When she knocked to go to the head, Sárta opened the door. Not that it mattered. She followed Naomi down the hall, then waited outside. The head didn’t have anything of use either, but Naomi took her time in case inspiration came. The mirror was polished alloy built into the wall. No help there. If she could take apart the vacuum fans in the toilet…
She heard voices from the other side of the door. Sárta and someone else. The words were too soft to make out. She finished washing her hands, dropped the towelette in the recycler, and stepped into the corridor. Filip looked over at her. It was her son, and she hadn’t recognized his voice.
“Filip,” she said.
“Cyn said you wanted to talk to me,” Filip said, landing the words equally as question and accusation.
“Did he now? That was kind of him.”
She hesitated. Her hands itched with the need to find some way to put her hands on an EVA suit, but something in the back of her mind whispered If they think you’re alive, they’ll come for you. Anger and diffidence made the planes and angles of Filip’s face. Cyn already thought she was bent on self-slaughter. It was why he’d sent Filip.
Her belly went heavy almost before she understood why. If Filip thought it too, if when she went missing, her son went to Marco and stood witness to her suicidal bent, it would be easier to believe. They might not even check to see if a suit was missing.
“Do you want to talk here in the hallway?” she said, her lips heavy, her mouth slow. “I have a little place nearby. Not spacious, but there’s some privacy.”
Filip nodded once, and Naomi turned down the hall, Sárta and Filip following her. She rehearsed lines in her mind. I’m so tired that I just want it to be over and What I do to myself isn’t your fault and I can’t take it anymore. There were a thousand ways to convince him that she was ready to die. But beneath those, the heaviness in her gut thickened and settled. The manipulation was cruel and it was cold. It was her own child, the child she’d lost, and she was going to use him. Lie to him so well that what he told Marco would be indistinguishable from truth. So that when she disappeared to the Chetzemoka, they would assume she’d killed herself, and not come after her. Not until it was too late.
She could do it. She couldn’t do it. She could.
In the cabin, she sat on the couch, her legs folded up under her. He leaned against the wall, his mouth tight, his chin high. She wondered what he was thinking. What he wanted and feared and loved. She wondered if anyone had ever asked him.
I can’t take it anymore, she thought. Just say I can’t take it anymore.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I worry about you.”
“Not so much you wouldn’t betray me,” he said, and that untied the knot. Yes, if she lied to him, it would be betraying him, and for all her failures, she’d never done that. She could. She could do it. It wasn’t that she was powerless before the decision; it was that she chose not to.
“The warning I sent?”
“I have dedicated my life to the Belt, to freeing the Belters. And after we did everything we could to keep you safe, you spat in our faces. Do you love your Earther boyfriend that much more than your own kind? Is that it?”
Naomi nodded. It was like hearing all the things Marco was too polished to say out loud. There was real feeling behind them in a way she would never hear from Marco. Maybe never had. He’d soaked up all his father’s lines, only where Marco’s soul was safe and unreachable in its deep self-centered cyst, Filip was still raw. The pain that she had not only left him, but left him for a man from Earth lit his eyes. Betrayal wasn’t too strong a word.
“My own kind,” she said. “Let me tell you about my own kind. There are two sides in this, but they aren’t inner planets and outer ones. Belters and everyone else. It’s not like that. It’s the people who want more violence and the ones who want less. And no matter what other variable you sample out of, you’ll find some of both.
“I was harsh to you the day the rocks dropped. But I meant everything I said. Your father and I are now and always were on different sides. We will never, ever be reconciled. But I think despite everything, you can still choose whichever side you’d like. Even now, when it seems like you’ve done something that can’t be redeemed, you can choose what it means to you.”
“This is shit,” he said. “You’re shit. You’re an Earth-fucking whore, and always have been. You’re a camp follower, looking to sleep your way into anybody’s bed who seems important. Your whole life’s that. You’re nothing!”
