Cibola Burn (Expanse, #4)

by James S.A. Corey

It was astounding, Bobbie thought, how quickly humanity could go from What unimaginable intelligence fashioned these soul-wrenching wonders? to Well, since they’re not here, can I have their stuff?

The refugees who’d colonized Ilus had come down from their ship in small shuttles, so the only landing pad they’d needed was a flat stretch of ground. But the Royal Charter Energy people, the corporate people, who had a UN charter giving the world to them, would be coming down with heavy equipment. Heavy lift shuttles needed an actual landing pad. It had been built in the same open fields that the colony had used as their landing site. That felt obscene to Basia. Invasive. The first landing site had significance. He’d imagined it someday being a park, with a monument at the center commemorating their arrival on this new world. Instead, RCE had built a giant and gleaming metal monstrosity right over the top of their site. Worse, they’d hired the colonists to build it, and enough of them had thought it was a good idea that they’d actually done it.

Dimitri Havelock had worked security contracts for eight different corporations over thirteen years. Pinkwater, Star Helix, el-Hashem Cooperative, Stone & Sibbets, among others. Even, briefly, Protogen. He’d been in the Belt, on Earth, Mars, and Luna. He’d done long-haul work on supply ships heading from Ganymede to Earth. He’d dealt with everything from riots to intimate violence to drug trafficking to one idiot who’d had a thing for stealing people’s socks. He hadn’t seen everything, but he’d seen a lot. Enough to know he’d probably never see everything. And enough to recognize that how he reacted to a crisis was more about the people on his team than the crisis itself.

“We’re a year and a half from anywhere,” Wei said. The implication—No one can stop us from doing anything we choose—hung in the air. “We’re also hours away from every screen and newsfeed from Earth to Neptune,” Reeve said. “This sucks, but we’ve got the moral high ground. If we overreact, it’ll be another round of the evil corporations oppressing the poor Belters. We’re in a post-Protogen world. We don’t win that.” “Didn’t know they’d made you political officer,” Wei said, and Reeve’s jaw went tight. When Murtry spoke, his voice was calm and level and threatening as a rattlesnake. “That. We’re not doing that.” “Sir?” Reeve said. “The thing where we start sniping at each other. We don’t do that here.” Wei and Reeve looked at each other. “I’m sorry, sir,” Wei said. “I was out of line.” “Not a problem, because it’s not going to happen again,” Murtry said.

“You’ve worked with Belters,” Murtry said. “What do you think of ’em?” “They’re people,” Havelock said. “Some are better than others. I still have friends on Ceres.” “Fine. But what do you think of Belters?” Havelock shifted, the motion setting him drifting up against his restraints as he thought. “They’re insular. Tribal, almost. I think what they have most in common is that they don’t like inner planet types. A Martian can sometimes pass, though. They have the whole low-g physiology thing.” “So mostly they hate Earthers,” Murtry said. “That’s what pulls them together. That thing where they’re oppressed by Earth is just about the one thing they have in common. So they cultivate it. Hating people like us is what makes them them.” Murtry nodded. “You know there are people that would call you prejudiced for saying that.” “It’s only prejudice when you haven’t been there,” Havelock said. “I was on Ceres Station just before it broke for the OPA. For me, it’s all lived experience.”

Of all the scars, there is one that came last. That is most intact. It is useful and so it is used. It builds the investigator from that template, unaware that it is doing so, and tries another way of reaching out. And something answers. Something wrong and foreign and aboriginal, but there is an answer, so over the course of years it builds the investigator again and reaches out. The investigator becomes more complex.

“Rocinante,” a familiar voice replied. “Medina Station here.” “Fred,” Holden said with a sigh. “Problem?” “You guys aren’t landing? I’m betting you could use a few—” “Can I help you with something?” Holden said over the top of him. “Yeah, you can. Call me after you’ve docked. I have business to discuss.” “Dammit,” Holden said after he’d killed the connection. “You ever get the sense that the universe is out to get you?” “Sometimes I get the sense that the universe is out to get you,” Amos said with a grin. “It’s fun to watch.”

