James Corey - Abaddon's Gate

“Who knows?” Anna said, shrugging. “But I know we’re not asking those questions. Humans do bad things when they’re afraid, and we’re all very afraid right now.”

“Tara died,” Chris said.

Anna racked her brain trying to remember who Tara was. Chris saw her confusion and added, “Short blond hair? She was a marine?”

“Oh no,” Anna replied, feeling the tears well up again. Her angry marine had died. A whole future in which she’d worked with Tara to find out the source of her anger vanished. Conversations she’d already had in her head, lines of questioning, the anticipation of satisfaction she’d get from having the marine open up to her. Gone, as if someone had flicked a switch. It was hard not to sympathize with Cortez’s view a little. After all, the aliens had killed one of her congregation now.

But maybe not on purpose , and intent mattered. The universe made no sense to her otherwise.

She managed to finish off her visit without, she hoped, seeming too distracted. Afterward, she went to find her own assigned tent and try to rest. She had no reason to think that sleep would come. After she found her place, Tilly Fagan appeared. Anna lifted her arm in greeting, but before she could get a word out, Tilly threw both arms around her and was squeezing until she could hear her ribs pop. Tilly was surprisingly strong for such a thin woman.

“I was furious with myself for letting you leave,” Tilly said, squeezing even tighter and leaning her weight against Anna. She was heavy. They both were in the spinning drum. It took some getting used to.

When Tilly finally let up the pressure a bit, Anna said, “I think I was… altered.”

“That was my fault, too,” Tilly said, followed by more squeezing. Anna realized the only thing to do was ride it out, and patted Tilly on the lower back until her friend got it out of her system.

After a few moments, Tilly released Anna and stepped back, her eyes shiny but a smile on her face. “I’m glad you didn’t die. Everyone else from the Prince is a pod.” Anna decided not to ask what a pod was. “The Behemoth has become the place to be,” Tilly continued. “If we never figure out how to escape this trap, it’s the place it will take us the longest to die. That makes it the high-rent district of the slow zone.”

“Well, that’s… important.”

Tilly laughed. She pulled a cigarette out and lit it as they walked. At Anna’s shocked look she said, “They let you do it here. Lots of the Belters do. They obsess over air filters and then suck poisonous particulates into their lungs recreationally. It’s a fabulous culture.”

Anna smiled and waved the smoke away from her face.

“So,” Tilly said, pretending not to notice. “I demanded they let me go on the first shuttle over. Did you manage to retrieve Holden?”

“I didn’t find him,” Anna said. “Just his crew. But I think I might have saved their lives.”

At first, she thought Tilly’s expression had cooled, but that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t coldness. It was pain. Anna put her hand on Tilly’s arm.

“I have someone I need you to talk to,” Tilly said. “And you probably aren’t going to like it, but you’re going to do it for me. I’ll never ask you for anything again, and you’re buying a lifetime of expensive markers to trade in with this.”

“Whatever I can do.”

“You’re going to help Claire.”

Anna felt like the air had gone out of the room. For a moment, she heard the throat-scarring screams again and felt the blows transferred through the buckling locker door. She heard Chris tell her that Tara had died. She saw Cortez, and heard the buzzsaw despair in his voice. She took a breath.

“Yes,” she said. “Of course I am.”

“You need to get up,” Doctor Sterling said. Spin changed the shape of her face, pulling down her cheeks and hair. She looked older and more familiar.

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to move around,” Bull said, and coughed.

“That was when I was worried about your spinal cord. Now I’m worried about your lungs. You’re having enough trouble clearing secretions, I’m about ready to call it mild pneumonia.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Spin gravity’s not going to do you much good if you’re flat on your back,” she said, tapping his shoulder for emphasis. “You have to sit up more.”

Bull gritted his teeth.

“I can’t sit up,” he said. “I don’t have abdominal muscles. I can’t do anything .”

“You have an adjustable bed,” the doctor said, unfazed. “Adjust it. Stay upright as much as you can.”

“Isn’t that going to screw up my spine even worse?”

“We can brace you,” she said. “Anyway, you can live without functioning legs. You can’t live without functioning lungs.”

The medical wards had changed. Spinning up the drum had meant stripping away as many of the alterations that had changed the generation ship into a weapon of war as they could. The medical stations and emergency showers had all been turned ninety degrees in the refit, prepared to use under thrust or not at all. What had been designed back in what seemed like ancient times to be floors had become walls, and now they were floors again. The whole thing was a hesitation. A stutter-step in industrial steel and ceramic. It was like something that had been broken and grew back wrong.

“I’ll do what I can,” Bull said, his teeth clenched against another cough. “If I’ve got to sit up, can I at least get something that travels a little? I’m getting pretty tired of being in the same room all the time.”

“I don’t recommend it.”

“You gonna stop me?”

“I am not.”

They paused. Frustration and animosity hung in the air between them. Neither one had slept enough. Both were pushing themselves too hard trying to keep people alive. And they weren’t going to make each other happy.

“I’ll do what I can, doc,” Bull said. “How’s it going out there?”

“People are dying. It’s slowing down, though. At this point, almost all of the emergent cases are stabilized or dead. Right now it’s pretty much the same for everyone. Wound care and support. Keep an eye out for people who had some sort of internal injury we didn’t see at the time and try to catch them before they crash. Rest, fluid, light exercise, and prayer.”

“All right,” he said as his hand terminal chimed. Another connection request. From the Hammurabi , the Martian frigate where Captain Jim Holden was being held.

“And how’s it going on your end?” Doctor Sterling said. Her lips were pressed thin. She knew the answer. Bull used the controls on his bed, shifting himself up to something approaching a seated position. He could feel a difference in his breath, but if anything it made it harder to keep from coughing.

“Let you know in a minute,” he said and accepted the connection. Captain Jakande appeared on the screen.

“Captain,” Bull said, making the title a greeting.

“Mister Baca,” she said in return. “I got your last message.”

“I don’t suppose you’re calling to arrange the transfer of the prisoner and your remaining crew?”

She didn’t smile.

“I wanted to thank you for the staging area you’ve provided for our medical staff. We will not, however, be transferring any further personnel to your vessel or remanding the prisoner to your custody.”

“You don’t have a sufficient complement left on your ship to run it. Not even as a skeleton crew. Between the injured and the medics and the injured medics, I’ve got two-thirds of your people here right now.”

“And I thank you for that.”