Abaddon's Gate e-3

by James S. A. Corey

  “And if you were a member of my congregation, I’d have you call me Pastor Anna. Buddhist?”

  “Only when I’m at my grandmother’s house,” Jin said with a wink. “The rest of the time I’m a navy man.”

  “Is that a religion now?” Anna asked with a laugh.

  “The navy thinks so.”

  “Okay.” She laughed again. “So why don’t you just call me Anna?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jin said. He stopped at a gray door marked OQ 297-11 and handed her a small metal card. “This is your room. Just having the card on you unlocks the door. It will stay locked when you’re inside unless you press the yellow button on the wall panel.”

  “Sounds very safe,” Anna said, taking the key from Jin and shaking his hand.

  “This is the battleship Thomas Prince, ma’am. It’s the safest place in the solar system.”

  Her stateroom was three meters wide by four meters long. Luxurious by navy standards, normal for a poor Europan, coffinlike to an Earther. Anna felt a brief moment of vertigo as the two different Annas she’d been reacted to the space in three different ways. She’d felt the same sense of disconnection when she’d first boarded the Prince and felt the full gravity pressing her down. The Earther she’d been most of her life felt euphoric as, for the first time in years, her weight felt right. The Europan in her just felt tired, drained by the excessive pull on her bones.

  She wondered how long it would take Nono to get her Earth legs back. How long it would take before Nami could walk there. They were both spending the entire trip back pumped full of muscle and bone growth stimulators, but drugs can only take a person so far. There would still be the agonizing weeks or months as their bodies adapted to the new gravity. Anna could almost see little Nami struggling to get up onto her hands and knees like she did on Europa. Could almost hear her cries of frustration while she built up the strength to move on her own again. She was such a determined little thing. It would infuriate her to lose the hard-won physical skills she’d developed over the last two years.

  Thinking about it made Anna’s chest ache, just behind her breastbone.

  She tapped the shiny black surface of the console in her room, and the room’s terminal came on. She spent a moment learning the user interface. It was limited to browsing the ship’s library and to sending and receiving text or audio/video messages.

  She tapped the button to record a message and said, “Hi Nono, hi Nami!” She waved at the camera. “I’m on the ship, and we’re on our way. I—” She stopped and looked around the room, at the sterile gray walls and spartan bed. She grabbed a pillow off of it and turned back to the camera. “I miss you both already.” She hugged the pillow to her chest, tight. “This is you. This is both of you.”

  She turned the recording off before she got teary. She was washing her face when the console buzzed a new-message alert. Even though it didn’t seem possible Nami could have gotten the message and replied already, her heart gave a little leap. She rushed over and opened the message. It was a simple text message reminding her of the VIP “meet and greet” in the officers’ mess at 1900 hours. The clock said it was currently 1300.

  Anna tapped the button to RSVP to the event and then climbed under the covers of her bed with her clothes on and cried herself to sleep.

  “Reverend Doctor Volovodov,” a booming male voice said as soon as she walked into the officers’ mess.

  The room was laid out for a party, with tables covered in food ringing the room, and a hundred or more people talking in loose clumps in the center. In one corner, an ad hoc bar with four bartenders was doing brisk business. A tall, dark-skinned man with perfectly coiffed white hair and an immaculate gray suit walked out of the crowd like Venus rising from the waves. Anna wondered how he managed the effect. He reached out and took her hand with his. “I’m so happy to have you with us. I’ve heard so much about the powerful work you’re doing on Europa, and I don’t see how the Methodist World Council could have chosen anyone else for this important trip.”

  Anna shook his hand, then carefully extricated herself from his grasp. Doctor Hector Cortez, Father Hank on his live streamcasts that went out to over a hundred million people each week, and close personal friend and spiritual advisor to the secretary-general himself. She couldn’t imagine how he knew anything about her. Her tiny congregation of less than a hundred people on Europa wouldn’t even be a rounding error to his solar system–wide audience. She found herself caught between feeling flattered, uncomfortable, and vaguely suspicious.

