Cibola Burn (Expanse, #4)

by James S.A. Corey

“Six hours until what, Alex?” Holden said. “Details, please.” “Figure two-, three-hundred-kilometer-an-hour winds, lightning, torrential rains. You’re far enough inland to avoid the three-kilometer-high tsunami.” “Basic wrath of God package, minus drowning,” Holden said, reaching for humor to hide his rising fear. “How certain is this?” “Uh, Captain? I’m watching the other side of the planet rip itself to shreds right now. This isn’t a prediction. This is thousands of klicks of planet between you and the apocalypse disappearing fast.”

Among them, she caught a glimpse of Fayez and her mouth went coppery with sudden fear. “Wait,” she said, hopping across the space. “Fayez, wait. What are you doing?” “Helping out,” he said. “Also, getting out of this sardine can. I’ve gotten used to having a couple feet of social distance. Just being around all these people stresses me out.”

The Martian marines that went there after him? There’s some pretty weird shit that’s gone on with all of them since then.” “Weird shit like what?” The chief engineer’s eyes brightened and he hunched forward, a posture of intimacy and complicity that was a habit of gravity. For the next half hour, he ran down half a dozen strange occurrences. One of the marines had died of an embolism during a heavy-g burn just before she’d been scheduled to talk with her cousin who ran a popular newsfeed. Another had quit the military and wasn’t talking about anything that had happened. There had been rumors of a secret report that suggested—strongly suggested—that James Holden had been killed on the station, and a doppelgänger put in his place. It stood to reason with all the other changes the protomolecule could make to a human body that recreating one wouldn’t be hard for it. Only the report had never been made public, and the people who had read it had been targets of whisper campaigns to discredit them.

“This isn’t a request,” Havelock shouted. When Marwick spoke again, his voice was cool. “I’m thinking you might not have yet noted that we’re on battery power, sir?” “We’re… we’re what?” “On battery power. Backup, as you might say.” Havelock looked around his office. It was like seeing it for the first time. His desk, the weapon locker, the cells. Naomi looking out at him with an expression of barely restrained alarm. “Did… did it shoot us too?” “Not so far as I can see. No new holes through the hull, certainly.” “Then what’s going on?” “Our reactor’s down,” Marwick said. “And it seems it won’t restart.”

The pilot seemed to think that the display showing hundreds of hours before the Barb’s orbit decayed enough to be dangerous would make him feel better. But Alex didn’t understand. It didn’t matter how long that number was. What mattered was that it was counting down.

“You know,” Holden continued, “we’ve got what seems like an engineering problem. And the best engineer in this solar system is locked up on that other ship. Why don’t you call them and point that out?” “I’ll do that,” Alex replied.

“I’ll call up to the Israel and start having them put packages together,” Murtry said. Holden breathed a sigh of relief. “I have to admit, I kind of expected you to fight me on this.” “Why? I’m not a monster, Captain. I will kill if it’s necessary to do my job, but your Mister Burton’s much the same. All of these people dying down here helps my cause not at all. I just want the squatters to go away as soon as we figure out the power problem.” “Great,” Holden said, and then a moment later, “You don’t actually care about them, do you? All this time you were fighting against them. Now you’re willing to help, but it’s only because it’s helping them leave. You’d be just as happy if they all died.” “That would also solve my problems, yes,” Murtry said.

“If you’re lying to me to get me to do what you want, I swear I will have Alex tear the Roci apart looking for whatever clump of goo you’re connected to and take a flamethrower to it.”

Holden ran a hand through his hair. When he spoke, his voice was soft, like he was speaking mostly to himself. “Apocalyptic explosions, dead reactors, terrorists, mass murder, death-slugs, and now a blindness plague. This is a terrible planet. We should not have come here.”

“How well did you know Miller?” Naomi asked. “Were you close?” “We were partners,” Havelock said. “He kept me out of trouble a couple times when I was in over my head. Or when I was being stupid. Ceres right before the OPA took over wasn’t a good place for an Earther.” “Did he ever strike you as… I don’t know. Weird?” “He was a cop on Ceres,” Havelock said. “We were all weird.

