Abaddon's Gate

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Clarissa

She didn’t know at first what the change was. It presented in little things. The decking she’d been able to sleep on like she was dead suddenly wasn’t comfortable. She found herself wondering more what her father did in his cell, five billion kilometers away and, for all she knew, in another universe. She tapped her hands against the bars just to hear the subtle differences in tone that the different bars made when struck. And she hated.

Hatred was nothing new. She’d lived with it for long enough that the memories of the times before all carried the same colors of rage and righteousness. Only before, she’d hated Jim Holden, and now she hated Clarissa Mao. Hating herself had a kind of purity that she found appealing. Cathartic. Jim Holden had shifted out from under her thirst for vengeance, refusing to be consumed by it. She could live in the flames and know she deserved to burn. It was like playing a game on easy.

She tapped the bars. There wasn’t enough variation between them to play a melody. If there had been she would have, just for something to distract her. She wondered whether her extra glands would be enough to bend the bars or lift the door off its hinges. Not that it would matter. At best, leaving her cell would have meant being gunned down by an OPA guard. At worst, it would have meant freedom.

The captain had stopped talking to her, at least. She watched the stream of visitors coming to him. She had a pretty clear idea which of the guards answered to him. And there were a couple of Martians in military uniforms who came, and a few UN officers too. They came and met with Captain Ashford, speaking in the low voices of people who took themselves and each other very seriously. She recognized the sound from eavesdropping on her father. She remembered that she had been impressed by it once. Now it made her want to laugh.

She paced her tiny world. She did push-ups and lunges and all the pointless exercises that the light gravity allowed. And she waited for punishment or for the end of the world. When she slept, Ren was there, so she tried not to sleep much.

And slowly, with a sense of growing horror, she understood that the change was her coming back to herself. Falling awake. After her failure on the Rocinante, there had been a kind of peace. A disconnection from everything. But even before that, she’d been in a sort of a dream. She couldn’t tell if it had started with the day she’d killed Ren or when she’d taken the identification to become Melba Koh. Or earlier, even. When she’d heard her father had been arrested. Whenever she’d lost herself, she was coming back now, and it was like her whole consciousness was suffering pins and needles. It was worse than pain, and it drove her in circles.

The more she thought about it, the clearer the mind games that the red-haired priest had played on her were. The priest and, in her way, Tilly Fagan too. Maybe Anna had come thinking that the promise of forgiveness would need to be dangled in front of her in order to get the confession. If so, the woman was double stupid: first because she’d thought Clarissa wouldn’t admit to what she’d done, and second because she’d thought forgiveness was something Clarissa wanted. Or would accept.

I’d like to speak with you again, she’d said, and at the time it had seemed so sincere. So real. Only she hadn’t come back. A small rational part of Clarissa’s mind knew that it hadn’t really been that long. Being in the cell changed the experience of time and made her feel isolated. That was the point of cells. Still, Anna hadn’t come back. And neither had Holden. Or Naomi, whom Clarissa hadn’t quite killed. They were done with her, and why shouldn’t they be? Clarissa didn’t have anything else to offer them. Except maybe a warning that the power on the ship was about to change hands again, as if that would even matter. Who got to sit in the doomed ship’s captain’s chair seemed like a terribly petty thing to worry about. It was like arguing about who was the prettiest girl in the prison camp.

Still, it was the only show playing, so she watched.

The voices from the other cell had taken on a new tone. An urgency. Even before the well-dressed man came down toward her, she knew that their little drama was about to play out. He stood at her door, looking in. His white hair, brilliant and perfectly coiffed, just made him look old. There was a darkness in his professionally avuncular eyes. When he put his hands around the bars, it looked like he was the one imprisoned.

“I’m guessing that you don’t remember me,” he said. His voice was sad and sweet both.

“Father Cortez,” she said. “I remember who you are. You used to play golf with my father.”

He chuckled ruefully, stepping his feet back from the bars in a way that brought his forehead closer to them.

“I did, but that was a long time ago. You wouldn’t have been more than… what? Seven?”

“I’ve seen you in the newsfeeds since.”

“Ah,” he said. His eyes focused on nothing. “That feels like it was a long time ago too. I was just now talking with the captain. He said he’s been trying to convince you to join us, only he hasn’t had much success.”

