Tiamat's Wrath

Chapter Thirteen: Naomi

The question is,” Saba said on Naomi’s monitor, “why did they have a political officer in the first place, que no?”

The Bhikaji Cama was on the float, and still half a week from a gentle quarter-g braking burn that would take weeks before they reached the transfer station at Auberon. With the drives on the ship, they could have done a full g the whole way, but efficiency and speed weren’t always the same thing. Carrying the reaction mass to accelerate and brake that hard would have meant giving up more of the cargo space. Maybe someday the Laconian technology would overcome the constraints of inertia—the protomolecule had been doing so since Eros—but for now that mystery was still a mystery, like so many others. Where did the ships that went dutchman end up? What would draw the attention and anger of the thing that had destroyed the protomolecule engineers?

Or, on a smaller level, why had a Laconian political officer been riding on a Transport Union freighter?

News of the failure had been slow coming to her. The first report had been sketchy and brief, and said little more than that the raid had gone pear-shaped. Political officer, the informants on the freighter, and one member of the assault team lost. The next thirty-four hours had been a thin slice of hell as she waited for the full after-action report, certain beyond doubt that Bobbie had been the one who’d died.

Only it hadn’t been her. One of her crew was dead, and her mission objective had slipped through her fingers, but Bobbie and Alex and the Gathering Storm lived to fight another day. The death of the political officer was just one of the stupid, random tragedies that happened anywhere, anytime, but significantly more often during battle. If he’d lived, they’d know much more about what he’d been doing. As it was, they were down to educated guesses.

“We have confirmation that he was on his way to the Transport Union’s transfer station at Earth,” Saba said. “But whether that was a permanent placement or a stop along a longer path …” He shrugged eloquently.

Naomi stretched. She liked the freedom of free fall even though it meant doubling up her exercise routine. Or maybe because it meant that. More hours in the resistance band meant at least doing something physical. Feeling her body. And also there was a sense of being where she belonged. From the recording, she could tell that Saba was someplace with a steady gravity. The last four communications from him had all been the same, so a spin station or a mass large enough to hold him down. No one was on a steady burn for that long.

It wasn’t really a surprise that something was happening on Earth important enough to warrant a dedicated representative at the transfer station. Apart from Sol’s permanent role as humanity’s original home, it was still the largest population center in the gate network. And Earth had the largest population of any planet. Even with settlements like Auberon and Bara Gaon Complex growing, there would never be enough ships or shipping to make a dent in the billions still left on Earth. But what exactly was on Winston Duarte’s mind about Sol system was an important question. And one that they could have answered, if luck had broken their way just a little bit more.

She considered, rubbed her eyes, and hit Record. She’d edit her response down before she committed it to a torpedo, but just saying the words helped her think. And she could pretend she wasn’t quite as isolated and alone as she was.

“The loss of our informants on the ship is going to be important,” she said. “Without them, we wouldn’t have known that the political officer was there in the first place. And if they hadn’t spoken up, they’d still be alive. Not the best argument for working with us. Their families need to be taken care of, and by us. Not Duarte’s people. Otherwise we’ll see fewer of these tips in the future.”

It’s always about relationships, Jim said in her imagination.

“It’s always about relationships,” she said. “And we have to hold up our end of the bargain. Take care of our own. To the other point, if we’re going to find what Duarte’s doing there, we need to get one of ours on the transfer station. Either find someone already on staff sympathetic enough to feed us information or someone who can be inserted into the administration. Trying to get the Storm to intercept another freighter is too high a risk.”

But she thought it was possible that someone from the Storm could act as an agent of the underground on TSL-5. She wondered if Bobbie would go. Part of her thought she would. It was the dangerous assignment, after all. But Naomi also couldn’t quite imagine her giving up command of the Storm, even for something important.

But she was getting ahead of herself.

“Before we take any direct action, we should finish a full inventory of what was on the freighter. If there were any supplies or equipment on it that were out of the ordinary, that might—”

Her system threw out an alert, and Naomi’s heart leaped despite her better judgment.

It was a new message from Jim.

Duarte had been doing this almost since Jim had been taken to Laconia. Not quite public announcements, though there had been some of those too. Broadcasts sent out and picked up on passive with an old, compromised encryption scheme. Someone would have to want to know what was in them, anyway. The security wasn’t the issue so much as a signature. An address. Here was a message that Laconia could spread through every system in the gate network, but only she could watch it. Or only she and the Roci. Or someone else who’d taken the time to crack the Roci’s old codes.

It was a private message, then, between Jim and her and every high-end government censor on Laconia. She had a vague memory about nobility on old Earth having witnesses on important wedding nights to watch the newlyweds fuck. This felt about as dignified.

And still, there was nothing under any sun that would keep her from playing it.