“I think,” he said, struggling with each syllable, “that I took the wrong contract.” “Know better next time,” she said. “Next time.” She put her fingers through the grate and he pinched her fingertip gently between his thumb and forefinger. For a long moment, they floated there together: prisoner and guard, Belter and Earther, corporate employee and government saboteur. None of it seemed to matter as much as it used to.

“Don’t fight me on this,” Holden said. “Please. Can I have one thing no one is fighting me on? I’m not leaving you out here to get poisoned. And if you’re blind, I think I can take you.” “Might be fun to find out,” Amos laughed again. “If it’s anybody, it’s you, I guess. But I’m not being obstinate to be a pain in your ass, Cap. I hope you know that.” “Then what?” “Everybody in there has the same fucking problem. Running out of food, going blind, planet blew up,” Amos said. He began assembling a battery out of spare parts while he spoke. His deft fingers knew the work so well he almost didn’t have to look at it. “Know what they’ll be talking about?” “That?” “Yeah. ‘Boo hoo, I ain’t got no food, I’m going blind, holy shit there’s poison slugs.’ I don’t do group therapy. Couple minutes of bitching and moaning, I’m gonna start knocking people out just to get some peace.”

“Is Murtry going to be there?” “He’s not answering my connection requests.” “Hmm,” Holden said. “That’s good. I don’t think he’s happy with me right now.”

Lucia took back her hand, leaving Elvi’s feeling a little colder. “All right, then. We should start. Can you guide me please, Captain?” “Yes,” Holden said. “Yes, I can. But we may need to get a cup of coffee. I’m feeling a little tired.” “I can get you some stimulants if you’d like, but there’s no coffee.” “Right,” Holden said. “No coffee. This is a terrible, terrible planet.

“Look, I’m getting you out of here. Doesn’t mean I’m comfortable handing you a weapon and turning my back.” “You have interesting personal boundaries,” Naomi said. “I may be working through some things right now.”

It was the security man’s nightmare scenario. In the face of death, why wouldn’t there be riots? Why wouldn’t there be killing and theft and rape? If there were no consequences—or if all the consequences were the same—then anything became possible. It was his job to expect the worst of humanity, including himself. And now here he was, helping a lawfully bound prisoner escape because he liked the death she offered him better than Murtry’s plastic-and-ceramic sepulcher standing on an empty planet. He didn’t give a good goddamn about New Terra or Ilus or whatever the unpleasant ball of mud under them got called. He cared about the people. The ones on the Israel and the ones on the Barbapiccola and the ones on the surface. All of them. Staking a claim that the corporation could use to protect its assets after they all died just wasn’t good enough.

“Who the hell are you?” the man demanded. “You’re the security guy. The one that locked her up.” “Used to be,” Havelock said. Naomi put her hands on Havelock’s shoulders, pulling herself over him to see the other man. “We’re leaving,” she said. “Want to come with?”

“So,” Havelock said, then paused to fire off another shot. “I guess this is a decision I don’t get to take back.” Basia couldn’t tell who he was talking to. “I’m gonna shoot you in the face, asshole,” the older man said. This was followed by another barrage of gunfire that tore up the hallway. “Mostly you’re shooting the ship, chief,” Havelock replied.

“You’ll be picking up three,” Naomi said. “Come get us.” “Three?” “Taking a stray home with me.” “A stray?” Havelock said, amusement in his voice. “I’m the one doing the rescuing here.”

“Do you want me to take care of that?” Alex asked. “Does your version of ‘taking care of it’ involve your ship’s point defense cannons?” Havelock replied. “Uh. Yeah?” “Then no. These guys are dumb and untrained enough to still be gung-ho. But they’re just engineers. They’re not bad guys,” Havelock said.

“Guys,” Havelock said. “Recoilless is an exaggeration. It doesn’t mean there’s no recoil at all.” It sounded like more nonsense talk to Basia until he looked at the Rocinante’s video of the pursuing team and saw one of the four men spinning and rotating in space, frantically firing his EVA pack to get under control. It only seemed to make it worse, as every blast of gas from the pack just added a new axis to the rotation. “Then that’s an inaccurate name for the weapons,” the man called Kemp replied. “And if we’d gotten to more advanced zero-g tactics, I would have explained that,” Havelock said. “I also would have taught you to use the integrated compensation software to have the EVA pack do stabilizing bursts every time you fire the gun.” “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.”