Two guards came in, walking down the rows of stalls. She recognized them both as Ashford’s allies. Cortez didn’t take notice of them at all.

“No, he hasn’t,” she said. And then, “He lies a lot.”

Cortez’s eyebrows rose.

“Lies?”

“He said he could get me amnesty. When we get back home, he could take me to Ceres and put me under OPA protection. Only he can’t do that.”

Cortez took a long breath and let it out again. “No. No, he can’t. May I be honest with you?”

“I don’t see that I’m in a position to stop you,” Clarissa said.

“I think that you and I have a great deal in common. You have blood on your hands. The blood of innocents.”

She tried to sneer, tried to retreat into a dismissive pose, but it only left her feeling exposed and adolescent. Cortez went on as if he hadn’t noticed. Maybe he hadn’t.

“I was… instrumental in bringing us through the gate. The combined force, representing all three divisions of humanity, joined gloriously together.” Bitterness darkened the words, but then he smiled and she thought maybe there was something as wounded in him as there was in her. “Vainglory is an occupational hazard for men in my profession. It’s one I’ve battled with limited success, I’m afraid.”

“I was the one who drove Holden through the Ring,” Clarissa said, unsure whether she was confessing a crime or offering Cortez an out.

“Yes. And I led all the others in after him. And so when they died, it was because I had blinded them to the dangers they faced. I led my flock to the slaughterhouse. I thought I was putting my faith in providence, but…”

Tears filled his eyes, and his expression went empty.

“Father?” she said.

“When I was a child,” Cortez said, “my cousin found a dead man. The body was in an arroyo out behind our land. She dared me to go and look at it. I was desperately afraid, but I went and I held my head high and I pretended that I wasn’t in order not to be. When the medics arrived, we found out the man had died from one of the old hemorrhagic fevers. They put me on prophylactic antivirals for the rest of the summer. So perhaps I’ve always done this. I thought I was putting my faith in providence, but perhaps I was only covering my own fears. And my own fears led a great many people to die.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“But it is my problem. And perhaps my failings were in the service of a greater good. You were right, my dear. There will be no amnesty for you or for me either. But not for the reason you imagine.”

Clarissa stood. Cortez’s gaze was on her like a weight. The intimacy of the old man’s confession and the fear and grief carried with such dignity made her respect him even though she’d never particularly liked him.

“The dangers that the aliens pose are too great. To think that we could harness them or treat them as equals was hubris, and the deaths we have seen already will be like a raindrop in the ocean. We’ve delivered ourselves into the hands of the devil. Not everyone understands that, but I think perhaps you do.”

To her surprise, she felt dread welling up in her throat. At the far end of the hall, metal clanked. Ashford’s stall door swung open. One of the guards said something, but Cortez’s full attention was on her and it felt like pouring cool water on a burn.

“I think I do,” she said softly.

“Captain Ashford’s freedom is my doing because he and I have come to a meeting of the minds that I could not manage with the present captain. When they began to bring the crews of the various ships together here, they did it in part by creating a weapon.”

“Weapons don’t work here.”

“Light does, and they have made a weapon out of it. The communications laser has been made strong enough to cut through hulls. And it can be made stronger. Enough so, we believe, that it will destroy the Ring and close the gate.”

“We’ll be on the wrong side of it,” Clarissa said.

“Yes. But if we wait, others will come. They’ll be tempted. ‘If we can manipulate the gates,’ they’ll say, ‘what glories would come to us.’ I can already hear them.”

“You were saying that. You were one of them.”

“I was, and I’ve learned a terrible lesson. And you were driven here by hatred. Have you?”

Ashford laughed. One of the guards said, “Welcome back, Captain.” Clarissa tapped her fingertips against the bars, and they chimed.

“We were wrong,” Cortez said. “But now we have a chance to make it right. We can protect all of humanity from making the mistakes we’ve made. We can protect them. But there will be a sacrifice.”

“Us. All of us.”

“Yes. We will die here in the darkness, cut off from all of those we have preserved. And among those who are with us here, we will be reviled. We may be punished. Even put to death.” He shifted his hand to touch hers. The contact, skin to skin, was electric. “I’m not lying to you, Clarissa. The things I am asking of you will have no reward in this life.”

