Caliban’s War

Her hand terminal chimed a priority alert. She turned off the water and grabbed a bathrobe, wrapping herself tightly and double-knotting the stay before she accepted the co

“Ameer! You mad dog. What have you done that they make you work so late?”

“Moved to Atlanta, miss,” the analyst said with a toothy grin. He was the only one who ever called her miss. She hadn’t spoken to him in three years. “I’ve just come back from lunch. I had an unscheduled report flagged for you. Contact immediately. I tried your assistant, but he didn’t answer.”

“He’s young. He still sleeps sometimes. It’s a weakness. Stand by while I set privacy.”

The moment of friendly banter was over. Avasarala leaned forward, tapping her hand terminal twice to add a layer of encryption. The red icon went green.

“Go ahead,” she said.

“It’s from Ganymede, miss. You have a standing order on James Holden.”

“Yes?”

“He’s on the move. He made an apparent rendezvous with a local scientist. Praxidike Meng.”

“What’s Meng?”

In Atlanta, Ameer transitioned smoothly to a different file. “Botanist, miss. Emigrated to Ganymede with his family when he was a child. Schooled there. Specializes in partial-pressure low-light soybean strains. Divorced, one child. No known co

“Go ahead.”

“Holden, Meng, and Burton have left their ship. They’re armed, and they’ve made contact with a small group of private-security types. Pinkwater.”

“How many?”

“The on-site analyst doesn’t say, miss. A small force. Should I query?”

“What lag are we at?”

Ameer’s brown-black eyes flickered.

“Forty-one minutes, eight seconds, miss.”

“Hold the query. If I have anything else, I can send them together.”

“The on-site analyst reports that Holden negotiated with the private security, either a last-minute renegotiation or else the whole meeting was extemporaneous. It appears they reached some agreement. The full group proceeded to an unused corridor complex and forced entry.”

“A what?”

“Disused access door, miss.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? How big is it? Where is it?”

“Should I query?”

“You should go to Ganymede and kick this sorry excuse for an on-site analyst in the balls. Add a clarification request.”

“Yes, miss,” Ameer said with the ghost of a smile. Then, suddenly, he frowned. “An update. One moment.”

So the OPA had something on Ganymede. Maybe something they’d put there, maybe something they’d found. Either way, this mysterious door made things a degree more interesting. While Ameer read through and digested the new update, Avasarala scratched the back of her hand and reevaluated her position. She’d thought Holden was there as an observer. Forward intelligence. That might be wrong. If he’d gone to meet with this Praxidike Meng, this utterly under-the-radar botanist, the OPA might already know quite a bit about Bobbie Draper’s monster. Add the fact that Holden’s boss had the only known sample of the protomolecule, and a narrative about the Ganymede collapse began to take shape.

There were holes in it, though. If the OPA had been playing with the protomolecule, there had been no sign of it. And Fred Johnson’s psychological profile didn’t match with terrorist attacks. Johnson was old-school, and the monster attack was decidedly new.

“There’s been a firefight, miss. Holden and his people have met armed resistance. They’ve set a perimeter. The on-site analyst can’t approach.”

“Resistance? I thought this was supposed to be unused. Who the fuck are they shooting at?”

“Shall I query?”

“God damnit!”

Forty light-minutes away, something important was going on, and she was here, in a bedroom that wasn’t hers, trying to make sense of it by pressing her ear to the wall. The frustration was a physical sensation. It felt like being crushed.

Forty minutes out. Forty minutes back. Whatever she said, whatever order she gave, it would get there almost an hour and a half behind what was clearly a rapidly changing situation.

“Pull him in,” she said. “Holden, Burton. Their Pinkwater friends. And this mysterious botanist. Bring them all in. Now.”

Ameer in Atlanta paused.

“If they’re in a firefight, miss c”

“Then send in the dogs, break up the fight, and take them in. We’re past surveillance. Get it done.”

“Yes, miss.”

“Contact me as soon as it’s done.”

“Yes, miss.”

She watched Ameer’s face as he framed the order, confirmed it, sent it out. She could practically imagine the screen, the strokes of his fingers. She willed him to go faster, to press her intent out past the speed of light and get the damn thing done.

“Order’s out. As soon as I hear from the on-site analyst, I’ll reach you.”

“I’ll be here. If I don’t take the co

She dropped the link and sat back. Her brain felt like a swarm of bees. James Holden had changed the game again. The boy had a talent for that, but that in itself made him a known quantity. This other one, this Meng, had come from her blind side. The man might be a mole or a volunteer or a stalking goat sent to lead the OPA into a trap. She considered turning off the light, trying to sleep, then abandoned it as a bad bet.

Instead, she set up a co

Chapter Nineteen: Holden

Naomi, prep the ship. We have to get off this moon. We have to do it right now.”

All around Holden, the black filaments spread, a dark spider’s web with him at the center. He was on Eros again. He was seeing thousands of bodies turning into something else. He thought he’d made it off, but Eros just kept coming. He and Miller had gotten out, but it got Miller anyway.

Now it was back for him.

“What’s the matter, Jim?” Naomi said from the distance of the suit radio. “Jim?”

“Prep the ship!”

“It’s the stuff,” Amos said. He was talking to Naomi. “Like from Eros.”

“Jesus, they c” Holden managed to gasp out before the fear welled up in his mind, robbing him of speech. His heart banged against his ribs like it wanted out, and he had to check the oxygen levels on his HUD. It felt like there wasn’t enough air in the room.

Out of the corner of his eye, something appeared to scuttle up the wall like a disembodied hand, leaving a trail of brown slime in its wake. When Holden spun and pointed his assault rifle at it, it resolved into a bloodstain below a discolored patch of ice.

Amos moved toward him, a worried look on his broad face. Holden waved him off, then set the butt of his rifle on the ground and leaned on a nearby crate to catch his breath.

“We should probably move out,” Wendell said. He and Paula were helping hold up the man who’d been gut-shot. The injured man was having trouble breathing. A small red bubble of blood had formed in his left nostril, and it inflated and deflated with each ragged gasp the man took.

“Jim?” Naomi said in his ear, her voice soft. “Jim, I saw it through Amos’ suitcam, and I know what it means. I’m getting the ship ready. That encrypted local traffic? It’s dropped way off. I think everyone’s gone.”

“Everyone’s gone,” Holden echoed.

The diminished remains of his Pinkwater team were staring at him, the concern on their faces shifting to fear, his own terror infecting them even though they had no idea what the filament meant. They wanted him to do something, and he knew he had to, but he couldn’t quite think what it was. The black web filled his head with flashing images, ru