Caliban;s war e-2

by James S. A. Corey

  It wouldn’t hold up because it was a fake.

  It was a fake because Soren was working for someone else, someone who wanted to control the information getting to Avasarala’s desk. Nguyen had re-created his little fleet without her knowing it because Soren was the one watching the data traffic. Someone had known that she would need controlling. Handling. This was something that had been prepared for since well before Ganymede had gone pear-shaped. The monster on Ganymede had been anticipated.

  And so it was Errinwright.

  He had let her demand her peace negotiations, let her think she’d undermined Nguyen, let her take Bobbie onto her staff. All of it, so that she wouldn’t get suspicious.

  This wasn’t a shard of Venus that had escaped; it was a military project. A weapon that Earth wanted in order to break its rivals before the alien project on Venus finished whatever it was doing. Someone-probably Mao-Kwikowski-had retained a sample of the protomolecule in some separate and firewalled lab, weaponized it, and opened bidding.

  The attack on Ganymede had been on one hand a proof of concept assault, on the other a crippling blow to the outer planets’ food supply. The OPA had never been on the list of bidders. And then Nguyen had gone to the Jovian system to collect the goods, James Holden and his pet botanist had walked in on some part of it, and Mars had figured out they were about to lose the trade.

  Avasarala wondered how much Errinwright had given Jules-Pierre Mao to outbid Mars. It would have had to be more than just money.

  Earth was about to get its first protomolecule weapon, and Errinwright had kept her out of the loop because whatever he was going to do with it, she wasn’t going to like it. And she was one of the only people in the solar system who might have been able to stop him.

  She wondered whether she still was.

  “Thank you, Soren,” she said. “I appreciate this. Do we know where she is?”

  “She’s looking for you,” Soren said, and a sly smile tugged at his lips. “She may be under the impression that you’re asleep. It is pretty late.”

  “Sleep? Yes, I remember that vaguely,” Avasarala said. “All right. I’m going to need to talk to Errinwright.”

  “Do you want me to have her arrested?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  The disappointment barely showed.

  “How should we move forward?” Soren asked.

  “I’ll talk to Errinwright,” she said. “Can you get me some tea?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and practically bowed his way out of the room.

  Avasarala leaned back in her chair. Her mind felt calm. Her body was centered and still, like she’d ended a particularly long and effective meditation. She pulled up the connection request and waited to see how long Errinwright or his assistant would take to respond. As soon as she made the request, it was flagged PRIORITY PENDING. Three minutes later, Errinwright was there. He spoke from his hand terminal, the picture jumping as the car he was in bumped and turned. It was full night wherever he was.

  “Chrisjen!” he said. “Is anything wrong?”

  “Nothing in particular,” Avasarala said, silently cursing the connection. She wanted to see his face. She wanted to watch him lie to her. “Soren’s brought me something interesting. Intelligence thinks my Martian liaison’s a spy.”

  “Really?” Errinwright said. “That’s unfortunate. Are you arresting her?”

  “I don’t think so,” Avasarala said. “I think I’ll put my own flag on her traffic. Better the devil we know. Don’t you agree?”

  The pause was hardly noticeable.

  “That’s a good idea. Do that.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Since I’ve got you here, I needed to ask you something. Do you have anything that requires you in the office, or can you work on a ship?”

  She smiled. Here was the next move, then.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  Errinwright’s car reached a stretch of smoother pavement and his face came into clearer focus. He was wearing a dark suit with a high-collared shirt and no tie. He looked like a priest.

  “Ganymede. We need to show that we’re taking the situation out there seriously. The secretary-general wants someone senior to go there physically. Report back on the humanitarian angle. Since you’re the one who’s taken point on this, he thought you’d be the right face to put on it. And I thought it would give you the chance to follow up on the initial attack too.”

  “We’re in a shooting war,” Avasarala said. “I don’t think the Navy would want to spare a ship to haul my old bones out there. Besides which, I’m coordinating the investigation into Venus, aren’t I? Blank check and all.”

