Cibola Burn

“Jesus,” Amos said, staring down at the worms surrounding them, something like respect mixed in with his disgust.

“Some kind of defense toxin?” Holden asked.

“I don’t know,” Elvi replied. “It might just be slime to aid in locomotion, like a terrestrial slug. It might not be toxic to the other life forms on New Terra. We’ve never even seen them before. How can we know anything? If I had my collection equipment, I could send the data back to Luna, if I could send the message back to Luna, but —”

Elvi’s voice was rising as she spoke. When she ended, she was almost in tears. “You’re right,” Holden said. “It was a stupid question, and it doesn’t matter anyway.”

“Why doesn’t it —” Elvi started, but Holden pushed past her.

“Where’s Murtry,” he asked.

“Inside, organizing the people to find and remove all the slugs from the structure.”

“Come on, Amos,” Holden said. “Let’s change his priorities.”

Inside, the fear was so pronounced it was almost an odor. Half of the colonists were in almost frantic activity, building slug-sweeping implements and clearing the structure. The other half sat on the floor, many wrapped tight in blankets, empty expressions on their faces. The human mind could only take so much threat. Everyone had a different limit, and he couldn’t really blame the people who had been broken by the last thirty hours. It was actually sort of amazing that it hadn’t happened to all of them.

He was, however, unsurprised to see Basia’s wife and son busily at work with the chemical sciences team.

“Doctor Merton,” he greeted her with an apologetic smile.

“Captain,” she replied. Her returning smile was thin, and very tired. As the colony’s only doctor, she’d had a very long day.

“I’ve heard about the death,” he started, but she cut him off with a sharp nod and a gesture toward the chemical analysis deck.

“We’re analyzing the toxin right now,” she said. “It’s unlikely we’ll be able to make a counter-agent with the tools available, but we’re going to try.”

“I appreciate the effort,” Holden said. “But I’m hoping to make it unnecessary.”

“Are we being forced to leave?” she said, a look of sad resignation replacing her wan smile. “After all this…”

“Maybe not forever,” Holden said, putting his hands on her shoulders. She felt very thin.

She nodded slowly, looking around them at the dirty, frightened people filling the room. “I can’t argue. There’s nothing left to fight over.”

Oh, Holden thought, some people can always find a reason to fight, speaking of which. “I need to find Murtry.”

Lucia gestured at an opening behind her, and Holden left with one last squeeze of her shoulders and what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

In the next room, Murtry was down on his haunches looking at something on the floor. Wei stood behind him, nose wrinkled in disgust and her rifle in her hands.

“Wei,” Amos said with a nod.

“Amos,” the security officer replied with a grin.

Holden wondered what was going on there. They couldn’t have a thing, could they? When would they have found time to have a thing? But they definitely acted like they were sharing a private joke.

“Captain Holden,” Murtry said, standing up, not giving him more time to think about possible Amos-and-Wei dalliances. On the floor behind the RCE security chief was a clear plastic bowl inverted over one of the slugs. The creature was nuzzling its prison with its pointed eyeless face.

“Made a friend,” Holden said, pointing at the slug.

“They say it’s a good idea to know your enemy,” Murtry replied.

“They say a lot of stuff.”

“Yes. Yes, they do. How did the recon go?”

“About how you’d expect,” Holden said. “Initial reports are correct. There isn’t a single standing structure. Not even the remains of one. All the colony supplies are lost. We can make potables out of ground water until the chem lab runs out of supplies. But what’s raining out of the sky is radioactive, and probably has things living in it.”

“All right,” Murtry said, scratching his ear with one thick fingernail. “Can we agree that at present, the insurgent colony might not be viable?”

“You don’t have to sound happy about it.”

“I’m going to have some relief flown down as soon as comms clears up. RCE is happy to share these needed supplies with the refugees.”

“Very magnanimous,” Holden said. “But RCE is going to do me a bigger favor.”

“Oh,” Murtry said, his face shifting into a smile. “We are?”

“Yeah. Go ahead and bring the supply shuttle down. Evacuation is going to take some time, and we’ll want plenty of medicine, food, and shelter to keep these people healthy until everyone is off-world.”

“Off-world? Sounds like you’re doing us a favor there, Captain.”