Cibola Burn

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Holden

Holden shuffled his way around the tower again.

The sky was the iron gray of an overcast noon. The rain had tapered off to a faint drizzle just heavy enough to keep his hair and clothes soaked and send rivulets of water down his spine. The wet ground sucked at his boot heels with each step. The air smelled of ozone and mud.

A small group of death-slugs were nosing at a crack in the tower’s base. A wad of fabric blocked their entrance, but they were using their narrow noses to probe at it, looking for a way in. Holden hefted his long-handled shovel recovered from the ruined mines and smashed them flat with one heavy blow. He scooped up the gooey corpses and threw them away from the tower, then let the light rain wash the slime off the blade.

He moved on, finding only the occasional straggler on the tower wall. These he scraped off and flung away using the shovel like a catapult. At first, it had been sort of fun to see how far he could throw them. Now his shoulders and arms burned with fatigue and his distances were getting shorter and shorter.

Miller followed along sometimes, not saying anything, just a gray basset-hound-faced reminder that Holden had more important things to be doing.

He vanished when Holden rounded a corner and found a small work crew resting near a partially dug trench. They were trying to get at least a shallow water-filled ditch all the way around the tower, but it was slow work with their primitive implements.

This particular group was made up of three women and two men with crude digging tools. They were stretching and drinking water from one of the bags the purifier put out. One of the women gave him a nod, the other four ignored him.

One of the two men had a slug on his pants.

It hung on the fabric, just above his right knee. There was no slime trail around it. None of the five diggers seemed to notice it was there. Holden knew that if he shouted in alarm, the man might take a swipe at it with his hand without thinking. So he calmly walked toward him and said, “Don’t move.”

The man frowned back at him. “Que?”

Holden grabbed the man by the shoulders and shoved him onto his back. “The fuck?” the other man said. They were all backing away from him like onlookers at the start of a fight. Holden leaned over the man on the ground and repeated, “Don’t move.” Then he grabbed the cuffs of the man’s pants and yanked them off with one hard pull. He threw them as far away as he could.

“What just happened?” said the woman who’d first nodded at him. Holden recognized her now. Older, tough, one of the bosses at the mine. Probably in charge of the trench crew.

“Didn’t anyone see that he had a slug on his knee?”

“Babosa malo?” someone muttered.

Holden reached down a hand and pulled the dazed man to his feet. “You had a death-slug on your pants. Were you leaning against this wall?”

“No. I don’t know. Maybe, for a second,” the man started.

“I told you people,” Holden said, first to the man then rotating to face the crew boss. “I told you not to touch the walls. The slugs climb them to get away from the water.”

The crew boss nodded at him with one fist. “Sa sa.”

“You didn’t see it,” Holden said, not asking a question. “How bad? Malo que sus ojos?”

“Ojos?” the man asked.

“Not ojos. Ah. Orbas. Eyes.”

“Na khorocho,” the man agreed with a Belter shrug of his hands. Not good.

“Well, the price you pay for not letting your boss know you couldn’t see well enough to avoid slugs is now you have no pants.”

“Sa sa.”

“So go back inside,” Holden said, giving the man a gentle shove toward the tower entrance, “and see if you can find some way to cover your shame.”

“Sorry, boss,” the man replied, then trotted off.

“Anyone else on the crew that bad?” Holden asked the team leader. She frowned and shrugged.

“Not great. We all missed it.”

“All right,” Holden said, rubbing his head. It sent the water clinging to his scalp and hair running down his neck. After a moment he said, “Take them all back.”

“The trench.”

“Too risky now. I’ll stay on patrol. Get your people inside.”

“All right,” the woman said, then started leading her people toward the entrance.

Holden’s hand terminal buzzed at him, and when he pulled it out he saw someone had been trying to connect for a while. He allowed the connection and after a few seconds Elvi appeared on the screen.

“Jim, where are you? I need you back at the lab.”

“Sorry,” Holden replied. “Kinda busy out here.”

“Your bloodwork just finished. I need you to come read me the results.”

The screen on the analysis rig was tiny. Who, in the age of implantable vision correctives, had bad eyesight? Holden felt he could make a usability argument to the designers now.

“Let me finish this patrol,” Holden said.

“This is important.”

“So is keeping alive the idiots who insist on working outside when they can’t see.”

“Hurry then. Please,” she said and killed the connection.

Holden was putting his terminal away when it started pinging at him. A quick glance at the screen showed it was alerting him to another supply drop. He held the terminal up to the skyline and let it direct him to the location of the drop. A distant white parachute popped into view as the terminal zoomed in on it. Too far. They were still coming in randomly scattered over too wide an area. They had teams out recovering the first several drops, but pretty soon they wouldn’t have anyone left who could see far enough to make a dangerous trek out to the supplies and back.

Anyone but him.

