Persepolis Rising (Expanse 7)

Probably him.

Clarissa made a soft sound, somewhere between a grunt and cough. She turned toward him. Her skin was pale, sheened with sweat, but her smile was strong and unforced. “Hey,” she said. “What did I miss? Did we hear about Holden? What’s news?”

“No, it wasn’t that. I was just getting a little pep talk,” Alex said. “How’re you doing?”

Clarissa’s eyes drifted closed and then open again, like a blinking in slow motion. “Living the dream,” she said, and chuckled. “Have you seen Amos? He was going to get me … something.”

“I think he’s still out doing that. He’ll be back, though. Don’t worry.”

“I never do,” Clarissa said, and shuddered like she was cold. The room wasn’t cold. “You think they could fix me?”

“Who?”

“The Laconians,” Clarissa said. “I keep thinking about how their tech is all levels and levels above ours. And I wonder if maybe their medicine is too. Maybe they could get these fucking implants out of me. Plaster over the worst of the damage.”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Kind of ironic that I’m working to fuck them all the way up, isn’t it?” She made a single, low sound. If she’d strung a few like it together, it would have been chuckling.

“I guess it is,” he said. And then a moment later, “If you want to go to one of their clinics? I mean it would probably mean getting out of this underground business, but if you want to, we can work something out.”

Her smile was love and pity. “You really think that’s true? That we could work something out?”

“Hell yes,” Alex said.

“Well, I’ll keep that option in mind,” she said. “You’re a good man, Alex Kamal.”

“You’re not too bad yourself,” he said.

“I am not presently at my best,” Clarissa said. “But I appreciate the thought. I really do.”

Her eyes fluttered closed again. Her face relaxed. She looked like a wax model of herself. She’ll be better when we get the Roci back, he thought. Not better-better. Just improved, but better than this. And once he was back in the pilot’s seat, he wasn’t ever going dockside again if he could help it. Being on the Rocinante was being home.

Everywhere else was where the trouble came.

Bobbie came with the news about Holden, and something else besides. It felt almost like something foreordained. As soon as he had told Naomi that they’d save Holden, Holden appeared in the station brig and the document outlining how to free him fell into their hands. It was perfect enough to make him very nervous.

“This is astounding,” Naomi said, paging through the file.

Alex leaned over her, trying to see the screen of her terminal and not interrupt her at the same time, and doing a middling job of both. If there was any sure sign of Naomi’s relief, it was that she was back on the job.

The room was small, the door firmly closed, and Saba had set the monitor to the local newsfeed with the volume high. A young man he didn’t recognize was interviewing Carrie Fisk about the war in Sol system and the traffic between the colony worlds that was just about to begin. The colonies don’t care who’s running Medina, so long as we’re running it well. The Transport Union was fine, and Laconian oversight will be fine too. Better, even, because the Laconian model respects self-rule. The Laconian Congress of Worlds is a real voice for its members. That’s never been the case before. Alex tried watching her, just so he’d have something to do besides hover. It didn’t work very well.

Bobbie paced along the wall behind her, three strides one way, then turned, then three back. Saba was more subdued, his body held still and only his eyes flickering. The two of them had the same sense of barely restrained action. Like a boulder on a mountaintop that’s just starting to shift toward the slope.

Naomi made a small, satisfied sound at the back of her throat and followed a linked passage to a schematic of a ship that looked from the outside like the Gathering Storm.

“Who knows about this?” Alex asked. “I mean, who’s seen it?”

“One of mine broke the encryption,” Saba said. “She brought it to me straight. Didn’t read it, even. Maha, she solid like stone. Not everyone of mine is, but her? I tell her she didn’t see it, and it never got seen.”

“This has the operational plans for the Gathering Storm,” Naomi said. “Whatever else you want to say about these Laconians, they are thorough.”

“Most of it’s MRCN and MMC protocols and practices,” Bobbie said. “Five-sixths of it are the operating procedures Alex and I trained on, word for word.”

“You should both read the thing, then,” Saba said. “Alles la. Mark down where it’s changed. There’s reasons to change things. Might point us the right way. Know what’s behind it, maybe even better than this on its own.”

“I don’t know,” Naomi said. “This on its own is pretty damned good.”