She folded her hands. Everything he said was so wrong it didn’t even sting. It was like he was calling her a terrier. All she could think of it was, These are the last words you’re going to say to your mother. You will regret them for the rest of your life.
Filip turned, pulled open the door.
“You deserved better parents,” she said as he slammed it behind him. She didn’t know if he’d heard.
Chapter Forty: Amos
Between walking and biking, scrounging up food, and picking a route that avoided the dense populations around the Washington administrative zone, the seven-hundred-odd kilometers between Bethlehem and Baltimore had taken them almost two weeks. The four-hundred-odd klicks from the arcology to Lake Winnipesaukee took a couple hours. Erich sent out Butch – whose name was something else that Amos couldn’t remember even after they told him – and two others, then sent him and Peaches to wait in another room while he had some conversations.
Twenty minutes later, Amos and Peaches and Erich and ten men and women were standing on the roof of the arcology loading into a pair of transport helicopters with the Al Abbiq Security logo on the side. Erich didn’t say if they were stolen or if he’d been paying off the security force, and Amos didn’t ask. Pretty much an academic issue at that point.
The landscape they passed over was bleak. The ash fall had slowed, but not stopped. The sun was a ruddy smear on the western horizon. Below them, cities bled into each other without so much as a tree or a swath of grass between them. Most of the windows were empty. The streets and highways were filled with cars, but few of them were moving. They swung out to the east as they passed by New York City. The great seawall had been shattered, and the streets flooded like canals. Several of the great towers had fallen, leaving holes in the skyline.
“Where is everyone?” Peaches shouted over the chop of the rotors.
“They’re there,” Erich shouted back, gesturing with his bad arm and holding on to the strap with his good. “They’re all there. It’s just there’s not as many as there were last week. And more than there are going to be.”
Over Boston, someone fired a missile toward them from the roof of a commercial shopping district, and the copters shot it down. The sky to the east was the low bruise-dark that made Amos think of storm clouds. In the west, the sunset was the color of blood.
“We gonna have trouble with the rotors icing up?” Amos asked the pilot, but he didn’t get an answer.
They set down at an airfield a few klicks south of the lake, but Amos got a look before they landed: low hills holding the water like it was being cupped in a massive palm. There were maybe a dozen islands scattered across the lake, some as crowded with buildings as the shore, others with little tame forests if someone rich enough for the luxury lived there. The landing platform was a square of floating ceramic with red and amber lights still blinking for visual landings.
When they actually got to the water’s edge, it wasn’t as pretty. The water stank of dead fish and a coating of ash lay across the surface like someone had sifted chalk dust over the whole place. Erich’s people waded in up to their thighs and dropped three packages that unfolded into hard, black pontoon boats. By the time they started toward the enclave on Rattlesnake Island, the sky was a perfect black. No stars, no moon, no backsplash of light pollution. The night was like sticking his head in a sack.
They spun
to the north side of the island where a wide bridge on a coated steel pier ran out toward the launching pad. Hangars and boathouses encrusted the shore, boxes for the toys of the wealthy as big as basic housing blocks for a thousand people. The pontoon boat they were in surged forward over the chop of the water. The boathouse they chose was painted bright blue, but outside the circles of their lights, it could have been anything. It only took a minute to find the keypad on a pole that poked up from the dark water. Peaches leaned over, stretched her thin arm, and tapped out a series of numbers. For a second, it looked like it hadn’t worked, then the boathouse doors silently rose and automatic lights came on. The interior was all wood paneling, rich red cedar, and enough room for a tennis court. An angry barking came out from the darkness as they steered inside.
A wolfhound stood on the deck of a little powerboat, its paws on the rail. The pontoon boats snugged up in the space next to the powerboat. Amos hauled himself up and the wolfhound darted toward him, growling and snarling. It was a beautiful animal, genetically engineered, he figured, for the gloss of its fur and the graceful lines of its face.
“Hey there,” Amos said, squatting down to its level. “Someone didn’t bother taking you along when they left, huh? That shit’s gotta suck.”
