Cibola Burn

  “Don’t do it,” Fayez said.

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Fall in love with Holden.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped.

  “In that case, really don’t do it,” Fayez said with a cynical laugh, and turned away.

  Chapter Fourteen: Holden

  “T

  his is the first colonial arbitration meeting,” Holden said, looking into the camera at the end of the table. “My name is James Holden. Representing the colony of New Terra —”

  Ilus,” Carol said.

  “— is Carol Chiwewe, colony administrator. Representing Royal Charter Energy is chief of security, Adolphus Murtry.”

  “How exactly did that happen?” Carol said. She stared at Murtry when she said it, her expression unreadable. Holden had a feeling Carol might be a very good poker player.

  Murtry smiled back at her. His face was equally unreadable. “What’s that?”

  “You know exactly what I mean,” Carol snapped back. “What are you doing here? You’re hired security. You have no authority to —”

  “You put me in this room,” Murtry said, “when you killed the colonial governor. You do remember that? Big explosion? Crashing ship? It would have been hard to miss.”

  Holden sighed and leaned back in his uncomfortable chair. He would let the two of them bicker a bit, release some of the venom they’d been storing up, then put his foot down and drag the discussions back on topic.

  RCE had offered to host the talks on their shuttle or the Edward Israel, which would have been a lot more comfortable. But the colony had demanded that the meeting be held in First Landing. Which meant that instead of contour-fitted gel filled chairs, they were sitting on whatever metal and plastic monstrosities the colony had lying around. The table was a sheet of epoxied carbon weave sitting on four metal legs, and the room they were using was barely large enough for the table and three chairs. A small shelf on one wall held a coffee pot that was hissing to itself and throwing a bitter scorched smell into the air. Amos leaned against the room’s one door, arms crossed, and with an expression so far beyond bored that he might actually have been asleep.

  “— endless accusations without evidence to bolster your own criminal claims of property rights —” Carol was saying.

  “Enough,” Holden cut in. “No more outbursts from either of you. I’m here at the request of the UN and OPA to broker some sort of agreement that can let RCE do the scientific work they’re authorized to do, and to keep the people already living on New Terra —”

  “Ilus.”

  “— Ilus from being harmed in the process.”

  “What about RCE employees?” Murtry asked softly. “Are they allowed to be harmed?”

  “No,” Holden said. “No, they are not. And so the mandate of these meetings has changed somewhat in light of recent events.”

  “I’ve only seen one person murdered since Holden arrived, and that one is on you,” Carol said to Murtry.

  “Madam coordinator,” Holden continued, “there can be no further attacks on the RCE personnel. That’s non-negotiable. We can’t work out any sort of deal here unless everyone knows they’re safe.”

  “But he —”

  “And you,” Holden continued, pointing at Murtry, “are a murderer, and one I intend to see prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law —”

  “You have no —”

  “— once we return to a region of space that actually has laws,” Holden said. “Which brings us to our first real discussion point. There are two competing claims regarding who has the right to administrate this expedition. We have to establish who makes the laws here.”

  Murtry said nothing, but pulled a flexible display out of his coat and unrolled it on the table. It began slowly scrolling through the text of the UN charter giving RCE the scientific mission on New Terra. Carol snorted and pushed it back across the table at him.

  “Yes,” Holden said. “RCE has a legal mandate from the UN placing them in control of this planet for the duration of their scientific mission. But we can’t ignore the fact that people had been living on New Terra, or Ilus, for months before that charter was drafted.”

  “No, we can’t,” Carol said.

  “So we work out a compromise,” Holden said, “that allows RCE to do the work they came here to do. Work which will, we hope, benefit everyone, including the colonists. This is a new world. There may be any number of dangers here we are unaware of. But this compromise must also allow for the possibility that the final decision of the home governments will be to grant Ilus self-governing status.”

  Amos snorted and his head jerked up, eyes wide open for a moment and then slowly narrowing back toward closed.

  “Yeah, so,” Holden said, “that’s the long boring explanation. The short version is, I want RCE to move forward with doing the science, and I want the colonists to continue living their lives, and I don’t want anyone getting killed. How do we make that happen?”

  Murtry tilted his chair back on two legs and stretched out with his hands behind his head. “Well,” he said, “you make a big point of telling me you plan to arrest me once we get back in civilized space.”

  “Yes.”

  “But by my count the colonists” – he sneered the word – “have racked up about two dozen kills.”

  “And when we figure out who the perpetrators are,” Holden said, “they too will go back to Sol system to face trials.”