“What are you asking?” she said. “What do you want me to do about any of this?”

“People will try to stop us. They may try to kill the captain. I understand that the modifications made to your body have the potential to elevate your natural abilities to something exceptional. Come with us. See to it that the captain isn’t hurt, and that he isn’t stopped. It may be you need do nothing but stand witness. Or you may be the difference between success and failure.”

“Either way, I’m dead.”

“Yes. But one will only be a death. The other will have meaning.”

Captain Ashford and his guards began walking toward them. The click of their heels against the deck was like the soft sounds of a mechanical clock. The moment drew toward its end, and resentment burned a little. She didn’t want Ashford to come. She wanted to stay here, talking with the reverend about sacrifice and death. About the burden of having done something so wrong the scales couldn’t be balanced while she lived.

Even though his mouth was set, Cortez’s pale blue eyes smiled at her. He didn’t look like her father at all. His face was too doughy, his jaw was too wide. He was all sincerity where her father always had a sense of laughing at the world from behind a mask. But at that moment, she saw Jules-Pierre Mao in him.

“The people we killed,” she said. “If we do this, all of them will have died for a reason too.”

“For the noblest of reasons,” Cortez agreed.

“We have to get going,” Ashford said, and Cortez stepped back from the doorway, folding his hands together. Ashford turned to her. His too-large head and thin Belter’s frame made him seem like something from a bad dream. “Last chance,” he said.

“I’ll go,” Clarissa said.

Ashford’s eyebrows rose and he glanced from her to Cortez and back. A slow smile stretched his lips.

“You’re sure?” he asked, but the pleasure in his voice made it clear he wasn’t really looking for her thoughts or justifications.

“I’ll make sure no one stops you,” she said.

Ashford looked at Cortez for a moment, and his expression showed that he was impressed. He saluted her, and—awkwardly—she saluted back.

She felt a moment’s disorientation stepping out of her cell that didn’t come from a change in gravity or Coriolis. It was the first free step she’d taken since the Rocinante. Ashford walked ahead of her, his two guards talking about action groups and locking down the Behemoth. Engineering and command weren’t in the rotating drum, and so they would take control of the transfer points at the far north and south of the drum and the exterior elevator that passed between them. How to maintain calm in the drum until they could lock it all down, who was tracking the enemy, who was already a loyalist and who would need persuasion. Clarissa didn’t pay much attention. She was more aware of Cortez walking at her side and the sense of having left some kind of burden behind in the cell. She was going to die, and it was going to make all the things she’d done wrong before make sense. Every child born on Earth or Mars or the stations of the Belt would be safe from the protomolecule because of what they were about to do. And Soledad and Bob and Stanni, her father and her mother and her siblings, they would all know she was dead. Everyone who’d known and loved Ren would be able to sleep a little better knowing that his killer had come to justice. Even she’d sleep better, if she got any sleep.

“And she has combat implants,” Ashford was saying as he pointed his fist back toward her. One of the guards looked back toward her. The one with off-colored eyes and the scar on his chin. Jojo.

“You sure she’s one of us, Captain?”

“The enemy of my enemy, Jojo,” Ashford said.

“I will vouch for her,” Cortez said.

You shouldn’t, Clarissa thought, but didn’t say.

“Claro,” Jojo said with a Belter gesture equivalent to a shrug. “She’s on command deck with tu alles tu.”

“That’ll be fine,” Ashford said.

The hall opened into a larger corridor. White LEDs left the walls looking pale and antiseptic. A dozen people armed with slug throwers, men and women both, sat in electric carts or stood beside them. Clarissa wanted the air itself to smell different, but it didn’t. It was all just plastic and heat. Captain Ashford and three armed men jostled in the cart just ahead.

“It will take some time before the ship is fully secured,” Cortez said. “We’ll have to gather what allies we can. Suppress the resistance. Once we assemble everything we need and get off the drum, they won’t be able to stop us.” He sounded like he was trying to talk himself into believing something. “Don’t be afraid. This has all happened for a reason. If we have faith, there is nothing to fear.”

“I’m not afraid,” Clarissa said. Cortez looked over at her, a smile in his eyes. When he met her gaze the smile faltered a little. He looked away.