  “Doctor Cortez,” Anna said. “So nice to meet you. I’ve seen your show before, of course.”

  “Of course,” he said, smiling vaguely and already looking around the room for someone else to talk to. She had the sense that he’d come to greet her less out of the pleasure of her arrival than as a chance to extricate himself from whatever conversation he’d been having before, and she didn’t know whether to be relieved or insulted. She settled on amused.

  Like a smaller object dragged into some larger gravity well, an elderly man in formal Roman Catholic garb pulled away from the central crowd and drifted in Doctor Cortez’s direction.

  She started to introduce herself when Doctor Cortez cut in with that booming voice and said, “Father Michel. Say hello to my friend Reverend Doctor Annushka Volovodov, a worker for God’s glory with the Europa congregation of Methodists.”

  “Reverend Volovodov,” the Catholic man said. “I’m Father Michel, with the Archdiocese of Rome.”

  “Oh, very nice to meet—” Anna started.

  “Don’t let him fool you with that humble old country priest act,” Cortez boomed over the top of her. “He’s a bishop on the short list for cardinal.”

  “Congratulations,” Anna said.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. All exaggeration and smoke.” The old man beamed. “Nothing will happen until it fits with God’s plan.”

  “You wouldn’t be here if that were true,” Cortez said.

  The bishop chuckled.

  A woman in an expensive blue dress followed one of the uniformed waiters with his tray of champagne. She and Father Michel reached for a glass at the same moment. Anna smiled a no at the offered champagne, and the waiter vanished into the crowd at the center of the room.

  “Please,” the woman said to Anna. “Don’t leave me to drink alone with a Catholic. My liver can’t take it.”

  “Thank you, but—”

  “What about you, Hank? I’ve heard you can put down a few drinks.” She punctuated this with a swig from her glass. Cortez’s smile could have meant anything.

  “I’m Anna,” Anna said, reaching out to shake the woman’s hand. “I love your dress.”

  “Thank you. I am Mrs. Robert Fagan,” the woman replied with mock formality. “Tilly if you aren’t asking for money.”

  “Nice to meet you, Tilly,” Anna said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t drink.”

  “God, save me from temperance,” Tilly said. “You haven’t seen a party till you get a group of Anglicans and Catholics trying to beat each other to the bottom of a bottle.”

  “Now, that’s not nice, Mrs. Fagan,” Father Michel said. “I’ve never met an Anglican that could keep up with me.”

  “Hank, why is Esteban letting you out of his sight?” It took Anna a moment to realize that Tilly was talking about the secretary-general of the United Nations.

  Cortez shook his head and feigned a wounded look without losing his ever-present toothy grin. “Mrs. Fagan, I’m humbled by the secretary-general’s faith and trust in me, as we speed off toward the single most important event in human history since the death of our Lord.”

  Tilly snorted. “You mean his faith and trust in the hundred million voters you can throw his way in June.”

  “Ma’am,” Cortez said, turning to look at Tilly’s face for the first time. His grin never changed, but something chilled the air between them. “Maybe you’ve had a bit too much champagne.”

  “Oh, not nearly enough.”<
br />
  Father Michel charged in to the rescue, taking Tilly’s hand and saying, “I think our dear secretary-general is probably even more grateful for your husband’s many campaign contributions. Though that does make this the most expensive cruise in history, for you.”

  Tilly snorted and looked away from Cortez. “Robert can fucking afford it.”

  The obscenity created an awkward silence for a few moments, and Father Michel gave Anna an apologetic smile. She smiled back, so far out of her depth that she’d abandoned trying to keep up.

  “What’s he getting with them, I wonder?” Tilly said, pointing attention at anyone other than herself. “These artists and writers and actors. How many votes does a performance artist bring to the table? Do they even vote?”

  “It’s symbolic,” Father Michel said, his face taking on a well-practiced expression of thoughtfulness. “We are all of humanity coming together to explore the great question of our time. The secular and the divine come to stand together before that overwhelming mystery: What is the Ring?”

  “Nice,” Tilly said. “Rehearsal pays off.”

