Cibola Burn (The Expanse) (53 page)

“Seems to me there’s a lot you didn’t show us,” Kemp replied.

“Yeah, and now that you’re shooting at me, I’m just sick about that. In the meantime, please stop. Drake is way out of control and drifting away from you guys. Someone needs to go get him before he gets too far.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” the one Havelock had called Koenen said. “Get us to call off the chase.”

“I’d like,” Havelock said, his voice sad, “to keep Drake from falling out of space and dying. Also, I’m arguing with the pilot of the gunship behind me so that he
doesn’t
need to turn you into a cloud of red mist with his point defense cannons. But you guys are making it harder and harder to be convincing.”

“Don’t threaten —”

“Go get Drake. Get back in the ship. Stop shooting. If one of those shots you’re spraying around accidentally hits, I’m taking the gunship off the leash.”

There was a long silence. The red lines on Basia’s HUD began disappearing one by one until none were left. The EVA pack fired off one long, final burst, then spun him around. The outer airlock door of the
Rocinante
was already open, waiting for them. Naomi drifted inside, grabbed a handhold, and waited for them to follow. Shaded from Ilus’ star the polarization of her faceplate faded, and the blue glow of the airlock’s LED lights illuminated the inside of her helmet. Her wide smile was clearly visible.

“Home again, home again,” she said. Basia drifted in next to her and she caught his arm to stop him. “Thank you for coming for me.”

Basia blushed and raised his palms in a Belter shrug. “I didn’t do much but get shot at.”

“Sometimes just showing up is a lot.”

Havelock caught the edge of the airlock entrance and stopped, looking back toward the
Israel
. “Hey, you got Drake? He okay?”

“Yes, sir,” Kemp replied. “We caught him.”

“Havelock,” the older, angrier voice said. “You won’t get away with this. RCE will burn you to the ground when we get back. And I’ll be there to see it happen.”

Havelock laughed. “Chief? I hope we both live so long. Havelock out.” He backed into the airlock and slapped the wall panel to start the cycle.

“We made it,” Basia said. He felt a brief moment of euphoria, followed by a sudden release of pants-shitting terror he hadn’t even known he’d been repressing. If he’d been standing in gravity, he would have collapsed. Naomi and Havelock began stripping off their EVA packs while the airlock ran through the pressurization cycle. Basia fumbled at the straps of his own, but his hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t manage it. After a few moments, Naomi helped him pull it off.

The pack drifted across the compartment and hit the bulkhead with a dull thud. Basia had just enough time to realize he’d actually heard something other than his own breathing when the inner airlock door slid open. Alex floated, framed by the airlock entrance, a goofy grin on his broad dark face.

“XO,” he said, “good to have you back on the ship.”

Naomi pulled her helmet off and tossed it to him. “Good to be back, Mister Kamal.”

There was a short pause while they grinned at each other, then Naomi pushed off toward him and Alex grabbed her in a hug.

“They treat you okay?” Alex asked.

“Kept me locked in a kennel like a dog,” Naomi replied, jerking her head toward Havelock. The squat Earthman had removed his own helmet, and it floated in the air next to him. He was wearing a sheepish half smile. Without his helmet on, Basia saw his short, light-colored hair, a square jaw, and dark eyes. A sort of generic rugged handsomeness. Like a video star playing a cop in an action movie. It made Basia want to dislike him.

“It was policy,” Havelock said. “I’m – I was chief of ship security on the
Edward Israel
. I think I may have just resigned that position. I was the one that took your XO captive. I hope you won’t hold that against me.”

“Okay,” Alex said, then turned back to Naomi as if Havelock weren’t even there. “What now?”

“Status report,” Naomi replied. “What’s the latest on the degrading orbit?”

“
Barbapiccola
’s going down first, then the
Israel
, then we get to pick between dying in orbit when the batties run out, burning in the atmosphere, or getting shot by aliens,” Alex said with a humorless laugh. “We’re all fucked six ways from Sunday. But it’s nice to have you back on board.”

H
olden shuffled his way around the tower again.

He tried to calculate how many hours he’d gone without sleep, but his brain had lost the ability to do math, and Ilus’ thirty-hour day kept screwing up his estimates. A long time was all he could come up with.

