Cibola Burn

Chapter Thirty-Six: Havelock

The air recycling systems on the Edward Israel didn’t care where their power came from. Fusion reactor or battery power, it was all the same to them. Havelock’s sense that the air had changed, grown hotter and thicker and less able to sustain life, was all in his head. He was aware of being in a steel-and-ceramic tube of air, closed off from any larger, sustaining environment. He’d spent most of his adult life in that situation, and the fact had become as invisible to him as someone on Earth thinking about being held to a spinning celestial object by nothing more than mass, shielded from the fusion reaction of the sun by only distance and air. It wasn’t something you thought about until it was a problem.

His monitor was split between Captain Marwick on the left looking harried and cross and the chief of RCE’s engineering team and Havelock’s own militia on the right.

“I can up the efficiency of the grid enough to get us two, maybe three days,” the chief engineer said. His face was flushed, and his jaw jutted forward.

“In theory,” Marwick said. “This is an old ship. Things based on theory don’t always play out well here.”

“We know what kind of grid this is,” Koenen said. “It’s not guesswork. We have the numbers.”

“It’s hard facing the fact that numbers are a kind of guesswork, isn’t it?” Marwick said.

“Gentlemen,” Havelock said, his voice taking the same intonation Murtry’s would have had. “I understand the issue.”

“She may be dead, but she’s still my ship,” Marwick said.

“Dead?” the chief engineer said. “We’re going to be dead if—”

“Stop now,” Havelock said. “Both of you. Just stop. I understand the issue, and I appreciate both of your views. We’re not going to do a goddamn thing with any ship modifications until we’ve loaded the next supply drop for the folks downstairs. Captain, can I have permission for the engineering team to do a sight-only inspection of the grid lines and couplings?”

“Sight only?” Marwick said, eyes narrowed. “If you’ll commit to that. Fine line between seeing something and wanting to give it a little pet.”

Havelock nodded as if that had been permission. “Chief, put together a crew. Visual inspection only. Give me a report once the drop’s gone.”

“Sir,” the chief engineer said. The word was crisp and a little too loud. The way someone who wasn’t in the military thought people in the military sounded. The connection on the right dropped and Captain Marwick resized automatically to fill the screen.

“That man’s an asshole.”

“He’s scared and he’s trying to exercise control over… well, anything he can actually exercise control over.”

“He’s an asshole, and he’s forgotten that a few paintball games aren’t enough to make him Admiral fucking Nelson.”

“I’ll keep him in line,” Havelock said. For another ten days, and then it won’t matter.

Marwick nodded once and dropped his connection as well. Havelock took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose. He flipped back to his connection request queue. Another thirty messages had come in just while he’d been talking to the captain and the chief. They were all messages from home. From Sol. Requests for interviews and comment from people he’d never met, but not all from people he hadn’t seen. Sergio Morales from Nezávislé News. Amanda Farouk from First Response. Mayon Dale from Central Information OPA. Even Nasr Maxwell from Forecast Analytics. The faces and personalities of all the newsfeeds he followed to stay in touch with how things were going back at home were coming to him now. Humanity’s attention was pointed out to New Terra. To him.

He didn’t like it, and it didn’t help.

He went through them one by one, replying with the same canned recording he’d made the first time: “Our hands are full right now addressing the situation on New Terra. Please refer your questions to Patricia Verpiske-Sloan with Royal Charter Energy’s public relations division.” Blah blah blah. He’d probably be dressed down at some point for doing that much. He was already a little worried that he shouldn’t have said his hands were full.

“You all right?” Naomi asked from her cell.

“I’m fine.”

“I just ask because you’re sighing a lot.”

“Am I?”

“Five times in the last minute,” Naomi said. “Before the reactor died, it was one every two minutes. On average.”

Havelock smiled. “You need a hobby.”

“Oh, I really do,” Naomi said.

He pulled up the drop shipment status page. The insertion point was still eight hours away. The longest fabrication run he could do was about six hours, then. If Murtry and the others needed anything that took longer than that, they’d have to wait. He started cycling through the list. Food. Spare water bags for the chem deck they’d salvaged. Acetylene and oxygen for the salvage and repair crew. He checked the weight. He didn’t want to skip anything that might be useful downstairs, but it wouldn’t help anyone to scatter it all across the upper atmosphere because a chute failed.

“You’re going to be famous when we get back,” Naomi said.

“Hmm?”

“You’re the face of it now. Everything that’s happening here? That message you made is what all the feeds are going to be playing.”

“That message was so information-free it was almost sterile,” Havelock said. “It’s how you say ‘no comment’ without sounding like you’re trying to hide something.”