  “You’re a detective now?” Murtry snorted. Holden felt a weird chill run down his spine and looked around as if Miller might somehow have appeared.

  “I think that the RCE security force, working in conjunction with Mister Burton and myself, should continue its investigation of those crimes.”

  “Wait,” Carol said, leaning forward suddenly in her chair, “I won’t let him —”

  “Investigation only. No trials can be held here, so no penalties can be meted out beyond protective detention, and that only with my express consent.”

  “Your express consent?” Murtry said, speaking slowly, like he was tasting the words. He smiled. “If they’ll let my team keep looking into the killings while we continue the negotiations here, permit us the right to protect ourselves, and guarantee that anyone with strong evidence against them will be held against future trial, I’m fine with that.”

  “Of course he is!” Carol said. “Delay is all he needs to kill us.”

  Holden frowned at that. “Explain.”

  “We’re not self-supporting yet,” Carol said. “We’ve got the Barb up in orbit. She can bring us fuel cells charged from her drive, and she dropped us with all the food and seeds she had, but we can’t really plant here yet. Soil has the wrong microorganisms in it. We desperately need food stores, soil enrichments, medical supplies.”

  “All of which RCE is happy to —” Murtry started.

  “But what we do have is the richest lithium vein any of us have ever seen. And with that ore, we can buy everything else we need. The Israel is keeping the Barbapiccola from sending down her shuttle to pick up the rest, and she’s threatened to stop the Barb if she tries to leave orbit.”

  “The mineral rights on New Terra are not yours,” Murtry said. “Not until the UN says they are.”

  Carol slapped the table with her palm; it was as loud as a gunshot in the small room. “See? It’s a waiting game. If he can just block us from taking our ore up to the ship long enough, then it won’t matter who gets those rights. Even if they’re awarded to us, we’ll be so behind in moving the ore to the ship that we’ll all starve to death before we ever get to market.”

  “So,” Holden said. “You’re asking for the right to keep loading the ore onto the Barbapiccola while the rights are negotiated.”

  Carol opened her mouth, closed it, and folded her arms.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Okay,” Holden said with a nod. “Sounds fair to me. No matter who winds up selling that ore, they’ll nee
d a transport to move it, and the Barb is as good as anything else.”

  Murtry shrugged. “Fine. We’ll allow the shuttle to land and begin transporting ore again. But mining operations come with some problems for me.”

  “Explain?” Holden said again.

  “They’re using explosives. The same type of explosive that was used to bring down the shuttle and kill the governor. As long as these people have unrestricted access to it my people are at risk.”

  “What’s your solution?” Holden asked.

  “I want to control access.”

  “So you’ll let us move the ore you won’t let us mine?” Carol said. “Typical corporate doublespeak.”

  “I’m not saying that,” Murtry said, patting the air in a calm down gesture that struck Holden as intentionally patronizing. “I’m saying we hold the explosives when not in use, and your mining crews sign them out when needed. That way nothing goes missing and shows up later as a pipe bomb.”

  “Carol, does that seem fair to you?” Holden asked.

  “It’ll slow the process down, but it’s not a deal breaker,” she replied.

  “Okay,” Holden said, standing up. “We’ll stop there for now. We’ll meet again tomorrow to go over the UN proposal on colony administration and start hammering out details. We also need to talk about environmental controls.”

  “The OPA —” Carol started.

  “Yes, I have the recommendations from Fred Johnson as well, and those will be discussed. I’d like to transmit a revised plan to the UN and OPA by the end of the week, and get their feedback. Acceptable?”

  There were nods from both Murtry and Carol. “Great. I’ll want you two with me when I present today’s agreement at the town hall meeting tonight. Our first show of goodwill and solidarity.”

  Murtry rose and walked past Carol without looking at her or shaking hands.

  Goodwill and solidarity indeed.

  “So,” Amos said when Holden exited the town hall meeting that night. “How’d it go?”

  “I must have done it right,” Holden replied. “Everyone’s pissed.”

  They walked along the dusty street together in companionable silence for a while. Amos finally said, “Weird planet. Walking in open air at night with no moon is breaking my head.”

  “I hear you. My brain keeps trying to find Orion and the Big Dipper. What’s weirder is that I keep finding them.”

  “That ain’t them,” Amos said.

  “Oh, I know. But it’s like my eyes are forcing those patterns on stars that aren’t really lined up the right way to make them.”

  There was another moment of silence, then Amos said, “That’s, like, one of them metaphors, right?”

  “It is now.”

  “Buy you a beer?” Amos said when they reached the doors of the commissary.

  “Later, maybe. I think I’m going to take a walk. The night air is nice here. Reminds me of Montana.”