He triggered his armor’s medical system to shoot him up with more amphetamines, and was troubled when the HUD told him the supply was empty. How much did that mean he’d taken? Like the question of how long it had been since he slept, it was an insoluble mystery.

A pair of death-slugs were climbing the side of the tower toward a teardrop-shaped window. The plastic that had been stretched across the opening had a few small rips in it, so Holden knocked the slugs off the wall with his shovel and then kicked them away. He rinsed the toxic slime off his boot in a muddy puddle.

The rain had lessened to a drizzle, which was good, but the temperature had continued to drop, which was bad. While the overall light level didn’t change much with the constant cloud cover, Holden had started noticing the day-to-night transition by the appearance of frost on the walls of the tower. It wasn’t dangerously cold yet, but it would get worse. Pretty soon the survivors would be adding hypothermia to their list of unpleasant ways to die.

He bit his tongue until it bled and continued his slow trudge around the tower.

He heard Murtry before he saw him. A quiet, ghostly voice drifting out of the gray rain that gradually resolved into a man-shaped spot slightly darker than the space around it.

“— immediate action. They’ve escalated. We’ll have an argument that we acted with restraint until —” Murtry was saying, but stopped when he heard Holden approaching.

“What are you doing out here?” Holden asked. Murtry was still blind. It was dangerous for him to be wandering around outside. The ground, where it wasn’t puddles, was a slick clay that could take someone off their feet in a heartbeat. And the numbers of slugs driven to the surface by the water had Holden wondering if Ilus was a hollow ball filled with poisonous worms.

“Minding my business, Captain,” Murtry said, not quite looking in Holden’s direction.

“Meaning I should do the same?”

“Glad you followed that.”

The two men stood for a long moment. Far above them, their crews were probably shooting at each other right now. They were enemies, and they weren’t. Some part of Holden’s sleep-deprived, half-broken mind still wanted to make peace with Murtry and the RCE. Or at least didn’t want the man’s death on his conscience.

“It’s dangerous out here,” Holden said, keeping his own voice even and calm.

“That makes it different how?” Again, the clenched jaw cutting off the last word with a snap. His anger gave Holden a thin sliver of hope. Maybe Naomi had gotten out. He needed to talk to Alex.

“I can’t let you get killed on my watch,” Holden said.

“I appreciate your concern.”

It all felt vaguely ridiculous, tap-dancing around the issue. They both knew what was happening. He felt like they were playing poker and only pretending they couldn’t see each other’s hand.

“Can I help you back inside?” Holden asked.

“I have some business to finish up here,” Murtry replied with a meaningless smile.

“When we find your corpse later, I’m going to tell everyone I warned you.”

“If I die,” Murtry said, his smile becoming a shade more genuine, “I’ll try to leave a note saying it wasn’t your fault.”

He signaled the end of the conversation by turning away and mumbling into his hand terminal. Holden left him and immediately called Alex.

“Kind of busy here, Cap,” the pilot said without preamble.

“Tell me we’re busy because you’ve rescued Naomi and everything is going perfectly. Is she on the ship?”

There was a long pause as Alex noisily exhaled into the microphone. “So, that part where I went to rescue Naomi? Yeah. I sent Basia.”

Holden spun on his heel to look back at Murtry. The RCE security chief was still talking on his hand terminal. “We sent the prisoner to rescue another prisoner? If that hasn’t already worked, I think I may be watching Murtry order their executions right now.”

“No no,” Alex said in a rush. “It did kind of go to shit, but the radio chatter I’m gettin’ makes me think Naomi’s fine. In fact, I think she might be escaping on her own and savin’ Basia.”

Holden couldn’t help but laugh. Murtry’s head swiveled, looking for the source of the laughter with blind eyes. “Sounds about right. Where are they now?”

“It’s a little confusin’, actually,” Alex said. “I’ve definitely got Basia’s IFF pinging away outside the
Israel
. But there’re a bunch of other suits out there. So it’s complicated.”

“Can you, you know, ask?”

“Yeah, no. Basia switched channels on me without leavin’ the old channel open. Not a guy who’s done a lot of tactical comm drills, I’m guessing. I’m hoping one of them starts talking to me so I can get the new frequencies.”

