Nemesis Games

Chapter Fifty: Alex

“A bicycle?”

Amos leaned on the breakfast bar. “Sure. They don’t need fuel, they don’t get sick. Most of the repairs, you can handle on your own. You’re looking for post-apocalyptic transportation, bikes are the way to go.”

Alex sipped his beer. It was a local brew from a pub just down the corridor with a rich hoppy flavor and a reddish color. “I guess I never thought about it that way.”

The suite on Luna was bigger than their rooms on Tycho Station had been, but of the same species. Four bedrooms opened onto a wide, recessed common area. A wall screen bent around the curve of the room, set to an idealized lunar landscape that was more photogenic than the real one. Every now and then, an animated “alien” girl would pop out from behind a rock, look surprised, and dart away again. It was cute, he supposed, but he would have preferred the real moonscape.

“So anyway, I didn’t want to go through Washington. Too many people there, and if the pumps stopped working, I didn’t want to be pedaling through knee-high sludge, right?”

“Right,” Alex said.

Holden was on the Rocinante. Naomi was asleep in her room. She’d been sleeping a lot since the Rocinante had plucked them all out of the vacuum. The medical system said she was getting better and that the rest was good. It worried Alex, though. Not because she needed the sleep, but because maybe she didn’t actually need it and was pretending to. Being here with Holden and Amos and Naomi was a bone-deep relief. He wanted it to be the end of their separation, everything come back into its right place like nothing had ever happened.

But it wasn’t. Even talking to Amos, Alex thought he could feel little differences in the man. A kind of abstraction, like he was thinking of something else all the time and only pretending to give Alex his undivided attention. Naomi had been in medical debriefing since they’d arrived, and the physicians hadn’t allowed anyone in to see her except Holden. If Naomi was finding excuses to stay isolated from them, that could be a very bad sign. They still didn’t know all of what she’d been through that she’d wound up with the Free Navy and then escaped from it, but that it had been a trauma seemed obvious. And so he tried to enjoy the peace and pleasure of having his crew again and ignore the anxiety growing in the back of his mind, the sense that—just like with the governments and planets and system of the solar system—things here had changed.

Amos’ hand terminal chirped. He sucked down half a glass of beer then bared his teeth. “I gotta go do a thing.”

“All right,” Alex said, pouring the rest of his beer into the sink. “Where are we going?”

Amos hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second. “Dock. Got something I need to move into my shop.”

“Great,” Alex said. “Let’s go.”

The stations on Luna were the oldest non-terrestrial habitation humanity had. They sprawled across the face of the moon and sank below its surface. The lights set into the walls glowed with a warm yellow and splashed across vaulted ceilings. The gravity—even lighter here than on Mars or Ceres or Tycho—felt strange and pleasant, like a ship ambling on without being in a rush to get anywhere. It was almost possible to forget the tragedy still playing out a little under four hundred thousand klicks over their heads. Almost, but not quite.

Amos went on about everything that had happened while he was down the well, and Alex listened with half his attention. The details of the story would be grist for a hundred conversations once they were back in the ship and going somewhere. It didn’t matter that he get all of it now, and the familiar cadences of Amos’ voice were like hearing a song he liked and hadn’t listened to in a long time.

At the dock, Amos looked up and down the halls until he saw someone he knew sitting on a plastic storage crate. The crate was blue with white curls of scrapes along the side like a painting of waves. The woman was thickly built with black cornrows, dark brown skin, and an arm in a cast.

“Hey, Butch,” Amos said.

“Big man,” the woman said. She didn’t acknowledge Alex at all. “This is this.”

“Thanks, then.”

The woman nodded and walked off, her low-g shuffle a little stiffer than the people around her. Amos rented a loading mech, grabbed the crate, and started for the Roci, Alex trotting along beside him.

“Should I ask what’s in that?” Alex said.

