Tiamat's Wrath (Expanse 8)

“Always.”

“Good enough,” he said, and patted the mattress at his side.

“I have to go.”

“Mixed signals,” he said.

“I’ll be back after work.”

“You say that now, but I know you. You’ll find something interesting and stay up until midnight chasing it, and by the time you come home, it’ll be time to leave again.”

“You’re probably right.”

“It’s why everyone needs you,” Fayez said. “It’s why I need you too. When you get back, I’ll be here.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t run away together.”

“Maybe in our next lives.”

The universe is always stranger than you think.

It didn’t matter how broad her imagination was, how cynical, how joyous and open, how well researched or wild minded. The universe was always stranger. Every dream, every imagining, however lavish and improbable, inevitably fell short of the truth.

Elvi had been born in a system with a single star and a handful of planets. She’d studied exobiology when it was still theoretical. When she’d been a newly minted PhD, her greatest dream was that she might get a research fellowship on Mars, and maybe—the pinnacle of all her wildest hopes—find some hard evidence that life had evolved there independently. It would have been the most astounding, important thing she could imagine. She’d be in the scientific histories as the woman who’d discovered living structures that came from someplace besides the Earth.

Looking back, the dream seemed impossibly small.

At the labs, she stopped to have a long talk with Dr. Ochida. She wanted a rundown of all the research being done—where it stood, who was heading up the projects, what his opinions were of the experimental designs. Even after Cortázar had died, she hadn’t done that. Hadn’t acted as though the labs were hers to run. Now she did, and Ochida didn’t object. That probably made it true.

At any rate, he answered everything she asked, and Trejo hadn’t sent any guards to drag her away. So she was effectively in control of the most advanced research facility in the history of humankind. And if there was one thing that her decades in academic science had drilled into her consciousness, it was that power meant policy.

“We’re going to need to make some changes,” she said. “We’re shutting down the Pen.”

Ochida actually stopped walking. She could have said that all the science teams were now required to walk on their hands, and the man would have been less astounded.

“But the protomolecule… The supply…”

“We have enough,” she said. “Our reason for collecting more died with the construction platforms.”

“But… the prisoners. What do we do with them?”

“We’re not executioners,” Elvi said. “We never should have been. When the guards come, tell them we don’t accept the transfer. If Trejo wants to line people up against the wall and shoot them, I’m not in a position to stop that. But I can say we won’t support it. And we won’t base our research on it. From here on in, informed consent or work with yeast.”

“This is… This will…”

“Speed isn’t the only measure of progress, Doctor,” Elvi said. But she could tell from his eyes he didn’t know what she meant. “Just get it done. All right?”

“Yes, Dr. Okoye. As you see fit.” He almost bowed as he retreated.

The universe is always stranger than you think. Elvi went to her private lab. There were so many things to do, so many possible pathways to follow in the research. She could keep the secret of Duarte’s condition, or she could make her own research group, pulling from the best minds in Laconia. Trejo’s conspiracy was down to just the two of them and Kelly anyway. And with Teresa on the run with James fucking Holden, treating it as a state secret was more and more ridiculous.

The chair seemed more comfortable now that it was hers. She knew it hadn’t actually changed, but she had. She pulled up her waiting messages and ran through them. The most recent one was from the shipyards, giving her an unscheduled update on the status of the Falcon. She took it as an olive branch from Trejo.

As she went through the list, she felt herself growing calmer. More focused. The complicated, obscure world of politics and intrigue fell away, and the complicated, obscure world of research

protocols and alien biology took its place. It was like coming home. Fayez had been right. She was going to be there until morning if she wasn’t careful. But whatever she did, whatever path she took, the first step was the same. Even if it was a bad idea, it was necessary.