“Does that mean Fred’s been compromised?” Naomi said.
“Fred?” Miller asked.
“Or maybe someone figured out the Polanski thing too, but didn’t have a room number,” Holden said.
“But why come out guns blazing like that?” Amos said. “Doesn’t make any sense to shoot us.”
“That was a mistake,” Miller said. “I saw it happen. Amos here drew his gun. Somebody overreacted. They were yelling cease-fire right up until you folks started shooting back.”
Holden began ticking off points on his fingers.
“So someone finds out we’re headed to Eros, and that it is related to the Scopuli. They even know the hotel, but not the room.”
“They don’t know it’s Lionel Polanski either,” Naomi said. “They could have looked it up at the desk, just like we did.”
“Right. So they wait for us to show, and have a squad of gunmen ready to take us in. But that goes to shit and it turns into a gunfight in the lobby. They absolutely don’t see you coming, Detective, so they aren’t omniscient.”
“Right,” Miller said. “The whole thing screams last minute. Grab you guys and find out what you’re looking for. If they’d had more time, they could have just searched the hotel. Might have taken two or three days, but it could have been done. They didn’t, so that means grabbing you was easier.”
Holden nodded. “Yes,” he said. “But that means that they already had teams here. Those didn’t seem like locals to me.”
Miller paused, looking disconcerted.
“Now you say it, me either,” he agreed.
“So whoever it is, they already have teams of gunmen on Eros, and they can redeploy them to come at a moment’s notice to pick us up,” Holden said.
“And enough pull with security that they could have a firefight and nobody came,” Miller said. “Police didn’t know anything was happening until I called them.”
Holden cocked his head to one side, then said, “Shit, we really need to get out of here.”
“Wait a minute,” Alex said loudly. “Just wait a goddamn minute here. How come no one is talkin’ about the mutant horror show in that room? Was I the only one that saw that?”
“Yeah, Jesus, what was that all about?” Amos said quietly.
Miller reached into his coat pocket and took out the evidence bag with Julie’s hand terminal in it.
“Any of you guys a techie?” he asked. “Maybe we could find out.”
“I could probably hack it,” Naomi said. “But there’s no way I’m touching that thing until we know what did that to her and that it isn’t catching. I’m not pushing my luck by handling anything she’s touched.”
“You don’t have to touch it. Keep the bag sealed. Just use it right through the plastic. The touch screen should still work.”
Naomi paused for a second, then reached out and took the bag.
“Okay, give me a minute,” she said, then set to work on it.
Miller leaned back in his chair again, letting out another heavy sigh.
“So,” Holden said. “Did you know Julie before this? Naomi seems to think finding her dead like that really knocked you for a loop.”
Miller shook his head slowly. “You get a case like that, you look into whoever it is. You know, personal stuff. Read their e-mail. Talk to the people they know. You get a picture.”
Miller stopped talking and rubbed his eyes with his thumbs. Holden didn’t push him, but he started talking again anyway.
“Julie was a good kid,” Miller said as if he were confessing something. “She flew a mean racing ship. I just… I wanted to get her back alive.”
“It’s got a password,” Naomi said, holding up the terminal. “I could hack the hardware, but I’d have to open the case.”
Miller reached out and said, “Let me give it a try.”
Naomi handed the terminal to him, and he tapped a few characters on the screen and handed it back.
“Razorback,” Naomi said. “What’s that?”
“It’s a sled,” Miller replied.
“Is he talking to us?” Amos said, pointing his chin at Miller. “ ’Cause there’s no one else here, but I swear half the time I don’t know what the fuck he’s on about.”
“Sorry,” Miller said. “I’ve been working more or less solo. Makes for bad habits.”
Naomi shrugged and went back to work with Holden and Miller now looking over her shoulders.
“She’s got a lot of stuff on here,” Naomi said. “Where to start?”
Miller pointed at a text file simply labeled notes sitting on the terminal’s desktop.
“Start there,” he said. “She’s a fanatic about putting things in the right folders. If she left that on the desktop, it means she wasn’t sure where it went.”