“Probably not,” Amos said. “So anyway, there we are on this island where all the rich people used to be before they fucked off up the well, right? And the ships are pretty much not there…”

The Rocinante had an actual hangar bay complete with atmosphere, not just a space on a pad and a tube to her airlocks. The new outer hull was titanium alloy and ceramic, the polished metal and flat black paint of the hull studded with PDCs and sensor arrays. The maw of the keel-mounted rail gun was like a little surprised o at her bow. In the artificial light of the hangar, she looked less dramatic than she had in the unfiltered light of the sun, but no less beautiful. Her scars were gone now, but it didn’t make the ship seem less herself. Amos drove the mech to the aft airlock and cycled it open without breaking the slow, easy lope of his story. Inside, Amos lowered the crate to the deck, but didn’t turn on the electromagnetic clamps that would hold it there. Instead, he slipped out of the mech and went into the ship itself. Engineering, cargo bay, the machine shop. The stern had always been Amos’ domain.

“So those others,” Amos said. “Johnson’s people? They’re done messing with my shit now, right?”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “She’s ours again. Just ours.”

“Good.” Amos shuffled into the cargo bay.

“So the servants, the maids and chauffeurs and whatever,” Alex said. “They called security and then they just changed sides? Or… I mean how did that work?”

“Well,” Amos said, popping the latches on the crate. “We had an introduction, see?”

The folds of the crate’s lid rose of their own accord. Alex jumped back, misjudged the gravity, stumbled. A dark-haired head came up over the crate’s edge, a thin ghost-pale face with ink-black eyes. Alex’s heart started going triple time. Clarissa Mao, psychopath and murderer, smiled at him tentatively.

“Hey,” she said.

Alex took a long, shuddering breath. “Ah. Hey?”

“See?” Amos said, clapping the girl’s shoulder. “Told you it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“You have to tell him,” Alex said, keeping his voice low. Bobbie was telling Holden about the work she’d been doing with veterans’ affairs in Londres Nova, so he wasn’t paying attention to them.

“I’m gonna,” Amos said.

“You have to tell him now. She’s on our ship.”

Amos shrugged. “She was on our ship for months when we were coming back from the slow zone.”

“She was a prisoner. Because of all the people she killed. And now she’s on our ship by herself.”

“I’ll give you that does make this situation a little different,” Amos said.

“Is there a problem?” Holden asked. “What are we talking about?”

“Little something I wanted to run past you,” Amos said. “It’ll wait until after the dog and pony show.”

The meeting room in the security compound was built in an outdated architectural fashion: open archways and wide, sky-blue ceilings with indirect light and subtle geometric patterning. Everything about it was pointedly artificial, like the idea of an afternoon courtyard without the afternoon or the courtyard. Avasarala’s voice came before she did, staccato and impatient. When she stepped through one of the archways, a young, seriously dressed man at her side, Bobbie stood up. Holden followed her lead.

“—if they want a voice in the decision. We’re not going to fuck around bullshit electoral posturing.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the young man said.

Avasarala waved that they should sit back down as she took her own seat even as she kept talking to her assistant. “Take it to Kleinmann first. Once he’s behind me, Castro and Najjar will have the cover they need.”

“If you say so, ma’am.”

“If I say so?”

The assistant inclined his head. “With permission, Chung is in a stronger position than Kleinmann.”

“Are you second-guessing me, Martinez?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Avasarala shrugged. “Chung, then. Now go.” As the young man left, she turned her attention to them. “Thank you all for—Where’s Nagata?”

“Medical bay,” Holden said. “The doctors are still deciding whether she’s stable enough to release.”

Avasarala hoisted an eyebrow and tapped a message onto her hand terminal. “They can make a fucking exception. I want her here. Thank most of you for coming. I’d beat around the bush and make everyone feel at home, but I’ve been in meetings for the last thirty-six hours, and I’m cranky. We’re all clear that Earth is fucked, yes?”

“Hell yeah,” Amos said.

“Good,” Avasarala said. “Then I won’t belabor the point. Along with that, the Martian Navy just shattered into tiny little pieces and Smith’s too scared to call it treason.”

“Can I ask,” Bobbie said, sitting forward. Her hands, splayed on the table, seemed like she was trying to brace herself against a blow. “How bad does that look?”

“We’re not making any official statements, especially when James Holden’s in the room. No offense, but your track record for blurting information at inopportune moments is the stuff of legend.”

“I’m getting better about that,” Holden said. “But yeah. I understand.”

