James Corey - Nemesis Games

Hygeia Station hadn’t been at its best in those days. The Earth-Mars alliance had looked solid as stone back then. The taxes and tariffs on basic supplies hovered just below too expensive to sustain life. And sometimes above it. The ships that ran there ran on air so lean they courted anoxia, and the black market in usable hydroponics was a live and active one. Hygeia Station, while nominally the property of an Earth-based business conglomerate, was in practice a ragged autonomous zone held together by habit, desperation, and the bone-deep Belter respect for infrastructure.

When Marco was there, even the old, cracked ceramic decking seemed a little less crappy. He was the kind of person who changed what everything around him meant. There had been a Belter girl named Naomi who would have sworn she’d follow him anywhere. She was a woman now, and she’d have said that wasn’t true.

But here she was.

Bistro Rzhavchina was high up toward the center of spin. Doors of rusted steel painted in sealant blocked the way in, and a bouncer half a head taller than her and twice as wide across the shoulders glowered as she passed through them. He didn’t stop her. Up this far, more of the station’s spin felt like lateral pull. Water poured on the slant. It wasn’t only the cheapness of the real estate that made these corridors thicker with Belters. The Coriolis here started to have an effect just north of subliminal, and that wasn’t a thing that Earthers and Martians ever became really comfortable with. Living in spin was a source of Belter pride, a mark of who they were and how they were different.

Dark music filled the place, the rhythm like a constant, low-level assault. The floor was sticky where it wasn’t covered with peanut shells, and the smell of salt and cheap beer filled the air. Naomi went to the back, taking a seat sheltered from as many lines of sight as she could manage. Somewhere between fifteen and twenty people sat or stood around the place. She could still feel their gazes on her. Her jaw slid forward a degree, her mouth taking on a scowl that was protective coloration as much as actual displeasure. The wall she rested against vibrated with the bass.

She ordered a drink from the table’s system and paid with a preloaded chit. Before the thin-faced boy behind the bar could deliver it, the metal doors to the corridor opened again and Wings came in. His movements were tight and anxious, his expression closed and angry. He hadn’t followed her here. This was where he headed back to after he failed. Naomi faded back another centimeter.

Wings sat at the bar, stood up, sat again. A door hidden by shadows at the back of the club opened. The man who came out was huge. The muscles of his neck and torso were so large and defined, she could have used him as an anatomy lesson. His steel-gray hair was cut close to the scalp, white lines of scar crossing behind his left ear like the map of a river delta. A massive tattoo of the OPA’s split circle logo decorated the side of his neck. He went to the bar where Wings was waiting. Wings’ hands were already out in apology. Naomi couldn’t hear what he said, but the gist was clear enough. He’d seen her. He’d lost her. He was sorry. Please don’t rip his kneecaps off. She let herself smile a little.

The big man tilted his head, nodded, said something that seemed to relieve Wings enough that he managed a smile. The big man turned slowly, squinting into the gloom of the club. When his gaze reached her, it stopped. The boy at the bar started forward, her drink on a tray. The big man put a hand on the boy’s chest, pushing him back. Naomi sat up a little straighter, looking up into the big man’s eyes as he reached the table. They were as pale as she remembered.

“Knuckles,” he said.

“Cyn,” Naomi replied, and then his massive arms were around her lifting her up. She returned the embrace. The smell and heat of his skin was like hugging a bear. “God, you haven’t changed at all, have you?”

“Only got better, uhkti. Bigger and brighter.”

He put her down with a thump. His smile drew lines all across his face like ripples in a pool. She patted his shoulder and his grin grew wider. At the bar, Wings’ eyes were big as saucers. Naomi waved at him. The man sent to follow her hesitated, then waved back.

“So what did I miss?” Naomi asked as Cyn led her to the door at the back of the club.

“Only all of it, sa sa?” Cyn rumbled. “How much did Marco say?”

“Very damned little.”

“Always the way. Always the way.”

Past the thin door, a corridor snaked back into the raw stone of the asteroid. The sealant was old, gray, and flaking, and cold radiated out from the stone. Three men leaned against the wall, guns in their hands. The oldest was Karal. The younger two she didn’t know. She kissed Karal’s cheek as she passed. The others looked at her with a mix of distrust and awe. The hidden hallway ended at a steel door.

“Why so secret?” she asked. “You know the OPA runs Ceres now.”

“There’s OPA and there’s OPA,” Cyn said.

“And you’re that other one,” she said, but with warmth in her voice that covered her unease.

“Always,” Cyn agreed.

The door slid open, and Cyn ducked to pass through. It was impossible to see around his bulk. Naomi followed.

“Got here and no further,” Cyn said over his shoulder. “And best we don’t float too long. Plan had us back with Marco a month ago.”

“Marco’s not here?”

“Nobody here but us chickens.” There was a smile in the words.

The chamber they stepped into was wide and cold. A portable scrubber moved stale air and left the smell of rubber. Formed plastic shelves held rations and water. A thin laminate table had five stools around it, and an old network repeater hung from a hook by its wires. A set of bunks leaned against the wall four high. There were bodies curled under the blankets, but if they were sleeping, Cyn didn’t take notice of them. His voice carried at the same volume.

“Thing is, better we don’t be where anyone can reach us when it all comes down, sa sa?”

“When what comes down?” Naomi said.

Cyn sat at the table, reached out a long arm, and pulled an unlabeled bottle from the shelves. He pulled the cork from its neck with his teeth.

“Ay, Knuckles,” he said with a laugh, “you said he didn’t tell you much, you weren’t singing low, were you?”

Naomi sat on one of the stools as Cyn poured amber liquid into two glasses. The fumes smelled of alcohol and butter and burned sugar. Naomi felt her mouth responding to the scent. The taste was like coming home.

“Nothing like Tia Margolis’ brandy,” Cyn said with a sigh.

“Nothing, ever,” Naomi said. “So, now that I’m here, why don’t you fill me in?”

“Well,” Cyn said. “It’s these pinché ring gates. You know better than anyone. Another thousand inner planets, and a whole new set of reasons they may as well fuck the Belt, que si? And half the Belt sucking the Butcher’s cock and making themselves out noble and official and political. So we, and by we I mean Marco, yeah? We decide about two, three years ago —”

“We don’t talk about it,” a young man’s voice said sharply. Cyn looked at the door. Thick with dread, Naomi turned too. The boy looked terribly old and terribly young at the same time. His skin was darker than Marco’s, and his hair had more curl. The eyes were the same, though. And the mouth. Something huge – larger than oceans – moved in her chest. Emotions she’d buried rose up, and the rip threatened to pull her away. She tried to hide it, but she had to put a hand flat on the table to steady herself.

He stepped into the room. The sand-colored shirt was large on him, but she could see that his body was in the place between the coltish growth of adolescence and the thickening muscle of a man. One of the figures on the bunk stirred and turned, but didn’t otherwise react.