  Errinwright grinned exactly as if he’d meant it.

  “I’ve got you taken care of. Jules-Pierre Mao is taking a yacht from Luna to Ganymede to oversee his company’s humanitarian aid efforts. He’s offered a berth. It’s better accommodations than you get at the office. Probably better bandwidth too. You can monitor Venus from there.”

  “Mao-Kwik is part of the government now? I hadn’t known,” she said.

  “We’re all on the same side. Mao-Kwik is as interested as anyone in seeing those people cared for.”

  Avasarala’s door opened and Roberta Draper loomed into the office. She looked like crap. Her skin had the ashy look of that of someone who hadn’t slept in too long. Her jaw was set. Avasarala nodded toward the chair.

  “I take up a lot of bandwidth,” she said.

  “Won’t be a problem. You’ll get first priority on all communications channels.”

  The Martian sat down across the desk, well out of the camera’s cone. Bobbie braced her hands on her thighs, elbows to the sides, like a wrestler getting ready to step into the cage. Avasarala made herself not glance at the woman.

  “Can I think about it?”

  “Chrisjen,” Errinwright said, bringing his hand terminal closer in, his wide, round face filling the screen. “I told the secretary-general that this might not fly. Even in the best yacht, traveling out to the Jovian system is a hard journey. If you’ve got too much to do or if you’re at all uncomfortable with the trip, you just say so and I’ll find someone else. They just won’t be as good as you.”

  “Who is?” Avasarala said with a toss of her hand. Rage was boiling in her gut. “Fine. You’ve talked me into it. When do I leave?”

  “The yacht’s scheduled for departure in four days. I’m sorry for the tight turnaround, but I didn’t have confirmation until about an hour ago.”

  “Serendipity.”

  “If I were a religious man, I’d say it meant something. I’ll have the details sent to Soren.”

  “Better send it to me directly,” Avasarala said. “Soren’s going to have a lot on his plate already.”

  “Whatever you like,” he said.

  Her boss had secretly started a war. He was working with the same corporations that had let the genie out of the bottle on Phoebe, sacrificed Eros, and threatened everything human. He was a frightened little boy in a good suit picking a fight he thought he could win because he was pissing himself over the real threat. She smiled at him. Good men and women had already died because of him and Nguyen. Children had died on Ganymede. Belters would be scrambling for calories. Some would starve.

  Errinwright’s round cheeks fell a millimeter. His brows knotted just a bit. He knew that she knew. Because of course he did. Players at their level didn’t deceive each other. They won even though their opponents knew exactly what was happening. Just like he was winning against her right now.

  “Are you feeling all right?” he asked. “I think this is the first conversation we’ve had in ten years where you haven’t said something vulgar.”

  Avasarala grinned at the screen, reaching out her fingertips as if she could caress him.

  “Cunt,” she said carefully.

  When the connection dropped, she put her head in her hands for a moment, blowing out her breath and sucking it back in hard, focusing. W
hen she sat up, Bobbie was watching her.

  “Evening,” Avasarala said.

  “I’ve been trying to find you,” Bobbie said. “My connections were blocked.”

  Avasarala grunted.

  “We need to talk about something. Someone. I mean, Soren,” Bobbie said. “You remember that data you wanted him to take care of a couple days ago? He handed it off to someone else. I don’t know who, but they were military. I’ll swear to that.”

  So that’s what spooked him, Avasarala thought. Caught with his hands in the cookie jar. Poor idiot had underestimated her pet Marine.

  “All right,” she said.

  “I understand that you don’t have any reason to trust me,” Bobbie said, “but… Okay. Why are you laughing?”

  Avasarala stood up, stretching until the joints in her shoulders ached pleasantly.

  “At this moment, you are literally the only one on my staff who I trust as far as I can piss. You remember when I said that the thing on Ganymede wasn’t us? It wasn’t then but it is now. We’ve bought it, and I assume we’re planning to use it against you.”

  Bobbie stood up. Her face, once just ashen, was bloodless.

