“You’re saying the Martian navy did this?”
Alex took a long shuddering breath.
“If we had it, you know the Earthers were workin’ on it too,” he said.
They looked at each other across the narrow space, the implications heavier than a ten-g burn. Holden pulled the transmitter and battery they’d recovered from the Scopuli out of the thigh pocket of his suit. He started pulling it apart, looking for a stamp or an insignia. Alex watched, quiet for once. The transmitter was generic; it could have come from the radio room of any ship in the solar system. The battery was a nondescript gray block. Alex reached out and Holden handed it to him. Alex pried off the gray plastic cover and flipped the metal battery around in his hands. Without saying a word, he held the bottom up to Holden’s face. Stamped in the black metal on the bottom of the battery was a serial number that began with the letters MCRN.
Martian Congressional Republic Navy.
The radio was set to broadcast on full power. The data package was ready to transmit. Holden stood in front of the camera, leaning a little forward.
“My name is James Holden,” he said, “and my ship, the Canterbury, was just destroyed by a warship with stealth technology and what appear to be parts stamped with Martian navy serial numbers. Data stream to follow.”
Chapter Six: Miller
The cart sped through the tunnel, siren masking the whine of motors. Behind them, they left curious civilians and the scent of overheated bearings. Miller leaned forward in his seat, willing the cart to go faster. They were three levels and maybe four kilometers from the station house.
“Okay,” Havelock said. “I’m sorry, but I’m missing something here.”
“What?” Miller said. He meant What are you yammering about? Havelock took it as What are you missing?
“A water hauler millions of klicks from here got vaporized. Why are we going to full alert? Our cisterns will last months without even going on rationing. There are a lot of other haulers out there. Why is this a crisis?”
Miller turned and looked at his partner straight on. The small, stocky build. The thick bones from a childhood in full g. Just like the a**hole in the transmission. They didn’t understand. If Havelock had been in this James Holden’s place, he might have done the same stupid, irresponsible, idiotic bullshit. For the space of a breath, they weren’t security anymore. They weren’t partners. They were a Belter and an Earther. Miller looked away before Havelock could see the change in his eyes.
“That prick Holden? The one in the broadcast?” Miller said. “He just declared war on Mars for us.”
The cart swerved and bobbed, its internal computer adjusting for some virtual hiccup in the traffic flow half a kilometer ahead. Havelock shifted, grabbing for the support strut. They hit a ramp up to the next level, civilians on foot making a path for them.
“You grew up where the water’s maybe dirty, but it falls out of the sky for you,” Miller said. “The air’s filthy, but it’s not going away if your door seals fail. It’s not like that out here.”
“But we’re not on the hauler. We don’t need the ice. We aren’t under threat,” Havelock said.
Miller sighed, rubbing his eyes with thumb and knuckle until ghosts of false color bloomed.
“When I was homicide,” Miller said, “there was this guy. Property management specialist working a contract out of Luna. Someone burned half his skin off and dropped him out an airlock. Turned out he was responsible for maintenance on sixty holes up on level thirty. Lousy neighborhood. He’d been cutting corners. Hadn’t replaced the air filters in three months. There was mold growing in three of the units. And you know what we found after that?”
“What?” Havelock asked.
“Not a goddamn thing, because we stopped looking. Some people need to die, and he was one. And the next guy that took the job cleaned the ducting and swapped the filters on schedule. That’s what it’s like in the Belt. Anyone who came out here and didn’t put environmental systems above everything else died young. All us still out here are the ones that cared.”
“Selective effect?” Havelock said. “You’re seriously arguing in favor of selective effect? I never thought I’d hear that shit coming out of you.”
“What’s that?”
“Racist propaganda bullshit,” Havelock said. “It’s the one that says the difference in environment has changed the Belters so much that instead of just being a bunch of skinny obsessive-compulsives, they aren’t really human anymore.”
“I’m not saying that,” Miller said, suspecting that it was exactly what he was saying. “It’s just that Belters don’t take the long view when you screw with basic resources. That water was future air, propellant mass, and potables for us. We have no sense of humor about that shit.”
The cart hit a ramp of metalwork grate. The lower level fell away below them. Havelock was silent.
