Страница 46 из 125
It wasn’t out of control yet, but it was ramping up. Another few incidents and it wouldn’t matter how it had started. It wouldn’t matter what the stakes were. Mars knew the Belt couldn’t win, and the Belt knew it had nothing to lose. It was a recipe for death on a scale humanity had never seen.
And, like Ceres, there wasn’t much Miller could do about that either. But he could find James Holden, find out what had happened to the Scopuli,follow the leads back to Julie Mao. He was a detective. It was what he did.
As he packed up his hole, throwing out the collected detritus that grew over decades like a crust, he talked to her. He tried to explain why he’d given up everything to find her. After his discovery of the Rocinante,he could hardly avoid the word quixotic.
His imaginary Julie laughed or was touched. She thought he was a sad, pathetic little man, since just tracking her down was the nearest to a purpose in life he could find. She dressed him down as being a tool of her parents. She wept and put her arms around him. She sat with him in some almost unimaginable observation lounge and watched the stars.
He fit everything he had into a shoulder bag. Two changes of clothes, his papers, his hand terminal. A picture of Candace from back in better days. All the hard copy of Julie’s case he’d made before Shaddid wiped his partition, including three pictures of Julie. He thought that everything he’d lived through should have added up to more, and then changed his mind. It was probably about right.
He spent one last day ignoring the curfew, making his rounds of the station, saying goodbye to the few people he felt he might miss or might miss him. To his surprise, Muss, who he found at a tense and uncomfortable police bar, actually teared up and hugged him until his ribs ached from it.
He booked passage on a transport to Tycho. His bunk ran him a quarter of his remaining funds. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that he had to find Julie pretty damn quick or find a job to support him through the investigation. But it hadn’t happened yet, and the universe wasn’t stable enough anymore to make long-range pla
As if to prove the point, his terminal chimed as he was in the line to board the transport.
“Hey, partner,” Havelock said. “That favor you needed? I got a bite. Your package just put in a flight plan for Eros. I’m sending the public-access data attached. I’d get you the good stuff, but these Protogen guys are tight. I mentioned you to the recruiter and she seemed interested. So let me know, right? Talk to you soon.”
Eros.
Great.
Miller nodded at the woman behind him, stepped out of line, and walked to the kiosk. By the time a screen was open, they were calling final boarding for the Tycho transport. Miller turned in his ticket, got a nominal refund, and spent a third of what he still had in his account for a ticket to Eros. Still, it could have been worse. He could have been on the way before he got word. He had to start thinking about it as good luck, not bad.
The passage confirmation came through with a chime like a gently struck triangle.
“I hope I’m right about this,” he said to Julie. “If Holden’s not there, I’m go
In his mind, she smiled ruefully.
Life is risk,she said.
Chapter Twenty-One: Holden
Ships were small. Space was always at a premium, and even on a monster like the Do
It often took the form of a drinking game.
Like all professional sailors, Holden had sometimes ended long flights by drinking himself into a stupor. More than once he’d wandered into a brothel and left only when they threw him out with an emptied account, a sore groin, and a prostate as dry as the Sahara desert. So when Amos staggered into his room after three days on station, Holden knew exactly what the big mechanic felt like.
Holden and Alex were sharing the couch and watching a newsfeed. Two talking heads were discussing the Belter actions with words like criminal, terrorist,and sabotage.The Martians were “peacekeepers.” It was a Martian news cha
“Having a good shore leave, sailor?” Holden asked with a grin.
“I’ll never drink again,” Amos groaned.
“Naomi’s comin’ over with some chow she got at that sushi place,” Alex said. “Nice raw fish wrapped in fake seaweed.”
Amos groaned again.
“That’s not nice, Alex,” Holden said. “Let the man’s liver die in peace.”
The door to the suite slid open again, and Naomi came in carrying a tall stack of white boxes.
“Food’s here,” she said.
Alex opened all the boxes and started handing around small disposable plates.
“Every time it’s your turn to get food, you get salmon rolls. It shows a lack of imagination,” Holden said as he began putting food on his plate.
“I like salmon,” Naomi replied.
The room got quiet as people ate; the only sounds were the clack of plastic chopsticks and the wet squish of things being dipped in wasabi and soy. When the food was gone, Holden wiped his eyes, made ru
“You guys did a pretty good job setting this,” he said. “It’s the thing on my body that hurts the least right now.”
Naomi grabbed the remote off Holden’s armrest and turned the volume back on. She began spooling through the different feeds. Alex closed his eyes and slid down on the loveseat, lacing his fingers across his belly and sighing contentedly. Holden felt a sudden and irrational a
“Everyone had enough of sucking on Fred’s teat yet?” he said. “I know I have.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Amos said, shaking his head. “I’m just getting started.”
“I mean,” Holden said, “how long are we going to hang around on Tycho, drinking and whoring and eating sushi on Fred’s expense account?”
“As long as I can?” Alex said.
“You have a better plan, then,” Naomi said.
“I don’t have a plan, but I want to get back in the game. We were full of righteous anger and dreams of vengeance when we got here, and a couple of blowjobs and hangovers later, it’s like nothing ever happened.”
“Uh, vengeance kinda requires someone to avenge upon, Cap,” Alex said. “Case you ain’t noticed, we’re lackin’ in that department.”
“That ship is still out there, somewhere. The people who ordered it to shoot are, too,” Holden said.
“So,” Alex replied slowly, “we take off and start flyin’ in a spiral until we run into it?”
Naomi laughed and threw a soy packet at him.
“I don’t know what we do,” Holden said, “but sitting here while the people who killed our ship keep doing whatever it is they’redoing is making me nuts.”
“We’ve been here three days,” Naomi said. “We deserve some comfortable beds and decent food and a chance to blow off steam. Don’t try to make us feel bad for taking it.”
“Besides, Fred said we’ll get those bastards at the trial,” Amos said.