The message began with the blue wing-shaped crest of the Laconian Empire, a test tone, and then there he was. Jim looking into the camera with a mild amusement that most people wouldn’t recognize as a variety of rage. He had on a collarless shirt, and his hair was combed enough to show where his hairline was starting to pull back a little. Anti-aging regimens had pushed human life from the three-to four-decade range of prehistory to four times that, but wear and tear still counted for something. Jim had suffered more than his fair share of punishing life experiences. And then the fake grin ended and he really smiled, and the decades fell away. Even before he spoke, she heard him. The mix of sorrow and amusement in his eyes, like a guest at a party that had gone so wrong that the travesty had lapped itself and become a little bit fun again.

She stopped the playback as he opened his lips and took the moment with him. Even just the picture of him. Then, steeling herself, she started the message.

“Hey there, Knuckles. Sorry it’s been so long this time, but things got a little busy over here. I’m guessing you heard about Avasarala? The funeral brought in a lot of other guests to the palace.”

Using the nickname Knuckles, which he never had when they were together, was the signal that he knew they were still hunting her. She also heard the ghost of sarcasm in the way he said guests, but the censors hadn’t. There were real challenges to controlling communication between two people who’d been intimate for as long as she and Jim had been. The private language between them couldn’t be perceived by bureaucrats, and what couldn’t be seen couldn’t be stopped. The story of her life, these days.

“There’s still not much I can say. You know how it is. Uh. I met the guys who actually review this before it goes out. So hey, Mark. Hey, Kahno. Hope you guys are having a good day too. But yeah, things are fine here. Some rain in the afternoon, and Laconia’s getting on toward what passes for midsummer. They’re letting me have a lot of access to the grounds and I’m catching up on my reading. Mark and Kahno say I can’t talk about what I’m reading in particular, but it’s nice to have access. I’m also watching the newsfeeds, and the things that Duarte … They want me to call him High Consul Duarte, but really it seems pretentious. Anyway, the work he’s doing about figuring out the gates and what happened to the protomolecule engineers is actually pretty impressive. We disagree on other things, but he’s on the job with that. Which, you know. Hopefully …

“But I hope you’re okay. Give the kids my fond regards, and I’ll send you another message as soon as Mark and Kahno have an open slot in their schedule. They’re good guys. You’d like them. I love you.”

The image cut to blue, and Naomi let out her breath. It always hurt to see him. And the kids meant Alex and Bobbie and Amos. He had no way to know Amos was lost to them, probably killed on the same planet where Jim was being held prisoner. Or that Bobbie and Alex were off leading the fight on the front lines as pirates and revolutionaries. But even with all of that, hearing him always made her feel a little better too. It was as near to proof of life as she’d get. He didn’t look sick. He didn’t sound like he was under duress—

The image changed again, and a new face appeared. A man with dark eyes, acne-scarred skin, and a calm in his expression that landed him directly in the uncanny valley. Naomi found herself pulling back from the screen even before she realized who she was looking at. High Consul Winston Duarte, emperor of thirteen hundred worlds, smiled as if he’d seen her reaction and sympathized with it.

“Naomi Nagata,” he said, and his voice was pleasant and reedy. “I know I don’t usually insert myself in these messages, and I hope you’ll forgive me this rudeness. I don’t mean to intrude, but I think we should talk, you and I. I want to extend an invitation to you. Contact any of my security people on any station or base or city, and I will have you brought safely here. I understand that you and your fellow partisans don’t see eye to eye with me about the shape that humanity should take moving forward. Come talk to me. Convince me. I’m not an unreasonable man, and I’m not a cruel one. The truth is, over the last few years Captain Holden and I’ve found we have much in common.”

Naomi chuckled despite herself. Sure you did.

“You’ve seen how Holden is treated. If you come as my guest, you’ll have all the same courtesies and comforts, and you’ll have access that will let you advocate for the changes you want without the violence and death. I know we haven’t met, but everything Holden has told me says you’re more than some old-fashioned anti-government extremist. He believes in you, and he has convinced me to believe in you too. Accept my offer, and you and Holden can be eating breakfast together before you know it. He’ll tell you himself I’m a decent host.”

He made a self-deprecating smile. Carrot done, Naomi thought. Now stick.

“If you choose not to, that is your right. But as an enemy of the state, the consequences will be less pleasant. It’s going to be better for you and for me and—excuse me if this sounds grandiose—for the whole of humanity if you come as a guest. Please at least consider the option. Thank you.”

