Babylon's Ashes (Expanse 6)

“I put an automated monitor on him,” Shaddid said. “Slaved it to my system. No one else turns it on or off.”

“Because?” Dawes said. He was sitting at her desk. She might be the head of security, but he was the governor of Ceres.

“They’d turn it off,” Shaddid said. “And you wouldn’t ever see that little piece of shit alive again. And just between us, you’d be doing the universe a favor.”

On the screen, Filip Inaros sat against the cell wall, his head tilted back and his eyes closed. He was a young man. Or an old child. As Dawes watched, the boy stretched, wrapped his arms around himself, and settled back without looking around once. He couldn’t tell if it was the movement of someone certain that they were untouchable or frightened that they might not be. Dawes could see the resemblance to Marco, but where the father seemed to radiate charm and confidence, the son was all rage and a vulnerability that made Dawes think of abrasions and raw wounds. Under other circumstances, he might have felt sorry for the prisoner.

“How did it happen?” Dawes asked.

Shaddid tapped on her hand terminal and threw the data to the screen. A corridor outside a nightclub up nearer the center of spin. A door swung open and three people came out, all Belters. A man and woman, their hands caressing each other like they were already in private, and a second young man. A moment later, the door opened again, and Filip Inaros stepped out. There was no sound, so Dawes didn’t know what Filip had shouted at the retreating figures, only that he had. The single young man turned back, and the couple paused to watch. Filip’s head was back, his chest out. For generations, humanity had been free of the gravity well of the inner planets, but the posturing of young men spoiling for a fight never changed.

A new figure stepped into the frame. A man in a security uniform, hands lifted in command. Filip turned toward him, shouting. The security man shouted back, pointed to the wall, ordering Filip against it. The couple turned away and pretended not to know anything about it. The young man who’d been coming back to the fight slowly stepped back, not turning away, but willing to let his enemies spend themselves against each other. Filip went terribly still. Dawes had to force himself not to look away.

The security man reached for his weapon, and a gun appeared in Filip’s hand, the kind of magic flicker that comes of hundreds of hours of practicing a fast draw. And then, as part of the same motion, the muzzle flash.

“God dammit,” Dawes said.

“It’s not subtle,” Shaddid said. “He was given a security order. He refused and fired on the agent. If he was anyone else, he’d be feeding mushrooms right now.”

Dawes pressed his palm to his mouth, rubbing until his lips felt bruised. There had to be something. Some way to walk this back. “How’s your man?”

There was a pause before Shaddid answered. She knew what he was really asking. “Stabilized.”

“Not going to die?”

“Not out of the woods yet either,” she said. And then, “I can’t do my job if people get away with shooting security. I understand there’s diplomacy involved, but with respect, that’s your job. Mine is to keep six million people from killing too many of each other on any given day.”

My job’s not so different, he thought. This wasn’t the time to say it. “Contact Marco Inaros. He’ll be on the Pella in dock 65-C,” Dawes said. “Tell him to meet me here.”

At the end of particularly bad days, Dawes would sometimes pour himself a glass of whiskey and sit for a time with his prized possession: a printed volume of Marcus Aurelius that had belonged to his grandmother. The Meditations were the private thoughts of a person with terrible power—an emperor who could order to death anyone he chose, create the law by speaking it, command any woman to his bed. Or any man, if the mood took him. The thin pages were filled with Aurelius’ private struggle to be a good man despite the frustrations of the world. It left Dawes feeling not comforted but consoled. All through human history, being a moral person and not being pulled into the dramatics and misbehavior of others had caused intelligent people grief.

Dawes had spent decades with that beneath all his personal philosophy. There were bad people everywhere, stupidity and avarice and hubris and pride. And he had to navigate it if there was ever to be hope of a better place for Belters. It wasn’t that things were worse now than they’d been before. Only that they weren’t better.

Tonight, he suspected, would be a good one for rereading his Aurelius.

Marco swept into the security station like he owned it. Smiles and laughter, and a sheer animal presence that filled the space. The security agents unconsciously moved to the edges of the room and didn’t meet his gaze. Dawes went out to lead him back to Shaddid’s office and found himself shaking the man’s hand there in front of everyone. He hadn’t meant to do that.

“This is embarrassing,” Marco said as if he was agreeing with something that had already been said. “I will see that it doesn’t happen again.”

“Your son could have killed one of my people,” Dawes said.

Marco sat back in his chair and opened his arms, an expansive gesture that seemed intended to diminish what anyone else could say. “There was a scuffle, and it got out of hand. Dawes, tell me you’ve never had something like it.”

“I’ve never had something like it,” Dawes said. His voice was cool and hard, and for the first time, Marco’s jovial expression shifted.

“You aren’t going to make this a problem, are you?” Marco said, his voice sinking low. “We have a lot of work to do. Real work. Word’s come that Earth took out the Azure Dragon. We have to reassess our strategy down sunward.”

It was the first Dawes had heard of it, and he had the sense that Marco had kept the information private, ready to play it when he wanted a subject changed. Well, he’d find Dawes harder to throw off than that.

“And we will. But that’s not why I called you here.”

Shaddid coughed, and Marco turned to scowl at her. When he looked back at Dawes, his expression had changed. His smile was as wide, his expression as open and merry, but something in his eyes made Dawes’ stomach clench.

“All right,” Marco said. “Bien, coyo mis. Why did you call me here?”

“Your son can’t be on my station,” Dawes said. “If he stays, I have to put him through a trial. Have to protect him from anyone who might get impatient waiting.” He paused. “Have to follow through the sentence, if there is one.”

Marco went still, a copy of his son on the assault footage. Dawes made an effort not to swallow.