Leviathan Wakes (35 page)

“Nope. Name’s Miller.”

M
iller looked at the dead man—the man he’d just killed—and tried to feel something. There was the trailing adrenaline rush still ramping up his heartbeat. There was a sense of surprise that came from walking into an unexpected firefight. Past that, though, his mind had already fallen into the long habit of analysis. One plant in the main room so Holden and his crew wouldn’t see anything too threatening. A bunch of trigger-happy yahoos in the stairwell to back her up.
That
had gone well.

It was a slapdash effort. The ambush had been set by people who either didn’t know what they were doing or didn’t have the time or resources to do it right. If it hadn’t been improvised, Holden and his three buddies would have been taken or killed. And him along with them.

The four survivors of the
Canterbury
stood in the remains of the firefight like rookies at their first bust. Miller felt his mind shift
back half a step as he watched everything without watching anything in particular. Holden was smaller than he’d expected from the video feeds. It shouldn’t have been surprising; he was an Earther. The man had the kind of face that was bad at hiding things.

“Thanks. My name is Jim Holden. You are?”

Miller thought of six different answers and turned them all aside. One of the others—a big man, solid, with a bare scalp—was pacing out the room, his eyes unfocused the same way Miller’s were. Of Holden’s four, that was the only guy who’d seen serious gunplay before.

“The cops will be here soon,” Miller said. “I need to make a call or we’re all going to jail.”

The other man—thinner, taller, East Indian by the look of him—had been hiding behind a couch. He was sitting on his haunches now, his eyes wide and panicky. Holden had some of the same look, but he was doing a better job of keeping control. The burdens, Miller thought, of leadership.

“Aren’t you the cops?”

Miller laughed.

“Nope,” he said. “Name’s Miller.”

“Okay,” the woman said. “Those people just tried to kill us. Why did they do that?”

Holden took a half step toward her voice even before he turned to look at her. Her face was flushed, full lips pressed thin and pale. Her features showed a far-flung racial mix that was unusual even in the melting pot of the Belt. Her hands weren’t shaking. The big one had the most experience, but Miller put the woman down as having the best instincts.

“Yeah,” Miller said. “I noticed.”

He pulled out his hand terminal and opened a link to Sematimba. The cop accepted a few seconds later.

“Semi,” Miller said. “I’m really sorry about this, but you know how I was going stay low-profile?”

“Yes?” the local cop said, drawing the word out to three syllables.

“Didn’t work out. I was heading to a meeting with a friend… ”

“A meeting with a friend,” Sematimba echoed. Miller could imagine the man’s crossed arms even thought they didn’t show in the frame.

“And I happened to see a bunch of tourists in the wrong place at the wrong time. It got out of hand.”

“Where are you?” Sematimba asked. Miller gave him the station level and address. There was a long pause while Sematimba consulted with some internal communication software that would have been part of Miller’s tool set once. The man’s sigh was percussive. “I don’t see anything. Were there shots fired?”

Miller looked at the chaos and ruin around them. About a thousand different alerts should have gone out with the first weapon fired. Security should have been swarming toward them.

“A few,” he said.

“Strange,” Sematimba said. “Stay put. I’ll be there.”

“Will do,” Miller said, and dropped the connection.

“Okay,” Holden said. “Who was that?”

“The real cops,” Miller said. “They’ll be here soon. It’ll be fine.”

I think it’ll be fine.
It occurred to him that he was treating the situation like he was still on the inside, a part of the machine. That wasn’t true anymore, and pretending it was might have consequences.

“He was following us,” the woman said to Holden. And then, to Miller, she said, “You were following us.”

“I was,” Miller said. He didn’t think he sounded rueful, but the big guy shook his head.

“It was the hat,” the big one said. “Stood out some.”

Miller swept off his porkpie and considered it. Of course the big one had been the one to make him. The other three were competent amateurs, and Miller knew that Holden had done some time in the UN Navy. But Miller gave it better than even money that the big one’s background check would be interesting reading.

“Why were you following us?” Holden asked. “I mean, I appre
ciate the part where you shot the people who were shooting at us, but I’d still like to know that first part.”

“I wanted to talk to you,” Miller said. “I’m looking for someone.”

There was a pause. Holden smiled.

“Anyone in particular?” he asked.

“A crew member of the
Scopuli,
” Miller said.

“The
Scopuli
?” Holden said. He started to glance at the woman and stopped himself. There was something there. The
Scopuli
meant something to him beyond what Miller had seen on the news.

“There was nobody on her when we got there,” the woman said.

“Holy shit,” the shaky one behind the couch said. It was the first thing he’d said since the firefight ended, and he repeated it five or six more times in quick succession.

“What about you?” Miller asked. “
Donnager
blew you to Tycho, and now here. What’s that about?”

“How did you know that?” Holden said.

“It’s my job,” Miller said. “Well, it used to be.”

The answer didn’t appear to satisfy the Earther. The big guy had fallen in behind Holden, his face a friendly cipher: No trouble, unless there was trouble, and then maybe a whole lot of trouble. Miller nodded, half to the big guy, half to himself.

“I had a contact in the OPA who told me you didn’t die on the
Donnager,
” Miller said.

“They just
told
you that?” the woman asked, banked outrage in her voice.

“He was making a point at the time,” Miller said. “Anyway, he said it, and I took it from there. And in about ten minutes, I’m going to make sure Eros security doesn’t throw all of you in a hole, and me with you. So if there’s anything at all you want to tell me—like what you’re doing here, for instance—this would be the right time.”

