Dawes pressed his palm to his mouth, rubbing until his lips felt bruised. There had to be something. Some way to walk this back. “How’s your man?”
There was a pause before Shaddid answered. She knew what he was really asking. “Stabilized.”
“Not going to die?”
“Not out of the woods yet either,” she said. And then, “I can’t do my job if people get away with shooting security. I understand there’s diplomacy involved, but with respect, that’s your job. Mine is to keep six million people from killing too many of each other on any given day.”
My job’s not so different, he thought. This wasn’t the time to say it. “Contact Marco Inaros. He’ll be on the Pella in dock 65-C,” Dawes said. “Tell him to meet me here.”
At the end of particularly bad days, Dawes would sometimes pour himself a glass of whiskey and sit for a time with his prized possession: a printed volume of Marcus Aurelius that had belonged to his grandmother. The Meditations were the private thoughts of a person with terrible power—an emperor who could order to death anyone he chose, create the law by speaking it, command any woman to his bed. Or any man, if the mood took him. The thin pages were filled with Aurelius’ private struggle to be a good man despite the frustrations of the world. It left Dawes feeling not comforted but consoled. All through human history, being a moral person and not being pulled into the dramatics and misbehavior of others had caused intelligent people grief.
Dawes had spent decades with that beneath all his personal philosophy. There were bad people everywhere, stupidity and avarice and hubris and pride. And he had to navigate it if there was ever to be hope of a better place for Belters. It wasn’t that things were worse now than they’d been before. Only that they weren’t better.
Tonight, he suspected, would be a good one for rereading his Aurelius.
Marco swept into the security station like he owned it. Smiles and laughter, and a sheer animal presence that filled the space. The security agents unconsciously moved to the edges of the room and didn’t meet his gaze. Dawes went out to lead him back to Shaddid’s office and found himself shaking the man’s hand there in front of everyone. He hadn’t meant to do that.
“This is embarrassing,” Marco said as if he was agreeing with something that had already been said. “I will see that it doesn’t happen again.”
“Your son could have killed one of my people,” Dawes said.
Marco sat back in his chair and opened his arms, an expansive gesture that seemed intended to diminish what anyone else could say. “There was a scuffle, and it got out of hand. Dawes, tell me you’ve never had something like it.”
“I’ve never had something like it,” Dawes said. His voice was cool and hard, and for the first time, Marco’s jovial expression shifted.
“You aren’t going to make this a problem, are you?” Marco said, his voice sinking low. “We have a lot of work to do. Real work. Word’s come that Earth took out the Azure Dragon. We have to reassess our strategy down sunward.”
It was the first Dawes had heard of it, and he had the sense that Marco had kept the information private, ready to play it when he wanted a subject changed. Well, he’d find Dawes harder to throw off than that.
“And we will. But that’s not why I called you here.”
Shaddid coughed, and Marco turned to scowl at her. When he looked back at Dawes, his expression had changed. His smile was as wide, his expression as open and merry, but something in his eyes made Dawes’ stomach clench.
“All right,” Marco said. “Bien, coyo mis. Why did you call me here?”
“Your son can’t be on my station,” Dawes said. “If he stays, I have to put him through a trial. Have to protect him from anyone who might get impatient waiting.” He paused. “Have to follow through the sentence, if there is one.”
Marco went still, a copy of his son on the assault footage. Dawes made an effort not to swallow.
“That sounds like a threat, Anderson.”
“It’s an explanation. It’s why you need to take your boy off my station, and never bring him back to it. I’m doing this as a favor. Anyone else, and things would just take their course.”
Marco drew in a long, slow breath and let it out between his teeth. “I see.”
“He shot a security agent. He may have killed him.”
“We’ve killed a world,” Marco said, waving the words away. But then he seemed to remember something, nodding as much to himself as to Dawes or Shaddid. “But I appreciate your bending the rules for me. And for him. I won’t let this go by. He and I will have a serious conversation.”
“All right,” Dawes said. “Captain Shaddid will release him to you. If you want to bring some of your people down before she does—”
“That won’t be necessary,” Marco said. No bodyguards were called for. None of the security force would dare face down Marco Inaros of the Free Navy. And what was worse, Dawes believed Marco was right. “We’ll have a meeting tomorrow. About the Azure Dragon and Earth. Next steps.”
“Next steps,” Dawes agreed, and stood. “You know this isn’t temporary. Filip can never set foot on Ceres again.”
Marco’s smile was unexpected and deep. His dark eyes flashed. “Don’t worry, old friend. If you don’t want him here, he won’t be here. That’s a promise.”
Chapter Nine: Holden
The sound reached all the way to the galley: a deep thud, then a pause, then another thud. Each time it came, Holden felt himself flinch a little. Naomi and Alex sat with him, trying to ignore it, but whatever they started a conversation about—the state of the ship, the success of their mission, the question of whether to give in to fate and convert a section of the crew quarters into a brig—it died out under the slow, unending beat.
“Maybe I should talk to her,” Holden said. “I think I should.”
“Don’t know why you think that,” Alex said.
Naomi shrugged, abstaining. Holden took one last bite of his fake lamb, wiped his mouth with the napkin, and dropped everything into the recycler. Part of him hoped that one of them would stop him. They didn’t.
The Rocinante’s gym showed its age. No two resistance bands were quite the same color, the green-gray mats had white lines where the fabric had worn thin, and the smell of old sweat softened the air. Bobbie had strung a heavy bag on a tight line between the ceiling and the deck. Her exercise outfit was tight and gray and soaked with sweat. Her hair was tied back, and her eyes were locked on the bag as she shifted on the balls of her feet. As Holden stepped into the room, she turned to the left, putting her weight into a roundhouse kick. This close, the thud sounded like something heavy being dropped. The system reported a little under ninety-five kilograms per square centimeter. Bobbie danced back, her focus locked on the bag. She shifted to the right, and kicked with her other leg. The thud was a little softer, but the reading went up by three kilos. She danced back, reset. Her shins were red and raw-looking.
“Hey,” she said, not looking at him. Thud. Reset.
“Hey,” Holden said. “How’re you doing?”
“Fine.” Thud. Reset.
“Anything you want to talk about?”
Thud. Reset. “Nope.”
“Okay. Well. If you ah”—Thud. Reset.—“change your mind.”
“I’ll track you down.” Thud. Reset. Thud.
“Great,” Holden said, and stepped back out of the room. Bobbie hadn’t looked at him once.
In the galley, Naomi had a bulb of coffee waiting for him. He sat across from her while Alex dropped the last of his food into the recycler. Holden drank. The Roci’s processors were calibrated once a week, and they’d stocked up before leaving Luna, so it was almost certainly his imagination that made the coffee more bitter than usual. He put a pinch of salt in it anyway, swirling the bulb to stir it.