“There’s a thing that happens,” Avasarala said, “when unthinkable things become thinkable. We’re in a moment of chaos. Everything’s up for grabs. Legitimacy itself is up for grabs. That’s where we are now. This turd biscuit Inaros? He’s out tooling around the Jovian moons where we can watch him play pirate. He’s made his play to set the narrative. The Belt has risen up after generations of oppression, and is now taking its rightful wah, wah, wah. The position I’m in—”

“He’s not wrong, though,” Holden said, and Avasarala’s eyes hardened. If looks could kill, Holden would have left in a bag, but he shook his head. “If the Belters fall in line with this Free Navy thing, it’s going to be because they’re all out of any other kind of hope. The new systems and colonies—”

“Have erased their niche,” Avasarala said. “And that’s shitty, and maybe we could have found a way to support them. Put them on some kind of cooperative basic, but they put a cherry bomb up the ass of the largest functioning ecosphere in the system, and it’s going to be a while before handing them free food’s going to be an option for me, practically or politically.”

“They’re never going to shut up and take handouts,” Amos said. “Those bastards are three, four generations out there because they weren’t looking to live on basic. I’m against eugenics same as the next guy, but the Belt hasn’t been breeding for the kind of people who just kick back and see how much they can fuck and watch entertainment feeds before they die.”

“I’m aware of the cultural problem,” Avasarala said. “And as I said, it doesn’t fucking matter anyway. If they’d be willing to take it, I still couldn’t give it to them. So I have to find another way to cut the Free Navy off at the knees. But since Earth’s navy is going to be busy making sure we don’t have any more radar-invisible rocks dropping on us and Mars is in the process of ignoring that it’s suffered a minor coup, it’s going to be tricky. Tomorrow, I’m going to make an announcement. You get a preview. Lucky you.

“The United Nations, with assistance from the Mars Republic and cooperation from the OPA, is going to field a task force to address the criminal conspiracy of pirates and terrorists going under the Free Navy name. Not a war. A policing task force. And that’s where you all come into play.”

“You want me to lead it,” Holden said.

“Yes,” Avasarala said, “because literally every UN naval officer who wasn’t dishonorably discharged is suddenly unavailable. For fuck’s sake, Holden, I have crates of anti-herpes drugs that are more legitimately UN Navy than you are.”

The old woman shook her head in disbelief and disgust. Holden’s scowl was matched by a rising blush. Bobbie tried to hide her laughter, but Alex had to admit it was a little funny. Even if just to himself. Bobbie was the one to step in.

“What exactly are you looking for from us?”

“I want your presence and cooperation at the debriefing, for one thing. But more importantly, I need to know what you know. What you’ve found. We have to figure out how a third-rate gang leader managed to beat us at every turn—”

“He didn’t,” Naomi said, stepping in from under the spreading arches, a security escort at her side. In the shadowless light, she looked weirdly delicate. Her skin was peeling and she moved with the careful shifting of someone prepared for pain to come at any moment. But her sclera had faded from the blood-and-bone color to an ivory yellow that actually looked healthier, and her voice had lost the slushiness at its edges. A weight lifted from Alex’s heart.

“The prisoner, ma’am,” the security escort said.

“Yes, thank you, I noticed that,” Avasarala said, then turned her attention to Naomi. “What do you mean he didn’t?”

“Look at everything he tried to do and failed. He didn’t kill Fred Johnson. He didn’t kill Prime Minister Smith. He didn’t take Tycho Station or destroy it. The Rocinante’s in one piece. He didn’t keep hold of me. It’s how he works. If he wins, it was the important thing. If he loses, it just disappears.”

“And the protomolecule sample that he stole?”

Naomi blinked, seemed to lose focus for a moment, and shook her head. “He never said anything about that.”

“Would he have?”

Naomi sat in the chair beside Holden. He took her hand, and she allowed it, but her attention was on Avasarala. Alex wasn’t sure why that bothered him so much. The meeting wasn’t an invitation for the two of them to work out their relationship status. And still, if she’d been just a little less guarded with him…

“Yes,” Naomi said. “He would have. He likes to brag.” The intimacy of that one piece of information filled Alex’s chest with a sense of deep foreboding. Holden’s face was calm. Unreadable.

