The coffee maker started hissing to itself, and the office was filled with a rich, bitter smell. While the coffee brewed, Fred leaned over his desk tapping on the terminal. “Something with missing ships, right? That’s what our intel team says.”
“Have your people looked into it at all?”
“Honestly? No. I’d heard rumblings about it, but we’re buried here. Every ship with a functioning Epstein is heading through for the gates. We’ve got our hands full keeping them from running into each other going through the rings. Most of them are going into unexplored systems with no other ships or stations. We don’t hear back from a few, sort of seems like the obvious thing happening.”
Holden accepted a steaming mug from Fred with a grateful nod and took a sip. The old man’s coffee didn’t disappoint. “I get that,” Holden said after another drink. “And I think her theory on it is pretty far-fetched, but it’s the kind of thing that will get public traction if we don’t find a better answer first.”
“She has a theory already?”
“She thinks it’s the protomolecule. The robots and tech waking up on Ilus is her one datapoint.”
“You told me that was a onetime thing,” Fred said, frowning over his coffee mug. When he spoke again his words blew steam in front of them, like a whisp of dragon breath. “Is Miller back?”
“No, he’s not back. As far as I know, there isn’t an active protomolecule culture in existence in the universe. But —”
“But I’ve got the inactive stuff you gave me.”
“Right, and Monica knows about it somehow,” Holden said.
Fred’s frown only deepened at that. “I’ve got a leak somewhere.”
“Yeah, you totally do, but that isn’t the part that worries me.”
Fred’s eyebrows went up in a nonverbal question.
“Monica,” Holden continued, “has decided that we should take out the goo and use it like some sort of Ouija board to summon the ghost of Miller.”
“But that’s stupid,” Fred said.
“Right? So I think we should exhaust all other possibilities before we leap right to tinkering with alien viruses.”
“First time for everything, I guess,” Fred said, only lightly coating the words in sarcasm. “You have alternate theories?”
“I do,” Holden said, “but you won’t like it.”
“I also still have bourbon if we need anesthetic for this operation.”
“It may get there,” Holden replied, then drank off the rest of his coffee to give himself time. No matter how much Fred had aged over the last half decade, Holden found himself still intimidated by the man. It was hard to broach topics Fred might take offense to.
“More?” Fred asked, pointing at his empty cup. Holden declined with a shake of his head.
“So there’s that radical extremist faction of the OPA that you were telling me about,” Holden said.
“I don’t think —”
“They’ve had at least two public attacks. One on Martian interests, and one on Earth itself.”
“Both of which failed.”
“Maybe,” Holden said. “But we’re assuming we know what their goals were, and that seems like a bad assumption to make. Maybe blowing up a big chunk of a Martian shipyard and forcing the UN home fleet to fire a bunch of missiles at an ancient freighter are wins to them.”
“Okay,” Fred said with a grudging nod. “Fair enough.”
“But there’s a third leg to this. Sure, the radicals think Earth and Mars will abandon them once the new worlds are colonized, but that means the colonists themselves are part of the problem.”
“Agreed.”
“So, what if this radical OPA wing decides that in addition to blowing up some of the inner planets’ shit, they can send a message by taking out some colony ships?”