“Please. I just need work.”
“I run a clean shop, kid.”
“Please.”
She didn’t look up. He didn’t move. The right corner of her mouth quirked up like it was somehow independent of the rest of her face. The counter blinked, and a shorter form appeared. PRÉNOM. NOM DE FAMILIE. RÉSIDENCE. ÂGE. COORDONNÉES.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, not looking up.
He put his finger on COORDONNÉES. “I don’t have a hand terminal.”
“You can come back tomorrow,” she said like it was a common enough problem.
PRÉNOM: FILIP
NOM DE FAMILIE:
“You okay, kid?” The hard eyes on him. He nodded.
NOM DE FAMILIE: NAGATA
Chapter Forty-Eight: Pa
The light of the sun was strong enough to turn the tangerine-colored haze to its midday twilight. A bright patch showed its place. Saturn hung on the far side of Titan’s atmosphere somewhere, along with the debris that had been a hundred or more ships. Michio remembered a moment in the chaos of the battle seeing Saturn on her screen. It had seemed so close, she could make out the complexity of the rings. She remembered it, but it might not have happened. Her memory of the violence was spotty.
The resort was astounding. The dome rose up fifty meters above the ground, a swirl of titanium and reinforced glass with ivy dripping down like hanging gardens. Terraces rose in curves, designed to create breathtaking views out of a featureless, hazy sky. Finches darted here and there, flickers of color, as artificial and foreign to the moon’s environment as she was. As any of them were. From where she sat, Michio could look down on swimming pools and courtyards of fake brick and ferns. Bright foil emergency shelters were propped up next to luxurious wet bars. The wounded slept on chaise longues and deck chairs because the hospital beds were full.
The dome resorts had been built decades ago for the wealthy of Earth and Mars. A place for the captains of finance and industry to rest while they worked on building up the settlements on Saturn’s moons and hauling ice from its rings. An exotic site for tourists to come and pretend they’d experienced life in the outer planets without ever having to experience it.
They had done a good trade ever since, and not only among the inners. For Belters, the resorts were as close to experiencing life on Earth as they would ever reach. Open air. A real, free-flowing atmosphere to look at if not to breathe. Food and liquor imported from Earth and Mars. And so it had become a kind of halfway point—a haven for Earthers in the outer planets and a version of Earth that Belters could enjoy. She wondered whether an Earther would find it as unlike Earth as she found it unlike the Belt. Maybe what they really had to share was its lack of authenticity.
She had never been here before, and if she had her way, she would never come back.
Footsteps sounded on the terrace behind her. She turned, winced, and then kept turning despite the pain. The burns on her back only itched now if she kept still. She was afraid, despite all the doctors had said, that she’d scar up and lose her ability to move if she didn’t keep stretching the wounds.
Nadia’s smile was weary, but real. She carried fresh bandages and a white tube of cream in one hand and a hand terminal in the other. Michio grimaced, then laughed ruefully.
“Is it that time again?” she asked.
“Such,” Nadia said, “such are the joys. I brought you something to take your mind off it, though.”
“Something good?”
“No,” Nadia said, taking a seat behind her. “The Earther woman wants to talk to you again.”
Michio shrugged off the paper robe from the hospital and leaned forward. Nadia passed the hand terminal to her and began examining the edges of the false skin that covered her wounds. The nerves that let her experience light touch were smothered by living bandage. The ones that reported pain were terribly sensitive. It was like being numb and skinned alive at the same time. Michio gritted her teeth. Waited. When she had made the full circuit—across Michio’s back and down her left side and arm—Nadia sighed.
“It looks good?” Michio said.
“It looks terrible, but it’s healing well. Basal growth all the way around.”
“Well,” Michio said. “Thank God for small favors.”
Nadia made a small sound in the back of her throat, neither agreement nor dissent. Michio heard the soft crack as Nadia opened the tube of medicated lotion. Michio scooped up the hand terminal, opened her message queue. The new message from Earth was waiting for her, flagged as critical. Chrisjen Avasarala. The leader of Earth, and the greatest enemy Michio Pa had ever had. And yet here they were.
“We did this wrong,” she said.
“What?” Nadia asked.
Michio lifted the hand terminal for Nadia to see. “We’re working with the people we used to be fighting against.”
“We’ll fight them again later,” Nadia said, like she was promising a sweet to a child, but only after she ate her real food. “Are you ready?”
Michio nodded, and Nadia smeared on the first finger-load of ointment. The pain was bright, like she was burning again. She started the message, tried to focus on it.
The old woman appeared, sitting at a desk. It wasn’t the first time Michio had gotten a message directly from her or from the new prime minister of Mars, but more often she’d heard from generals or functionaries. They only seemed to include Michio when they were asking for something big. It very much gave her the sense of being the least important person at their table.
“Captain Pa,” Avasarala said, and if there was an undertone of contempt in the words, it was only to be expected. Nadia moved lower on her back, new pain blooming just as the first swath began to fade. “The situation on Medina has gone pear-shaped. Holden and the OPA forces have succeeded in taking the station, but saw fit to annihilate the rail gun defenses. Which leaves them undefended. The Free Navy has deployed what appears to be every functioning ship they have left—fifteen in all—burning hard for the gate. The good news is that Inaros has essentially retreated from every other port and base in the system. The bad news, of course, is that he’ll get Medina back, his supply lines to Laconia reestablished, and in a defensible position. Unless, of course, we find a way to stop him.”
Avasarala took a deep breath, looked down, and when she looked up again, something had changed in her face. She looked wearier? Older? More determined?
“I am very, very sorry for the loss you suffered. It strikes close to home. I lost a spouse to this war as well. I can’t imagine how devastating it must be to lose two. I would not ask this if it were not critical, but if you have any ships or influence with any factions that can help us to stop or slow Inaros before he reaches the gate, we need your help now.
“Nothing I can offer you will address the sacrifice you have already made, but I hope you will walk this last kilometer with me. And that we can end this together. Please let me know as soon as you can. The Free Navy is already burning.”
The message ended, and the terminal dropped back to her queue. Nadia moved on to her side, and Michio flinched.
“Almost done,” Nadia said.
“This is the second time one of our enemies has called me to pull them out of a fire.”
“Can we do it again?”
“All we did last time was burn ourselves trying.”
She’d known going in that there might be a price for leaving the Panshin behind. Titan was the largest of Saturn’s moons. The Free Navy had its strongest presence outside the Jovian system there, projecting threat toward Enceladus, Rhea, Iapetus, Tethys. The ice buckers in the rings. Controlling the space without occupying it.