Holden watched Murtry, probably using his radio to coordinate the pursuit of Naomi and whoever else she was with now. He fought down a sudden urge to walk over to the man, knock him to the ground, take his terminal, and demand to know what the hell was going on.

And then he stopped fighting.

Murtry had just started to turn toward him, frowning at the sound of his approaching steps, when Holden yanked the terminal out of his hand and shoved him to the muddy ground.

“Stay down there or I’ll beat you unconscious,” he told the RCE man. Holding the terminal to his ear he said, “Who’s on the other end of this?”

“Who the fuck is
this
? Where’s Murtry?”

“I’m standing on him right now,” Holden said. “So if you’re part of the team that’s chasing Naomi Nagata, you should stop.”

The man on the other end said, “Comms is compromised, switch to two-alpha,” and the connection dropped. Someone who’d spent some time training on tactical comms, it seemed.

“Alex,” Holden said. “I’ve disrupted their command channel. Go get our people.”

“Not a problem, boss. The situation has clarified some. I’ve got three comin’ aboard.”

“Who’s the third?”

“About to go find out. Alex out.”

Murtry pushed himself to his knees with a grunt, frowning at a spot just over Holden’s left shoulder. “Tough guy when your opponent is blind.”

“We’re working on fixing that,” Holden replied, tossing the man’s hand terminal to the ground next to him. “You feel free to come look me up after.”

“I will,” Murtry said. The RCE security chief picked himself up and began carefully walking toward the alien tower’s entrance.

When he was far enough away he wouldn’t hear, Holden said, “Looking forward to it.” He was surprised to find that was true. When Murtry disappeared around the corner of the tower, Holden began his slow trudge the other direction.

His earbud crackled to life and Amos said, “Cap? That doctor is looking for you.”

“Lucia or Elvi?”

“The cute one.”

“Lucia or Elvi?”

“The one not married to our prisoner.”

“Tell Elvi I’ll be there after this pass around the tower,” Holden said and killed the connection.

A few minutes later he rounded the last corner, bringing the tower entrance into sight. Elvi was waiting for him there, her face set in a deep frown.

“It didn’t work,” Holden said.

“What?”

“The oncocidals. My medicine. It’s not working.”

“What?” Elvi replied, “Why do you say that? What happened?”

“You’re frowning.”

“Oh. No. I was just thinking that the membrane-bound proteins in our cells must have some sort of functional sites in common with the local life, even though as far as I can tell, they’re totally different proteins. The oncocidals are having a similar effect on mitotic division even though our amino acid groups barely overlap. It’ll take decades to figure that one out.”

“So let’s pretend I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Holden said.

“It’s working,” Elvi said, and her frown shifted into a brilliant smile. “The microorganism’s cell replication is failing. The colonies are breaking down and the light-scattering effect is going too. I can almost read again, if the font’s big enough.”

Holden felt a rush of relief that immediately turned into a wave of dizziness. He collapsed against the wall of the tower, taking long slow breaths to keep from passing out. A few meters away, a slug crawled along the wall toward him. He started to poke it off the wall with his shovel, then realized he’d lost it somewhere and he couldn’t feel his hands.

“Are you okay?” Elvi asked, reaching out tentatively with one hand to find him. “Your respiration sounds funny.”

“Passing out,” Holden said between long breaths. “How long until everyone can see again?”

“We need to get you inside,” Elvi replied, throwing his left arm around her shoulders and guiding him to the door. “I think you’ve been awake for something like four days.”

“It’s okay,” Holden said. “I took a
lot
of speed. How long?”

Elvi stopped, throwing her other arm around his waist to hold him up. It was both a relief and, if he were being honest, a little unflattering how quickly every bit of sexual tension had been drained from their interactions. He was giddy and sleep-deprived enough he almost asked her what had changed. Fortunately, she spoke first.

“Not sure. The dead organism isn’t refracting light like the live ones do. Most of the loss of vision came from that, not from actual blockages. We’ll still have some floaties in our eyes for a while, but…”

“So, that means soon?”

Elvi got him in the doorway and over to a pile of blankets. She gently lowered him until he was lying flat on his back. “Yes, soon I should think. Hours, maybe. Days at the most.”