James Corey - Nemesis Games

“What’s the worst that could happen? War?”

Fred coughed out a grim laugh. “I’ve already talked with Drummer. She’s ready to take over operation of Tycho in my absence.”

“You’re going to go, then?”

“I don’t know if I’ll go there, but I won’t stay here. There’s something else I wanted you to see.”

Fred opened a message, and gestured Holden toward it. A pale-skinned man with close-cut white hair and the wrinkles of early age competing with acne scars of long-past youth. The date stamp at the lower left corner said it had been sent from Pallas Station.

“Anderson Dawes,” Fred said. “You’ve heard of him?”

“Big mover and shaker in the OPA, isn’t he?”

“The man who reached out to me, back in the day. Made me into the inward-facing figurehead of the Belt. Instrumental in the transition of Ceres to OPA oversight. The last few years, he’s been negotiating for the OPA to have a stake in Ganymede equal to Earth and Mars.”

“All right,” Holden said.

Fred started the recording, and the man came to life. His voice was gravelly and low, like he’d been punched in the throat too many times. “Fred. I know this has got to be a hard time for you. For what it’s worth, it’s pretty shocking to all of us. But so it goes. History’s made of surprises that seem obvious in retrospect. I want you to know, I didn’t sanction any of this. But I know the men who did, and say what you will about their methods, they’re true patriots.”

“What the fuck is this?” Holden said.

“Wait for it,” Fred said.

“I’m reaching out to you now to make peace within the organization. I know as well as you do how much you’ve sacrificed and how hard you’ve worked for the OPA over the years. It’s not forgotten. But we’re in a new age now, and it carries its own logic. I know you’re enough of a man to recognize the difference between justice and the things that have to happen. I’ll get you back in the fold. I swear to that. But I’m going to need a token. Something I can take to the new powers to show that you’re a reasonable man. That you can negotiate. You’ve taken a prisoner. Not one of the people who participated in the insurrection. Even they know asking that so soon is a bridge too far. But a prisoner of yours nonetheless. His name’s William Sakai. As a gesture of good faith, I’m asking that you turn him over to me at Pallas Station, in return for which I will guarantee you a seat at the table when —”

Fred stopped the recording, Anderson Dawes caught with his eyes and mouth half-open.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Holden said.

“No one’s laughing.”

Holden sat down on the edge of the desk, staring at the frozen man, his chest a welter of conflicting emotions: anger, surprise, outrage, amusement, despair. “You could tell him we already threw him out an airlock.”

“Would that be before or after we threw him out an airlock?”

“Either way works for me.”

Fred smiled and shut down the display. “You say that, but you wouldn’t do it. Even angry, you’re too decent a man. And it turns out I am too.”

“Really?”

“I got soft when I got old. Everything seems… delicate to me now. We’re still under lockdown, and I have to open that up. Have to get some semblance of normalcy. That’s not the point, though. I have invitations to two tables. The inner planets are in retreat. They’re regrouping. The radicals within the OPA are becoming the new leadership.”

“But they’re crazy mass murderers.”

“Yes,” Fred said. “And we don’t know who they are. Dawes does. I don’t.”

“Wait a minute,” Holden said. “Hold on. Are you about to propose that you trade Sakai to this Dawes guy so that you can feed the names of whoever’s behind dropping rocks on Earth to Avasarala? How many times are you looking to change sides in one career?”

“I never changed sides,” Fred said. “The sides keep changing around me. I was always the one who wanted order. Peace. Justice, even. What happened at Anderson Station opened my eyes to things I hadn’t seen. Or had chosen not to see. Now this…”

“It’s done the same thing again.”

“I don’t know what it’s done. That’s what I’m trying to decide. There have always been radicals within the OPA. The Voltaire Collective. Marco Inaros. Cassandra Lec. But they were on the margins, where we thought we could control them. Keep them in line, or if not always that, use their excesses to make the mainstream places like Ceres and Tycho seem the least of the available evils. Now, they’re in charge. I don’t know if the best thing is to declare against them or stand beside them and try to control the fall.” He shook his head.

“Your friend Dawes seems to be in bed with them already.”

“His loyalty’s to the Belt. When the best thing was to find a way to be respected as an equal by the inner planets, that was what he aimed for. My loyalty is to… everyone. There was a long time that meant speaking for the people who had the least voice. Then the protomolecule came and changed the game, and now, if riding beside the radicals gives me the most influence… As long as my people hold Medina, no one can ignore me. I can throw in on whichever side I think it will do the most good to be on, in the long-term.”

“That sounds like post hoc realpolitik rationalizing bullshit,” Holden said. And then a moment later, “Sir.”

“It is,” Fred said. “But it’s what I’ve got to work with. If I commission the Rocinante to take me to Luna and the meeting with Avasarala, will you accept the job?”

“If we finish checking all of Sakai’s work and you bring your own crew, sure. Or, better, we go pick up mine from wherever they’ve gotten to.”

“And if I hire you to take me and the prisoner to Pallas?”

“Then you can go fuck yourself.”

Fred chuckled and stood up, checking his sidearm. “I do always enjoy our little chats, Captain. Take the day off. I’ll get back to you when I’ve made a decision. Either way.”

“Where are you going now?”

“To talk with Sakai,” Fred said. “See if there’s anything about this I can glean from him. The prospect of not getting thrown out one of my airlocks might make him more willing to talk with me.” He looked at Holden, and his expression shifted to a strange place at the friction point between pitying and pleading. “I try to do the right thing, Holden. But there are times when it’s not obvious what that is.”

“I agree with you,” Holden said. “Right up to the part where you tell me this is one of those times.”

Holden was in a Thai restaurant eating peanut curry that was, as far as he could remember from his childhood on Earth, totally unlike anything served on a planet’s surface. A piece of not-chicken floated on top of the not-curry, and Holden was pushing it under with a chopstick and watching it pop back to the surface when two messages came through. The first was from Mother Elise. The family was all right so far. They were under an environmental watch, but no evacuation orders had come. Not, she said with one lifted eyebrow, that there was anyplace to evacuate to better prepared and equipped than the ranch. They were sending the spare reactor down to help with the local grid at Three Forks, and waiting to hear from the Jacksons to see if they needed anything. He knew her well enough to see the depth of anxiety in all the things she didn’t say. But when she said goodbye, she promised to be in touch. It was thin comfort, but it was something.

The second message was from Alex.

Bobbie Draper and he were on the prime minister’s ship and burning for Luna with the escort fleet watching their backs. Everyone was pretty freaked-out, but he thought they were okay for the time being. The relief ships were on their way and due in a day or two. He hadn’t had any word from Naomi, wherever she was. Or, more to the point, from Amos. He made a joke about Amos surviving anything, and how this wasn’t the first planet that had blown up on him, but the humor carried the same dread and fear that Holden felt. When Alex signed off, he replayed the whole message from the start three more times, just to hear the familiar voice.