The dog shied back, uncertain and frightened.
“How about this,” Amos said. “Don’t start anything with us, we won’t shoot you.”
“It doesn’t talk,” Erich said as the dog retreated, barking over its shoulder.
“How do you know? Assholes with this much money, maybe they put some kind of translator into its brain.”
“They can’t do that,” Erich said, then turned to Peaches. “They can’t, can they?”
“This is the Cook estate,” Peaches said. “Darwa and Khooni lived here. I used to sleep over on Wednesday nights in the summer.” She shuddered a little and Amos cocked his head. “It’s a long time since I’ve been here. It seems like it should have changed more.”
“You know how to get to their hangar?” Erich asked.
“I do.”
But when they got there, the space was empty. When they crossed the broad gravel yard to the next hangar over – the Davidovics’ – it was empty too. The third one didn’t have a ship, but it did have a dozen people. They stood in the center of the space with handguns and the kind of cheap suppression sprays they sold over the counter at grocery stores. The man in front was maybe fifty with graying hair and the beginnings of a new beard.
“You, all of you, stay back!” the man yelled as Amos and Butch and three more came in through the side door. “This is private property!”
“Oh, it belongs to you?” Butch sneered. “This all your place?”
“We work for the Quartermans. We have a right to be here.” The man waggled his handgun. “You, all of you, get out!”
Amos shrugged. Another half dozen of Erich’s people had come in, most of them with assault rifles held calmly at their sides. The servants were all huddled together in the middle of the room. If they’d had any skill or practice, there would have been two or three snipers up in the rafters, ready to start picking the bad guys off while these folks kept their attention low, but Amos didn’t see anyone. “I kinda don’t think the Quartermans are coming back. We’re going to take some of their stuff. But anything we can’t use, you should feel welcome to.”
The man’s face hardened, and Amos got ready for there to be a lot of dead people. But before Erich’s people lifted their guns, Peaches interrupted.
“You’re… you’re Stokes, right?” The front man – Stokes, apparently – lowered the gun, confused as Peaches stepped forward. “It’s me. Clarissa Mao.”
“Miss Clarissa?” Stokes blinked. The gun wavered. He heard Butch mutter “Fucking seriously?” under her breath, but no one started firing. “Miss Clarissa! What are you doing here?”
“Trying to leave,” Peaches said, with a laugh in her voice. “What are you here for?”
Stokes smiled at her, and then nervously at Amos and Erich and all the others, shining his teeth at them like the beam from a deeply insecure lighthouse. “The evacuation order came when the second rock came down. The Quartermans all left. Took the ship, and gone. They all went. The Cooks, the Falkners, old man Landborn. Everyone, they took their ships and left. Told us the security would keep us safe until relief came. But there’s no relief, and the security? They’re thugs. They tell us we have to pay them since the Quartermans are gone, but what do we have?”
“All the Quartermans’ shit,” Amos said. “Which brings me back to my first point.”
“Are there any ships?” Peaches said. “We need a ship. Just to get us to Luna. That’s why we came here.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. The Bergavins left the Zhang Guo. It is in their hangar. We can take you there, Miss Clarissa, but —”
A sharp whistle came from the side door. From the street outside it. Butch met Amos’ gaze. “Company,” she said.
The streets on the island were wide. Roomy. Big enough to haul a ship down to the bridge. The security patrol car had the claw-and-eye logo of Pinkwater. Its headlights cut a wide cone through the darkness. Erich stood with his good hand up to shield his eyes. Two men were swaggering up toward him.
“Well now,” the first man said. “What have we got here?”
Erich backed away, limping. “No trouble, sir,” he said.
“How about if I determine that,” the lead man said. “Get on the fucking ground.” He had a cowboy hat on and his hand on the butt of his pistol. Amos smiled. The warmth in his belly and his arms was the same kind he got when he heard a familiar song after a long time. It was just pleasant. “I said get on the ground you crippled sonofabitch! You do it now, or I’ll fuck your fucking eyeholes!”
