Leviathan Wakes

The ship system dimmed the lights for night. Miller lay on his bed. The expert system had shifted his treatment regimen into a new phase, and for the past three hours, he’d alternated between spiking fevers and teeth-chattering chills. His teeth and the nail beds of his fingers and toes ached. Sleep wasn’t an option, so he lay in the gloom and tried to pull himself together.

He wondered what his old partners would have made of his behavior on Eros. Havelock. Muss. He tried to imagine them in his place. He’d killed people, and he’d done it cold. Eros had been a kill box, and when the people in charge of the law wanted you dead, the law didn’t apply anymore. And some of the dead assholes had been the ones who’d killed Julie.

So. Revenge killing. Was he really down to revenge killing? That was a sad thought. He tried to imagine Julie sitting beside him the way Naomi had with Holden. It was like she’d been waiting for the invitation. Julie Mao, who he’d never really known. She raised a hand in greeting.

And what about us? he asked her as he looked into her dark, unreal eyes. Do I love you, or do I just want to love you so bad I can’t tell the difference?

“Hey, Miller,” Holden said, and Julie vanished. “You awake?”

“Yeah. Can’t sleep.”

“Me either.”

They were silent for a moment. The expert system hummed. Miller’s left arm itched under its cast as the tissue went through another round of forced regrowth.

“You doing okay?” Miller asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Holden said sharply.

“You killed that guy,” Miller said. “Back on the station. You shot him. I mean, I know you shot at guys before that. Back at the hotel. But right at the end there, you actually hit somebody in the face.”

“Yeah. I did.”

“You good with that?”

“Sure,” Holden said, too quickly.

The air recyclers hummed, and the blood pressure cuff on Miller’s good arm squeezed him like a hand. Holden didn’t speak, but when Miller squinted, he could see the elevated blood pressure and the uptick in brain activity.

“They always made us take time off,” Miller said.

“What?”

“When we shot someone. Whether they died or not, they always made us take a leave of absence. Turn in our weapon. Go talk to the headshrinker.”

“Bureaucrats,” Holden said.

“They had a point,” Miller said. “Shooting someone does something to you. Killing someone… that’s even worse. Doesn’t matter that they had it coming or you didn’t have a choice. Or maybe a little difference. But it doesn’t take it away.”

“Seems like you got over it, though.”

“Maybe,” Miller said. “Look. All that I said back there about how you kill someone? About how leaving them alive wasn’t doing them any favors? I’m sorry that happened.”

“You think you were wrong?”

“I wasn’t. But I’m still sorry it happened.”

“Okay.”

“Jesus. Look, I’m saying it’s good that it bothers you. It’s good that you can’t stop seeing it or hearing it. That part where it haunts you some? That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

Holden was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was gray as stone.

“I’ve killed people before, you know. But they were blips in a radar track. I—”

“It’s not the same, is it?” Miller said.

“No, it isn’t,” Holden replied. “Does this go away?”

Sometimes, Miller thought.

“No,” he said. “Not if you’ve still got a soul.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“One other thing?”

“Yeah?”

“I know it’s none of my business, but I really wouldn’t let her put you off. So you don’t understand sex and love and women. Just means you were born with a cock. And this girl? Naomi? She seems like she’s worth putting a little effort into it. You know?”

“Yeah,” Holden said. Then: “Can we never talk about that again?”

“Sure.”

The ship creaked and gravity shifted a degree to Miller’s right. Course correction. Nothing interesting. Miller closed his eyes and tried to will himself to sleep. His mind was full of dead men and Julie and love and sex. There was something Holden had said about the war that was important, but he couldn’t make the pieces fit. They kept changing. Miller sighed, shifted his weight so that he blocked one of his drainage tubes and had to shift back to stop the alarm.

When the blood pressure cuff fired off again, it was Julie holding him, pulling herself so close her lips brushed his ear. His eyes opened, his mind seeing both the imaginary girl and the monitors that she would have blocked if she’d really been there.

I love you too, she said, and I will take care of you.

He smiled at seeing the numbers change as his heart raced.

Chapter Thirty-Three: Holden