“Good,” Avasarala said, a sharpness in her voice. “That’s very good to know.” She considered Naomi silently. “You look like you’re feeling better. You heard some of what I was saying?”

“Enough of it,” Naomi said.

“Are you going to be able to help us?”

The question hung in the air, rich with nuance and complicated importance. Not Why were you on his ship. Not How do you know him. Not Who are you to him that he brags about his plans to you. Just, Are you going to be able to help?

“You okay?” Amos murmured.

“What? I’m fine,” she replied.

“Because you’re kinda fidgeting,” Amos said at the same time Naomi said, “I want immunity from prosecution.”

The air seemed to go out of the room. It wasn’t a confession, but it painted a picture that none of them had wanted to admit might be possible. To ask for immunity was an admission of guilt, even if they didn’t know what she was guilty of.

Avasarala’s smile was indulgent and friendly and, he was almost certain, deceptive. “Blanket immunity?”

“For all of us.”

“Who is ‘all of us’?” Avasarala said, forming the words carefully as she said them. “Your friends in the Free Navy?”

“The crew of the Rocinante,” Naomi said, and then stuttered. Paused. “And maybe one other person.”

Alex shot a look at Amos. Did she know about Clarissa? Was that who she meant? Amos’ smile was amiable and empty. Avasarala tapped her fingernails against the table.

“Not for Earth,” Avasarala said. “Dropping the rocks? No one gets immunity for that.”

Alex saw it hit. Tears appeared in Naomi’s eyes, brimming silver and bright. “The crew of the Rocinante,” she said. “The other one… I may ask for clemency and consideration later on. If the occasion arises.”

“For Inaros?”

“No,” Naomi said. “Him, you can fucking burn.”

“I need to understand this fully,” Avasarala said. “You, as a former member of Inaros’ group, are willing to exchange complete and accurate information about his activities both before and after the bombardment of Earth in exchange for blanket immunity for the crew of the Rocinante on any matter not related to the present attacks?” That there had been no profanity in the statement gave it a solidity that unnerved Alex.

“Yes,” Naomi said. “That’s right.”

The relief on Avasarala’s face was hard as flint. “Glad to hear you say that, dear. I was worried I’d misjudged you.” She rose to her feet, then grabbed at the table, cursing under her breath. “I miss weighing something. Half the time, I feel like I’m on a fucking trampoline. I’m going to go lie down and take a sleeping pill before I have a psychotic break, but the debriefing? It starts in the morning.”

“We’ll be wherever you want us to be,” Holden said. “We’re not going to hide anything.” He was still holding Naomi’s hand, and her fingers had curled around his. So maybe that was hopeful after all. As to not hiding anything… Well, Amos still didn’t say anything.

The meeting broke up, except that it also didn’t. Avasarala left, but the rest of them, including Bobbie, went to the security lobby, through the checkpoint, and out to the public lobby together. The sober silence gave way slowly to more mundane conversation: whether there was anyplace with food better than the mess on the Roci. Or if not better, at least different. Whether Naomi was up to drinking alcohol, because there was a little pub on one of the lower levels that was supposed to have some pretty good beers on offer. No one asked whether Bobbie was joining them. It was just assumed. As they shuffled and bounced in the thin gravity, Naomi and Holden kept hold of each other’s hands. Amos and Bobbie traded dirty jokes. It was the powerfully ordinary talk that gave Alex hope. For everything that had happened, that was happening, that was still looming in the unseen and uncertain future, there were still moments like these. And so maybe it would be all right despite it all.

At the wide slope of Chandrayaan Plaza, where the traffic of carts and mechs and half-skipping people turned down a wide ramp deeper into the body of the moon, Amos cleared his throat.

“So that immunity for the crew thing?”

“It wasn’t just for you,” Naomi said, making it a joke, and also not one.

“Yeah, figured,” Amos said. “But here’s the thing. I was thinking about maybe taking on an apprentice. You know, help flesh out the crew. Get some skill redundancy.”

“That’s a good idea,” Holden said. “Did you have someone in mind?”