Cibola Burn

“Chewing down my fingernails and praying,” she said. “Mostly praying.”

“You’re religious?”

“No.”

“Are you and Holden secretly alien spies that blew up the planet as part of a Belter conspiracy to distract the media?”

Naomi’s laughter was deep. “Oh, was that what it was? I’m so sorry.”

Havelock chuckled too, feeling a little guilty as he did. Koenen was one of his people. Naomi Nagata was a saboteur and the enemy. And still, it was a little funny, and there wasn’t anyone else to talk with.

“It’s not that bad. Conspiracy theories come up whenever people feel like the universe is too random. Absurd. If it’s all an enemy plot, at least there’s someone calling the shots.”

“Belters.”

“This time, yeah.”

“Are they going to break in here and throw me out the airlock?”

“No, they’re not like that,” Havelock said. “They’re good guys.”

“Good guys who think I destroyed a planet.”

“No, that your alien doppelgänger boyfriend did to keep people from thinking about you. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. No one’s really thinking you’re in league with the protomolecule. They’re just scared.”

Naomi went quiet. Her fingertips pressed against the cage and she hummed quietly to herself. It wasn’t a melody Havelock knew. He checked his incoming queue again. Another half dozen requests for comment. A note from one of the security team that the Belters on the Israel had started sitting together in the commissary and exercising together in the gym. It seemed suspicious to the man making the report. It sounded like circling the wagons to Havelock. He’d have to think about what to do about that. If anything. The radio signal to the planet still didn’t go through. The analysis of the IR sensors that could see through the cloud cover was that First Landing was being destroyed by the storm. He turned his attention to the sensor array data as it streamed back to Earth. Maybe someone there could make something of it. The first-report newsfeeds were already speculating that it had been a fusion core overloading. Having just heard about how Jim Holden was a shapeshifting alien left him a little skeptical about everything.

When, six hours later, his hand terminal lit up with an incoming request from Murtry, Havelock felt a huge weight lifting from his shoulders. He accepted the connection, and a low-res Murtry fuzzed to life on the screen. The feed jumped and hopped, but the audio quality was all right apart from a little static.

“Good to see you, Havelock. How’re things holding together up there?”

“No complaints, sir. Mostly we were waiting to hear from you. That looks like a hell of a rainstorm you’ve got going down there.”

“Loss of life was minimal,” Murtry said. “A few of the squatters didn’t bother getting to shelter in time, and the floodwaters pulled some local bugs out from the ground that’ll kill you if you touch them. They lost another one to that. Our people are fine. The camp’s a loss.”

“Ours or theirs?”

“Ours and theirs. Everyone down here’s going to be starting over from scratch.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Why?”

Havelock blinked. His smile felt nervous. “Because we just lost everything.”

“We didn’t lose as much as they did,” Murtry said. “That makes this a win. We’re going to need to pack the shuttle with relief supplies and get it down here. Food. Clean water. Medical supplies. Warm clothes. No shelters, though. Or if they are, make ’em those cheap laminate ones that won’t hold up for more than a week.”

“Are you sure? I can get some emergency prefabs worked up —”

“No. Nothing like permanent shelter comes down here until our people are the only ones using it. And we’ll be hauling up some of the squatters. Can you start setting something up for an extra hundred or so people? It doesn’t need to be comfortable, but it has to be something we can control.”

“We’re bringing the squatters on the Israel, sir?”

“We’re getting them off the planet and putting them under our thumbs,” Murtry said with a smile. “His Holiness, Pope Holden, thinks he bullied me into it. That man is about as smart as a dead cat.”

Havelock was suddenly acutely aware that Naomi’s privacy shield was down and every word of his conversation was carrying to her. He tried to think of a way to trigger it that wouldn’t let Murtry know that he’d forgotten protocol up to now.

“There a problem, Havelock?”

“Just thinking where we can put them, sir,” Havelock said. “We’ll come up with something.”

“Good man. This thing was a lucky break. Play this right, and we’ll get all the squatters off the planet. Even if we can’t, they’re going to have hell’s own time claiming they’ve got a viable settlement.” Murtry’s smile was thin. “This last sixty hours, we’ve probably made more progress toward straightening this mess out than all the time since we came out here.”

Naomi rapped against the cage with her knuckles, the grate clacking softly enough that the hand terminal’s mike didn’t pick it up. Her eyebrows were raised in query, but she didn’t speak. Havelock made the smallest possible nod.