Singh had always known that the history of Laconia and the history of Sol system were connected. He’d never felt those common roots more deeply than now. The sense that his world and Holden’s were part of a single, much vaster story. The makers of the protomolecule were also a part of that larger frame. The things that had killed them, and then vanished.
The things that had returned.
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Amos
“I was thinking about the recyclers,” Peaches said. She sounded tired. She always sounded a little tired, but this was more.
“Yeah?” he said.
They were alone in the bunk. She was sitting up, paring her toenails with a little knife he’d found for her. Something about her meds made them thicker and yellow. He knew it was important to her to keep them short, even though she never said anything.
His hands imagined what it would feel like to snap her neck. The tension first, then the grinding feeling of cartilage ripping as it gave way. He saw the look of betrayal in her eyes as the life went out of them. It was as clear as if he’d actually done it.
“The returns aren’t as good as they ought to be,” she said. “We’ve been able to get eighty-eight, ninety percent recovery, but I don’t think we broke eighty-five on the Freehold run.”
“Worth looking at,” Amos said. “You got any suspects?”
“I want to take a look at the water filters. I know they’re supposed to be the best there is without retrofitting to a straight gel system, but I don’t think they’re doing what’s on the label.”
He closed his eyes and the Rocinante’s recycling system appeared in his mind. If the filters were underperforming … yeah, could throw off the pressure going into the recyclers. Might be enough to drop the reclamation percentages. He pictured what else it would do.
“We should take a peek at the feed lines,” he said.
“Look for distention?” she said.
He grunted. Peaches scowled and nodded once, the way she did when they’d come to an agreement. There were still a few things about the Roci that he knew better than she did, but those were few and far between. And mostly about the weapons systems. She didn’t like those, and it had an effect on how much she thought about them. There were conversations he had with her that he couldn’t have with anybody else.
That didn’t keep the thoughts from coming. It didn’t do anything about the thing in his throat. “You think Holden’s okay?” she asked.
“Is or he isn’t,” Amos said. The thing in his throat got a little bigger. A little tighter. He wasn’t sure why.
“I wish there was something more I could do,” she said.
“Naomi’ll come up with something. Whatever needs doing, we’ll do it.”
She finished the last nail and tossed him the knife. He caught it in the air, folded it closed, and put it under his pillow, where it would stay. Peaches got another couple of her pills and swallowed them dry, then lay back on her bunk. There wasn’t room enough between her bunk and the one above her to get a decent punch going, but he knew what it would feel like to do a straight-kick to her ribs. Or her head. Push her back against the bulkhead, then the next kicks, she wouldn’t be able to avoid. He wasn’t going to do it, but the thoughts came anyway.
“You need some sleep?” he asked.
“Little.”
“You should try to eat some afterward.”
“I’m not keeping much down right now.”
“That’s why they call it ‘try,’” he said. “Worst case, just smear it around your face like a little kid. Absorb some nutrients through your skin.”
She chuckled. “You talked me into it, big guy. After I rest.”
“I’m going to get a jump on it,” he said. “You need anything, you just say it.”
“Thank you,” Peaches said.
He made his way down toward the galley, his shoulders brushing against the conduit and pipes on both sides. In the galley, one of Saba’s people was drinking a cup of coffee. Nice-looking guy, always been pleasant. The thing in his throat moved a little, and Amos felt the coffee cup slamming into the other guy’s face. The edge of the cup folding against the guy’s upper lip. The coffee burning them both. He felt what it would be like, bending him back, trapping his legs under the table so he couldn’t writhe away, pulling until his back snapped. There’d be others by then. The guy’s friends. He thought about how to kill them too.
Amos smiled amiably and nodded. The guy nodded back. Amos got a bowl of oatmeal and honey flavoring. He sat by himself to eat. Saba’s guy finished his drink and walked away. There was a moment when his back was turned, Amos felt his own foot driving into the back of the man’s knee, knocking him forward and down where he’d be in the right place for a choke hold. Amos only sighed and took another spoonful of grain mush. The stuff on the Roci was better, but this was warm anyway. It soothed his throat.
“Hey there, big guy,” Babs said from the doorway.
She stepped over, sat across from him. Her jaw was set and her gaze was firm and straight-ahead. Looking right at him like she was playing at being Holden.
“Got a minute?”
Amos took his half-empty bowl, dropped the spoon in it, and threw them all away as he walked out the door.
There was an environmental-control station about seven doors down. Saba’d been using it to store food, but they’d all been eating at a pretty fair clip, and it was mostly empty space now. Only one entrance, so no one spent much time there. Thick walls filled with insulation foam. The kind that just ate up sound like it was nothing. If the Laconians came, it was a death trap. He shouldered the door open. Babs’ footsteps came from behind him, hard and fast and authoritative. Like a schoolteacher about to chew out her students.
The room was dark, but he found the switch. Too-bright utility lights. They were down to half a pallet of textured protein and some tubs of grain and yeast. The walls were all steel plate except for a patch in one corner where they’d used carbon-silicate lace. A pipe ran along the corner where the ceiling met the left wall. The actual environmental controls were all in locked cabinets and behind security doors that would take a crowbar, a welding torch, and a couple hours to get through. The whole place was maybe three meters by four, and a couple high. It wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty good. He didn’t have anyplace better.
Babs stepped in behind him and closed the door. Her nose had the two little half-moons beside the nostrils that she got when she was pissed. The thing in his throat throbbed like a tumor. For a second, he thought it was maybe going to rupture.
Babs crossed her arms, blocking the door.
“Look, Amos. I understand you’re pissed off at me. And honest to God, I’m more than a little pissed off at you right now too. But we’re a crew. We’re friends, and we can work this out, whatever it is. I’m here, okay? So whatever it is—”
“When did you turn into such a fucking pussy, Babs?” he said. His hands were tingling like they had too much energy in them. Like he was about to ground out. “Did you really come in here to talk about your feelings?”
Her face went blank, her eyes flat. She uncrossed her arms. Her weight sunk into her hips. Her knees bent a little. He figured she was good for maybe one or two more rounds of insults, but he’d gauged wrong.
She shifted her shoulders, swung at the hips, her right arm unfurling. A few years earlier, he might have been able to slip it and get inside. But a few years earlier, she might have been faster. Either way, all he managed was to turn his head away and pull back a couple centimeters before her knuckles slapped into his cheekbone. If he’d been slower, it would have splashed his nose across his face. Her next punch was already coming, and he turned so that it got his shoulder at an angle. The pain was sudden and wide and familiar as an old song. He felt this thing in his throat blowing up like a balloon, expanding out bigger than he was.