Abaddon's Gate (Expanse 3)

Monica was a lovely person. Calm, friendly, charismatic. If even a part of her charm translated to the other side of the camera, it was easy to see how she’d succeeded. The others—Okju, Clip, Cohen—made clear overtures of friendship, cracking jokes with the Rocinante’s crew, making dinners. Reaching out, but it wasn’t clear to Holden whether it was the usual honeymoon period that came when any crew first came together for a long voyage or something more calculated. Maybe a little of both.

What he did see was his own crew drawing back. After two days of the documentary team being on board, Naomi simply retreated to the ops deck where she couldn’t be found. Amos had made a halfhearted pass at Monica, and a slightly more serious attempt with Okju. When both failed, he began spending most of his time in the machine shop. Of them all, only Alex took time to socialize with their passengers, and him not all that often. He’d taken to sometimes sleeping in the pilot’s couch.

They’d agreed to being interviewed, and Holden knew they couldn’t avoid it forever. They hadn’t been out for a full week yet, and even on a fairly high burn it would be months to their destination. Besides, it was in their contract. The discomfort of it was almost enough to distract him from the fact that every day brought them closer to the Ring and whatever it was that Miller wanted him out there for. Almost.

“It’s Saturday,” Naomi said. She was lounging in a crash couch near the comm station. She hadn’t cut her hair for a while, and it was getting long enough to become an annoyance to her. For the last ten minutes, she’d been trying to braid it. The thick black curls resisted her efforts, seeming to move with a will of their own. Based on past experience, Holden knew this was the precursor to cutting half of it off in exasperation. Naomi liked the idea of growing her hair very long, but not the reality. Holden sat at the combat ops panel watching her struggle with it and letting his mind drift.

“Did you hear me?” she said.

“It’s Saturday.”

“Are we inviting our guests to dinner?”

It had become custom on the ship that no matter what else was going on, the crew tried to have dinner as a group once a week. By unspoken agreement it was usually Saturday. Which day of the week it happened to be didn’t really matter much on a ship, but by holding their dinner on Saturday, Holden thought they were doing some small bit to celebrate the passing of a week, the beginning of another. A gentle reminder that there was still a solar system outside of the four of them.

But he hadn’t considered inviting the documentary crew to join them. It felt like an invasion. The Saturday dinner was for crew.

“We can’t keep them out of it.” He sighed. “Can we?”

“Not unless we want to eat up here. You did give them the run of the galley.”

“Dammit,” he said. “Should have confined them to quarters.”

“For four months?”

“We could have shoved ration bars and catheter bags under the door to them.”

She smiled and said, “It’s Amos’ turn to cook.”

“Right, I’ll call and let him know it’s dinner for eight.”

Amos made pasta and mushrooms, heavy on the garlic, heavy on the Parmesan. It was his favorite, and he always splurged to buy real cloves of garlic and actual Parmesan cheese to grate. Another small luxury they wouldn’t be able to afford if they wound up in a courtroom battle with Mars.

While Amos finished sauteing the mushrooms and garlic, Alex set the table and took drink orders. Holden sat next to Naomi on one side of the table, while the documentary crew sat together on the other. The banter was polite and friendly, and if there was an uncomfortable undercurrent to it all, he still wasn’t quite sure why.

Holden had asked them not to bring cameras or recording equipment to the dinner table, and Monica had agreed. Clip, the Martian, was talking about sports history with Alex. Okju and Cohen, sitting across from Naomi, were telling stories about the last assignment they’d been on, covering a new scientific station that was in stationary orbit around Mercury. It should have been almost pleasant, and it just wasn’t.

Holden said, “We don’t usually eat this well while flying, but we try to do something nice for our weekly dinner together.”

Okju smiled and said, “Smells lovely.” She was wearing half a dozen rings, a blouse with buttons on it, a silver pendant, and an ivory-colored comb holding back her frizzy brown hair. The soundman gazed serenely at nothing, his black glasses hiding the top of his face, his expression calm and open. Monica watched him look over her crew, saying nothing, a faint smile on her lips.

“Chow,” Amos said, then began putting bowls of food on the table. While the meal was handed around in a slow circuit, Okju bowed her head and mumbled something. It took Holden a moment to realize she was praying. He hadn’t seen anyone do it for years, not since he’d left home. One of his fathers, Caesar, had sometimes prayed before meals. Holden waited for her to finish before he started eating.

“This is very nice,” Monica said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” said Holden.

“We’re a week out of Ceres,” she said, “and I think we’re all settled in. Was wondering if we could start scheduling some preliminary interviews? It’s mostly so we can test out the equipment.”

“You can interview me,” Amos said, not quite hiding his leer.

Monica smiled at him and speared a mushroom with her fork, then stared at him while she popped it into her mouth and chewed slowly.

“Okay,” she said. “We can start with background work. Baltimore?”

The silence was suddenly brittle. Amos started to stand, but a gentle hand on his arm from Naomi stopped him. He opened his mouth, closed it, then looked down at his plate while the pale skin on his scalp and neck turned bright red. Monica looked down at her plate, her expression at the friction point between embarrassed and annoyed.

“That’s not a good idea,” Holden said.

“Captain, I’m sensitive to privacy issues for you and your crew, but we have an agreement. And with all respect, you’ve been treating me and mine like we’re unwelcome.”

Around the table, the food was starting to cool off. It had hardly been touched. “I get it. You held up your end of the deal,” Holden said. “You got me out of Ceres, and you put money in our pockets. We haven’t been holding up our end. I get it. I’ll set aside an hour tomorrow for starters, does that work?”