“Well, this sucks,” he said.
The security announcement had changed Medina like dye dropped into water. The rolling curfew meant no one in public spaces off-shift, and three one-hour periods each cycle when no one could be out of their quarters. A congregation ban—no more than three people in a group. Anyone with a weapon would be arrested. Anyone making unauthorized use of the comm system would be arrested. Anyone that the security forces deemed a threat would be arrested. With every new edict, the nature of the station itself shifted, and the fragile thought that maybe everything would work itself out, that maybe it would be all right, receded.
He knew the station architecture hadn’t really changed. The walls were still at the same angles as before, the hallways curved around the drum the same as they ever had. The air smelled the way air smelled anywhere. It was only the faces of the people that made everything seem smaller, closer, more like a prison. The faces and the checkpoints.
They reached their rented quarters, and Naomi tapped in the manual override code, since their hand terminals were still locked out. The door slid open. When it slid closed behind them, Naomi sagged against it like she was on the edge of collapse. Holden sat at the little built-in table and unpacked the bag in silence. Pad thai and red curry, both with tofu and both spiced enough to make his eyes water a little bit just at the smell of them. On another day, it would have felt like a luxury.
Naomi went to the bath, washed her face in the little sink, and came back out with droplets of water still clinging to her hair and eyelashes. She dropped down across from him and scooped up a fork.
“Any thoughts?” she asked.
“About?”
She waved the fork in a small circle, indicating the room, the station, the universe. Then she speared a cube of tofu and popped it in her mouth.
“Not yet,” he said. “I’ve got to say, I wish that those assholes hadn’t tried to kill this Singh fella.”
“Or that they’d done a better job,” Naomi said, and Holden felt a twitch of anxiety in his gut. Was station security monitoring their cabin? Was that kind of offhanded joke going to get them sent to the brig? Naomi saw it in his face.
“Sorry,” she said, half for him and half for the microphone that might or might not have been there. “Bad joke.”
“I’m thinking this takes the Luna consulting gigs off the table, though.”
“Seems like it. And Titan.”
“That’s a shame. I would have liked Titan.”
“If only we’d gotten out a week earlier,” Naomi said. “Things were different then.”
“Yeah,” Holden said. The pad thai was rich and hot, and it tasted almost like they’d used real limes and peanuts to make it. Almost, but not quite. He put his fork down. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Eat,” Naomi said. “And when you’re done with that, come take a shower with me.”
“Seriously?” he said. She hoisted an eyebrow and smiled.
They ate in silence after that. He thought about putting on some background music, and even reached for his hand terminal before he remembered that it was dead. After, Naomi put the plates and forks into the recycler and led him into the bathroom by the wrist. She pulled off her clothes slowly, and he felt himself responding to her body despite the stress and fear. Or maybe because of it. Lust and anxiety mixed into something that was more than one kind of desperation. She got the water to a decent temperature while he stripped, and then they were there together, arms around each other as the warm cascade filled the curves where their bodies made cups and reservoirs. She leaned her head against his, her lips beside his ear.
“We can talk now,” she murmured. “We’ve got about fifteen minutes before the rationing kicks in.”
“Oh,” he said. “And here I thought this was just my masculine charm.”
She grabbed him gently someplace sensitive. “That too,” she said, and the laughter in her voice was better than anything that had happened in days. “We need to make a real plan. I don’t know what’s going to happen with our money. We only had this room to the end of the week, and I’m not sure whether we’ll keep it past that or if they’ll throw us out early. Or anything else, really. Not at this point.”
“We’ve got to get back to the Roci,” he said.
“Maybe,” Naomi said. “Unless that calls more attention to the kids. It might not be a kindness to have James Holden of the Rocinante ride again. Unless that’s a fight you want to be part of.”
“You think there’s going to be a fight?”
She shifted against him, their skin slipping distractingly under the flow of water. “What would Avasarala say?” Naomi asked.
Holden moved his arms around the small of her back, pulled her gently against him. Kissed her gently. “That Governor Singh fucked up,” he said softly. “That cracking down on the enemy this hard shows that you’re afraid of them.”
“Yup,” Naomi said. “The people who went after him? They were assholes and amateurs. There’s a real underground going to start now, and it’s going have the professionals. If you and I keep our noses very, very clean, we might be able to stay out of that. If we start reaching out to the crew, security may think we’re putting the band back together.”
“So leave them out of it. Commit fully to our new lives as war refugees?”