Abaddon's Gate (Expanse 3)

“You know what I think? I don’t think you’re a professional. I think you’re an amateur. You made a bunch of amateur mistakes, and things got away from you. You tell me if I’m right, and we’ll go from there. But you keep playing this catatonia shit, and you’re going to get killed. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

He had a good voice. It had what her singing coach would have called a thorough range. Deep as gravel, but with reedy overtones. It was the kind of voice she’d expect in a man who’d been well bruised by the world. Her singing voice had always been a little reedy too, like her father’s. Petyr, poor thing, had never been able to hold a melody. The others—Michael, Anthea, Julie, Mother—had all had very pure voices. Like flutes. The problem with a flute was that it couldn’t help being pure. Even sorrow sounded posed and over-lovely when the flute was expressing it. Reeds had that deeper buzz, that dirtiness, and it gave the sound authenticity. She and her father were reeds.

“Corin?” the man on the screen said. “Does she understand what I’m saying?”

The woman with the gun picked up the hand terminal, looked down at Melba, and then into the screen.

“I don’t think so, chief.”

“The doctor said there wasn’t any brain damage.”

“Did,” the woman agreed. “That don’t make her right, though.”

The sigh carried.

“Okay,” the man’s voice said. “We’re going to have to go from a different angle. I got an idea, but you should come back in first.”

“Sa sa,” the woman said. She stepped out of the cell. The bars closed again. They were narrow enough to keep a horse’s hoof from passing through. She could imagine a horse trying to kick, getting its leg stuck, panicking. That would be bad. Better to avoid the problem. Wiser. Easier to stay out than to get out. Someone had said that to her once, but she didn’t know who.

“Hey. Hey,” the other prisoner said. He wasn’t shouting, just talking loud enough that his voice carried. “Was that true? You have glandular implants? Can you break the door? I’m the captain of this ship. If you can get me out of here, I can help you.”

Julie had been the best singer, except that she wouldn’t do it. Didn’t like performing. Father had been the performer. He’d always been the one to lead when there were songs to be sung. He was always the one to direct the poses when the family pictures were taken. He was a man who knew what he wanted and how to get it. Only he was in prison now. Not even a name, only a number. She wondered whether his cell was like hers. It would be nice if it was. Only his would be under a full g, of course. The spin gravity wasn’t even up to a half g. Maybe a third, maybe even less. Like Mars or Ceres. Funny that of all the places humans lived, the Earth was always the highest gravity. It was like if you could escape from home, you could escape from anything.

“Are you there? Are you awake? I saw them bring you in. Help me, and I’ll help you. Amnesty. I can get you amnesty. And protection. They can’t extradite from Ceres.”

That wasn’t true, and she knew it. Annoyance almost moved her to speak. Moved her to move. But not quite. The floor was a single sheet of polymer plating, formed to slant down to the drain. With her head against the floor like this, the drain was hardly more than a black line in a field of white. A crow on a frozen lake.

“I have been taken prisoner in an illegal mutiny,” the man said. “We can help each other.”

She wasn’t entirely sure that she could be helped. Or if she could, what she would be helped to do. She remembered wanting something once. Holden. That was right. She’d wanted him dead and worse than dead. Her fantasies of it were so strong, they were like memories. But no, she had done it. Everyone had hated him. They’d tried to kill him. But something else had gone wrong, and they’d thought that Julie did it.

She’d been so close. If she could have killed the Rocinante, they would never have found her. If she’d died on it, they’d never have been sure, and Holden would have gone down in history as the smug, self-righteous bastard that he was. But her father would have known. All that way away, he’d have heard what happened, and he would have guessed that she’d done it. His daughter. The one he could finally be proud of.

It occurred to her that the other prisoner had gone quiet. That was fine. He was annoying. Her knees ached. Her temple hurt where it pressed against the floor. They called bedsores pressure sores. She wondered how long it took for skin to macerate just from not moving. Probably a pretty long time, and she was basically healthy. She wondered how long it had been since she’d moved. It had been a long time. She found she was oddly proud of that.

The footsteps came again. More of them, this time. The plastic boots made a satisfying clump-clump, but there were other ones now. High, clicking footsteps, like a dog’s claws on tile. She felt a tiny flicker of curiosity, like a candle in a cathedral. The boots came, and with them, little blue pumps. An older woman’s ankles. The bars clanked and swung open. The pumps hesitated at the threshold, and then came in. Once they were in motion, the steps were confident. Sure.

The woman in the pumps sat, her back against the wall. Tilly Fagan looked down at her. Her hair was dyed, and her lipstick the same improbable red that made her lips look fuller than they were.

“Claire, honey?” The words were soft and uncomfortable. “It’s me.”

Tension crawled up her back and into her cheeks. Tension, and resentment at the tension. Aunt Tilly didn’t have any right to be here. She shouldn’t have been.

Tilly put a hand out, reaching down and stroking her head like it was a cat. The first human touch she could remember since she’d come to. The first gentle one she could remember at all. When Tilly spoke, her voice was low and soft and full of regret.

“They found your friend.”

I don’t have a friend, she thought, and then something deep under her sternum shifted and went hollow. Ren. They’d found Ren. She pulled her arm out from under her body, pressed the back of her hand against her mouth. The tears were warm and unwelcome and thick as a flood. They’d found Ren. They’d opened her tool chest and found his bones and now Soledad would know. And Bob and Stanni. They’d know what she’d done. The first sob was like a cough, and then the one after it and the one after, and Tilly’s arms were around her. And God help her, she was screaming and crying into Tilly Fagan’s thighs while the woman stroked her hair and made little hushing sounds.