“You’ve put a lot of thought into this,” Holden said. Alex shrugged. “It’s interestin’, the evolution of that ship and its names. Started out as the Nauvoo. A place of refuge, right? Big city in space. Became the Behemoth, the biggest baddest warship in the system. Now it’s Medina Station. A gathering place. Same ship, three different names, three different things.”

“I need to show you something,” Fred said, as though Holden hadn’t asked the question. At Holden’s nod, Fred tapped on his desk and the video screen behind him came to life. On it, Chrisjen Avasarala’s face was frozen mid-word. The undersecretary of executive administration had her eyes at half-mast and her lips in a sneer. “This is the part that concerns you.” “—eally just an excuse to wave their cocks at each other,” Avasarala said when the video started. “So I’m thinking we send Holden.” “Send Holden?” Holden said, but the video kept playing and Fred didn’t answer him. “Send Holden where? Where are we sending Holden?” “He’s close when he’s out at Medina, and everybody hates him equally, so we can argue he’s impartial. He’s got ties to you, Mars, me. He’s a fucking awful choice for a diplomatic mission, so it makes him perfect. Brief him, tell him the UN will pay for his time at double the usual rates, and get him on New Terra as fast as possible before this thing gets fucked up any worse than it already is.” The old lady leaned in toward the camera, her face swelling on the screen until Holden could see the fine detail of every wrinkle and blemish. “If Fred is showing this to you, Holden, know that your home planet appreciates your service. Also try not to put your dick in this. It’s fucked enough already.”

“So they’ve been living on Ilus for a year, and suddenly RCE shows up and tells them that, oops, it’s really their planet?” “RCE has the UN charter for scientific exploration on Ilus, New Terra, whatever you want to call it. And they’re there because the Ganymede refugees landed there first. The plan was to study these worlds for years before anyone lived on them.” Something in Fred’s tone of voice tickled at Holden’s mind for a second, and he said, “Wait. UN charter? When did the UN get to be in charge of the thousand worlds?”

“Being here is our choice,” Lucia said. “Felica’s choice is where her choice is. We can stand in the way or we can help.”

“You know what I love about this planet?” Fayez said instead of hello. “Nothing?” He scowled at her, feigning hurt feelings. “I love the period of rotation. Thirty hours. You can get in a full day’s work, stay up getting drunk at the saloon, and still get a full night’s sleep.

“Part… um. Part of the RCE’s agreement with the UN was that we do a complete environmental study. We’re in just the second biosphere that we’ve ever seen, and there’s so much we don’t know about it that the more we can keep it pristine, the better we’ll be able to understand it. Ideally, we’d have a totally enclosed system here on the surface. Tight as a ship. Airlocks and decontamination rooms and…” She was babbling. She grinned, hoping that someone would smile back. No one did. She swallowed. “Every time we breathe, we’re taking in totally unknown microorganisms. And even though we’ve got different proteomes, we’re still big blobs of water and minerals. Sooner or later one of the indigenous species is going to find a way to exploit that. And it goes the other way too. Every time we defecate, we’re introducing billions of bacteria into the environment.” “So now you’re going to tell us how we can shit?” a man’s voice said. Elvi felt the sudden heat of a blush in her neck and cheeks. Even Lucia’s expression had gone cold and distant, the woman’s gaze fixed on nothing. “I only meant that if we were doing this right, we’d have a protected, sterile environment and we wouldn’t be going out into the ruins or cultivating crop plants in the open air because—” “Because you think we did it wrong,” the man sitting at Lucia’s side said. He was a big man with a dusting of gray at his temples and in the stubble of beard and a permanently angry face. “Only you don’t get to decide that.”

“High burn’ll get us on the ground in ’bout seventy-three days.” “Seventy-three days,” Holden said. “Well, seventy-two point eight.” “Space,” Holden said, trading his grin for a sigh, “is too damn big.”

