James Corey - Babylon's Ashes

“And what do you propose to do about Laconia?” a woman behind Avasarala asked.

“I don’t know,” Holden said. “I was just starting with this.”

Avasarala waved him to sit down, and reluctantly he did. Naomi shifted, murmured something in his ear, and Holden nodded.

“The proposed structure of the union,” Avasarala said, “is fairly standard. Limited sovereignty in exchange for regulatory input from the major governing bodies, meaning Emily and whoever they elect once I’m out of this.”

“ Limited sovereignty?” Carlos Walker said.

“Limited,” Avasarala said. “Don’t ask me to put out on the first date, Walker. I’m not that kind of girl. The union will, of course, need to have support from the Belt. The first union president will be taking on a huge job, but I think we can all agree that we have a unique opportunity for that. Someone well-known both among Belters and on the inner planets.”

Holden nodded. Michio looked over at him. His bright eyes and firm chin.

“Someone,” Avasarala continued, “above—or at least apart from—factions and politics. Trustworthy, well-tested moral compass, and with a long résumé of doing the right thing even when it’s unpopular.”

Holden smiled, nodded to himself. He looked so pleased. Michio hadn’t come to a meeting. This was an anointing. She was suddenly profoundly disheartened. It would probably improve her chances for getting amnesty, but—

“That is why,” Avasarala said, “we need to draft James Holden.”

Holden yelped like he’d been bitten. “What? Wait. No, that’s all wrong. It’s a terrible idea.”

Avasarala frowned. “Then—”

“Look,” Holden said, standing up again. “This is exactly the problem. This is what we keep doing. Forcing rules and leadership on the Belters rather than letting them pick for themselves.”

A grumble passed through the room, but Holden just kept talking.

“If I can use this moment to nominate someone else instead. Someone with all the qualities Madam Secretary Avasarala just listed, and more. Someone with honor and integrity and leadership, and with the added bonus of actually belonging to the community they’d be leading.”

And somehow—Michio wasn’t sure how this had happened—Holden was pointing at her.

“Then I would nominate Michio Pa.”

Chapter Fifty-Three: Naomi

The Blue Frog was closed for renovations, so after the meetings were over, she drove the cart to a pub two levels higher and a little to spinward. The sign beside the door was cheap steel set into the wall with the words COOPERATIVE FOURTEEN hand-welded into it. Naomi didn’t know if the name had a history behind it, or if that was just the new style in naming clubs. On the other side of the door, the decor took on a much less industrial feel. The tables glowed in bright primary colors, and the walls were covered in strands of woven wire, looped and tied to look like old pictures of waterfalls. A low stage with a karaoke setup hummed and danced with itself, waiting for someone to break the ice. There was room for as many as a hundred people in the space, and counting herself and Jim, there were probably fewer than twenty. But it was also off-hours, so that made it hard to judge.

The crew were already there and, to judge from the empty bottles the waiter was clearing away, had been there for some time. As they walked across to them, Jim relaxed. The four of them gave a little cheer and made space for two new chairs at the table.

“What happened?” Bobbie said. “You were supposed to be here hours ago.”

“Avasarala jumped me,” Jim said, and Amos’ empty, amiable smile got a degree wider. Jim laughed and shook his head. “No, I mean she tried to get me named as the head of the spacing guild.”

“You know that name’s not going to stick, right?” Alex said.

“Wait, she did what ?” Bobbie said.

Jim held out his hands, a gesture of helplessness. “She gave out the proposal, and I gave my little speech about it, and then boom. Right at the front, she said I should be the one to help put it together. First union president. It probably took the first two hours just convincing her I wouldn’t do it.”

“Why didn’t you take the position?” Clarissa asked. She seemed genuinely confused.

“Because then I’d have to do it,” Jim said, waving to call the waiter back.

“Makes sense she’d want someone she could control calling the shots, though,” Alex said.

“Avasarala doesn’t think she can control Holden,” Bobbie said. “But she also doesn’t think anyone else can. She might just want someone from Earth in charge, at least as a figurehead. Makes the union feel like it’s in her circle of influence. Fred Johnson was OPA to the marrow, but he was from Earth. He never totally got away from that.”

The waiter trotted over and took Jim’s order. Naomi leaned in around him so she could see Bobbie as she spoke.

“That was our point,” she said. “If it’s going to work, the Belt needs to know it’s their own and not another set of scraps that the inners are tossing out.” The waiter reached out, his fingers stopping just short of touching her shoulder. “Whatever your best stout is,” she said, and he vanished with a nod. She turned back. “Anyway, we threw Michio Pa under the bus.”

“She’s perfect,” Holden said. “She knows all the players in the Belt. She’s not afraid to work with Earth and Mars. She’s literally the former commander of Medina Station. Granted back before it was a station, but she’s got a real familiarity with the ship. And look what she’s been doing since she broke with Inaros. Coordination and distribution. Exactly the job we’re looking at.”

“Well,” Alex said, “except with less piracy this time. I mean, assuming.”

“Did she take the job?” Bobbie asked.

“She’s coming around,” Naomi said. “It was a long meeting.”

“What about us?” Clarissa asked. Her voice had dread in it. A hollowness. “What do we do now?”

“We join the union,” Jim said. “I mean, we’ll need to vote on it here in the family, but it seems weird to push for a new architecture for the colonies and then not be part of it. And there’ll be a lot of work for a good ship. We have a good ship.”

Clarissa’s gaze flickered up to Naomi, then, with an almost invisible smile, away. Jim hadn’t understood what she’d really been asking. Now that the war’s over, do I still have a place here? And he didn’t know that he’d answered yes. He had a genius for assuming things that let Clarissa trust him. Naomi handed the girl a napkin so she wouldn’t have to dab her eyes with a cuff.

“Seems to me,” Alex said, “we should look at escorting colony ships. And making sure the ore or whatever the colony has to trade gets where it’s going.”

“Lot of trade in-system too,” Amos said. “Don’t have to go out past the gates.”

“Yeah,” Alex agreed. “But there’s more planets out there than I’m going to be able to see in my lifetime. I’d like to get to a few of them.”

The waiter returned with Jim’s gin and tonic and her own stout. When she tried to pay, the transaction was already zeroed out. The waiter smiled at her, shook his head, and said, “On the house.” Naomi nodded her thanks. Jim was already drinking.

Bobbie was the only one who seemed quiet, her hand wrapped around a glass. Alex and Amos told Clarissa stories about New Terra and going through to the new worlds. Jim drank and chimed in on occasion, the political meeting starting to fade and his shoulders slipping a little lower as he relaxed. But Bobbie kept her own council until Naomi finished her second drink, took the Martian’s hand, and tugged her away.