“They won’t care. Maybe they don’t even run your words. Just the image of you with the audio turned low while they talk over it.”

“Well, that’s just great,” Havelock said, sifting the drop contents. The emergency lighting had batteries, and while they probably wouldn’t be enough to set off the planetary defenses, he didn’t want to risk it. He tried to remember if there was anything else that carried its own energy supply. It wasn’t an issue he was used to worrying about.

“It was like that for us,” Naomi said. “Well, for him, really. Even before Eros.”

“What was?”

“Being the face of something. Looking back, I can see where it happened. And then he was that guy who’d been shot at by Mars. And then Eros.”

“True enough,” Havelock said. “There are probably people who haven’t heard of James Holden and the Rocinante, but they’re not the kind of people who watch newsfeeds. He seems to bear up under it pretty well, though.”

“Why Mister Havelock, I do believe that was sarcasm.”

He switched to the packing schematic. The computer had taken all the packages and lined them up in six different configurations, depending on whether density, aerodynamics, or even weight distribution was the highest priority. He turned the imaged with his fingers, imagining each of them in turn falling through the buffeting, violent high atmosphere of New Terra.

“I just mean that it doesn’t seem to bother him,” he said.

“Honestly, he’s barely aware of it,” Naomi said.

“Come on. You’re telling me he doesn’t get off on it? Just a little?”

“He doesn’t get off on it, even a little,” Naomi said. “I’ve known men that would. But that’s not Jim.”

“You two are a couple, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’d call him a lucky man, except he’s involved with this utter clusterfuck of a planet,” Havelock said as he chose one of the compromise packing schemes. “The only thing I’m going to be the face of is a long, slow death that everyone in the system can watch and be glad they aren’t here.”

He switched to the fulfillment tree view. The remaining jobs that needed to be fabbed were all in queue. He had the feeling he was missing something, but it took a few seconds to remember what. He switched back to the inventory and added in a little box of oncocidals. For James Holden.

“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. Are you about ready for your big outing?”

Naomi laced her fingers through the grate of the cell. Her expression was amused. “That time of the day already, is it?”

“It is the priority of Royal Charter Energy to see that prisoners in its care are treated humanely in accordance with corporate policy and interplanetary law,” he said, the same way he did every time. It had become something like a joke between them, funny not because it was funny, but because it was familiar.

“Does seem kind of pointless,” Naomi said. “I mean, if we’re all going to die.”

“I know,” Havelock said, surprised at the tightness in his chest. “But it’s what we’ve got. So I’ll take it.”

He unstrapped himself and floated over to the restraints locker, punching in his code. The locker dispensed an anklet, and he tossed it across the space. Naomi caught it with her fingertips and drew it gently through. She fixed it around her left ankle and fed the two ends together. The anklet hissed, and the diagnostic light went green. Havelock checked his hand terminal. The anklet read as ready. No anomalies, no errors. He opened the cell, and Naomi floated out, stretching. Her paper jumpsuit crackled with every motion.

“Shall we?” Havelock asked.

“I’ve been looking forward to it all day,” Naomi said.

The gymnasium was fuller than usual. The uncertainty—the fear—drove some people toward exercise. Havelock didn’t know if it was the sense of action that brought them or the need for exhaustion, the drive to wear themselves down so far that even the fact that they were flying dead over an empty planet and the nearest help was over a year away. Or maybe it was just a way to self-medicate. Endorphins could be wonderful things. He escorted Naomi to a resistance gel box, then took the weight trainer next to her.

The crew at the other machines pretended not to watch them. Most of their expressions were the careful blank of poker faces, but a few were angry. Of the angry people most were focused on her, but a few—Belters mostly—shot accusing glances at him. Havelock pretended to ignore them as he worked the major muscle groups in his back and legs. Any fast movements, and he’d have his weapon drawn, though. Keeping her alive and himself whole was the job. That and trying to hold everyone together until the ship burned up.

Sweat adhered to his skin, tiny dots spreading, touching, pooling. If he worked long enough, he could wind up in a cocoon of his own sweat. He stopped between sets to wick his face dry, and then also Naomi’s. She nodded her thanks, but didn’t speak.

When they were done, he opened the gel box and let her out. One of the environmental techs—a Belter with pale hair and a pug nose named Orson Kalk—floated over to claim it next.

“Tu carry caba a oksel, schwist,” he said, and Naomi laughed.

“Shikata ga fucking nai, sa sa?” she said.

“Come on,” Havelock said. “Let’s get moving.”