The Belter colonists from Ganymede had spent months on the Barbapiccola prepping for landing on Ilus. Loading up on bone and muscle growth hormones, working out under a full g until their bodies would be able to handle the slightly heavier-than-Earth gravity of the planet. Naomi didn’t have the time or inclination to radically alter her physiology for this one job. Holden had argued that she would have then been able to come to Earth with him after. She replied that she was never going to Earth, no matter what. They’d left it at that, but it was still a sore spot for him.

“We’re astonishingly shortsighted.” “Just you and me?” Alex said, exaggerating his drawl to make a joke of it. “A vast new frontier has opened up for us. We have the chance to create a new society, with untold riches beyond every gate. But this world has treasure, so instead of figuring out the right way to divide up the damned galaxy, we’ll fight over the first crumbs we find.”

“You infected the Roci?” Holden said, fear and rage briefly warring in his gut. “Don’t know I’d use that verb, but all right. If you want. It’s what lets me follow you around,” Miller said, then frowned. “What was the other thing?” “I don’t know if I’m done with this thing,” Holden said. “You’re safe. We need you.” “And when you don’t?” “Then no one’s safe,” Miller said, his eerie blue eyes flashing. “So stop obsessing. Second thing?”

“Something happened downstairs,” Murtry said. “I’ve got Cassie on the horn, and I need you to keep her from melting down while I talk to the captain.” “Is it bad?” “Yeah. Take the call. Be the calm one. You can do that?” “Sure, boss,” Havelock said. “Cool as November, smooth as China silk.” “Good man.”

“Hey there, Cass,” Murtry said. “I’ve talked to Captain Marwick, and we’re dropping a team to you. It’s going to take us a couple hours, though. Your job is to keep that civilian safe.” Cassie’s voice trembled when she spoke, but it didn’t break. “There are forty of our people on the planet and two hundred of them. I’m one person. I can’t protect everyone.” “You don’t have to,” Murtry said. “I’ve sent the lockdown notice. I’m coordinating the science teams. That’s on me. Your job is Doctor Okoye. You just keep her breathing until we’re down there, okay?” “Yessir.” “All right,” Murtry said. “Two hours. You can do this, Cass.”

“—I have left,” Murtry was saying from his place at the front of the room. “And you’re all I have left. The cavalry’s not going to come in and save our butts. We are the cavalry, and that means I have already lost everyone I’m going to lose. We are the security team for this whole planet, right here in this room. And we can do it, but not if we’re making sacrifices. While we’re down there, if you feel threatened, you do whatever it takes to protect yourself and your team.” “Sir?” “Okmi?” “Does that mean we have authorization for lethal response?” “That means you have authorization for preemptive lethal response,” Murtry said, then waited a moment for the words to sink in. Havelock sighed. It was ugly, but there wasn’t a choice. If the heavy shuttle had been just a crime, they could have dealt with it like police. But the locals hadn’t stopped there, and now more RCE people were missing or dead. So now it was more like a war. Well. At least they’d tried the peaceful way first. Not that the Belters would give them any credit for it.

“Why would they shoot us down?” Murtry shrugged. “I think less about why and more about if. So… there’s something I need, and it’s going to play hell with your shuttle schedules, but I want you to do it anyway.” “Of course.” “We’re taking one of the light shuttles for the drop,” Murtry said slowly, as if he were thinking it through while he spoke, even though that clearly wasn’t the case. “The one that’s left? I want you to weaponize it. Take off anything that’d keep its reactor from overloading, and set it with a hardened remote ignition. Lock out all the standard nav controls and put in something that just you and me have access to.”

Somewhere out near the ring gates, the radio signals had passed each other, waves of electromagnetism passing through the void with human meanings coded into them. The distance it had taken a year and a half to travel in person, the message had managed in five hours. Five hours, and still too goddamn slow.

