Leviathan Wakes (47 page)

“Uh, there’s a lift,” Holden said.

“Wish I’d known that,” Miller replied, then dragged himself up onto the ops deck with a gasp. “We there yet?”

“Trying to figure out a mystery,” Holden said.

“I hate mysteries,” Miller said, then hauled himself to his feet and made his way to a chair.

“Then solve this one for us. You find out who murdered someone. You can’t arrest them yourself, so you send the information to your partner. But instead of just sending the perp’s name, you send your partner all the clues. Why?”

Miller coughed and scratched his chin. His eyes were fixed on something, like he was reading a screen Holden couldn’t see.

“Because I don’t trust myself. I want my partner to arrive at the same conclusion I did, without my biasing him. I give him the dots, see what it looks like when he connects ’em.”

“Especially if guessing wrong has consequences,” Naomi said.

“You don’t like to screw up a murder charge,” Miller said with a nod. “Looks unprofessional.”

Holden’s panel beeped at him.

“Shit, I know why they were careful,” he said after reading his screen. “The
Roci
thinks those were standard light-cruiser engines built by the Bush Shipyards.”

“They were Earth ships?” Naomi said. “But they weren’t flying any colors, and… Son of a
bitch
!”

It was the first time Holden had ever heard her yell, and he understood. If UNN black ops ships had killed the
Donnager,
then that meant Earth was behind the whole thing. Maybe even killing the
Canterbury
in the first place. It would mean that Martian warships were killing Belters for no reason. Belters like Naomi.

Holden leaned forward and called up the comm display, then tapped out a general broadcast. Miller caught his breath.

“That button you just pressed doesn’t do what I think it does, does it?” he said.

“I finished Kelly’s mission for him,” Holden said.

“I have no idea who the fuck Kelly is,” Miller said, “but please tell me that his mission wasn’t broadcasting that data to the solar system at large.”

“People need to know what’s going on,” Holden said.

“Yes, they do, but maybe we should actually know what the hell is going on before we tell them,” Miller replied, all the weariness gone from his voice. “How gullible
are
you?”

“Hey,” Holden said, but Miller got louder.

“You found a Martian battery, right? So you told everyone in the solar system about it and started the single largest war in human history. Only turns out the Martians maybe weren’t the ones that left it there. Then, a bunch of mystery ships kill the
Donnager,
which Mars blames on the Belt, only, dammit, the Belt didn’t even know it was
capable
of killing a Martian battle cruiser.”

Holden opened his mouth, but Miller grabbed a bulb of coffee Amos had left behind on the console and threw it at his head.

“Let me finish! And now you find some data that implicates Earth. First thing you do is blab it to the universe, so that Mars
and
the Belt drag Earth into this thing, making the largest war of all time even bigger. Are you seeing a pattern here?”

“Yes,” Naomi said.

“So what do you think’s going to happen?” Miller said. “This is how these people work! They made the
Canterbury
look like Mars. It wasn’t. They made the
Donnager
look like the Belt. It wasn’t. Now it looks like the whole damn thing’s Earth? Follow the pattern. It probably isn’t! You never,
never
put that kind of accusation out there until you know the score. You look. You listen. You’re quiet, fercrissakes, and when you know,
then
you can make your case.”

The detective sat back, clearly exhausted. He was sweating. The deck was silent.

“You done?” Holden said.

Miller nodded, breathing heavily. “Think I might have strained something.”

“I haven’t accused anyone of doing anything,” Holden said.
“I’m not building a case. I just put the data out there. Now it’s not a secret. They’re doing something on Eros. They don’t want it interrupted. With Mars and the Belt shooting at each other, everyone with the resources to help is busy elsewhere.”

“And you just dragged Earth into it,” Miller said.

“Maybe,” Holden said. “But the killers
did
use ships that were built, at least in part, at Earth’s orbital shipyards. Maybe someone will look into that. And
that’s
the point. If everyone knows everything, nothing stays secret.”

“Yeah, well,” Miller said. Holden ignored him

“Eventually, someone’ll figure out the big picture. This kind of thing requires secrecy to function, so exposing all the secrets hurts them in the end. It’s the only way this really, permanently stops.”

Miller sighed, nodded to himself, took off his hat, and scratched his scalp.

“I was just going to put ’em out an airlock,” Miller said.

BA834024112 wasn’t much of an asteroid. Barely thirty meters across, it had long ago been surveyed and found completely devoid of useful or valuable minerals. It existed in the registry only to warn ships not to run into it. Julie had left it tethered to wealth measured in the billions when she flew her small shuttle to Eros.

Up close, the ship that had killed the
Scopuli
and stolen its crew looked like a shark. It was long and lean and utterly black, almost impossible to see against the backdrop of space with the naked eye. Its radar-deflecting curves gave it an aerodynamic look almost always lacking in space-going vessels. It made Holden’s skin crawl, but it was beautiful.

“Motherfucker,” Amos said under his breath as the crew clustered in the cockpit of the
Rocinante
to look at it.

“The
Roci
doesn’t even see it, Cap,” Alex said. “I’m pourin’ ladar into it, and all we see is a slightly warmer spot on the asteroid.”

“Like Becca saw just before the
Cant
died,” Naomi said.