“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.”

Murtry’s pissed about the rescue.” “Yeah, but fuck him.” “I also,” Holden continued, “may have shoved him down and stolen his hand terminal.” “Stop making me fall in love with you, Cap, we both know it can’t go anywhere.”

The investigator is the tool for finding what is missing, and so it exists. All the rest is artifact. The craving for beer. The hat. The memory, and the humor, and the weird half-fondness half-contempt for something named James Holden. The love for a woman who is dead. The longing for a home that will never be. Extraneous. Meaningless. The investigator reaches out, finds Holden. It smiles. There was a man once, and his name was Miller.

“Oh,” Alex said. “Huh.” “Alex?” Naomi shouted. “What’s going on? Why aren’t we shooting it?” “Oh, we shot the hell out of it,” Alex said. “Busted that shit right on up. But this right now is when I’d normally be dodging out the debris path? That’s not really an option.”

“Don’t remember this was part of the deal, doc,” Amos said. “It’s kind of like our honeymoon,” Elvi said. She felt Fayez stiffen for a moment, and then almost melt against her. Amos considered that for a moment, then shrugged. “Whatever floats your boat.”

“Thank you, Dimitri,” Naomi said. “Dimitri?” Basia asked with a raised eyebrow. “You’ve got a problem with that? Isn’t Basia a girl’s name?” Havelock shot back. “It was my grandmother’s name, and she was a solar-system-wide famous physicist, so it’s a great honor to be named after her. I was the first grandchild.” “You two can shut up or leave the deck,” Naomi said.

“Any speculation on what they’re doing?” Naomi said, switching her view to match his. “They’re engineers. They know how crippled we are. How vulnerable. So my guess is they’re going to try to kill us.”

“There’s a damaged piece of the system ahead,” Miller continued, “and I’d hoped we’d be able to get around it. No such luck. We’re on foot from here.” “Your fancy alien train is broken?” “My fancy alien material transfer system has been sitting unused for over a billion years and half the planet just exploded. Your ship was built less than a decade ago and you can barely keep the coffee pot running.”

“Hey Miller,” Holden said, watching the robot peel up a two-meter section of the tunnel’s metal flooring and rapidly cut it into tiny pieces. “We’re still friends, right?” “What? Ah, I see. When I’m a ghost, you yell at me, tell me to get lost, say you’ll find a way to kill me. Now I’m wearing the shell of an invincible wrecking machine and you want to be buddies again?” “Yeah, pretty much,” Holden replied. “Nah, we’re good.”

“Honestly, why? What’s this for? That ship down there and everyone on her is going to die. We’re doing everything we can to put that off, but you guys have done the math, right? You have the same numbers we do. You don’t gain anything from this. It’s just being mean. You don’t need to do that.”

“Orders?” “Straight from Murtry.” Because, Havelock figured, it was precedent. RCE would be able to assert that it had protected its claim down to the last minute. Murtry’s legacy would be that he hadn’t given up a centimeter. Not on the ground, not in space, not on the abstract legal battlefield. Nowhere. There was a time not that long ago when Havelock would have thought there was a kind of hard purity in that. Now it just seemed weird and kind of pathetic.

“All right, guys,” he said. “You’ve made your point. Now let’s just dial this back. There’s still time. I don’t want to hurt anybody.” The words were surreal. Like a poem from some other century. A litany for deescalating conflict. No one really appreciated how much of security work was just trying to keep things under control for a few more minutes, giving everyone involved in the crisis a little time to think it all through. The threat of violence was just one tool among many, and the point was not making things worse. If there was any way at all, just not making things worse. It occurred to him that Murtry was actually really bad at that part of the job.

“We have plenty of them,” Havelock said. “The Israel came out here with too much of everything. I’d bet we have twenty in storage.” “That’s ten bubbles,” Basia said. “That’s plenty to hold the whole crew for a short trip.” “Captain Marwick,” Koenen said, “you cannot give these people vital RCE supplies.” “Marwick,” Havelock said. “Do not let over a hundred innocent people die over this bullshit. Do not do that.” “Ah fuck. What are they going to do? Cancel my contract?” Marwick replied, followed by a long sigh. “The Israel is moving in to transfer the escape bubbles. I’ll have the materials team start sealing them right now.”