“Later,” Amos said, “when you’re wishing we had this stuff, I am going to be merciless in my mockery. And then we’ll die.” Holden started a snarky reply, then stopped himself. Had anything ever gone the way he planned? “Okay, one rifle each, but disassembled and in a duffel. Nothing visible. And light torso armor only. Something we can hide under our clothes.” “Captain,” Amos said with mock surprise. “Have you actually learned from your past? Is this a new thing you do now?” “Why do I put up with your shit?” “Because,” Amos said, starting to strip an assault rifle down to its component parts, “I’m the only one on the ship that can keep the coffee maker running.”

“Those were your people that disappeared,” Holden continued. “They got murdered,” Murtry corrected him, not losing his smile. The man made Holden think of a shark. All bared teeth and cold black eyes. “My understanding is that that was not proven.” “It’s true they cleaned up the scene. But I have no doubt.”

“Keep the peace?” Carol said. “You gave your people a shoot-first directive!” The crowd rumbled in disapproval at this, and the shouting started up again. Holden waved his arms to calm them back down. He hoped it looked more dignified and commanding than it felt. When Murtry spoke, his voice was calm but hard. “I have a hard time seeing how we’d be shooting first. Everybody that’s died so far, your people killed. I won’t tolerate any further threats against RCE employees or property.”

“There isn’t anything I won’t do to protect the lives of my team, that’s true. And we’ve lost too many already to take further chances.” “Hey, don’t blame us, mate, if you can’t keep track of your people.” Someone in the crowd laughed. “Don’t worry,” Murtry said, his smile still didn’t change, but he stepped in close to Coop. “I’ll find out what happened to them.” “Maybe you should be careful,” Coop said, looking down at the shorter man, his grin turning feral. “Or, you know, it might happen to you too.” “That,” Murtry said, drawing his gun, “was definitely a threat.” He shot Coop in the right eye.

“I know who you are,” Amos said. The big man had been so quiet that both Murtry and Holden started with surprise. “Who am I?” Murtry asked, playing along. “A killer,” Amos said. His face was expressionless, his tone light. “You’ve got a nifty excuse and the shiny badge to make you seem right, but that’s not what this is about. You got off on smoking that guy in front of everyone. You can’t wait to do it again.” “Is that right?” Murtry asked. “Yeah. So, one killer to another, you don’t want to try that shit with us.”

“Because of that attack,” Murtry continued, “I have given my people ‘shoot first’ authorization. They may, if they feel threatened, utilize lethal force to defuse the threat.”

“How many of our people do they get to kill before we defend ourselves?” “We killed them first,” Basia said, then regretted it immediately. Everyone started shouting, mostly at him.

I use my rank as captain to make the demands and requests the home office prefers me to, though in truth I’m just the lorry driver. But I’ll be driving my lorry back through that gate at some point, and Fred Johnson and his well-armed base will be waiting on the other side of it. I’d rather he not think of me first and foremost as a target.” Havelock chewed slowly, frowning. A dull anger tightened his jaw. “We’re the ones who followed the rules here. We came with science teams and a hard dome. We hired them to build our landing platform, and they killed us. We’re the good guys here.” “And the moral high ground is a lovely place,” Marwick said, as if he were agreeing. “It won’t stop a missile, though. It won’t alter the trajectory of a gauss round. What our mutual friend does planetside has consequences that go a long way out from here. And there are those among us, myself included, who’d like to go home one day.”

“I hope that’s not a problem, sir,” Wei said. “You are out of your fucking mind,” Holden said, his voice high and tight. “That thing could have killed you!” “Yes, sir,” Wei said. “That’s why I killed it.” “Did you?” Holden said, his voice continuing to climb. “Are you sure? What if it’s not all the way dead? Can we… burn it or something?” Wei smiled. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, we can.”