“Her shuttle’s been launched, so I’m guessin’ this is the right
stealth ship someone left tied to a rock,” Alex added. “Case there’s more than one.”

Holden tapped his fingers on the back of Alex’s chair for a moment as he floated over the pilot’s head.

“It’s probably full of vomit zombies,” Holden finally said.

“Want to go see?” said Miller.

“Oh yeah,” Holden said.

T
he environment suit was better than Miller was used to. He’d only done a couple walks outside during his years on Ceres, and the Star Helix equipment had been old back then: thick corrugated joints, separable air-supply unit, gloves that left his hands thirty degrees colder than the rest of his body. The
Rocinante
’s suits were military and recent, no bulkier than standard riot gear, with integrated life support that could probably keep fingers warm after a hand got shot off. Miller floated, one hand on a strap in the airlock, and flexed his fingers, watching the sharkskin pattern of the knuckle joints.

It didn’t feel like enough.

“All right, Alex,” Holden said. “We’re in place. Have the
Roci
knock for us.”

A deep, rumbling vibration shook them. Naomi put a hand against the airlock’s curved wall to steady herself. Amos shifted
forward to take point, a reactionless automatic rifle in his hands. When he bent his neck, Miller could hear the vertebrae cracking through his radio. It was the only way he could have heard it; they were already in vacuum.

“Okay, Captain,” Alex said. “I’ve got a seal. The standard security override isn’t working, so give me a second… to… ”

“Problem?” Holden said.

“Got it. I’ve got it. We have a connection,” Alex said. Then, a moment later: “Ah. It doesn’t look like there’s much to breathe over there.”

“Anything?” Holden asked.

“Nope. Hard vacuum,” Alex said. “Both her lock doors are open.”

“All right, folks,” Holden said, “keep an eye on your air supply. Let’s go.”

Miller took a long breath. The external airlock went from soft red to soft green. Holden slid it open, and Amos launched forward, the captain just behind him. Miller gestured to Naomi with a nod.
Ladies first.

The connecting gantry was reinforced, ready to deflect enemy lasers or slow down slugs. Amos landed on the other ship as the hatch to the
Rocinante
closed behind them. Miller had a moment’s vertigo, the ship before them suddenly clicking from
ahead
to
down
in his perception, as if they were falling into something.

“You all right?” Naomi asked.

Miller nodded, and Amos passed into the other ship’s hatch. One by one, they went in.

The ship was dead. The lights coming off their environment suits played over the soft, almost streamlined curves of the bulkheads, the cushioned walls, the gray suit lockers. One locker was bent out of shape, like someone or something had forced its way out from within. Amos pushed off slow. Under normal circumstances, hard vacuum would have been assurance enough that nothing was about to jump out at them. Right now, Miller figured it was only even money.

“Whole place is shut down,” Holden said.

“Might be backups in the engine room,” Amos said.

“So the ass end of the ship from here,” Holden said.

“Pretty much.”

“Let’s be careful,” Holden said.

“I’m heading up to ops,” Naomi said. “If there’s anything running off battery, I can—”

“No, you aren’t,” Holden said. “We aren’t splitting up the group until we know what we’re looking at. Stay together.”

Amos moved down, sinking into the darkness. Holden pushed off after him. Miller followed. He couldn’t tell from Naomi’s body language whether she was annoyed or relieved.

The galley was empty, but signs of struggle showed here and there. A chair with a bent leg. A long, jagged scratch down the wall where something sharp had flaked the paint. Two bullet holes set high along one bulkhead where a shot had gone wide. Miller put a hand out, grabbed one of the tables, and swung slowly.

“Miller?” Holden said. “Are you coming?”

“Look at this,” Miller said.

The dark spill was the color of amber, flaky and shining like glass in his flashlight beam. Holden hovered closer.

“Zombie vomit?” Holden said.

“Think so.”

“Well. I guess we’re on the right ship. For some value of right.”

The crew quarters hung silent and empty. They went through each of them, but there were no personal markings—no terminals, no pictures, no clues to the names of the men and women who had lived and breathed and presumably died on the ship. Even the captain’s cabin was indicated only by a slightly larger bunk and the face of a locked safe.

There was a massive central compartment as high and wide as the hull of the
Rocinante,
the darkness dominated by twelve huge cylinders encrusted with narrow catwalks and scaffolds. Miller saw Naomi’s expression harden.

“What are they?” Miller asked.

“Torpedo tubes,” she said.

“
Torpedo
tubes?” he said. “Jesus
Christ,
how many are they packing? A million?”

“Twelve,” she said. “Just twelve.”

“Capital-ship busters,” Amos said. “Built to pretty much kill whatever you’re aiming at with the first shot.”

“Something like the
Donnager?
” Miller asked.

Holden looked back at him, the glow of his heads-up display lighting his features.

“Or the
Canterbury,
” he said.

The four of them passed between the wide black tubes in silence.

In the machine and fabrication shops, the signs of violence were more pronounced. There was blood on the floor and walls, along with wide swaths of the glassy gold resin that had once been vomit. A uniform lay in a ball. The cloth had been wadded and soaked in something before the cold of space had frozen it. Habits formed from years of walking through crime scenes put a dozen small things in place: the pattern of scratches on the floor and lift doors, the spatter of blood and vomit, the footprints. They all told the story.