The silence was broken only by the sound of recyclers laboring
to clear the smoke and particulate dust of gunfire. The shaky one stood. Something about the way he held himself looked military. Ex-something, Miller assumed, but not a ground pounder. Navy, maybe; Martian at a guess. He had the vocal twang some of them affected.

“Ah, fuck it, Cap’n,” the big one said. “He shot the flank guy for us. He may be an asshole, but he’s okay by me.”

“Thank you, Amos,” Holden said. Miller filed that. The big one was Amos. Holden put his hands behind his back, returning his gun to his waistband.

“We’re here to look for someone too,” he said. “Probably someone from the
Scopuli.
We were just double-checking the room when everyone decided to start shooting at us.”

“Here?” Miller said. Something like emotion trickled into his veins. Not hope, but dread. “Someone off the
Scopuli
is in this flop right now?”

“We think so,” Holden said.

Miller looked out the flophouse lobby’s front doors. A small, curious crowd had started to gather in the tunnel. Crossed arms, nervous glances. He knew how they felt. Sematimba and his police were on the way. The gunmen who’d attacked Holden and his crew weren’t mounting another attack, but that didn’t mean they were gone. There might be another wave. They could have fallen back to a better position to wait for Holden to advance.

But what if Julie was here right now? How could he come this far and stop in the lobby? To his surprise, he still had his gun drawn. That was unprofessional. He should have holstered it. The only other one still drawn was the Martian’s. Miller shook his head. Sloppy. He needed to stop that.

Still, he had more than half a magazine left in the pistol.

“What room?” he asked.

The flophouse corridors were thin and cramped. The walls had the impervious gloss of warehouse paint, and the carpet was
carbon-silicate weave that would wear out more slowly than bare stone. Miller and Holden went first, then the woman and the Martian—Naomi and Alex, their names were—then Amos, trailing and looking back over his shoulder. Miller wondered if anyone but he and Amos understood how they were keeping the others safe. Holden seemed to know and be irritated by it; he kept edging ahead.

The doors of the rooms were identical fiberglass laminates, thin enough to be churned out by the thousand. Miller had kicked in a hundred like them in his career. A few here and there were decorated by longtime residents—with a painting of improbably red flowers, a whiteboard with a string where a pen had once been attached, a cheap reproduction of an obscene cartoon acting out its punch line in a dimly glowing infinite loop.

Tactically, it was a nightmare. If the ambushing forces stepped out of doors in front of and behind them, all five could be slaughtered in seconds. But no slugs flew, and the only door that opened disgorged an emaciated, long-bearded man with imperfect eyes and a slack mouth. Miller nodded at the man as they passed, and he nodded back, possibly more surprised by someone’s acknowledging his presence than by the drawn pistols. Holden stopped.

“This is it,” he murmured. “This is the room.”

Miller nodded. The others came up in a clump, Amos casually hanging back, his eyes on the corridor retreating behind them. Miller considered the door. It would be easy to kick in. One strong blow just above the latch mechanism. Then he could go in low and to the left, Amos high and to the right. He wished Havelock were there. Tactics were simpler for people who’d trained together. He motioned Amos to come up close.

Holden knocked on the door.

“What are you…?” Miller whispered fiercely, but Holden ignored him.

“Hello?” Holden called. “Anyone there?”

Miller tensed. Nothing happened. No voice, no gunfire. Nothing. Holden seemed perfectly at ease with the risk he’d just taken.
From the expression on Naomi’s face, Miller took it this wasn’t the first time he’d done things this way.

“You want that open?” Amos said.

“Kinda do,” Miller said at the same moment Holden said, “Yeah, kick it down.”

Amos looked from one to the other, not moving until Holden nodded at him. Then Amos shifted past them, kicked the door open in one blow, and staggered back, cussing.

“You okay?” Miller asked.

The big man nodded once through a pale grimace.

“Yeah, busted my leg a while back. Cast just came off. Keep forgetting about that,” he said.

Miller turned back to the room. Inside, it was as black as a cave. No lights came on, not even the dim glow of monitors and sensory devices. Miller stepped in, pistol drawn. Holden was close behind him. The floor made the crunching sound of gravel under their feet, and there was an odd astringent smell that Miller associated with broken screens. Behind it was another smell, much less pleasant. He chose not to think about that one.

“Hello?” Miller said. “Anyone here?”

“Turn on the lights,” Naomi said from behind them. Miller heard Holden patting the wall panel, but no light came up.

“They’re not working,” Holden said.

The dim spill from the corridor gave almost nothing. Miller kept his gun steady in his right hand, ready to empty it toward muzzle flash if anyone opened fire from the darkness. With his left, he took out his hand terminal, thumbed on the backlight, and opened a blank white writing tablet. The room came into monochrome. Beside him, Holden did the same.

A thin bed pressed against one wall, a narrow tray beside it. The bedding was knotted like the remnant of a bad night’s sleep. A closet stood open, empty. The hulking form of an empty vacuum suit lay on the floor like a mannequin with a misplaced head. An old entertainment console hung on the wall across from the cot, its screen shattered by half a dozen blows. The wall was dim
pled where blows intended to bread the LED sconces had missed. Another hand terminal added its glow, and another. Hints of color started to come into the room—the cheap gold of the walls, the green of the blankets and sheet. Under the cot, something glimmered. An older-model hand terminal. Miller crouched as the others stepped in.