Naomi tapped on the document to open it up. It expanded into a loosely organized collection of text that read like someone’s diary.
First off, get your shit together. Panic doesn’t help. It never helps. Deep breaths, figure this out, make the right moves. fear is the mind-killer. Ha. Geek.
Shuttle Pros:
No reactor, just batteries. V. low radiation.
Supplies for eight
Lots of reaction mass
Shuttle Cons:
No Epstein, no torch
Comm not just disabled, but physically removed (feeling a little paranoid about leaks, guys?)
Closest transit is Eros. Is that where we were going? Maybe go someplace else? On just teakettle, this is gonna be a slow boat. Another transit adds seven more weeks. Eros, then.
I’ve got the Phoebe bug, no way around it. Not sure how, but that brown shit was everywhere. It’s anaerobic, must have touched some. Doesn’t matter how, just work the problem.
I just slept for THREE WEEKS. Didn’t even get up to pee. What does that?
I’m so fucked.
Things you need to remember:
* BA834024112
* Radiation kills. No reactor on this shuttle, but keep the lights off. Keep the e-suit on. Video asshat said this thing eats radiation. Don’t feed it.
* Send up a flag. Get some help. You work for the smartest people in the system. They’ll figure something out.
* Stay away from people. Don’t spread the bug. Not coughing up the brown goo yet. No idea when that starts.
* Keep away from bad guys—as if you know who they are. Fine. So keep away from everyone. Incognito is my name. Hmm. Polanski?
Damn. I can feel it. I’m hot all the time, and I’m starving. Don’t eat. Don’t feed it. Feed a cold, starve a flu? Other way around? Eros is a day out, and then help is on the way. Keep fighting.
Safe on Eros. Sent up the flag. Hope the home office is watching. Head hurts. Something’s happening on my back. Lump over my kidneys. Darren turned into goo. Am I going to be a suit full of jelly?
Sick now. Things coming out of my back and leaking that brown stuff everywhere. Have to take the suit off. If you read this, don’t let anyone touch the Brown stuff. Burn me. I’m burning up.
Naomi put the terminal down, but no one spoke for a moment. Finally, Holden said, “Phoebe bug. Anyone have an idea?”
“There was a science station on Phoebe,” Miller said. “Inner planets place, no Belters allowed. It got hit. Lots of dead people, but… ”
“She talks about being on a shuttle,” Naomi said. “The Scopuli didn’t have a shuttle.”
“There had to be another ship,” Alex said. “Maybe she got the shuttle off it.”
“Right,” Holden said. “They got on another ship, they got infected with this Phoebe bug, and the rest of the crew… I don’t know. Dies?”
“She gets out, not realizing she’s infected till she’s on the shuttle,” Naomi continued. “She comes here, she sends up the flag to Fred, and she dies in that hotel room of the infection.”
“Not, however, turned to goo,” Holden said. “Just really badly… I don’t know. Those tubes and bone spurs. What kind of disease does that?
”
The question hung in the air. Again no one spoke. Holden knew they were all thinking the same thing. They hadn’t touched anything in the flophouse room. Did that mean they were safe from it? Or did they have the Phoebe bug, whatever the hell it was? But she’d said anaerobic. Holden was pretty sure that meant you couldn’t get it by breathing it in the air. Pretty sure…
“Where do we go from here, Jim?” Naomi asked.
“How about Venus?” Holden said, his voice higher and tighter than he’d expected. “Nothing interesting happening on Venus.”
“Seriously,” Naomi said.
“Okay. Seriously, I think Miller there lets his cop friend know the story, and then we get the hell off of this rock. It’s got to be a bioweapon, right? Someone steals it off a Martian science lab, seeds this shit in a dome, a month later every human being in the city is dead.”
Amos interrupted with a grunt.
“There’s some holes in that, Cap’n,” Amos said. “Like what the fuck does that have to do with taking down the Cant and the Donnager?”
