James Corey - Nemesis Games

“You know what?” Sakai said. “Fuck you.”

Fred sat still, his expression set. It was like he hadn’t heard the words at all. Sakai clenched his jaw and scowled at the silence until the pressure built up and it became too much to bear.

“You arrogant fucking Earthers. All of you. Out here in the Belt leading the poor skinnies to salvation? Is that who you think you are? Do you have any idea how fucking patronizing you are? All of you. All of you. The Belt doesn’t need Earther bitches like you to save us. We save ourselves, and you assholes can pay for it, yeah?”

Holden felt a flush of anger rising in his chest, but Fred’s voice was calm and soft.

“I’m hearing you say you resent me for being from Earth. Am I getting that right?”

Sakai leaned back on the stool, caught his balance, then turned and spat on the decking. Fred waited again, but this time Sakai let the silence stretch. After a few moments Fred shrugged, then sighed and stood up. When he leaned forward and hit Sakai it was such a simple, pedestrian movement, Holden wasn’t even shocked until Sakai fell over. Blood poured down the engineer’s lip.

“I have given up my life and the lives of people I care for a hell of a lot more than you to protect and defend the Belt,” Fred growled. “And I am not in the mood to have some jumped-up terrorist piece of shit tell me different.”

“I’m not scared of you,” Sakai said in a voice that made it very clear to Holden he was desperately scared. Holden was a little unnerved himself. He’d seen Fred Johnson angry before, but the white-hot rage radiating from the man now was another thing entirely. Fred’s eyes didn’t flicker. This was the man who had led armies and massacred thousands. The killer. Sakai shrank from his pitiless regard like it was a physical blow.

“Drummer!”

The head of security opened the door and stepped in. If she was surprised, it didn’t show in her face. Fred didn’t look at her.

“Mister Drummer, take this piece of shit to the brig. Put him in an isolation cell, and be sure he gets enough kibble and water that he doesn’t die. No one in, no one out. And I want a complete audit of his station presence. Who he’s talked to. Who he’s traded messages with. How often he’s taken a shit. Everything goes through code analysis.”

“Yes, sir,” Drummer said, paused. And then, “Should I take the station off lockdown?”

“No,” Fred said.

“Yes, sir,” Drummer repeated, and then helped Sakai to his feet and ushered him out the door. Holden cleared his throat.

“We need to double-check the work on the Rocinante ,” he said, “because there’s no way I’m flying something that guy did the safety inspections for.”

Monica whistled low.

“Schismatic OPA faction?” she said. “Well. It wouldn’t be the first time a revolutionary leader was targeted by the extreme wing of his own side.”

“It wouldn’t,” Fred agreed. “What bothers me is that they’re feeling secure enough to tip their hand.”

Chapter Nineteen: Naomi

The beer was vat-brewed: rich and yeasty with a little fungal aftertaste where the hops had been cut with engineered mushrooms. Karal was making hot-plate cousa: thin, unleavened cracker bread heavy with gum roux and hot onion. With Cyn and Naomi and a new man named Miral sharing air with Karal and the hot plate both, the recyclers were working near their top rate for the space. The heat and the spiced air, the closeness of bodies and the just-buzzed relaxation of the alcohol felt like falling backward through time. Like if she opened the door, it wouldn’t be the dockside grunge of Ceres Station but Rokku’s ship burning for the next claim or the next port.

“So Josie,” Cyn said, waving one vast palm. He paused and turned a scowl to Naomi. “Kennst Josie?”

“I remember which one he is,” Naomi said.

“Yeah, so Josie sets up shop there, sa sa? Start charging the Earthers to go down the corridor. Calls it…” – Cyn snapped three times, trying to call up the story’s punch line – “calls it a municipal tollway. Tollway!”

“And how long did that last?” Naomi asked.

“Long enough we had to get off station before security grabbed us,” Cyn said around a grin. Then he grew sober. “That was before, though.”

“Before,” Naomi agreed, lifting her glass. “Everything changed after Eros.”

“Everything changed after the fuckers killed the Cant ,” Miral said, eyes narrowed at Naomi as if to say That was your ship, wasn’t it? Another invitation for her to tell her stories.

She leaned forward a degree, hiding behind the veil of her hair. “Everything changed after Metis Base. Everything changed after Anderson Station. Everything changed after Terryon Lock. Everything changed after everything.”

“Ez maldecido igaz,” Cyn said, nodding. “Everything changed after everything.”

Karal looked up. His expression was a mix of camaraderie and regret that meant Everything changed after the Gamarra.

Naomi smiled back. It had, and she was sorry too. Being here, with these men, brought up a kind of nostalgia that seeped into everything. All of them would have liked her to tell her stories – being on Eros, riding the first ship through the gate, trekking out to the first colony on the new worlds. Cyn and Karal wouldn’t ask, and so the new one followed their lead. And she kept her own counsel.

Filip was asleep in the next room, his body curled into a comma, his eyes merely closed. They weren’t the profoundly shut eyes of a sleeping baby. The rest of the cell were in other safe houses. Smaller groups drew less attention, and even if they lost one group, the rest could go on. It wasn’t something anyone had said. The strategy was familiar and strange at the same time, like a once-favorite song heard again after years of being forgotten. Karal scooped up the cousa, lifting it off the heating element and spinning it on his fingertips in the same motion. Naomi held out her hand, and he set the cracker down on her palm, their fingers brushing against each other. The simple physical intimacy of close companionship. Of family. It had been true once, and that it was less true now was forgiven by the fact that they all knew it wasn’t what it had been. Since she’d arrived, they’d all been careful not to let conversation stray into anything that put too fine a point on the gap of years she’d been absent.

And so when she broke the unspoken covenant, they would know she’d meant to. And as much as she didn’t want to undo the fragile moment, the only thing worse than talking about it was leaving it all unsaid.

“Filip is looking well,” she said, as if the words carried no extra significance. She bit the cracker, roux and onion flooding her tongue and the back of her nose with salt and sweet and bitter. She talked around it. “He’s grown.”

“Has,” Cyn said, his voice cautious.

Naomi felt years of grief and anger, loss and betrayal at the back of her throat. She smiled. Her voice didn’t waver. “How’s he been?”

Cyn’s glance at Karal was nothing, a flicker almost too fast to notice. They were in dangerous territory now. She didn’t know if they were looking to protect her from the truth or Filip and Marco from her. Or if they only didn’t want a part of the drama that had been and still was her old lover and their son.

“Filipito’s been good,” Karal said. “Smart boy, and focused. Ser focused. Marco seen after him. Kept him safe.”

“Safe as any of us ever are,” Miral said, trying to make the words light. The hunger of curiosity was in the man’s expression. He hadn’t been there when Naomi and Marco had been together. It was like the rest of them were having a conversation, and half the words Miral couldn’t hear.