“Copy that,” Alex said.
“Where is Amos, anyway?”
It was subtle, the difference between Alex being at ease and Alex trying to sound like he was at ease. “Ship thinks he’s in the sick bay,” Alex said.
Clarissa, Bobbie thought. Well, shit.
The Rocinante’s medical bay smelled like antiseptic and vomit.
The antiseptic came from the little floor scrubber that was humming around the room, leaving a trail of shiny decking in its wake. The acid-and-bile smell of vomit came from Clarissa Mao.
“Bobbie,” she with a smile. She was on one of the med bay’s couches, an autodoc cuff around her upper arm that buzzed and hummed and occasionally clicked. Claire’s face would tighten at each click. Injections, maybe, or something worse.
“Hey, Babs,” Amos said. The hulking mechanic sat at Claire’s bedside reading something on his hand terminal. He didn’t look up when Bobbie entered the room, but raised a hand in greeting.
“How’re you feeling today?” Bobbie asked, grimacing internally as she said it.
“I’ll be out of bed in a few minutes,” Claire said. “Did I miss something on the pre-landing check?”
“No, no,” Bobbie replied, shaking her head. She feared that Claire would tear the tubes out of her arm and leap out of bed if she said yes. “Nothing like that. I just need to borrow the lunk for a minute.”
“Yeah?” Amos said, looking at her for the first time. “That okay with you, Peaches?”
“Whatever you need,” she said, gesturing at the med-bay in general. “You will always find me at home.”
“All right,” Amos stood up, and Bobbie guided him out into the corridor.
Surrounded by the fading gray walls, and with the sick-bay hatch closed behind him, Amos seemed to deflate a little. He leaned his back against the wall and sighed. “That’s tough to watch, you know?”
“How is she?”
“Good days and bad days, same as anyone,” Amos said. “Those aftermarket glands she had put in keep leaking their rat shit into her blood, and we keep filtering it back out. But taking ’em back out would fuck her up worse, so …”
Amos shrugged again. He looked tired. Bobbie had never really been able to figure out what the relationship between the Roci’s mechanic and his tiny counterpart was. They weren’t sleeping together, and it didn’t seem like they ever had. Most of the time they didn’t even talk. But when Claire’s health had started its decline, Amos was usually there by her side in the sick bay. It made Bobbie wonder if he’d do that for her if she got sick. If anyone would.
The big mechanic was looking a little thinner himself these days. Where most big men tended toward pudge in their later years, Amos had gone the other direction. What fat he’d had was gone, and now his arms and neck looked ropey with old muscle just under the skin. Tougher than shoe leather.
“So,” he said, “what’s up?”
“Did you read my briefing on Freehold?”
“Skimmed it.”
“Three hundred people who hate centralized authority and love guns. Holden’s going to insist on meeting them on their turf, because that’s the kind of shit he does. He’ll need backup.”
“Yeah,” Amos agreed. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“I was thinking maybe I should take this one,” Bobbie said, nodding her head toward the sick-bay hatch. Not saying, She doesn’t look good. Amos pursed his lips, considering.
“Yeah, okay,” Amos said. “Atmospheric landing will probably shake the damn ship apart. I’ll have plenty to do here.”
Bobbie started to leave, then something made her stop. Before she knew she was going to say it, she asked, “How much longer?”
“Rest of her life,” Amos said, then went back into the sick bay and closed the hatch behind him.
She found Holden and Naomi eating breakfast in the galley. The smell of scrambled eggs with powdered onions and what passed for peppers competed with brewing coffee. Bobbie’s belly growled as soon as she walked into the room, and without a word Holden pushed a plate toward her and began slopping eggs onto it.
“Enjoy, because this is the last of the real eggs until we get back to Medina,” Holden said as he dished her up.
Naomi finished chewing a mouthful and said, “What’s going on?”
“Did you guys read my threat assessment on Freehold?”
“Skimmed it,” Holden replied.
“First-generation colony,” Naomi said. “Eight years since founding, and it’s still only got one township on it in a semiarid temperate zone. Low-level agriculture, but most of the food supply is salvaged hydroponics. Some goats and chickens, but the livestock is surviving on the hydroponics too, so not the most efficient model. Lithium in the planetary crust and a weirdly lot of uranium trapped in polar glaciers that hopefully means it’ll be easily harvested helium if they ever get the infrastructure to mine something. Charter that calls for radical personal autonomy enforced by a citizen militia made up of the whole colonial population.”
“Really?” Holden said. “The whole population?”
“So three hundred people who like guns,” Naomi said, then pointed at Holden. “This one will insist on getting off the ship and speaking to them in person.”
“Right?” Bobbie said, then quickly shoveled a heaping scoop of eggs into her mouth. They were as good as her nose had promised they’d be.
“This has to be done face-to-face,” Holden said. “If not, we could just have radioed the message to them from Medina and saved ourselves the trip.”
“Diplomacy is your thing,” Bobbie said. “I’m strictly concerned with tactical issues. And when we talk to the powers that be on Freehold, we’ll be telling them there’s no reason not to just start shooting and hope for the best.”
Holden pushed his half-empty plate away and leaned back with a frown. “Explain that.”
“You really should read my assessments.”
Naomi grabbed Holden’s mug and moved over to the coffee machine. “I think I know where she’s going with this. You want any coffee, Bobbie?”
“Yes, thank you,” Bobbie said, then pulled up the tactical assessment on her hand terminal. “These are people who left Earth to form a colony based on personal sovereignty. They believe in the absolute right of each citizen to defend themselves and their property, with lethal force if necessary. And they are well armed for this purpose.”
“I followed that part,” Holden said.
“They are also years from self-sustaining at this point. The reason they’re relying on hydroponics is that they’re having a difficult time developing soil for their greenhouses. Something about the mineral content. The money they’ve been able to get from preliminary mining futures is all going to Auberon for agricultural supplies trying to get around that. They don’t agree that the Transport Union should be taking tariffs on any basic life-sustaining trade. Which is what got us here.”
Naomi handed her a steaming mug of coffee with lots of cream, just the way she liked it. Holden nodded in a way that probably meant trouble. He’d understood what she was saying.
“How long till they have local crops?” Naomi asked, leaning over her shoulder to look at the report.
“I don’t know, but that’s not the issue here—”
“The issue here,” Holden said, “is that we’re delivering a death sentence. Isn’t that right? We’re going to land and tell them they’re cut off from trading with other colonies. And they know they’re going to run out of usable food in a few months, and won’t be able to grow their own for years. The union is putting them in an impossible position. And by union right now, I mean us. We are.”