“When are we going to steal it all?” Nadia asked.
“When I talk to Carmondy,” Michio said. “Earlier than that, and Himself might notice. Later, and he might be warned.”
“Ah, Carmondy,” Nadia said with a sigh. “It bothers me.”
“Me too,” Michio said. Nadia turned from the wall to consider her. The air of checking for errors didn’t change.
“What bothers you?” Nadia asked.
Michio nodded at the wall. “All this. Doing what I’m about to do.”
“You don’t think it’s right?”
“I don’t know if that matters. I mean, Marco does what he thinks is right. And Dawes. And Earth. All of them do what they think is right, and tell themselves that they’re moral people with the strength to do the necessary things, however terrible they seem at the time. Every atrocity that has been done to us had someone behind it who thought what they did was justified. And here I am. A moral person with the strength to do this. Because it’s justified.”
“Ah,” Nadia said. “You don’t think Carmondy will join us.”
“I don’t. And then I think I’ll have to make an example of him so that the others will take me seriously.”
“It’s not much of a pirate queen who leaves survivors in peace,” Nadia said. And then, “You’re wrong about one thing, though. Not every evil thing is done by the righteous. Some people do harsh things for the pleasure. But that isn’t what bothers me.”
Michio lifted her hands, asking the question.
“Working with Carmondy,” Nadia said. “I don’t know what it is. The man annoys me.”
Both of their hand terminals chirped a connection request from Laura on a family-restricted channel. Nadia nodded to Michio to accept and then sat at her side so they could both see the screen. Laura was on the command deck, the backsplash of her control screen lightening her cheeks and dancing in her eyes. Icons of all the others except Nadia appeared along the side.
“What is it?” Nadia asked.
“Newsfeeds just arrived,” Laura said. “The inners have Ceres. Making an announcement.”
They were all silent for a moment. Knowing that it was coming pulled the punch, but Michio still felt it in her gut. “Play the feed,” she said.
Laura nodded, shifted forward to her controls, and blinked out. A feed appeared in her place. Earth and Mars naval ships docked in the berths at Ceres. Seeing them there was disorienting, a juxtaposition of two things that don’t belong together. Even though she’d known it was coming, the feeling was strong.
“—estimated at four and a half million, with sufficient reserves to sustain the station for a maximum of two weeks. The combined fleet is presently developing relief strategies including emergency rationing and a call for food and water from other stations in the Belt and the Jovian system.”
The image jittered and cut away, a sloppy edit done by an amateur. And then his face filled the screen. Fred fucking Johnson. Michio felt her gut clench. So that was their play. Trot out the Earther to speak for the Belt. Again. His eyes were soft and deep and sorrowful. His hair was close cut and white. A pale stubble stood out against the darkness of his cheeks. The text along the screen’s edge said Fred Johnson—OPA Spokesman / Tycho Manufacturing.
Not Colonel Fred Johnson. Not Butcher of Anderson Station. Opportunist. Face of the Belt When Earth’s Holding the Camera.
“Michi?”
“I’m fine.”
“The culture in the outer planets,” Johnson said, “has always been one of mutual support. Conditions aboard ship and on stations have always tested humanity’s ingenuity and competence. In the many, many years I’ve worked with the Outer Planets Alliance, I have never seen that ethos betrayed more profoundly than this.”
“You’re right,” Michio said. “I’m not fine. Shut it off.”
Nadia gestured to the screen, and the feed vanished. Michio stood for a long moment. She didn’t remember crushing the grease crayon, but it was a sticky pulp in her hand now. She took a towel from her cabinet and tried to wipe her fingers clean. The crash couch shifted behind her as Nadia sat on it. When Michio had her control back, she turned around. The intimacy of years let her read half a dozen things in Nadia’s expression.
“He’s not our natural ally,” Michio said. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend? That’s bullshit. There are always more than two sides. Pretending it’s only one or else the other is what let that sonofabitch carry so much weight in the OPA for as long as he did.”
“He still does,” Nadia said. “Some people will listen to him. He has ships.”
“I’ll get us ships. We don’t need his protection.”
“If you say,” Nadia said. And then, gently, “Maybe he needs ours.”
“He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”
“Four and a half million, though. That’s a lot of people.”
“Earth wanted the station. They have it. Good for them,” Michio said, but her voice sounded less certain in her own ears. “They can take care of it.”
“They’re going to need food. Water.”
Michio pointed to the list she’d scrawled on her wall. Her fingers were dark from the crayon. “Every base on that list is going to need food and water too. Medical supplies. Reaction mass. Construction material. Everything. Everyone is going to need everything. I’m not going to put Ceres at the top of our list. They’ve got help.”
“They got robbed,” Nadia said. “By us.”
“By Marco.”
Nadia smiled and looked off to her left, the way she did when she was ready to end an argument but didn’t agree that she’d lost it. Michio couldn’t let it go. The words pressed up out of her like Nadia had said them. Had invited her response.
“It’s not only that it’s Fred Johnson,” Michio said.
“If Ceres starts to starve,” Nadia said, ending the question as if it had been a statement.
“Fine,” Michio said. “If Ceres Station starts going hungry. If they’re running out of water. I’ll help the people on Ceres. Not for Johnson, not for the OPA. But I’ll help the people there.”
Nadia nodded, but still looked off to her left, staring at the empty screen like there was a picture still glowing on it. Michio even looked, but there was only black.
“And Earth?” Nadia asked.
“What about it?”
“People are starving there.”
“No,” Michio said. “I won’t send our supplies to Earth. They had centuries to help us, and they didn’t.”
Nadia’s smile widened a millimeter as she rose to her feet. She kissed Michio’s cheek and left. A moment later, her voice came from down the corridor with Evans answering. The life of the ship continued, even with everything changing around it. Michio turned back to her lists, but she wasn’t sure what she was looking at anymore. Her mind kept sliding back to Fred Johnson’s soft, tired eyes. I have never seen that ethos betrayed more profoundly than this. She leaned forward and used her thumbnail to scrape a clean line through the center of the word Ceres. The gray of the wall showed through the center of the letters. But she didn’t rub it out.
When, eight hours later, the Connaught finally came within a light-second of the Hornblower, the newsfeeds had settled on their narrative about the retaking of Ceres. The phrase combined fleet became a kind of catch-all for the patchwork of Earther and Martian naval ships that were clustered there beside a ragged handful of Belter vessels. It was like going back to the days before Eros, when the alliance between the inner planets had seemed unshakable. Certainly there was some nostalgia among the inner planets’ commentariat, but the reports from Earth and Mars kept the wailing for the golden age of squeezing the Belt in perspective. Riots had broken out in Londres Nova and scuttled a meeting of the Martian parliament, and the best news from Earth was that the climbing death rate was linear instead of exponential, with hopes that it would level off as the most vulnerable and compromised parts of the globe finished dying.