Babylon’s Ashes

Chapter Thirty-One: Pa

Eugenia was a terrible place to put a base of operations. It was less an asteroid than a complex pile of loose scrap and black gravel traveling in company. Neither the asteroid itself nor the tiny moon that circled it had ever suffered the gravity to press them together or the heat it would take to fuse them. Eugenia and other duniyaret like it offered nothing solid to build on, no internal structure to shore up. Even mining it was hard, the tissue of the asteroid too fast to shift and fall apart. Build a dome there, and the air would seep out through the ground it was built on. Try to spin it up, and it would fly apart. The science station that Earth had built there three generations ago and abandoned was little more than a ruin of sealed concrete and flaking ceramic. A ghost town of the Belt.

The only things it had to recommend it at all were that it wasn’t inhabited already and its orbit wasn’t too distant from Ceres and the questionable protection of the consolidated fleet. And even that proximity was only temporary. With Ceres’ orbital period a couple percent faster than Eugenia’s, every day added a little bit to the distance between them, stretching the bubble of safety until it would eventually, inevitably pop. In fairness, if they were still using it to escape the Free Navy when Eugenia and Ceres drifted to the far side of the sun from each other, they’d have bigger problems.

Instead of trying to build on the surface of the asteroid, Michio’s little fleet had begun assembling a nakliye port that orbited around Eugenia’s main body: shipping containers welded one to another to make passageways, warehouses, airlocks. A tiny reactor was enough to keep the air circulating and enough heat to balance what was lost to radiation. It was temporary by design. Inexpensive, fast to assemble, and made from material so standardized and ubiquitous that a solution discovered once could be applied in a thousand other situations. It grew from a seed of three or four containers, spreading out, connecting, reinforcing, making distance where distance was needed, bringing together where it was not, spreading like a snowflake the white of rotting sealant.

There were stories of the poorest Belters living in nakliye stations for years, but more often they were used as Michio used them: storage and refueling stations. Floating warehouses without taxes or tariffs to bite into the operating budgets of the prospector. Hyperdistilled water to give pirates reaction mass and potables and oxygen. The older siblings to the scattered supply dumps the Free Navy had consigned to the void. On her monitor, it looked like some ancient sea creature, still experimenting with multiple cells. And beside it, the Panshin, compact and sleek.

The ship had matched orbit so precisely it seemed motionless beside the port, as if the two were connected. The flares of working lights and welding torches studded the station’s skin, and the spidery shapes of mechs shepherded supplies to it from the Panshin. The Connaught had shut down its Epstein hours before to keep from slagging the port and the Panshin besides, and eased into her own gentle orbit on maneuvering thrusters. The deceleration burn was less like thrust gravity than a suggestion that Michio snuggle into her crash couch.

“They’re painting us. Should I acknowledge?” Evans asked.

Everything was a question with him now. Ever since the scare at Ceres Station, his confidence had shattered. It was a problem, but like so many of her problems, she wasn’t sure how to fix it. “Please do,” she said. “Let them know I’ll be coming over.”

“Yes, sir,” Evans said, turning to his monitor. Michio stretched, forcing her blood along its course. She didn’t know why she should feel anxious about seeing Ezio Rodriguez again. She had known him for years, on and off. Another partner in the ongoing struggle to keep the Belt from being used and discarded by the inners and their allies. Only now, he’d taken her side against the Free Navy. This would be the first time she’d breathed his same air since her relief effort had become what it had become. And what did you take to a meeting with a man who’d agreed with you enough to risk his life and the lives of his crew? A thank-you card?

Michio laughed, and Oksana looked over. Michio shook her head. It wouldn’t be funny out loud.

“The Panshin acknowledges, sir,” Evans said. “Captain Rodriguez is on the port.”

“Then the port it is,” Michio said, unstrapping herself. “Oksana, the ship’s yours.”

“Sir,” Oksana said, but there was a little disappointment in the word. She’d wanted to come along too, but someone had to keep an eye on Evans, and those two had been coming closer of late. Maybe having some time alone with Oksana would put Evans in a place where he could talk about what was bothering him. Better if the impulse came from him. Ordering someone to disclose their private fears wasn’t good leadership. And no matter how much Michio was his wife, she was also his captain.

The Connaught came to her place less than a kilometer from the Panshin and Eugenia port. That was Oksana showing off a little, but Michio didn’t mind. It made her transit short and easy. The vac suit was Martian, armored but not powered. Well-made, like everything Marco had bartered for. Bertold and Nadia came with, each carrying a sidearm. They passed out of the Connaught’s airlock and into the gap, moving slow to conserve fuel and talking about whose turn it was to cook that night while the stars slid between their feet. Michio felt the unexpected tug of happiness. It was amazing to think that people lived their whole lives on a planet’s surface and never had even one moment like this one, the closeness of intimate family and a vastness to rival God in the same breath.