“This Holden guy didn’t say it was Mars. Just that they found a Martian battery. You think people are going to… declare war?” Havelock said. “Just on the basis of this one guy’s pictures of a battery?”
“The ones that wait to get the whole story aren’t our problem.”
At least not tonight, he thought. Once the whole story gets out, we’ll see where we stand.
The station house was somewhere between one-half and three-quarters full. Security men stood in clumps, nodding to each other, eyes narrow and jaws tight. One of the vice cops laughed at something, his amusement loud, forced, smelling of fear. Miller saw the change in Havelock as they walked across the common area to their desks. Havelock had been able to put Miller’s reaction down to one man’s being oversensitive. A whole room, though. A whole station house. By the time they reached their chairs, Havelock’s eyes were wide.
Captain Shaddid came in. The bleary look was gone. Her hair was pulled back, her uniform crisp and professional, her voice as calm as a surgeon in a battlefield hospital. She stepped up on the first desk she came to, improvising a pulpit.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “You’ve seen the transmission. Any questions?”
“Who let that f**king Earther near a radio?” someone shouted. Miller saw Havelock laugh along with the crowd, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Shaddid scowled and the crowd quieted.
“Here’s the situation,” she said. “No way we can control this information. It was broadcast everywhere. We have five sites on the internal network that have been mirroring it, and we have to assume it’s public knowledge starting ten minutes ago. Our job now is to keep the rioting to a minimum and ensure station integrity around the port. Station houses fifty and two thirteen are helping on it too. The port authority has released all the ships with inner planet registry. That doesn’t mean they’re all gone. They still have to round up their crews. But it does mean they’re going.”
“The government offices?” Miller said, loud enough to carry.
“Not our problem, thank God,” Shaddid said. “They have infrastructure in place. Blast doors are already down and sealed. They’ve broken off from the main environmental systems, so we aren’t even breathing their air right now.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Yevgeny said from the cluster of homicide detectives.
“Now the bad news,” Shaddid said. Miller heard the silence of a hundred and fifty cops holding their breath. “We’ve got eighty known OPA agents on the station. They’re all employed and legal, and you know this is the kind of thing they’ve been waiting for. We have an order from the governor that we’re not going to do any proactive detention. No one gets arrested until they do something.”
Angry voices rose in chorus.
“Who does he think he is?” someone called from the back. Shaddid snapped at the comment like a shark.
“The governor is the one who contracted with us to keep this station in working order,” Shaddid said. “We’ll follow his directives.”
In his peripheral vision, Miller saw Havelock nod. He wondered what the governor thought of the question of Belter independence. Maybe the OPA weren’t the only ones who’d been waiting for something like this to happen. Shaddid went on, outlining the security response they were permitted. Miller listened with half an ear, so lost in speculating on the politics behind the situation he almost missed it when Shaddid called his name.
“Miller will take the second team to the port level and cover sectors thirteen through twenty-four. Kasagawa, team three, twenty-five through thirty-six, and so on. That’s twenty men apiece, except for Miller.”
“I can make it with nineteen,” Miller said, then quietly to Havelock, “You’re sitting this one out, partner. Having an Earther with a gun out there isn’t going to make things better.”
“Yeah,” Havelock said. “Saw that coming.”
“Okay,” Shaddid said. “You all know the drill. Let’s move.”
Miller rounded up his riot squad. All the faces were familiar, all men and women he’d worked with over his years in security. He organized them in his mind with a nearly automatic efficiency. Brown and Gelbfish both had SWAT experience, so they would lead the wings if it came to crowd control. Aberforth had three write-ups for excessive violence since her kid had been busted for drug running on Ganymede, so she was second string. She could work out her anger-management issues another time. Around the station house, he heard the other squad commanders making similar decisions.
“Okay,” Miller said. “Let’s suit up.”
They moved away in a group, heading for the equipment bay. Miller paused. Havelock remained leaning against his desk, arms folded, eyes locked on the middle distance. Miller was torn between sympathy for the man and impatience. It was hard being on the team but not on the team. On the other hand, what the hell had he expected, taking a contract in the Belt? Havelock looked up, meeting Miller’s gaze. They nodded to each other. Miller was the first to turn away.