almost too much to resist.

And then he understood Alex’s words, saw Naomi’s eyes on his, and it all drained away. Why, he wanted to ask, but it didn’t matter. It was Naomi, and she’d made her decision. It wasn’t his revenge to take.

He was spent. Exhausted. He wanted to curl up on the floor there with his people around him and sleep for days. He tried out a smile.

“Wow,” he finally said. “Sometimes I am just a gigantic asshole.”

“No,” Amos said. “I’m right there with you. I’d kill this Clarissa myself for the shit she’s pulled. But Red asked us to let it go, and Naomi’s playing along, so I guess we gotta too.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Holden said to A

“Thank you,” A

“Things change, Red,” Amos said, “you let us know. Because I’ll still be happy to kill the shit out of her.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Clarissa

She didn’t know at first what the change was. It presented in little things. The decking she’d been able to sleep on like she was dead suddenly wasn’t comfortable. She found herself wondering more what her father did in his cell, five billion kilometers away and, for all she knew, in another universe. She tapped her hands against the bars just to hear the subtle differences in tone that the different bars made when struck. And she hated.

Hatred was nothing new. She’d lived with it for long enough that the memories of the times before all carried the same colors of rage and righteousness. Only before, she’d hated Jim Holden, and now she hated Clarissa Mao. Hating herself had a kind of purity that she found appealing. Cathartic. Jim Holden had shifted out from under her thirst for vengeance, refusing to be consumed by it. She could live in the flames and know she deserved to burn. It was like playing a game on easy.

She tapped the bars. There wasn’t enough variation between them to play a melody. If there had been she would have, just for something to distract her. She wondered whether her extra glands would be enough to bend the bars or lift the door off its hinges. Not that it would matter. At best, leaving her cell would have meant being gu

The captain had stopped talking to her, at least. She watched the stream of visitors coming to him. She had a pretty clear idea which of the guards answered to him. And there were a couple of Martians in military uniforms who came, and a few UN officers too. They came and met with Captain Ashford, speaking in the low voices of people who took themselves and each other very seriously. She recognized the sound from eavesdropping on her father. She remembered that she had been impressed by it once. Now it made her want to laugh.

She paced her tiny world. She did push-ups and lunges and all the pointless exercises that the light gravity allowed. And she waited for punishment or for the end of the world. When she slept, Ren was there, so she tried not to sleep much.

And slowly, with a sense of growing horror, she understood that the change was her coming back to herself. Falling awake. After her failure on the Rocinante, there had been a kind of peace. A disco

The more she thought about it, the clearer the mind games that the red-haired priest had played on her were. The priest and, in her way, Tilly Fagan too. Maybe A

I’d like to speak with you again, she’d said, and at the time it had seemed so sincere. So real. Only she hadn’t come back. A small rational part of Clarissa’s mind knew that it hadn’t really been that long. Being in the cell changed the experience of time and made her feel isolated. That was the point of cells. Still, A

Still, it was the only show playing, so she watched.

The voices from the other cell had taken on a new tone. An urgency. Even before the well-dressed man came down toward her, she knew that their little drama was about to play out. He stood at her door, looking in. His white hair, brilliant and perfectly coiffed, just made him look old. There was a darkness in his professionally avuncular eyes. When he put his hands around the bars, it looked like he was the one imprisoned.

“I’m guessing that you don’t remember me,” he said. His voice was sad and sweet both.

“Father Cortez,” she said. “I remember who you are. You used to play golf with my father.”

He chuckled ruefully, stepping his feet back from the bars in a way that brought his forehead closer to them.

“I did, but that was a long time ago. You wouldn’t have been more thanc what? Seven?”

“I’ve seen you in the newsfeeds since.”

“Ah,” he said. His eyes focused on nothing. “That feels like it was a long time ago too. I was just now talking with the captain. He said he’s been trying to convince you to join us, only he hasn’t had much success.”

Two guards came in, walking down the rows of stalls. She recognized them both as Ashford’s allies. Cortez didn’t take notice of them at all.

“No, he hasn’t,” she said. And then, “He lies a lot.”