In that moment, Basia felt something like a hammer blow to his chest. Everyone in those little pockets of air was a Felcia to someone. Every life saved there filled someone somewhere else with relief and joy. Every life snuffed out before its time was another Katoa. Someone, somewhere, having their heart torn out. Basia could feel the detonator in his hands, the horrible click transferring to his palm as the button depressed. He could feel that terrible shock wave again as the landing pad vanished in fire. He could feel the horror replaced by fear as some unlucky combination of events put the shuttle too close to the blast and knocked it from the sky. He could feel all of it so clearly it was as if it were happening right then. But more than that, he felt sorrow. Someone had just tried to do the same thing to his baby girl. Had tried to kill her, not because he hated her, but because she was standing in the path of his political statement. Everyone who died on that shuttle had been a Felcia to someone. And with the click of a button he’d killed them.

“That’s all right, kid,” the robot-thing said in a tinny Belter accent. “It ain’t news to me.” “Amos and Fayez and I got another cart going, and we came after them. To warn you.” “Okay,” Holden said. “You did great. We’re going to be fine now. How did you find us?” Elvi held up her hand terminal, took a breath, let it out. “It was complicated.” “Fair enough. What about Amos? Where’s he?” “Murtry shot him. I think he’s dead.” Holden’s face went pale and then flushed. He shook his head, and when he spoke, his voice was low and careful. “Amos isn’t dead.” “How do you know?” “If Amos goes down, it’s because literally everyone else there has already died. We’re still alive, so Amos is too.” “Don’t pay too much attention to him,” the robot monster said. “He gets a little romantic about these things. If you say the bald guy’s dead, I believe you.” “Thank you,” Elvi said by reflex. “I am sorry about it, though. I liked him.”

Elvi, I’m going to need you to go save everyone, okay?” “Um,” she said. “All right?” “Good. This is Detective Miller. He died when Eros hit Venus and now he’s a puppet of the protomolecule.” “Semi-autonomous,” the alien said. “Pleased to meet you.” “Likewise.”

And within that boundary, darkness swirled. It was more than an absence. She could sense a structure within it, layers interpenetrating, like shadows casting shadows. It throbbed with an inhuman power, tidal and deep and painful. Look at this too long, Elvi thought, and I will lose my mind in it. She took a step toward it, feeling the structures in the blackness respond to her. She felt as if she could see the spaces between molecules in the air, like atoms themselves had become a thin fog, and for the first time she could see the true shape of reality looming up just beyond her reach. Once, there had been a civilization here beyond anything Elvi had ever imagined. Beings that could design tools like the protomolecule, like the rings. They had peopled a thousand worlds, and more, spread through time and through space, and they were gone now. And this—she had no doubt at all—this was the footprint of the thing that had killed them.

“You going to arrest me, Sheriff?” “Actually, I was kind of thinking I’d shoot you.” “In the face, no doubt.” “If that’s what I can hit.” “Seems like a radical shift,” Murtry said, “for a man who wants to tame the frontier with mediation and committee meetings.” “Oh, no, this isn’t about that. Elvi says you killed Amos. I wouldn’t kill a single person for your fucking frontier, but for my crew? Yeah, I’ll kill you for that.”

“Civilization has a built-in lag time. Just like light delay. We fly out here to this new place, and because we’re civilized, we think civilization comes with us. It doesn’t. We build it. And while we’re building it, a whole lot of people die. You think the American west came with railroads and post offices and jails? Those things were built, and at the cost of thousands of lives. They were built on the corpses of everyone who was there before the Spanish came. You don’t get one without the other.

“Everything I did was within the bounds of the UN charter,” Murtry said. “I acted responsibly to protect the employees and investments of Royal Charter Energy.” “Okay,” Holden said, then pulled out his medkit and sprayed bandages onto Murtry’s two bleeding injuries. “So you’ve got your defense strategy mapped out. That’s proactive thinking. Lawyers’ll be happy to hear it. Wanna hear mine?” “Sure,” Murtry said, and probed at the wound on his arm. He grimaced, but no blood squirted out. “The most powerful person on earth owes me a favor, and I’m going to tell her you’re an asshole who tried his best to make her look bad. It’s just a sketch of a plan at this point, but I think it has potential.” “That’s what passes for justice with you?” “Apparently so.”