Holden looked Naomi in the eye and said, “We have a place to look now, don’t we?”
“Yeah, we do,” she said. “BA834024112. That’s a rock designation.”
“What do you think is out there?” Alex asked.
“If I was a betting man, I’d say it’s whatever ship she stole that shuttle from,” Holden replied.
“Makes sense,” Naomi said. “Every rock in the Belt is mapped. You want to hide something, put it in a stable orbit next to one and you can always find it later.”
Miller turned toward Holden, his face even more drawn.
“If you’re going there, I want in,” he said.
“Why?” Holden asked. “No offense, but you found your girl. Your job’s over, right?”
Miller looked at him, his lips a thin line.
“Different case,” Miller said. “Now it’s about who killed her.”
Chapter Twenty-Six: Miller
Your police friend put a lockdown order on my ship,” Holden said. He sounded outraged.
Around them, the hotel restaurant was busy. Last shift’s prostitutes mixed with the next shift’s tourists and businessmen at the cheap pink-lit buffet. The pilot and the big guy—Alex and Amos—were vying for the last bagel. Naomi sat at Holden’s side, her arms crossed, a cup of bad coffee cooling before her.
“We did kill some people,” Miller said gently.
“I thought you got us out of that with your secret police handshake,” Holden said. “So why’s my ship in lockdown?”
“You remember when Sematimba said we shouldn’t leave the station without telling him?” Miller said.
“I remember you making some kind of deal,” Holden said. “I don’t remember agreeing to it.”
“Look, he’s going to keep us here until he’s sure he won’t get fired for letting us go. Once he knows his ass is covered, the lock goes down. So let’s talk about the part where I rent a berth on your ship.”
Jim Holden and his XO exchanged a glance, one of those tiny human burst communications that said more than words could have. Miller didn’t know either of them well enough to decode all of it, but he guessed they were skeptical.
They had reason to be. Miller had checked his credit balance before he’d called them. He had enough left for another night in the hotel or a good dinner, but not both. He was spending it on a cheap breakfast that Holden and his crew didn’t need and probably wouldn’t enjoy, buying good will.
“I need to make very, very sure I understand what you’re saying,” Holden said as the big one—Amos—returned and sat at his other side holding the bagel. “Are you saying that unless I let you on my ship, your friend is going to keep us here? Because that’s blackmail.”
“Extortion,” Amos said.
“What?” Holden said.
“It’s not blackmail,” Naomi said. “That would be if he threatened to expose information we didn’t want known. If it’s just a threat, that’s extortion.”
“And it’s not what I’m talking about,” Miller said. “Freedom of the station while the investigation rolls? That’s no trouble. Leaving jurisdiction’s another thing. I can’t hold you here any more than I can cut you loose. I’m just looking for a ride when you go.”
“Why?” Holden said.
“Because you’re going to Julie’s asteroid,” Miller said.
“I’m willing to bet there’s no port there,” Holden said. “Did you plan on going anyplace after that?”
“I’m kind of low on solid plans. Haven’t had one yet that actually happened.”
“I hear that,” Amos said. “We’ve been fucked eighteen different ways since we got into this.”
Holden folded his hands on the table, one finger tapping a complicated rhythm on the wood-textured concrete top. It wasn’t a good sign.
“You seem like a… well, like an angry, bitter old man, actually. But I’ve been working water haulers for the past five years. That just means you’d fit in.”
“But,” Miller said, and let the word hang there.
“But I’ve been shot at a lot recently, and the machine guns yesterday were the least lethal thing I’ve had to deal with,” Holden said. “I’m not letting anyone on my ship that I wouldn’t trust with my life, and I don’t actually know you.”
“I can get the money,” Miller said, his belly sinking. “If it’s money, I can cover it.”
“It’s not about negotiating a price,” Holden said.
“Get the money?” Naomi said, her eyes narrowing. “ ‘Get the money,’ as in you don’t have it now?”
“I’m a little short,” Miller said. “It’s temporary.”
“You have an income?” Naomi said.