  “Okay, see you when I see you. Try not to get shot or abducted or anything.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Holden walked slowly, the dirt of the planet puffing up around his ankles at every stride. The buildings glowed in the darkness, the only human habitation on the planet. The only civilization in the wilds. He put his back to it and kept on going.

  He was far enough outside of town that he could no longer see its dim lights when a faint blue glow appeared beside him. The glow was both there and not there. It lit the air around it while also illuminating nothing.

  “Miller,” Holden said without looking.

  “Hey kid.”

  “We need to talk,” Holden finished for him.

  “That’s less funny the more you do it,” the detective said, his hands in his pockets. “Did you come out here to find me? I admit, I’m a little flattered, considering your other problems.”

  “Other problems?”

  “Yeah, that shantytown full of future corpses you’re trying to treat like grown-ups. No way that doesn’t end bloody.”

  Holden turned to look at Miller, frowning. “Is that the former cop talking? Or the creepy protomolecule skin doll.”

  “I don’t know. Both,” Miller said. “You want a shadow, you got to have light and something to get in its way.”

  “Can I borrow the cop for a minute?”

  The gray, jowly man hoisted his eyebrows just the way he had in life. “Are you asking me to use your brain to make these monkeys stop killing each other over rare dirt?”

  “No,” Holden sighed. “Just advice.”

  “Okay. Sure. Murtry’s a psycho who’s finally in a spot where he can do the creepy shit he’s been dreaming about doing all his life. I’d just have Amos shoot him. Carol and her gang of dirt farmers are only alive because they’re too desperate to realize how stupid they are. They’ll probably die of starvation and bacterial infections in a year. Eighteen months tops. Your pals Avasarala and Johnson have handed you the bloody knife and you think it’s because they trust you.”

  “You know what I hate about you?”

  “My hat?”

  “That too,” Holden said. “But mostly it’s that I hate everything you say, but you’re not always wrong.”

  Miller nodded and stared up at the night sky.

  “The frontier always outpaces the law,” Holden said.

  “True,” Miller agreed. “But this place was already a crime scene when you got here.”

  “Bombing the heavy shuttle was —”

  “Not that,” Miller said. “I mean all of it. All the places.”

  “I seem to spend a lot of time asking people to explain themselves lately.”

  Miller laughed. “You think somebody built those towers and structures and then just left? This whole planet is a murder scene. An empty apartment with warm food on the table and all the clothes still in the closets. This is some Croatoan shit.”

  “The North American colonists who —”

  “Except,” Miller said, ignoring him. “The people who vanished here? Not dumbass Europeans in way over their heads. The things that lived here modified planets like we remodel a kitchen. They had a defense network in orbit that could have vaporized Ceres if it wandered too close.”

  “Wait, what defense network?”

  Miller ignored him. “An empty apartment, a missing family, that’s creepy. But this is like finding a military base with no one on it. Fighters and tanks idling on the runway with no drivers. This is bad juju. Something wrong happened here. What you should do is tell everyone to leave.”

  “Yeah,” Holden said, “sure, I’ll get right on that. This argument about who gets to live here really needed a third party both sides could hate.”

  “No one lives here,” Miller said, “but we’re sure as shit going to play with the corpses.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Miller tipped his hat back, looking up at the stars.

  “I never stopped looking for her. Julie? Even when she was dead, even when I’d seen her body, I never stopped.”

  “True. Still creepy, but true.”

  “This is like that too. I don’t like it, but unless something happens, we’re going to keep reaching and reaching and reaching until we find what did all this.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then we’ll have found it,” he said.

  A man Holden didn’t recognize was waiting for him at the edge of town. Belter tall, stocky and thick-necked. Big meaty hands he was rubbing together nervously. Holden consciously forced himself not to drop his hand to the butt of his gun.

  “Thought you got lost out there,” the man said.

  “Nope, all good.” Holden held out his right hand. “Jim Holden. Have we met?”

  “Basia. Basia Merton. From Ganymede.”

  “Yeah, all of you are from Ganymede, right?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Holden waited for the man to speak. Basia stared back, wringing his hands again.

  “So,” Holde
n finally said. “Mister Merton. How can I help you?”

  “You found my son. Back… back there. You found Katoa,” Basia said.

  It took Holden a moment to make the connection. “The little boy on Ganymede. You’re Prax’s friend.”

  Basia nodded, his head moving too fast, like a nervous bird. “We’d left. Me and my wife and my two other kids. We got a chance to get out on the Barbapiccola and I thought Katoa was dead. He was sick, you know.”