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“I’m open to suggestions,” Holden said.
“Maybe you could detonate some of the surface nukes the demo team put down. Deflect Eros’ course. Buy us time.”
“They’re on proximity fuses. Can’t set them off,” Holden said, the last word turning into a yelp as his chair stabbed him in a dozen different places and injected him full of fire. Alex had hit them with the juice, which meant Eros was still speeding up, and he was worried they’d all black out. How fast was it going to go? Even on the juice they couldn’t sustain prolonged acceleration past seven or eight g without serious risk. If Eros kept this rate of increase up, it would outrun them.
“You can remote detonate,” Fred said. “Miller will have the codes. Have the demo team calculate which ones to set off for maximum effect.”
“Roger that,” Holden said. “I’ll give Miller a call.”
“I’ll work on the i
Holden broke the co
“Yo,” said whoever was ma
“This is Holden, on the Rocinante.Give me Miller.”
“Uhc ” said the voice. “Okay.”
There was a click, then static, then Miller saying hello with a faint echo. Still wearing his helmet, then.
“Miller, this is Holden. We need to talk about what just happened.”
“Eros moved.”
Miller sounded strange, his voice distant, as though he was only barely paying attention to the conversation. Holden felt a flush of irritation but tamped it back down. He needed Miller right now, whether he wanted to or not.
“Look,” he said. “I’ve talked to Fred and he wants us to coordinate with your demo guys. You’ve got remote codes. If we set off all of them on one side, we can deflect its course. Get your techs on the line, and we’ll work it out.”
“Huh, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I’ll send the codes along,” said Miller, his voice no longer distant, but holding back a laugh. Like a man about to tell the punch line of a really good joke. “But I can’t really help you with the techs.”
“Shit, Miller, you pissed those people off, too?”
Miller did laugh now, a free, soft sound that someone who wasn’t piling on g could afford. If there was a punch line, Holden had missed it.
“Yeah,” Miller said. “Probably. But that’s not why I can’t get them for you. I’m not on the ship with them.”
“What?”
“I’m still on Eros.”
Chapter Fifty: Miller
What do you mean you’re on Eros?” Holden said.
“Pretty much that,” Miller said, covering his growing sense of shame with a casual tone of voice. “Hanging upside down outside the tertiary docks, where we moored one of the ships. Feel like a freaking bat.”
“But—”
“Fu
“Okay, hold on. We’re coming to get you.”
“Holden,” Miller said. “Just stop it, all right?”
The silence didn’t last more than a dozen seconds, but it carried a wealth of meaning. It’s not safe to bring theRocinante to Eros,and I came here to die,and Don’t make this harder than it is.
“Yeah, I justc ” Holden said. And then: “Okay. Let mec let me coordinate with the technicians. I’llc Jesus. I’ll let you know what they say.”
“One thing, though,” Miller said. “You’re talking about deflecting this sonofabitch? Just keep in mind it’s not a rock anymore. It’s a ship.”
“Right,” Holden said. And a moment later: “Okay.”
The co
He turned his hand terminal back to the Eros feed. The station beneath him was chirping and muttering, long slow vowel sounds radiating out from it like recorded whale song. After the angry words and static, the voice of Eros sounded peaceful. He wondered what kind of music Diogo’s friends would be making out of this. Slow dancing didn’t seem like their style. An a
There was alien life in the universe, and he was riding on it like a tick on a dog. Eros Station had moved of its own free will and by mechanisms he couldn’t begin to imagine. He didn’t know how many years it had been since he’d been overwhelmed by awe. He’d forgotten the feeling. He raised his arms to his sides, reaching out as if he could embrace the endless dark vacuum below him.
Then, with a sigh, he turned back toward the ship.
Back in the protective shell, he took off the vac suit and hooked the air supply to the recyclers to charge up. With only one person to care for, even low-level life support would have it ready to go within the hour. The ship batteries were still almost fully charged. His hand terminal chimed twice, reminding him that it was once again time for the anti-cancer meds. The ones he’d earned the last time he’d been on Eros. The ones he’d be on for the rest of his life. Good joke.
The fusion bombs were in the ship’s cargo hold: gray square boxes about half again as long as they were tall, like bricks in a mortar of pink adhesive foam. It took Miller twenty minutes of searching through storage lockers to find a can of solvent that still had charge in it. The thin spray from it smelled like ozone and oil, and the stiff pink foam melted under it. Miller squatted beside the bombs and ate a ration bar that tasted convincingly like apples. Julie sat beside him, her head resting weightlessly on his shoulder.
There had been a few times that Miller had flirted with faith. Most had been when he was young and trying out everything. Then when he was older, wiser, more worn, and in the crushing pain of the divorce. He understood the longing for a greater being, a huge and compassionate intelligence that could see everything from a perspective that dissolved the pettiness and evil and made everything all right. He still felt that longing. He just couldn’t convince himself it was true.
And still, maybe there was something like a plan. Maybe the universe had put him in the right place at the right time to do the thing that no one else would do. Maybe all the pain and suffering he’d been through, all the disappointments and soul-crushing years wallowing through the worst that humanity had to offer up, had been meant to bring him here, to this moment, when he was ready to die if it bought humanity a little time.
It would be pretty to think so,Julie said in his mind.
“It would,” he agreed with a sigh. At the sound of his voice, the vision of her vanished, just another daydream.
The bombs were heavier than he’d remembered. Under a full g, he wouldn’t have been able to move them. At only one-third, it was a struggle, but possible. An agonizing centimeter at a time, he dragged one of them onto a handcart and hauled it to the airlock. Eros, above him, sang to itself.
He had to rest before he tackled the hard work. The airlock was thin enough that only the bomb or he could fit through at a time. He climbed on top of it to get out the outer airlock door, then had to lift the bomb out with straps he rigged from cargo netting. And once out, it had to be tethered to the ship with magnetic clamps to keep Eros’ spin from slinging it out into the void. After he’d pulled it out and strapped it to the cart, he stopped to rest for half an hour.