I’m going to get connected to as much of the crap on this planet as I can and escort it all into, y’know. That. Take it down. Break the system.” “Won’t that shut you down too?” “I think so. That’s the thing about using complicated tools. Sometimes the features you’re looking for come with a whole lot of baggage.” “I don’t understand,” Elvi said. “It built me to find something that’s missing,” Miller said. “Turns out I’m also a good tool for dying when that’s the right solve. Seriously, I’ve got practice with this.

The investigator reaches out, reaches down. It broadens like an eternal, endless inhalation, and spreads to fill all the places that it can reach, that have been reached. That are. It reaches out it reaches out it reaches out, the ticking on an insectile leg, a spark closing a gap, endlessly, and the investigator feels it, encompasses it. The scars reach out, the other minds. Some are frightened, some are lost in dreams that have been going on for years, some are grateful. They sing to the investigator, or they accuse it, or they plead with it, or they scream. They are aware, and powerless as they have ever been. The investigator touches them as it touches everything. It tells them not to worry. That it’s driving this bus. Don’t worry, it says. We’re gonna be fine. The investigator pushes his hat back, wishes he had a beer. He likes this woman. This Elvi. He wishes he’d had a little more time to know her. He wishes he had a little more time. He doesn’t care. He has died a million times since he died. The void has no mysteries for him now.

“Don’t hurry,” Holden said. “Take your time, make sure everything’s working. We can’t take another crisis.” “There’s always going to be another crisis, Cap. That’s just how it goes.”

Holden cheerfully noted each future repair on his itemized bill for Avasarala.

He climbed into the suit, then clumped through the ship to the cargo bay. To what he was pretty sure was Miller’s final resting place. He waited in the cargo bay airlock while the outer doors cycled open, putting the compartment into total vacuum, then went in. If something went wrong, if what was left of the protomolecule on his ship decided to defend itself, he’d be in vacuum with an airlock blocking entry into his ship. He sealed the airlock behind him, and told Alex to lock out local control on the door until he called and asked him to open it. Alex agreed without asking why. And then Holden began methodically tearing the cargo bay apart. Five hours later, and one air recharge for the suit, he found it. A small blob of flesh no larger than the tip of Holden’s finger, attached to the underside of a power conduit behind a detachable panel in the cargo bay’s bulkhead.

Holden put a gloved hand on the probe floating next to him, and pointed the other at the planet. “That’s you, man. That’s the second world you’ve saved. And once again, we have nothing to offer you in return. I kind of wish I’d been nicer to you.”

“Going to beat a helpless man in his hospital bed just because I got the better of you?” Murtry asked, trying to hide his unease with contempt. “Oh, goodness no,” Amos said, mock hurt in his tone. “That’s all good. Smart move taking me from behind. I don’t hate the game. I appreciate a good player.” “Then—” Murtry started, but Amos kept speaking. “But you made me kill Wei. I liked Wei.” The silence between the two men stretched, and Holden almost went back into the room, expecting to find Amos choking the man to death. Then Amos spoke again. “And when I do finally beat you, you won’t be helpless. Think that’ll matter?”

“The problem,” she said, pointing her fork at Bobbie for emphasis, “is that I trusted James Holden. Not to do anything I told him to. I’m not an idiot. But I thought he would be himself.” “Himself, how?” Avasarala took a bite of the lettuce. “Do you know how many ships are on track to the Ring? Right now, right now, we have sixteen hundred ships, and every one of them has been watching New Terra like they were reading fucking tea leaves. Johnson and I sent Holden to mediate because he was the perfect person to show what a clusterfuck it was out there. How ugly it could be. I was expecting press releases every time someone sneezed. The man starts wars all the fucking time, only this time, when I needed a little conflict? Now he’s the fucking peacemaker.” “I don’t understand,” Bobbie said. “Why did you want conflict?” “To put the brakes on,” Avasarala said. “To save Mars. Only I couldn’t.”

“This dinner. We’re at a recruitment meeting, aren’t we?” Avasarala folded her hands. “Bobbie, as long as we’re all pushing out our pieces…” “Yes?” “I need to put you back on the board, soldier.”