The airlock was set halfway into one of the shipping containers, the walls cutting off the spread of the galaxy before they reached the door. All three cycled in together. As soon as the indicator went green, Michio checked her suit to confirm and then turned off her own oxygen supply and cracked open her seals.

The air inside the port stank of spent oxy-fuel and overheated metal. The percussion of someone’s music carried farther than the rest of the song, making the port throb a little. A steady, mechanical heartbeat. The lights were all unsoftened LEDs, sharp-edged shadows creeping along the ceramic walls as they pulled themselves through the long corridors. Magnetic pallets clung to the surfaces, making no distinction between wall, floor, and ceiling. Old hand terminals had been fixed to each, showing what it contained, where it had come from.

A woman in a transport mech shifted away to the side as they passed, the arms of the mech pulling in close like a spider. She saluted to Michio and Bertold and Nadia equally, with an air that said she didn’t know who they were and didn’t care. So long as they were on the same side, they were good with her.

They found Captain Rodriguez in one of the hubs. Nine containers opened their mouths in each of the six directions, fifty-four in all, and were meant to be packed full. Michio could tell at a glance that they weren’t. Ezio Rodriguez was a thin-faced man with a trim beard streaked with white, though the rest of his face looked young. He wore his hair cut to the scalp. His suit, like hers, was Martian design. Unlike her, he’d customized it: a starburst blazon on the back between his shoulder blades and the split circle of the OPA as if it were on an armband. Half a dozen other people were moving pallets in the containers around them, shouting to each other through the free air instead of using their radios. Their voices echoed.

“Captain Pa,” Rodriguez said. “Bien avisé. Been too long.”

“Captain,” Michio said. “The Connaught’s come to relieve you. Take our turn building and standing guard, sa sa?”

“Welcome to it,” Rodriguez said, spreading his arms. “Not much, y not nothing.”

Each of Michio’s little fleet—alone or in pairs—had taken turns building and guarding the port while the others hunted colonists or gathered the supplies scattered into space, dodging Marco’s ships while they did it. The Solano had taken another of the colony ships—the Brilliant Iris out of Luna—and was escorting it toward Ceres to pay their dues to Caesar. Eugenia port was too small to accommodate a ship that large anyway. The Serrio Mal, on the other hand, was picking up the dark containers flung off Pallas and Ceres. Those were destined for Eugenia, and from there to wherever they were needed most. Delivering the supplies to Kelso and Iapetus was the most dangerous duty, and Michio reserved it for herself.

Worse than that would be not going.

“Looks thin, que,” she said.

“Looks because is,” Rodriguez said. “Gathering up’s been ralo these last times. Not getting what we were before. Some though.”

“Enough?”

Rodriguez laughed like she’d made a joke. “Got something interesting, though. Something for you.”

Michio felt the hair at the back of her neck stand up. This felt wrong. She smiled. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Couldn’t pass it by,” Rodriguez said, firing his suit’s thruster toward an access way. “Over this way. I’ll show.”

He didn’t tell her to leave Bertold and Nadia, which was good. She wouldn’t have. But she didn’t know whether to be reassured that he hadn’t tried to peel away her guards or frightened that maybe they didn’t matter.

“Bertold,” she said as they followed the other captain.

“Savvy,” he said, his hand on the butt of his gun as if it had only happened to come to rest there. Nadia was the same. They fell into a guarding formation as naturally as blinking. When Rodriguez reached the walls of the port, he landed with a clank, turning on his mag boot and killing his momentum with his knees. The music they’d heard before was gone now, and Rodriguez looked behind them, as if making sure they weren’t followed. Or else that they were.

“Making me nervous, coyo,” Michio said, walking after him. “Something you want to say?”

“Bon sí, aber not here,” Rodriguez said, the lightness gone from his voice and a grim tension in its place. “Smuggled past the smugglers, this one.”

“Not feeling better.”

“You will or you won’t. Come alles la.”

The container he took them to had a little office built out from the side. Scrapwelded together with its own airlock. Rodriguez keyed in a passcode by hand. Bertold stretched his arms, blew out his breath, like a weight lifter about to try more than his usual load.

“Love you,” Nadia said, her voice calm and conversational as if she wasn’t saying it in case they were her last words.

The airlock opened, and a man popped out. Thin frame, dark hair in curls. “Is she here?” he said, and then, “Oh. There you are.”

A shock of surprise, the uncertainty of whether this was a threat or something more interesting. “Sanjrani.”

“Nico, Nico, Nico,” Rodriguez said, pushing Sanjrani back through the airlock. “Not here. Didn’t sneak through te ass end of nothing to wave you like a flag. Get back safe in.” When Sanjrani had retreated, Rodriguez turned to Michio, motioning that she should follow. When she hesitated, he lifted his arm to his sides, cruciform. “Got no guns, me. Esá goes bad, la dué la can shoot me.”

“Can,” Bertold agreed. His sidearm was drawn, but not pointed. Not yet.

“All right, then,” Michio said, clomping forward in her boots, the magnets dragging her down against the floors, holding her, and letting her go again with every step.

