Nemesis Games

The Navy had always been the thing in his life that didn’t change. The permanent factor. His relationship to it might shift. He did his tours, he mustered out, but those changes were all about him. His life, his fragility and mortality and impermanence. The idea that the Navy itself could be fragile, that the government of Mars might stumble or collapse, was like saying the sun might go out. If that wasn’t solid, then nothing was.

So maybe nothing was.

Kaarlo Henderson-Charles’ hole was in a stretch of a hundred just like it, spare and spartan. There was nothing on the gray-green door to identify it beyond numbers. No flowers in the planter, only dry soil. Alex rang the bell. When he knocked, the door opened under his knuckles. He heard someone grumbling angrily under their breath. No. Not a person. The recyclers on high, scrubbing the air. He caught a whiff of cordite and something like rotten meat.

The body was on the kitchen table in its uniform jumper. The blood had pooled under the chair and spattered along the wall and ceiling. A pistol still hung in the limp right hand. Alex coughed out a laugh of mixed disbelief and despair, then he pulled out his hand terminal and called the MPs.

“Then what happened?” Bobbie asked.

“What do you think? The MPs came.”

The hotel lobby was decorated in crimson and gold. A wall fountain burbled and chuckled beside the couches, giving the two of them something like privacy. Alex sipped at his gin and tonic. The alcohol bit a little. Bobbie pressed her knuckles against her lips and scowled. She was looking solid for any other person who’d been tortured and shot, but still a little fragile for Bobbie. The bandages that covered bullet wounds on her left side made an awkward bump under her blouse, but nothing more.

“They questioned you?” she said, barely even making it a question.

“For about eight hours. Duarte was able to give me a solid alibi, though, so I’m not in prison.”

“Small favors. And your friend? Fermín?”

“Apparently his terminal’s not on the network. I don’t know if he killed the guy or if whoever killed the guy killed him or… anything. I don’t know anything.” He drank again, more deeply this time. “I may not be good at this whole investigation thing.”

“I’m not much better,” Bobbie said. “Mostly I’ve just been shaking the trees and seeing what falls out. So far the only thing I’m really sure about is that something’s going on.”

“And that people are willing to kill each other over it,” Alex said.

“And now that the MPs are involved, they’re going to lock down the investigation like it was fissionable. I’m not going to be able to do a damned thing.”

“Amateur detective hour does seem to be pretty much over,” Alex agreed. “I mean, I can still ask around.”

“You did more than enough,” Bobbie said. “I shouldn’t have gotten you into this in the first place. I just don’t like disappointing the old lady.”

“I can respect that. But I do kind of wish I knew what was going on.”

“Me too.”

Alex finished his drink, the ice clicking against his teeth. He had a pleasant warmth in his belly. He looked at Bobbie, saw her looking back at him.

“You know,” he said slowly, “just because everything’s shut down here, it doesn’t mean everything’s shut down everywhere.”

Bobbie blinked. Her shrug was noncommittal, but there was a gleam in her eyes. “You’re thinking about that backwater asteroid Holden was asking about?”

“You’ve got a ship. There’s nothing we can do here,” Alex said. “Seems like something we could do.”

“Anyone shot at us, at least we’d see it coming,” Bobbie said, her nonchalance radiating a kind of excitement. Or perhaps it was the alcohol and the prospect of being in a pilot’s chair again making Alex see what he wanted to see.

“We could go,” he said. “Take a look. Probably it’s nothing.”

Chapter Eighteen: Holden

The construction sphere of Tycho Station glittered around Holden, brighter than stars. Ships hung in their berths in all states of undress, the Rocinante just one among many. Other ships hung in the center, awaiting clearance to leave. The sparks of welding rigs and the white plumes of maneuvering thrusters blinked into and out of existence like fireflies. The only sound he heard was his own breath, the only smell the too-clean scent of bottled air. The dirty green-gray EVA suit had TYCHO SECURITY stenciled on the arm in orange, and the rifle in his hand had come from Fred’s weapons locker.

Station security was on high alert, Drummer and her teams all set to watch each other on the assumption – and Holden was too painfully aware that it wasn’t anything more – that if there was a dissident faction within them, they’d be outnumbered by the ones loyal to Fred. When they’d started out from the airlock, Holden had turned on the security system. It highlighted slightly over a thousand possible sniper’s nests. He’d turned it off again.