Cate rattled on, laying out the insanity of multiple murder like a puzzle to be solved or a game to be won. Coordinating the attacks so all three happened at once, so no one could raise the alarm. Using phrases like fields of fire and maximum aggression as if they meant anything other than gunning down a dozen women and men while most of them slept. The little group nodded and followed along. Basia was astonished by how easily the unthinkable became the routine. “My children live here,” Basia said, interrupting. “What?” Cate said, looking genuinely puzzled. She’d been mid-sentence when he spoke up. “I don’t—” “The bodies that we take pictures of to send to the newscasts,” Basia continued. “Those are our children. My children.” Cate blinked at him, too puzzled to be angry yet. “Como?” “I wanted to come here and maybe talk you out of doing something stupid,” Basia said, standing up and addressing the room. “I thought maybe with Coop gone, we could put an end to this. But this isn’t just stupid anymore. Not when you can talk about dead friends and family as media tools. That’s evil. And I can’t be part of it.”

At the northern edge of town, he found the rest of Murtry’s security team firing on one of the houses. Shots were coming back at them from inside. The security people were shouting at the people in the house to surrender, the people inside cursing and firing in answer. Smoke poured out one of the house’s broken windows, something inside burning. “Stop it!” Holden yelled as he ran toward the RCE people. They ignored him and continued to pour fire into the house. Answering bullets hit one of the RCE people in the chest, the body armor making a dull thud as it stopped the round. The security woman fell on her back, yelling in pain and surprise. The rest of the team opened up on the window the shot had come from, blasting the frame and inside wall behind it into splinters.

“Naomi,” he said once she’d picked up. “Bring the Roci down to the landing area. We’re going to need you to offload our heavier armor and some bigger firepower.” “This doesn’t sound good,” she said. “It’s not. Have you heard back from the UN or Fred yet?” “Nothing yet. I take it this means RCE and the Ganymede folks aren’t in a big hurry to leave?” “No,” Holden said with a heavy sigh. “No, they’d rather stay here and kill each other right up until the alien shit starts turning them into spare parts.”

“Wrong answer,” Havelock said with a grin. “The right answer is don’t hurry when you’re clearing a space. We have a natural tendency to see an empty space and think it’s safe. Doors and corners are always dangerous, because you’re moving into something without being sure what’s there. By the time you see the enemy, you’re exposed to them.”

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked. “What am I doing? You think that’s the question?” “You know that her husband—” “I don’t know a damned thing, Elvi. Neither do you. I’m rich in interpretation and poor in datasets, just the same as you.” “You think… you think it’s not…” “I think that building was filled with terrorists, and that Murtry killed them and saved us. That’s what I think, though. I also think that the more the locals know and love me, the less likely it is that I’ll be scalped in the next uprising. And… and what is civilization if it isn’t people talking to each other over a goddamned beer?” Fayez said, then lolled his head back over his shoulder. “Am I right?” “Fuckin’ A,” Amos called back. “That sure is whatever you were talking about.” “That’s right,” Fayez said. “You’re drunk.” “I’ve been doing this for a while,” Fayez said. “I’ve probably had drinks with a third of the people in this shithole. What I want to know is where the rest of you are while I’m making peace.”

Given the tactical constraints of the ring gates, Forecast Analytics projects the possibility of a modest OPA military force being able to effectively blockade the UN and RCE efforts.

Like water finding its mindless way through a bed of pebbles, it reaches out. What it can move, it moves, what it can open, it opens. What it can close, it closes. A vast network, ancient and dead, begins to appear, and it reaches into it. The parts of it that can think, struggle to make sense of it. Parts of it dream of a mummified body, its dry heart pumping dust through petrified veins. Not everything responds, but it reaches out, presses, moves. And some things move back. Old artifacts awaken or don’t. None of them are what it seeks. None ever will be.

It does not need to be aware of the problem. It has a tool for this. A thing that finds what is missing. A tool for asking questions that shouldn’t be asked. For going too far. The investigator considers the cyst, the shadow, the space where nothing is. That right there? The investigator thinks. Yeah, where I come from, we’d call that a clue.