“Peaches?” Amos called as he strode out into the light. The two security men drew their pistols and pointed them at him. “Hey, Peaches, you back there?”
“Yes?” she said. It sounded like she was in the side door. That was fine. He saw the pair of security men clock the rest of Erich’s people in the gloom. They were mostly silhouetted, but their bodies went tense. Always a bad moment, seeing you brought a knife to a gunfight.
“See, this is what I was talking about,” Amos called. “Things start falling apart, and the tribes get small. These guys, probably good upstanding folks when there’s a boss to answer to. Clients. Shareholders.” He turned to the man in the hat and grinned amiably. “Hey,” he said.
“Um. Hey,” Hat said.
Amos nodded and called back toward the hangar. “Thing is you take that away, they’re guys with guns. They act like guys with guns. Do guys-with-guns stuff. Right?”
“I follow you,” Peaches said.
“You should put your guns down,” Amos said to Hat. “We’ve got just a shitload more of them than you do. So really.”
“You heard the man,” Butch said. “Guns on the ground, please.”
The security men glanced at each other.
“We could have just shot you,” Amos said. As Hat and his partner slowly lowered their guns to the pavement, Amos raised his voice again. “So Peaches, these guys? They go from being protectors of this big tribe with what’s-his-name and them inside the tribe to being protectors of their own little tribe, and those folks on the outside of it. It’s all about who’s in and who’s out.”
Hat lifted his hands, palms out, about shoulder high. Amos hit him in the jaw. It was a solid punch, and his knuckles ached from it. Hat staggered back, and Amos stepped forward twisting his body into the kick. It landed on Hat’s left kneecap and the man screamed.
“Thing is,” Amos called, “most of us don’t got room in our lives for more than six” – he straight-kicked Hat in the middle of the back as he tried to stand up – “maybe seven people. You get bigger than that, you got to start telling stories about it.”
Hat was crawling back toward the car. Amos put his knee on the man’s back, leaned down, and started emptying Hat’
s pockets and belt. Chemical mace. A Taser. A wallet with ID cards. A two-way radio. He found the unregistered drop gun strapped to the guy’s ankle. Each thing he took, he threw out to the edge of the water, listening for the splash. Hat was weeping, and Amos’ weight made it hard for him to breathe. The other one was standing perfectly still, like if he didn’t move Amos wouldn’t notice him. Wasn’t like he had a better strategy at this point.
Amos grinned at him. “Hey.”
The guy didn’t say anything.
“It’s okay,” Amos said. “You didn’t say you were gonna skullfuck my friends, right?”
“Right,” the other one said.
“Okay, then.” Amos stood up. “You should probably get him to a doctor. And then whoever else you’ve got on this shithole of an island, tell them what I did, and how I didn’t fuck you up because you hadn’t fucked with me. Okay?”
“All right.”
“Great. And then don’t come back around here.”
“I won’t.”
“We won’t,” Amos said. “You mean we won’t. Not you and not your tribe.”
“We won’t.”
“Perfect. No problems, then. And give Butch your stuff, all right? Drop gun too.”
“Yes, sir.”
Amos walked back toward the hangar. Sure enough, Peaches was standing in the doorway, her arms crossed. He wiped his hand. His knuckles were bleeding.
“See, that’s what civilization is,” he said. “Bunch of stories. That’s all.”
“So what if it is?” Peaches said. “We’re really good at telling stories. Everything just turned to shit, and we’re already finding ways to put it back together. Stokes and the other servants were ready to fight us or get killed, but then I knew his name and he remembered me, and now there’s a story where he wants to help us. You go out there and you send a message about how those guys should leave us alone. All of us. More than just six or seven. And, side note here, you know the Pinkwater guys are going to come back and try to kill you for that, right?”
Expanse 05 - Nemesis Games Page 40