He headed off to find Amos and their potential solution to that problem. The mechanic had set up his little workshop a few hundred meters away from the tower under an A-frame shelter made of corrugated plastic sheeting. A variety of tools, salvaged electric cart parts, and welding supplies littered the cramped space beneath.

“How’s it looking?” Holden asked, then walked into the shelter and sat on a plastic crate filled with odds and ends.

Amos sat cross-legged on a sheet of plastic surrounded by battery housings in various states of disassembly. “Well, here’s the problem,” he said, waving at the batteries with one thick arm.

“As in?”

“As in, I got a couple carts they hauled out of the soup around the mines that I can have ready to roll in hours if I throw my back into it. Turns out they don’t mind being submerged all that much. The drive assemblies need the mud cleaned out and shit, that’s an easy job.”

“But the batteries are hosed.”

“Yeah, that’s about the size of it.” Amos picked up a delicate-looking strip of metal covered in rust spots. “They minded.”

Holden took the corroded lead out of Amos’ hand and looked it over for a few seconds, then tossed it on a growing pile of bad parts. “The ships say high-altitude winds are making precise drops impossible,” he said. “Right now, I can send out search teams to track them down.”

“Right up until your searchers can’t see to piss without hitting their shoes.”

“Right up until then. And then I’m the only person who can go get the supplies. And I can’t keep up with that and everything else without some wheels.”

“Okay,” Amos said. “Good news is I think I can assemble two or three working batteries off the parts. Bad news is I’ll probably only be able to charge one.”

“One is all I need. And a functioning cart to put it in.”

“I can make that happen,” Amos said. He slowly reached across his body and grabbed the oxyacetylene torch. It popped to life with a bright blue flame that he pointed at something on the ground. A death-slug that had been creeping up on him died with a hiss and a sizzle.

“How are your eyes doing?” Holden asked, keeping his tone casual.

“Okay so far,” the mechanic replied. “We haven’t been here as long, maybe. But I can see green flaring at the edges of my vision, so I know I got the bug same as everyone else.”

“You should be inside with the rest of us.”

“Naw,” Amos said. As he spoke, he grabbed one of the partial batteries and began pulling it apart. “Lot of this salvage Wei’s people are bringing in is leaking toxic shit you wouldn’t want in the air in there. Plus, I don’t want those people getting touchy-feely with my stuff.”

“You know what I mean. This shelter you’ve set up makes an attractive dry spot. The slugs will be swarming you by nightfall.”

“Maybe,” Amos agreed with a nod. “But I got my plastic sheet to keep ’em from popping up out of the ground. And the ones that try to crawl in get fried by the torch. I leave their little smoking corpses out there. The live ones seem to avoid ’em. I think I’m okay.”

Holden nodded, and sat with Amos in companionable silence for a few minutes while the mechanic finished stripping the battery and laying out the parts based on how damaged they were. He was building a pile of clean parts to assemble new battery housings out of. Holden knew if he offered to help he’d just get in the way, but it was so nice to be both out of the rain, and out of sight of the anxious colonists, that he didn’t want to leave.

“You know,” he finally said, “if your eyes get much worse I’m going to have to make you come inside. Finished with this or not.”

“I guess you can try,” Amos said with a laugh.

“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.”

Holden slumped on the crate, putting his soggy head in his hands. “I know. I get to listen to that instead. It’s making me a little cranky.”

“You’re cranky because you’re tired,” Amos said. “You got that I-have-to-save-everyone hangup, so I make it that you haven’t slept in about two days. But listening to people bitch? Yeah, that’s sorta your job. It’s why you make the big money.”

“We make the same money.”

“Then I guess you’re doing it for the fame and glory.”

“I hate you,” Holden said.

“I’ll have that first cart up and running by the end of the day,” Amos replied, snapping the battery housing together with a plastic click.

“Thanks,” Holden said, then pushed himself to his feet with a grunt and started slogging his way back toward the tower.

“Anytime,” Amos said to his back.

Holden’s terminal started buzzing again. “Jim, where are you?” Elvi said the moment he accepted the connection. “I need this data—”

“On my way,” he replied. “Sort of wearing a lot of hats right now. But I should be there in a minute.”

He killed the connection just in time to for Murtry to come out of the tower’s main entrance and make him a liar.

“Captain,” Murtry said.

“Mister Murtry. How are things on your end? Amos seems to be making good use of the salvaged carts.”

“He’s a good mechanic,” the RCE security chief replied. “There was another drop.”

“Saw it. My terminal marked and mapped it. Let me transfer the location so you can send a team.”

As he transferred the data, Murtry said, “We lost a man.”

“Who?”

“Paulson. One of my drivers. Slug crawled into his boot when no one was looking.”

“I’m very sorry,” Holden said, trying to remember if he knew which one Paulson was, and feeling guilty that someone had died to help them out and he couldn’t even put a face with the name.