“Does anyone else know?” “Well, Amos called up looking for her a minute ago—” Holden didn’t hear the rest of what Alex said, because he was already running toward town.

“I don’t want to find that,” he finally said. “And I do?” Miller replied with his best attempt at a friendly smile. “Free will left the conversation for me a while back. But that’s where the clues are. You should come with. It’s going to happen eventually anyway.” “Why is that?” “Because real monsters don’t go away when you close your eyes. Because you need to know what happened here just as bad as I do.”

“We put together a list of demands for the captain of the Israel. Make sure Naomi gets well taken care of while she’s there.” “What will we give up in exchange?” “Alex isn’t blowing the Israel into its component atoms right this second.” “I hope they agree we’re being generous.” “He is, however,” Amos continued, “keeping a constant rail gun lock on the Israel’s reactor.” Holden ran his fingers through his hair. “So not too generous, then.” “Say pretty please, but carry a one-kilo slug of tungsten accelerated to a detectable percentage of c.”

“So you think there are more of these things—maybe a lot more—that are activating, and we’re just not seeing it?” “It would fit the model,” she murmured. “All right,” he said. And a moment later, “This isn’t making my day better.”

“Nice that you can do something to protect her,” Basia said, and meant to stop, but the words pressed out past his teeth. “My daughter is on the Barbapiccola. My wife and son are down on Ilus. I can’t do anything to help them or protect them.” Basia waited for the empty words of reassurance. “Yeah,” Alex said. “You really fucked that one up, didn’t you?”

“You can’t blame yourself for what happened,” Basia started. “No,” Alex said, a deep frown cutting into his forehead. “A person can fail the people they love just by being who they are. I’m who I am, and it wasn’t what my wife wanted me to be, and somethin’ had to break. You decided to do what you did down on that planet, and it put you up here with me instead of with your family.” Alex leaned forward, grabbing Basia’s hands in his own. “It’s still on you. I will never live down not being the person my wife needed after she spent twenty years waitin’ for me. I can never make that right. Don’t go feelin’ sorry for yourself. You fucked up. You failed the people you love. They’re payin’ the price for it right now and you demean them every second you don’t own that shit.”

atavistic

“Alex isn’t the problem,” she said. “Let me tell you a little about Jim Holden.” “All right,” Havelock said. “He’s a good man, but he doesn’t turn on a dime. Right now, there’s a debate going on in his head. On the one hand, he was sent out here to make peace, and he wants to do that. On the other hand, he protects his own.” “His woman?” “His crew,” Naomi said, biting the words a little. “It’s going to take him a while to decide to stop doing what he agreed to do and just tip over the table.” Havelock’s hand terminal chimed. It was a reminder to review the next week’s schedules. Even in the depths of crises, minor office tasks demanded their tribute. He pulled up the scheduling grid. “You think he will, though,” Havelock said. “He’s got Amos with him,” Naomi said, as if that explained everything.

“He wasn’t the only one,” he said. “Sorry?” Naomi said. “He wasn’t the only one who got off Eros during the outbreak. My old partner was there. He got off too. Then he went back later. When it hit Venus.” “Wait. You knew Miller?” “Yeah,” Havelock said. “Small universe.”

Alex yelled across the radio. “Are you seein’ that shit!” “Call down,” Basia tried to yell back. It came out as a panicky whimper. “You have to warn them.” “Warn them to do what?” Alex asked. He sounded dazed. What do you do when the planet you’re standing on tries to kill you? Basia didn’t know.

“If they say no,” he said. “If they’re committed to letting Murtry hold on to her. I’m going to have to make a decision about whether she’s more important than keeping this place from devolving into a shooting war.” “Yup.” “I’m pretty sure I know what I’m going to pick too.” “Yup.” “There will be people who think I’m very selfish.” “True,” Amos said. “But also, fuck ’em. They’re not us.”