  “I have to tell my superiors,” she said, her voice thick and strangled.

  “No, you don’t. They know. And you can’t prove it yet any more than I can. Tell them now and they’ll broadcast it, and we’ll deny it and blah blah blah. The bigger problem is that you’re coming back to Ganymede with me. I’m being sent.”

  She explained everything. Soren’s false intelligence report, what it implied, Errinwright’s betrayal, and the mission to Ganymede on the Mao-Kwik yacht.

  “You can’t do that,” Bobbie said.

  “It’s a pain in the ass,” Avasarala agreed. “They’ll be monitoring my connections, but they’re probably doing the same here. And if they’re shipping me to Ganymede, you can be dead sure that nothing is going to happen there. They’re putting me in a box until it’s too late to change anything. Or that’s what they’re trying, anyway. I’m not giving away the fucking game yet.”

  “You can’t get on that ship,” Bobbie said. “It’s a trap.”

  “Of course it’s a trap,” Avasarala said, waving a hand. “But it’s a trap I have to step into. Refuse a request from the secretary-general? That comes out, and everyone starts thinking I’m about to retire. No one backs a player who’s going to be powerless next year. We play for the long term, and that means looking strong for the duration. Errinwright knows that. It’s why he played it this way.”

  Outside, another shuttle was lifting off. Avasarala could already hear the roar of the burn, feel the press of thrust and false gravity pushing her back. It had been thirty years since she’d been out of Earth’s gravity well. This wasn’t going to be pleasant.

  “If you get on that ship, they’ll kill you,” Bobbie said, making each word its own sentence.

  “That’s not how this game gets played,” Avasarala said. “What they-”

  The door opened again. Soren had a tray in his hands. The teapot on it was cast iron, with a single handleless enamel cup. He opened his mouth to speak, then saw Bobbie. It was easy to forget how much larger she was until a man Soren’s height visibly cowered before her.

  “My tea! That’s excellent. Do you want any, Bobbie?”

  “No.”

  “All right. Well, put it down, Soren. I’m not drinking it with you standing there. Good. And pour me a cup.”

  Avasarala watched him turn his back on the marine. His hands didn’t shake; she’d give the boy that much. Avasarala stood silent, waiting for him to bring it to her as if he were a puppy learning to retrieve a toy. When he did, she blew across the surface of the tea, scattering the thin veil of steam. He carefully didn’t turn to look at Bobbie.

  “Will there be anything else, ma’am?”

  Avasarala smiled. How many people had this boy killed just by lying to her? She would never know for certain, and neither would he. The best she could do was not another.

  “Soren,” she said. “They’re going to know it was you.”

  It was too much. He looked over his shoulder. Then he looked back, greenish with anxiety.

  “Who do you mean?” he said, trying for charm.

  “Them. If you’re counting on them to help your career, I just want you to understand that they won’t. The kind of men you’re working for? Once they know you’ve slipped, you’re nothing to them. They have no tolerance for failure.”

  “I-”

  “Neither do I. Don’t leave anything personal at your desk.”

  She watched it in his eyes. The future he’d planned and worked for, defined himself by, fell away. A life on basic support rose in its place. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. But it was all the justice she could manage on short notice.

  When the door was closed, Bobbie cleared her throat.

  “What’s going to happen to him?” she asked.

  Avasarala sipped her tea. It was good, fresh green tea, brewed perfectly-rich and sweet and not even slightly bitter.

  “Who gives a shit?” she said. “The Mao-Kwik yacht leaves in four days. That’s not much time. And neither of us is going to be able to take a dump without the bad guys knowing. I’m going to get you a list of people I need to have drinks or lunch or coffee with before we leave. Your job is to arrange it so I do.”

  “I’m your social secretary now?” Bobbie said, bristling.

  “You and my husband are the only two people alive who I know aren’t trying to stop me,” Avasarala said. “That’s how far down I am right now. This has to happen, and there is no one else I can rely on. So yes. You’re my social secretary. You’re my bodyguard. You’re my psychiatrist. All of it. You.”