“Stupid mistake,” Murtry said. He tapped out some rapid commands on his terminal. “And I wasn’t looking for your sympathy. Just apprising you of the situation and our reduced team strength.”

“Okay,” Holden said, surprised that the man’s lack of empathy still surprised him.

“Wei will handle the supply pickup.”

“How’s her vision doing? How many more of these runs does she have in her, do you think?”

“She’s on her way,” Murtry said with a humorless smile. “So at least one more, I’d say.”

“Great,” Holden said. “Tell her I said thanks.”

“Will do,” Murtry replied, ignoring the irony. “But I need something from you.”

“You need, or RCE needs?”

“Consider those the same thing at this point,” Murtry said. “Should be some construction materials in this load. I need to assemble a work crew to set up my structure before everyone is too blind to do the job.”

“What’s it for? There’s a ton of other work we need to do while we can. And in a turn of luck,” Holden said, pointing at the alien tower behind him, “shelter is not one of our pressing problems.”

“These people,” Murtry said, “are eating my food, drinking my water, and taking my medicine. My team is gathering the supplies and doing the dangerous salvage work that makes any of this possible. You know what? As long as that remains true, they can throw up a few walls for me when I ask.”

“Then what do you need from me?”

“They have the mistaken impression you’re in charge. Correcting them seemed impolite.”

Holden had a sudden mental image of dragging the soon-to-be-blind Murtry out into the middle of the rain-soaked desert and abandoning him at the center of a swarm of the lethal slugs.

“Did I say something funny?” Murtry asked.

“Inside joke,” Holden replied with a smile. “You had to be there. I’ll let Carol know you’re looking for volunteers.”

Before Murtry could object, Holden turned and walked away.

Inside, the tower was a buzzing hive of activity as the colonists hurried to finish their last preparations for the coming long night. Lucia had a group working to fill everything that could hold water with supplies from the chemistry deck. Carol Chiwewe was leading a team through the interior of the tower hunting out any remaining death-slugs and plugging any holes they could find.

Holden climbed a ramp and then a set of steps made out of empty packing crates to reach the third floor of the tower. Inside the chamber they’d optimistically named the lab, he found Elvi, Fayez, and a third member of the RCE science team whom Holden thought was named Sudyam.

“Who is that?” Elvi asked. She poked Fayez in the bicep. “Is that Jim?”

Fayez squinted at him for a second then said, “Finally.”

“Sorry I was late, but Murtry wanted—”

“I need you to come read this,” Elvi said over the top of him. She was pointing at the chemistry deck’s small screen. Holden walked over and looked at the display, but had no idea what any of the confusion of symbols and acronyms meant.

“What am I looking for?”

“First we want to check the CBC,” Elvi said, coming over to point at the screen. Nothing on it said CBC.

“Okay,” Holden said. “Will it say CBC? I don’t see CBC here.”

Elvi sighed, then began speaking slowly. “Does the screen say ‘results’ at the top?”

“No. It says ‘tools’ at the very top. Is that what you mean?”

“Wrong menu. Hit the back button,” Elvi said, pointing at a button on the screen. Holden pushed it.

“Oh, I see a results option now.”

“Hit that. Then we’re going to be looking for numbers on the CBC, RBC, WBC, hemoglobin, hematocrit, and platelet count readouts.”

“Hey,” Holden said happily, “I see all that stuff.”

“Tell us what they are.”

Holden did so, while Elvi made notes on her terminal. She had the display blown up to the point where Holden could read it from across the room.

“Back up now and let’s look at blood gases,” she said when they were done. It took over an hour, but in the end Holden had given them all the results they were looking for. They decided to take some more of his blood and let him go.

When they were done, he stood next to Elvi pressing a scrap of bandage against the puncture wound. “Are we any closer?”

“It’s not an easy process,” she replied. “Even with access to all these minds and the Israel’s computer. We’re looking for a needle in a complex organism.”

“How much time do we have left?”

Elvi tilted her head up so the light shone into her pupils. Holden could see the faint green tinge there. “Almost none,” she said. “But you should go get some sleep. You’re exhausted.”

“My blood told you that?”

“You haven’t slept in two days,” she said with a laugh. “Math tells me that.”

“I promise, I’ll hit the rack as soon as I can,” he lied to her.

He climbed down the makeshift steps and the weirdly alien curve of the ramp to the tangle of people at the ground floor. Lucia had turned over water duty to her assistants, and was shining a penlight into the eyes of a small child. She gave Holden a tired smile as he walked by. Someone gave an alarmed shout, then rushed through the room carrying a slug on a stick and threw it outside. Holden followed it outside and stomped on it.

The sky was darkening to the color of damp ash, and the rain was becoming heavier. Distant thunder rumbled to the east, the lightning visible only as dim flashes in the heavy clouds. The air smelled of ozone and mud.

Holden shuffled his way around the tower again.