The message ended. Naomi shook her head once, tightly, and held on to her anger like it was a vaccine against something worse. Whether Duarte said it or not, the offer included trading all she knew of Saba and the underground. In return, she would be waking up next to Jim, living in a prison a thousand times larger than the one she’d imposed on herself. That was all obvious. The poison was the rest of it—access, influence, the emperor’s ear. It was exactly the path she’d argued for. Working within the system to make a revolution without starvation and hatred and dead kids. He was offering it to her on a plate, and it was possible—just possible—that he was even sincere.

Everything Saba had learned through his sources said that Jim really was being treated well. A guest as much as a prisoner. That was the cheese in the mousetrap. It was cunning almost to the point of wisdom. If she believed in her heart that Duarte would break his word, it would have been a thousand times easier to reject him. But all the stories about the devil making a deal and then cheating missed the point. The real horror was that once the bargain was struck, the devil didn’t cheat. He gave you exactly and explicitly all that had been promised.

And the price was your soul.

The knock startled her. It was like something from a different world. A moment ago, she’d been on Laconia. Eden, complete with a snake. And now she was back in her box, floating a few centimeters above the gel of her couch, the straps drifting around her like seaweed wrapping the drowned. She shifted her monitor to show the exterior of the container, half-afraid to see the Bhikaji Cama’s security chief ready to take her in, half-hoping.

The woman outside gripped a handhold and looked straight into the hidden camera. A black zippered duffel floated beside her. She was heavyset, with gray-streaked hair pulled back into a harsh bun and dark skin that got darker around her eye sockets like she’d cried too long and it had stained her. Naomi recognized her as Saba’s agent on the ship, but didn’t know her name.

Naomi pushed off from the crash couch, drifting fast toward the far end. She landed feetfirst, absorbing her momentum with her knees, and tapped her security code into the mechanism. The mag bolts clacked. In the silence, they sounded like gunshots. Before Naomi could open the door, the other woman did. She slid through, pulling the black bag with her, then shut the door behind her and glanced around the container as if there might be something unexpected in it.

“What’s the matter?” Naomi asked.

“Captain got a call middle of last shift,” the woman said in a clipped accent that sounded Europan to Naomi. “Took me longer than it should have to get a copy. That’s on me.”

She shoved the bag at Naomi. Even without opening it, the shape of mag boots and the hiss of a flight suit were unmistakable. Naomi didn’t wait. She slid the zipper open and started pulling the uniform on over her own clothes while the woman talked.

“Laconian destroyer burning in for a rendezvous. Should be here in eighteen hours. Say they’re going to make a full inspection, so alles la—” She gestured at Naomi’s things. The home she’d made for herself. “Yeah, we’re going to have to get clever about making that match the manifest.”

“Inspection?”

“Full,” the woman said. “This is all supposed to be bacterial samples. They see this …”

If they saw the false container, they’d know how the underground was staying hidden. And that some fraction of the Transport Union was in on the scheme. It might not be the end of the shell game, but it would be a data point too clear for Laconia to overlook for long. And it would be the end for her.

“Is it only us?” Naomi asked.

“Does it need to be more? Us is our problem. Focus on—”

“No,” Naomi snapped. “I got an offer of amnesty if I turned myself in. This just after that? Are they coming for other ships, or do they already know I’m here?”

The woman’s face went gray. “Don’t know. I can find out.”

“Do it fast. And get me a loader. I’ll try to find a way to cover this over.”

“Yeah,” the woman said. “And crew manifest. I got to put you in somehow—”

“Not the priority,” Naomi said.

“But … ,” the woman said. Then, “Right. All right.”

Naomi looked around her container. It seemed sadder now that she had to leave it. She’d have to wipe the system, just in case she was taken. All her belongings would have to go too. She’d be starting over from nothing again.

Or she could go to the security office, announce herself, and spend the rest of her life waking up next to Jim. Eating real food. Maybe even talking Duarte into a better, kinder, less authoritarian future for all of humanity. If it was a trap, it was a good one. Offer her an out, make the threat, and then tighten the screws. If she’d been younger, it might have been enough to panic her. Convince her to announce herself. Sign the deal. It would be easy, and she could even tell herself that she was protecting the underground and the people like the woman before her. She’d only tell Duarte things that wouldn’t compromise Saba and their network. That wouldn’t threaten Bobbie and Alex and the Storm.

She could imagine the version of herself that would have been able to do it. Not so different from who she was now. Younger. That was all.

“Emma,” the other woman said. “We’re going to pass you for crew, you’ll need to know names. I’m Emma Zomorodi.”

“You can call me Naomi.”

“I know who you are,” Emma said. “Find me someone who doesn’t.”

The woman—Emma—looked at her again, more closely, then turned away, shaking her head. The fear in her expression was thick enough to see. It’s okay, Naomi wanted to say. I know what to do. It’ll be all right. It would have been a lie.

“Come on,” Naomi said. “We don’t have time.”