  Bobbie lowered her head, breathing out through flared nostrils. Her lips pursed and she shook her massive head once quickly-left, then right, then back to center.

  “You’re fucked,” she said.

  Avasarala took another sip of her tea. She should have been ruined. She should have been in tears. She’d been cut off from her own power, tricked. Jules-Pierre Mao had sat there, not a meter from where she was now, and laughed down his sleeve at her. Errinwright and Nguyen and whoever else was in his little cabal. They’d tricked her. She’d sat there, pulling strings and trading favors and thinking that she was doing something real. For months-maybe years — she hadn’t noticed that she was being closed out.

  They’d made a fool of her. She should have been humiliated. Instead, she felt alive. This was her game, and if she was behind at halftime, it only meant they expected her to lose. There was nothing better than being underestimated.

  “Do you have a gun?”

  Bobbie almost laughed.

  “They don’t like having Martian soldiers walking around the United Nations with guns. I have to eat lunch with a dull spork. We’re at war.”

  “All right, fine. When we get on the yacht, you’re in charge of security. You’re going to need a gun. I’ll arrange that for you.”

  “You can? Honestly, though, I’d rather have my suit.”

  “Your suit? What suit?”

  “I had custom-fit powered armor with me when I came here. The video feed of the monster was copied from it. They said they were turning it over to your guys to confirm the original footage hadn’t been faked.”

  Avasarala looked at Bobbie and sipped her tea. Michael-Jon would know where it was. She’d call him the next morning, arrange to have it brought on board the Mao-Kwik yacht with an innocuous label like WARDROBE stamped on the side.

  Probably thinking she needed to be convinced, Bobbie kept talking. “Seriously. Get me a gun, I’m a soldier. Get that suit for me, I’m a superhero.”

  “If we’ve still got it, you’ll have it.”

  “All right, then,” Bobbie said. She smiled. For the first time since they’d met, Avasarala was afraid of her.

  God help whoever makes you put it on.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Holdenr />
  Gravity returned as Alex brought the engine up, and Holden floated down to the deck of the cargo bay airlock at a gentle half g. They didn’t need to go fast now that the monster was outside the ship. They just needed to put some distance between the ship and it, and get it into the drive’s star-hot exhaust plume, where it would be broken down into its various subatomic particles. Even the protomolecule couldn’t survive being reduced to ions.

  He hoped, anyway.

  When he touched down on the deck, he intended to turn on the wall monitor and check the aft cameras. He wanted to watch the thing be torched, but the moment his weight came down, a white-hot spike of pain took his knee. He yelped and collapsed.

  Amos drifted down next to him, then kicked off his boot mags and started to kneel. “You okay, Cap?” he said.

  “Fine. I mean, for I-think-I-blew-out-my-knee levels of fine.”

  “Yeah. Joint injury’s a lot less painful in microgravity, ain’t it?”

  Holden was about to reply when a massive hammer hit the side of the ship. The hull rang like a gong. The Roci’s engine cut off almost instantly, and the ship snapped into a flat spin. Amos was lifted away from Holden and thrown across the airlock to slam against the outer door. Holden slid along the deck to land standing upright against the bulkhead next to him, his knee collapsing under him so painfully he nearly blacked out.

  He chinned a button in his helmet, and his body armor shot him full of amphetamines and painkillers. Within seconds, his knee still hurt, but the pain was very far away and easy to ignore. The threatening tunnel vision vanished and the airlock became very bright. His heart started to race.

  “Alex,” he said, knowing the answer before he asked, “what was that?”

  “When we torched our passenger there, the bomb in the cargo bay went off,” the pilot replied. “We’ve got serious damage to that bay, to the outer hull, and to engineering. Reactor went into emergency shutdown. The cargo bay turned into a second drive during the blast and put us into a spin. I have no control over the ship.”

  Amos groaned and began moving his limbs. “That sucks.”

  “We need to kill this spin,” Holden said. “What do you need to get the attitude thrusters back up?”