  “Thank you,” the bishop said.

  “What is the Ring?” Anna said with a frown. “It’s a wormhole gate. There’s no question, right? We’ve been talking about these on a theoretical basis for centuries. They look just like this. Something goes through it and the place on the other side isn’t here. We get the transmission signals bleeding back out and attenuating. It’s a wormhole.”

  “That’s certainly a possibility,” Father Michel said. Tilly smiled at the sourness in his voice. “How do you see our mission here, Anna?”

  “It isn’t what it is that’s at issue,” she said, glad to be back in a conversation she understood. “It’s what it means. This changes everything, and even if it’s something wonderful, it’ll be displacing. People will need to understand how to fit this in with their understanding of the universe. Of what this means about God, what this new thing tells us about Him. By being here, we can offer comfort that we couldn’t otherwise.”

  “I agree,” Cortez said. “Our work is to help people come to grips with the great mysteries, and this one’s a doozy.”

  “No,” Anna started, “explaining isn’t what I—”

  “Play your cards right, and it might get Esteban another four years,” Tilly said over the top of her. “Then we can call it a miracle.”

  Cortez grinned a white grin at someone across the room. A man in a small group of men and women in loose orange robes raised his hand, waving at them.

  “Can you believe those people?” Tilly asked.

  “I believe those are delegates from the Church of Humanity Ascendant,” Anna said.

  Tilly shook her head. “Humanity Ascendant. I mean, really. Let’s just make up our own religion and pretend we’re the gods.”

  “Careful,” Cortez said. “They’re not the only ones.”

  Seeing Anna’s discomfort, Father Michel attempted to rescue her. “Doctor Volovodov, I know the elder of that group. Wonderful woman. I’d love to introduce you. If you all would excuse us.”

  “Excuse me,” Anna started, then stopped when the room suddenly went silent. Father Michel and Cortez were both looking toward something at the center of the gathering near the bar, and Anna moved around Tilly to get a better view. It was hard to see at first, because everyone in the room was moving away toward the walls. But eventually, a young man dressed in a hideous bright red suit was revealed. He’d poured something all over himself; his hair and the shoulders of his jacket were dripping a clear fluid onto the floor. A strong alcohol scent filled the room.

  “This is for the people’s Ashtun Collective!” the young man yelled out in a voice that trembled with fear and excitement. “Free Etienne Barbara! And free the Afghan people!”

  “Oh dear God,” Father Michel said. “He’s going to—”

  Anna never saw what started the fire, but suddenly the young man was engulfed in flames. Tilly screamed. Anna’s shocked brain only registered annoyance at the sound. Really, when had someone screaming ever solved a problem? She recognized her fixation on this irritation as her own way of avoiding the horror in front of her, but only in a distant and dreamy sort of way. She was about to tell Tilly to just shut up when the fire-suppression system activated and five streams of foam shot out of hidden turrets in the walls and ceiling. The fiery man was covered in white bubbles and extinguished in seconds. The smell of burnt hair competed with the alcohol stench for dominance.

  Before anyone else could react, naval personnel were streaming into the room. Stern-faced young men and women with holstered sidearms calmly told everyone to remain still while emergency crews worked. Medical technicians came in and scraped foam off the would-be suicide. He seemed more surprised than hurt. They handcuffed him and loaded him onto a stretcher. He was out of the room in less than a minute. Once he was gone, the people with guns seemed to relax a little.

  “They certainly put him out fast,” Anna said to the armed young woman closest to her. “That’s good.”

  The young woman, looking hardly older than a schoolgirl, laughed. “This is a battleship, ma’am. Our fire-suppression systems are robust.”

  Cortez had darted across the room and was speaking to the ranking naval officer in a booming voice. He sounded upset. Father Michel seemed to be quietly praying, and Anna felt a strong urge to join him.

  “Well,” Tilly said, waving at the room with her empty champagne glass. Her face was pale apart from two bright red dots on her cheeks “Maybe this trip won’t be boring after all.”