“More like a strategy,” Miller said. “There’s some independent rackets down on the docks. There always are at any port. Side games. Fights. Things like that. Most of them, the fix is in. It’s how you bribe cops without actually bribing cops.”
“That’s your plan?” Holden said, incredulity in his voice. “Go collect some police bribes?”
Across the restaurant, a prostitute in a red nightgown yawned prodigiously; the john across the table from her frowned.
“No,” Miller said reluctantly. “I play the side bets. A cop goes in, I make a side bet that he’s going to win. I know who the cops are mostly. The house, they know because they’re bribing them. The side bets are with fish looking to feel edgy because they’re playing unlicensed.”
Even as he said it, Miller knew how weak it sounded. Alex, the pilot, came and sat beside Miller. His coffee smelled bright and acidic.
“What’s the deal?” Alex asked.
“There isn’t one,” Holden said. “There wasn’t one before and there still isn’t.”
“It works better than you’d think,” Miller said gamely, and four hand terminals chimed at once. Holden and Naomi exchanged another, less complicit glance and pulled up their terminals. Amos and Alex already had theirs up. Miller caught the red-and-green border that meant either a priority message or an early Christmas card. There was a moment’s silence as they all read something; then Amos whistled low.
“Stage three?” Naomi said.
“Can’t say as I like the sound of that,” Alex said.
“You mind if I ask?” Miller said.
Holden slid his terminal across the table. The message was plaintext, encoded from Tycho.
CAUGHT MOLE IN TYCHO COMM STATION. YOUR PRESENCE AND DESTINATION LEAKED TO UNKNOWN PERSONS ON EROS. BE CAREFUL.
“Little late on that,” Miller said.
“Keep reading,” Holden said.
MOLE’S ENCRYPTION CODE ALLOWED INTERCEPT OF SUBSIGNAL BROADCAST FROM EROS FIVE HOURS AGO.
INTERCEPTED MESSAGE FOLLOWS: HOLDEN ESCAPED BUT PAYLOAD SAMPLE RECOVERED. REPEAT: SAMPLE RECOVERED. PROCEEDING TO STAGE THREE.
“Any idea what that means?” Holden asked.
“I don’t,” Miller said, pushing the termina
l back. “Except… if the payload sample is Julie’s body.”
“Which I think we can assume it is,” Holden said.
Miller tapped his fingertips on the tabletop, unconsciously copying Holden’s rhythm, his mind working through the combinations.
“This thing,” Miller said. “The bioweapon or whatever. They were shipping it here. So now it’s here. Okay. There’s no reason to take out Eros. It’s not particularly important to the war when you hold it up to Ceres or Ganymede or the shipyard at Callisto. And if you wanted it dead, there’re easier ways. Blow a big fusion bomb on the surface, and crack it like an egg.”
“It’s not a military base, but it is a shipping hub,” Naomi said. “And, unlike Ceres, it’s not under OPA control.”
“They’re shipping her out, then,” Holden said. “They’re taking their sample out to infect whatever their original target was, and once they’re off the station, there’s no way we’re going to stop it.”
Miller shook his head. Something about the chain of logic felt wrong. He was missing something. His imaginary Julie appeared across the room, but her eyes were dark, black filaments pouring down her cheeks like tears.
What am I looking at here, Julie? he thought. I’m seeing something here, but I don’t know what it is.
The vibration was a slight, small thing, less than a transport tube’s braking stutter. A few plates rattled; the coffee in Naomi’s cup danced in a series of concentric circles. Everyone in the hotel went silent with the sudden shared dread of thousands of people made aware of their fragility in the same moment.
“Oh-kay,” Amos said. “The fuck was that?” and the emergency Klaxons started blaring.
“Or possibly stage three is something else,” Miller said over the noise.
The public-address system was muddy by its nature. The same voice spoke from consoles and speakers that might have been as close as a meter from each other or as far out as earshot would take them. It made every word reverberate, a false echo. Because of that, the voice of the emergency broadcast system enunciated very carefully, each word bitten off separately.
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