Leviathan Wakes

The reaction had been as predictable as elementary physics. The Martians were diverting another couple dozen ships to help “maintain order.” The OPA’s shriller talking heads called for open war, and fewer and fewer of the independent sites and casts were disagreeing with them. The great, implacable clockwork of war ticked one step closer to open fighting.

And someone on Ceres had put a Martian-born citizen named Enrique Dos Santos through eight or nine hours of torture and nailed the remains to a wall near sector eleven’s water reclamation works. They identified him by the terminal that had been left on the floor along with the man’s wedding ring and a thin faux-leather wallet with his credit access data and thirty thousand Europa-script new yen. The dead Martian had been affixed to the wall with a single-charge prospector’s spike. Five hours afterward, the air recyclers were still laboring to get the acid smell out. The forensics team had taken their samples. They were about ready to cut the poor bastard down.

It always surprised Miller how peaceful dead people looked. However godawful the circumstances, the slack calm that came at the end looked like sleep. It made him wonder if when his turn came, he’d actually feel that last relaxation.

“Surveillance cameras?” he said.

“Been out for three days,” his new partner said. “Kids busted ’em.”

Octavia Muss was originally from crimes against persons, back before Star Helix split violence up into smaller specialties. From there, she’d been on the rape squad. Then a couple of months of crimes against children. If the woman still had a soul, it had been pressed thin enough to see through. Her eyes never registered anything more than mild surprise.

“We know which kids?”

“Some punks from upstairs,” she said. “Booked, fined, released into the wild.”

“We should round ’em back up,” Miller said. “It’d be interesting to know whether someone paid them to take out these particular cameras.”

“I’d bet against it.”

“Then whoever did this had to know that these cameras were busted.”

“Someone in maintenance?”

“Or a cop.”

Muss smacked her lips and shrugged. She’d come from three generations in the Belt. She had family on ships like the one the Scipio had killed. The skin and bone and gristle hanging in front of them were no surprise to her. You dropped a hammer under thrust, and it fell to the deck. Your government slaughtered six families of ethnic Chinese prospectors, someone pinned you to the living rock of Ceres with a three-foot titanium alloy spike. Same same.

“There’s going to be consequences,” Miller said, meaning This isn’t a corpse, it’s a billboard. It’s a call to war.

“There ain’t,” Muss said. The war is here anyway, banner or no.

“Yeah,” Miller said. “You’re right. There ain’t.”

“You want to do next of kin? I’ll go take a look at outlying video. They didn’t burn his fingers off here in the corridor, so they had to haul him in from somewhere.”

“Yeah,” Miller said. “I’ve got a sympathy form letter I can fire off. Wife?”

“Don’t know,” she said. “Haven’t looked.”

Back at the station house, Miller sat alone at his desk. Muss already had her own desk, two cubicles over and customized the way she liked it. Havelock’s desk was empty and cleaned twice over, as if the custodial services had wanted the smell of Earth off their good Belter chair. Miller pulled up the dead man’s file, found the next of kin. Jun-Yee Dos Santos, working on Ganymede. Married six years. No kids. Well, there was something to be glad of, at least. If you were going to die, at least you shouldn’t leave a mark.

He navigated to the form letter, dropped in the new widow’s name and contact address. Dear Mrs. Dos Santos, I am very sorry to have to tell you blah blah blah. Your [he spun through the menu] husband was a valued and respected member of the Ceres community, and I assure you that everything possible will be done to see that her [Miller toggled that] his killer or killers will be brought to answer for this. Yours…

It was inhuman. It was impersonal and cold and as empty as vacuum. The hunk of flesh on that corridor wall had been a real man with passions and fears, just like anyone else. Miller wanted to wonder what it said about him that he could ignore that fact so easily, but the truth was he knew. He sent the message and tried not to dwell on the pain it was about to cause.

The board was thick. The incident count was twice what it should have been. This is what it looks like, he thought. No riots. No hole-by-hole military action or marines in the corridors. Just a lot of unsolved homicides.