  Chapter Nine: Bull

  It would have gone faster if Bull had asked for more help, but until he knew who was doing what, he didn’t want to trust too many people. Or anyone.

  A thousand people in the crew more or less made things a little muddier than they would have been in some ways. With a crew that big, the security chief could look for things like crew members from unlikely departments meeting up at odd times. Deviations from the pattern that every ship had. Since this was the shakedown voyage, the Behemoth didn’t have any patterns yet. It was still in a state of chaos, crew and ship getting to know one another. Making decisions, forming habits and customs and culture. Nothing was normal yet, and so nothing was strange.

  On the other hand, it was only a thousand people.

  Every ship had a black economy. Someone on the Behemoth would be trading sex for favors. Someone would run a card game or set up a pachinko parlor or start a little protection racket. People would be bribed to do things or not do things. It was what happened when you put people together. Bull’s job wasn’t to stamp it all out. His job was to keep it at a level that kept the ship moving and safe. And to set boundaries.

  Alexi Myerson-Freud was a nutritionist. He’d worked mid-level jobs on Tycho, mostly in the yeast vats, tuning the bioengineering to produce the right mix of chemicals, minerals, and salts for keeping humans alive. He’d been married twice, had a kid he hadn’t seen in five years, was part of a network war-gaming group that simulated ancient battles, pitting themselves against the great generals of history. He was eight years younger than Bull. He had mouse-ass brown hair, an awkward smile, and a side business selling a combination stimulant and euphoric the Belters called pixie dust. Bull had worked it all until he was certain.

  And even once he knew, he’d waited a few days. Not long. Just enough that he could follow Alexi around on the security system. He needed to make sure there wasn’t a bigger fish above him, a partner who was keeping a lower profile, or a connection to Bull’s own team—or else, God forbid, Ashford’s. There wasn’t.

  Truth was, he didn’t want to do it. He knew what had to happen, and it was always easier to put it off for another fifteen minutes, or until after lunch, or until tomorrow. Only every time he did, it meant someone else was going on shift stoned, maybe making a stupid mistake, breaking the ship, getting injured, or getting killed.

  The moment came in the middle of second shif
t. Bull turned down his console, stood up, took a couple of guns from the armory, and made a connection on his hand terminal.

  “Serge?”

  “Boss.”

  “I’m gonna need you and one other. We’re going to go bust a drug dealer.”

  The silence on the line sounded like surprise. Bull waited. This would tell him something too.

  “You got it,” Serge said. “Be right there.”

  Serge came into the office ten minutes later with another security grunt, a broad-shouldered, grim-faced woman named Corin. She was a good choice. Bull made a mental note in Serge’s favor, and handed them both guns. Corin checked the magazine, holstered it, and waited. Serge flipped his from hand to hand, judging the weight and feel, then shrugged.

  “What’s the plan?” he asked.

  “Come with me,” Bull said. “Someone tries to keep me from doing my job, warn them once, then shoot them.”

  “Straightforward,” Serge said, and there was a sense of approval in the word.

  The food processing complex was deep inside the ship, close to the massive, empty inner surface. In the long voyage to the stars, it would have been next to the farmlands of the small internal world of the Nauvoo. In the Behemoth, it wasn’t anywhere in particular. What had been logical became dumb, and all it took was changing the context. Bull drove them, the little electric cart’s foam wheels buzzing against the ramps. In the halls and corridors, people stopped, watched. Some stared. It said something that three armed security agents traveling together stood out. Bull wasn’t sure it was something good.

  Near the vats, the air smelled different. There were more volatiles and unfiltered particulates. The processing complex itself was a network of tubs and vats and distilling columns. Half of the place was shut down, the extra capacity mothballed and waiting for a larger population to feed. Or else waiting to be torn out.

  They found Alexi knee deep in one of the water treatment baths, orange rubber waders clinging to his legs and his hands full of thick green kelp. Bull pointed to him, and then to the catwalk on which he, Serge, and Corin stood. There might have been a flicker of unease in Alexi’s expression. It was hard to say.