In the little office, Sanjrani sat strapped onto a stool before a thin desk. Another waited across from him. She didn’t see a trap. Didn’t know what she was looking at. “Are you looking to change sides?” she asked.

Sanjrani made a deep, impatient cough. “I’m here to tell you why you’re killing everyone in the fucking Belt. You and Marco both. You two should be on my side.”

“Does he know you’re here?”

“Am I dead already? No, he doesn’t. That’s how desperate I’ve gotten. I try to talk to Rosenfeld, but he’s only talking to Marco. No one knows where Dawes got to. They won’t listen.” There was a desperation in his voice, high and thin as a bow against a string.

“All right,” she said, moving to the stool, pulling the belt across her lap. “I’ll listen.”

Sanjrani relaxed and pulled up a diagram from the desk’s display. A complex series of curves laid over x and y axes. “We made assumptions when we started this,” he said. “We made plans. Good ones, I think. But we didn’t follow them.”

“Dui,” Michio said.

“First thing we did,” he said, “was destroy the biggest source of wealth and complex organics in the system. The only supply of complex organics that work with our metabolisms. The worlds on the other side of the ring? Different genetic codes. Different chemistries. Not something we can import and eat. But that was okay. Projections were clear. We could build a new economy, put together infrastructure, make a sustainable network of microecologies in a cooperative-competitive matrix. Base the currencies on—”

“Nico,” she said.

“Right. Right. We needed to start building it all as soon as the rocks fell.”

“I know,” she said.

“You don’t,” he said. Tears sheeted across his eyes, clung to his skin. “No recycling process is perfect. Everything degrades. The colony ships? The supplies? They’re all stopgap. They’re the measure of how long we have to make a living Belt. Look here. This green curve is the projected output of the new economic models. The ones we’re not doing, yeah? And this”—he pointed to a descending red curve—“is the best case of how long the conscripted supplies will last. Equilibrium is here. Five years out.”

“All right.”

“And this line here, the base we would need between them to keep the present population of the Belt alive.”

“We stay above it.”

“We would have,” Sanjrani said, “if we’d kept to the plan. Here’s where we are now.”

He shifted the green line. Michio felt her throat tighten as she understood what she was looking at.

“We’re fine now,” Sanjrani said. “We’ll be fine for three years. Maybe three and a half. Then the recycling systems stop being able to meet demand. We won’t have infrastructure in place to fill the gaps. And then we’ll starve. Not just Earth. Not just Mars. The Belt too. And once we start, we’ll have no way to stop.”

“All right,” Michio said. “How do we fix it?”

“I don’t know,” Sanjrani said.

The Panshin left a day later, taking Sanjrani and what little remained of Michio’s peace of mind with it. Her crew did their part, building out the port, ringing the new wires. Messages seeped into the Connaught’s antennas, some of them for her. Iapetus needed more food-grade magnesium. A collection of prospecting ships had exhausted their filters and needed replacements. The Free Navy poured out what they called news, some of it about how much Belter material she’d given over to the enemy.

Whenever she tried to sleep, the sense of dread welled up in her heart. When the hard times came, when the starving began, it would come like a ratchet. It was hard to make a new, shining city in the void when the people designing it, building it, living in it were dying from want. When they were dying because she and Marco were at each other’s throats instead of following the plan.

She had to remind herself that she hadn’t been the one to change things. Marco had gone off script before her. She’d made her break because he had. She was trying to help. Only when she closed her eyes, she saw the red line sloping down toward nothing, and no upward green swoop to answer it. Three years. Maybe three and a half. But to make it work, they had to start now. Had to have started already.

Or they had to make a very new plan, and neither she nor Sanjrani knew what that was.

The others avoided her, giving her food and water and space to think. She woke alone, worked her shift, slept alone, and didn’t feel the loss of company. And so she was surprised when Laura came to find her in the gym.

“Message came for you, Captain,” she said. Not Michi, but Captain. So Laura was not her wife then, but her comm officer on duty.

Michio let the tension bands slide back into their housings and wicked the sweat off her skin with a towel. “What is it?”

“Tightbeam relayed through Ceres,” Laura said. “It’s from the Rocinante en route to Tycho Station. It’s flagged captain-to-captain.”

Michio considered telling Laura to play it. That they were family, and didn’t have any secrets. It was a dangerous impulse. She stifled it.

“I’ll take it in my quarters,” she said.

When she opened the message, James Holden looked out from the screen. Her first thought was that he looked like crap. Her second thought was that she probably did too. She tucked her sweat-damp towel into the recycler. No recycling process is perfect. She shuddered, but Holden had started talking.

“Captain Pa,” he said. “I hope this gets to you quickly. And that everything’s all right with your ship and your crew and … Well. Anyway. I’m in kind of a weird situation, and to be honest, I was hoping I could ask you for a favor.”

He tried a smile, but his eyes looked haunted.

“I’ll tell you the truth,” he said. “I’m kind of desperate here.”