The Belter technician put himself in the gel, and Naomi launched across the room back toward the hall that led to his office and her cell. Havelock looked over his shoulder the whole way back. He didn’t feel comfortable until she was back in her cell with the grate closed and locked. He pulled a fresh uniform and some wipes from the locker and fed them through to her before he turned on the privacy shield. He pulled himself back to his crash couch, listening to the soft sounds as she stripped off her old uniform, bathed, and put on the fresh. She was right. The privacy shields on the cells didn’t stop sound for shit. He checked his queue. Fifty-seven more requests for comment, and none of them anyone he wanted to speak with. He sent them the canned answer again.

He closed his eyes, trying to judge by how comfortable it was to keep them closed whether he’d be able to sleep. He thought so now, but ever since the reactors had shut down, it was easier to fantasize about resting than to rest.

His monitor chirped. Murtry was on the line. He accepted the connection.

The man on the screen was the one Havelock knew, and he wasn’t. Murtry’s face had never had much padding to it, but he looked gaunt now. The steely focus Havelock was used to seeing wasn’t there, and it took a few seconds to realize it was because Murtry wasn’t making the effort to see him.

“You there, Havelock?”

“Yes, sir. How’s it going down there, sir?”

“It could be better,” Murtry said. “I need a status update on the drop.”

“Oh. It’s progressing well. We should have it packed and ready for drop in… ah. Looks like six hours and change.”

“All right.”

“Are you not getting the security group alerts, sir? Should I run diagnostics on them?”

“I’m getting them, but I can’t read ’em,” Murtry said. His tone was as calm and conversational as if he hadn’t just admitted he was losing his sight. “So once this drop is done, I want a new priority for the next drop.”

“Of course.”

“We need to construct a semi-permanent shelter down here. Simple enough design that we can put it together even if we can’t see what we’re doing all that well. Sturdy enough to last… well, shit, two to four years, I suppose. See what you can find in the specs. If there’s nothing on board that fits the bill, you can query the databases back home, but I’d rather not miss too many drop windows. I’m not sure how much longer the people down here are going to be up for working.”

“What dimensions do you need?”

“Doesn’t matter. Whatever’s fast and sturdy.”

Havelock frowned. The sounds from the prisoner’s cell were gone. He didn’t know if she was listening. Probably she was. He couldn’t see how it mattered. “Is there anything functional I should be looking for?”

Murtry shook his head. His gaze caught the camera for a moment, then let it go. “If this expedition doesn’t leave survivors, I want to make damned sure that when the next wave shows up, there’s something with a roof on it waiting for them, and that it has RCE printed on it.”

“Planting a flag, sir?”

“I think of it as a minimum fallback position,” Murtry said. “Can you do it?”

“I can.”

“Good man. I’ll be in touch.”

“Is there anything else you need down there?”

“Nah,” Murtry said. “Plenty of things I’d want, but get me that shelter fast enough we can put it up, and we’ll have what we need.”

The connection went dead. Havelock whistled low between his teeth. The privacy shield on Naomi’s cell dropped.

“Hey,” he said.

“Your boss’s plan is to build a shed strong enough to be a headstone when the next group of idiots comes out here to die. I can’t decide if that man’s a nihilist or the second most idealistic man I’ve ever met.”

“Might be room for both.”

“Might be,” Naomi said. And then a moment later, “Are you all right?”

“Me? I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? Because you’re in a ship in decaying orbit, and the man you look up to like a father just told you he was getting ready to die.”

“I don’t look up to him like a father,” Havelock said.

“All right.”

“He has a plan. I’m sure he has a plan.”

“His plan is that we all die,” Naomi said.

In null g, tears didn’t fall so much as build up, sheeting over his eyes until everything looked like it was underwater. Drowned. He wiped them away with his sleeve, but there was still too much moisture running across his lenses, tiny waves that shook the walls. It took almost a minute to bring his breath back under control.

“Well, that must have been amusing for you,” he said bitterly.

“No,” she said. “But if you’ve got a spare tissue, I’d take it. This uniform doesn’t absorb for crap.”

When he looked over, she also had a sheen of tears filling her eye sockets. Havelock hesitated, then unstrapped himself, grabbed the tiny, hard puck of a hand towel, and slid over to her. He passed the puck through the grating, and she pressed it to her eyes, letting the water from them darken the cloth and letting it expand and unfold on its own.

“I’m scared as hell,” Havelock said.

“Me too.”

“I don’t want to die.”

“I don’t either.”

“Murtry doesn’t care.”

“No,” Naomi said. “He doesn’t.”

Words rose in his throat, clogging it. For a moment, he thought he might start weeping again. He was too tired. He’d been working too long under too much stress. He was getting emotionally labile. Maudlin. The knot in his throat didn’t fade.

“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.