“I’m willing to bet there’s no port there,” Holden said. “Did you plan on going anyplace after that?”
“I’m kind of low on solid plans. Haven’t had one yet that actually happened.”
“I hear that,” Amos said. “We’ve been f**ked eighteen different ways since we got into this.”
Holden folded his hands on the table, one finger tapping a complicated rhythm on the wood-textured concrete top. It wasn’t a good sign.
“You seem like a… well, like an angry, bitter old man, actually. But I’ve been working water haulers for the past five years. That just means you’d fit in.”
“But,” Miller said, and let the word hang there.
“But I’ve been shot at a lot recently, and the machine guns yesterday were the least lethal thing I’ve had to deal with,” Holden said. “I’m not letting anyone on my ship that I wouldn’t trust with my life, and I don’t actually know you.”
“I can get the money,” Miller said, his belly sinking. “If it’s money, I can cover it.”
“It’s not about negotiating a price,” Holden said.
“Get the money?” Naomi said, her eyes narrowing. “ ‘Get the money,’ as in you don’t have it now?”
“I’m a little short,” Miller said. “It’s temporary.”
“You have an income?” Naomi said.
“More like a strategy,” Miller said. “There’s some independent rackets down on the docks. There always are at any port. Side games. Fights. Things like that. Most of them, the fix is in. It’s how you bribe cops without actually bribing cops.”
“That’s your plan?” Holden said, incredulity in his voice. “Go collect some police bribes?”
Across the restaurant, a prostitute in a red nightgown yawned prodigiously; the john across the table from her frowned.
“No,” Miller said reluctantly. “I play the side bets. A cop goes in, I make a side bet that he’s going to win. I know who the cops are mostly. The house, they know because they’re bribing them. The side bets are with fish looking to feel edgy because they’re playing unlicensed.”
Even as he said it, Miller knew how weak it sounded. Alex, the pilot, came and sat beside Miller. His coffee smelled bright and acidic.
“What’s the deal?” Alex asked.
“There isn’t one,” Holden said. “There wasn’t one before and there still isn’t.”
“It works better than you’d think,” Miller said gamely, and four hand terminals chimed at once. Holden and Naomi exchanged another, less complicit glance and pulled up their terminals. Amos and Alex already had theirs up. Miller caught the red-and-green border that meant either a priority message or an early Christmas card. There was a moment’s silence as they all read something; then Amos whistled low.
“Stage three?” Naomi said.
“Can’t say as I like the sound of that,” Alex said.
“You mind if I ask?” Miller said.
Holden slid his terminal across the table. The message was plaintext, encoded from Tycho.
CAUGHT MOLE IN TYCHO COMM STATION. YOUR PRESENCE AND DESTINATION LEAKED TO UNKNOWN PERSONS ON EROS. BE CAREFUL.
“Little late on that,” Miller said.
“Keep reading,” Holden said.
MOLE’S ENCRYPTION CODE ALLOWED INTERCEPT OF SUBSIGNAL BROADCAST FROM EROS FIVE HOURS AGO.
INTERCEPTED MESSAGE FOLLOWS: HOLDEN ESCAPED BUT PAYLOAD SAMPLE RECOVERED. REPEAT: SAMPLE RECOVERED. PROCEEDING TO STAGE THREE.
“Any idea what that means?” Holden asked.
“I don’t,” Miller said, pushing the terminal back. “Except… if the payload sample is Julie’s body.”
“Which I think we can assume it is,” Holden said.
Miller tapped his fingertips on the tabletop, unconsciously copying Holden’s rhythm, his mind working through the combinations.
“This thing,” Miller said. “The bioweapon or whatever. They were shipping it here. So now it’s here. Okay. There’s no reason to take out Eros. It’s not particularly important to the war when you hold it up to Ceres or Ganymede or the shipyard at Callisto. And if you wanted it dead, there’re easier ways. Blow a big fusion bomb on the surface, and crack it like an egg.”
“It’s not a military base, but it is a shipping hub,” Naomi said. “And, unlike Ceres, it’s not under OPA control.”
“They’re shipping her out, then,” Holden said. “They’re taking their sample out to infect whatever their original target was, and once they’re off the station, there’s no way we’re going to stop it.”
Miller shook his head. Something about the chain of logic felt wrong. He was missing something. His imaginary Julie appeared across the room, but her eyes were dark, black filaments pouring down her cheeks like tears.
What am I looking at here, Julie? he thought. I’m seeing something here, but I don’t know what it is.
The vibration was a slight, small thing, less than a transport tube’s braking stutter. A few plates rattled; the coffee in Naomi’s cup danced in a series of concentric circles. Everyone in the hotel went silent with the sudden shared dread of thousands of people made aware of their fragility in the same moment.
“Oh-kay,” Amos said. “The f**k was that?” and the emergency Klaxons started blaring.
“Or possibly stage three is something else,” Miller said over the noise.
The public-address system was muddy by its nature. The same voice spoke from consoles and speakers that might have been as close as a meter from each other or as far out as earshot would take them. It made every word reverberate, a false echo. Because of that, the voice of the emergency broadcast system enunciated very carefully, each word bitten off separately.
“Attention, please. Eros Station is in emergency lockdown. Proceed immediately to the casino level for radiological safety confinement. Cooperate with all emergency personnel. Attention, please. Eros station is in emergency lockdown… ”
And on in a loop that would continue, if no one coded in the override, until every man, woman, child, animal, and insect on the station had been reduced to dust and humidity. It was the nightmare scenario, and Miller did what a lifetime on pressurized rocks had trained him to do. He was up from the table, in the corridor, and heading down toward the wider passages, already clogged with bodies. Holden and his crew were on his heels.