Cibola Burn

He found Amos working with the locals on death-slug defense. They were using the wadded ponchos and plastic water jugs split into squares to block off the smaller entrances to the alien ruins. They put sheeting over the windows, stuffed shirts and torn pant legs into the smaller holes, and dug trenches in front of the large openings. The trenches filled with muddy rainwater like tiny moats, and the slugs avoided them.

Without a word, Holden pitched in with the trench digging. It was unpleasant work, with rain and muck getting under his clothes and chafing his skin as he moved. They dug with makeshift tools made out of tent poles and flat pieces of plastic that fell apart periodically and had to be put back together. The soil was stony and heavy with moisture and the occasional slug corpse. It was the sort of miserable physical labor that drove all other thoughts from Holden’s mind while he worked. He didn’t think about starving to death or Naomi trapped in a prison cell drifting slowly toward a fiery death or his own inability to make anything on the planet safe or sane or better.

It was perfect.

Carol Chiwewe asked him to check around to the back of the tower for a tarp they had left behind, and Miller ruined it all by reappearing the second he rounded the corner away from other eyes.

“— get into the material transfer network,” he said as if he’d never stopped talking. “I think we can use it to move north to the spot we’re looking for, or at least get pretty close.”

“Dammit, Miller, I was this close to not thinking about you.”

Miller looked him over with a critical eye, taking in his soggy muck-covered exterior. “You look like hell, kid.”

“See the lengths I’m willing to go for a moment’s peace?”

“Impressive. So when can we head out?”

“You don’t quit,” Holden said. He walked across the muddy ground to the tarp he’d been looking for. It was covered with the deadly slugs. He grabbed it by one corner and slowly lifted, trying to get all the slugs to slide off away from him. Miller followed, hands in pockets, watching him work.

“Watch out for that one,” he said, pointing at a slug close to Holden’s fingers.

“I see it.”

“You’re no good to me if you drop dead.”

“I said I see it.”

“So, about going north,” Miller continued. “Not sure how much of the material transfer network is actually functioning, so it won’t necessarily be an easy trip. We should start as soon as we can.”

“Material transfer network?”

“Big underground transport system. Faster than walking. Ready to go?”

The slug slid a few centimeters closer to his fingers, and Holden dropped the tarp with a curse. “Miller,” he said, rounding on him suddenly. “I am so far from giving a shit about your needs I can’t even see it from here.”

The old detective had the grace to look chagrined before he gave a tired shrug. “It might help.”

“What,” Holden said, “might help?”

“Going north. Whatever’s up there seems to damp out the network. Maybe we can use it to kill the defenses and get your ship off lockdown.”

“If you’re lying to me to get me to do what you want, I swear I will have Alex tear the Roci apart looking for whatever clump of goo you’re connected to and take a flamethrower to it.”

The ghost grimaced, but didn’t back down. “I’m not lying because I’m not making any assertions here. This dead spot is exactly what I’m saying it is. A dead spot. Everything else? That’s guesswork. But it’s more than you’ve got now, right? Help me, and if there’s a way for me to do it, I’ll help you. That’s the only way this works.”

Holden kicked the slug off of his corner of the tarp and waited for the rain to wash its slime trail away, then picked it back up and resumed sliding the rest of the creatures off.

“Even if I wanted to, I can’t yet,” he said. “Not until I’m sure the colonists aren’t going to die here. Let me get some supply drops safely down, get everyone in a decent shelter away from the death-slugs, and then we’ll talk about it.”

“Deal,” Miller said, then disappeared in a puff of blue fireflies. One of the men from the colony, a tall skinny Belter with dark skin and an amazing shock of white hair, rounded the corner.

“What you doin’? Kenned babosa malo got you.”

“Sorry,” Holden said, giving the tarp a sharp snap to flick the rest of the slugs off it. He helped the Belter fold it up.

Only he’d have to stop thinking of them as Belters, wouldn’t he? These people lived on a planet, in a solar system across the galaxy from Sol. Belter was no longer a word with any meaning for them. They called themselves colonists now. And someday, if they were able to stay on Ilus and actually make a home of it, what? Ilusites?

“Médico buscarte,” the Ilusian said.

“Lucia?”

“Laa laa, RCE puta.”

“Oh, right, Amos told me,” Holden said. “Guess I better go find out what she wants.”