“I was just—”
“If you want to sleep with me,” Naomi said, “be honest. Respect me enough for that. Okay?”
Miller coughed. He hadn’t meant to, hadn’t even been aware he was going to. His belly went tight, his throat clamped down, and he coughed wet and deep. Once he started, it was hard to stop. He sat up, eyes watering from the effort. Holden was lying back on his bed. Naomi sat on the next bed over, smiling like there had been nothing to overhear. Holden’s monitors showed an elevated heart rate and blood pressure. Miller could only hope the poor bastard hadn’t gotten an erection with the catheter still in.
“Hey, Detective,” Naomi said. “How’re you feeling?”
Miller nodded.
“I’ve felt worse,” he said. Then, a moment later: “No. I haven’t. But I’m all right. How bad was it?”
“You’re both dead,” Naomi said. “Seriously, we had to override the triage filters on both of you more than once. The expert system kept clicking you over into hospice care and shooting you full of morphine.”
She said it lightly, but he believed her. He tried to sit up. His body still felt terribly heavy, but he didn’t know if it was from weakness or the ship thrust. Holden was quiet, jaw clamped tight. Miller pretended not to notice.
“Long-term estimates?”
“You’re both going to need to be checked for new cancers every month for the rest of your lives. The captain has a new implant where his thyroid used to be, since his real one was pretty much cooked down. We had to take out about a foot and a half of your small bowel that wouldn’t stop bleeding. You’re both going to bruise easy for a while, and if you wanted kids, I hope you have some sperm in a bank someplace, because all your little soldiers have two heads now.”
Miller chuckled. His monitors blinked into alarm mode and then back out.
“You sound like you trained as a med tech,” he said.
“Nope. Engineer. But I’ve been reading the printouts every day, so I’ve got the lingo down. I wish Shed was still here,” she said, and sounded sad for the first time.
That was the second time someone had mentioned Shed. There was a story there, but Miller let it drop.
“Hair going to fall out?” he asked.
“Maybe,” Naomi said. “The system shot you full of the drugs that are supposed to stop that, but if the follicles die, they die.”
“Well. Good thing I’ve still got my hat. What about Eros?”
Naomi’s false light tone failed her.
“It’s dead,” Holden said from his bed, turning to look at Miller. “I think we were the last ship out. The station isn’t answering calls, and all the automatic systems have it in a quarantine lockdown.”
“Rescue ships?” Miller asked, and coughed again. His throat was still sore.
“Not going to happen,” Naomi said. “There were a million and a half people on station. No one has the resources to put into that kind of rescue op.”
“After all,” Holden said, “there’s a war on.”
The ship system dimmed the lights for night. Miller lay on his bed. The expert system had shifted his treatment regimen into a new phase, and for the past three hours, he’d alternated between spiking fevers and teeth-chattering chills. His teeth and the nail beds of his fingers and toes ached. Sleep wasn’t an option, so he lay in the gloom and tried to pull himself together.
He wondered what his old partners would have made of his behavior on Eros. Havelock. Muss. He tried to imagine them in his place. He’d killed people, and he’d done it cold. Eros had been a kill box, and when the people in charge of the law wanted you dead, the law didn’t apply anymore. And some of the dead ass**les had been the ones who’d killed Julie.
So. Revenge killing. Was he really down to revenge killing? That was a sad thought. He tried to imagine Julie sitting beside him the way Naomi had with Holden. It was like she’d been waiting for the invitation. Julie Mao, who he’d never really known. She raised a hand in greeting.
And what about us? he asked her as he looked into her dark, unreal eyes. Do I love you, or do I just want to love you so bad I can’t tell the difference?
“Hey, Miller,” Holden said, and Julie vanished. “You awake?”
“Yeah. Can’t sleep.”
“Me either.”
They were silent for a moment. The expert system hummed. Miller’s left arm itched under its cast as the tissue went through another round of forced regrowth.
“You doing okay?” Miller asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Holden said sharply.
“You killed that guy,” Miller said. “Back on the station. You shot him. I mean, I know you shot at guys before that. Back at the hotel. But right at the end there, you actually hit somebody in the face.”
“Yeah. I did.”
“You good with that?”
“Sure,” Holden said, too quickly.
The air recyclers hummed, and the blood pressure cuff on Miller’s good arm squeezed him like a hand. Holden didn’t speak, but when Miller squinted, he could see the elevated blood pressure and the uptick in brain activity.
“They always made us take time off,” Miller said.
“What?”
“When we shot someone. Whether they died or not, they always made us take a leave of absence. Turn in our weapon. Go talk to the headshrinker.”
“Bureaucrats,” Holden said.
“They had a point,” Miller said. “Shooting someone does something to you. Killing someone… that’s even worse. Doesn’t matter that they had it coming or you didn’t have a choice. Or maybe a little difference. But it doesn’t take it away.”
“Seems like you got over it, though.”
“Maybe,” Miller said. “Look. All that I said back there about how you kill someone? About how leaving them alive wasn’t doing them any favors? I’m sorry that happened.”
“You think you were wrong?”
“I wasn’t. But I’m still sorry it happened.”
“Okay.”
“Jesus. Look, I’m saying it’s good that it bothers you. It’s good that you can’t stop seeing it or hearing it. That part where it haunts you some? That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
Holden was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was gray as stone.
“I’ve killed people before, you know. But they were blips in a radar track. I—”