Abaddon's Gate (Expanse 3)

Chris, her young officer, had asked about organizing mixed-group church services on the Behemoth. She’d assumed he meant mixed religions at first, but it turned out he meant a church group with Earthers and Martians and Belters. Mixed, as if God categorized people based on the gravity they’d grown up in. It had occurred to Anna then that there really wasn’t any such thing as a “mixed” church group. No matter what they looked like, or what they chose to call Him, when a group of people called out to God together, they were one. Even if there was no God, or one God, or many gods, it didn’t matter. Faith, hope, and love, Paul had written, but the greatest of these is love. Faith and hope were very important to Anna. But she could see Paul’s point in a way she hadn’t before. Love didn’t need anything else. It didn’t need a common belief, or a common identity. Anna thought of her child and felt a rush of longing and loneliness. She could almost feel Nami in her arms, almost smell the intoxicating new-baby scent on her head. Nono the Ugandan and Anna the Russian had blended themselves together and made Nami. Not a mix, nothing so crude as that. More than just the sum of her parts and origins. A new thing, individual and unique.

No mixed group, then. Just a group. A new thing, perfect and unique. She couldn’t imagine God would see it any other way. Anna was pretty sure she had her first sermon too. She was about halfway through typing up an outline for her “no mixed groups in God’s eyes” sermon on her handset when Bull came through the door, his mechanical legs whining and thumping with each step. Anna thought it gave Bull even more gravitas than he’d had before. He moved with a deliberateness caused by mechanical necessity, but easily mistaken for formality and stateliness. The electric whine of the machine and the heavy thump of his tread were a sort of herald calling out his arrival.

Anna imagined the annoyance Bull would feel if she told him this, and giggled a little to herself.

Bull was in the middle of speaking to a subordinate and didn’t even notice her. “I don’t care how they feel about it, Serge. The agreement was no armed military personnel on the ship. Even if there weren’t a shitload of guns built in, those suits would still be weapons. Confiscate their gear or throw them off the damn ship.”

“Si, jefe,” the other man with him replied. “Take it how, sa sa? Can opener?”

“Charm the bastards. If we can’t make them do anything now, while we’re all friends, what do we do when they decide we aren’t friends? Four marines in recon armor decide they own this ship, they f**king own it. So we take the armor away before they do. I don’t even want that stuff in the drum. Lock it in the bridge armory.”

Serge looked deeply unhappy at this task. “Some help, maybe?”

“Take as many as you want, but if you don’t need them it’s only gonna piss the marines off, and if you do, they won’t actually help.”

Serge paused, mouth open, then closed it with a snap and left. Bull noticed Anna for the first time and said, “What can I do for you, Preacher?”

“Anna, please. I came to talk about Clarissa Mao,” she said.

“If you’re not her lawyer or her union representative—”

“I’m her priest. What happens to her now?”

Bull sighed again. “She confessed to blowing up a ship. Nothing much good comes after that.”

“People say you spaced a man for selling drugs. They say you’re hard. Cold.”

“Do they?” Bull said. Anna couldn’t tell if the surprise in his voice was genuine or mocking.

“Please don’t kill her,” she said, leaning closer and looking him in the eye. “Don’t you let anyone else kill her either.”

“Why not?” The way he said it wasn’t a challenge or a threat. It was as if he just didn’t know that answer, and sort of wondered. Anna swallowed her dread.

“I can’t help her if she’s dead.”

“No offense, but that’s not really my concern.”

“I thought you were the law and order here.”

“I’m aiming for order, mostly.”

“She deserves a trial, and if everyone knows what you know about her, she won’t get one. They’ll riot. They’ll kill her. At least help me get her a trial.”

The large man sighed. “So are you looking for a trial, or just a way to stall for time?”

“Stall for time,” Anna said.

Bull nodded, weighing something in his mind, then gestured for her to precede him into his office. After she sat down next to his battered desk, he clumped around the small space making a pot of coffee. It seemed an extravagance considering the newly implemented water rationing, but then Anna remembered Bull was now the second most powerful person in the slow zone. The privileges of rank.

She didn’t want coffee, but accepted the offered cup to allow Bull a moment of generosity. Generosity now might lead to more later, when she was asking for something she really wanted.

“When Holden starts telling people who actually sabotaged the Seung Un—and he’s Jim Holden, so he will—the UN people are going to ask for Clarissa. And if they give me enough that I can get everyone here, together, and safe until we can get out of this trap, I’m going to give her to them. Not off the ship, but in here.”

“What will they do?” Anna took a companionable sip of her coffee. It burned her tongue and tasted like acid.

“Probably, they’ll put together a tribunal of flag officers, have a short trial, and throw her in a recycler. I’d say space her, normally, but that seems wasteful considering our predicament. Supplies sent from home will take as long to fly through the slow zone to us as they’ll take to get to the Ring.”

His voice was flat, emotionless. He was discussing logistics, not a young woman’s life. Anna suppressed a shudder and said, “Mister Baca, do you believe in God?”

To his credit, he tried not to roll his eyes. He almost succeeded.

“I believe in whatever gets you through the night.”

“Don’t be flip,” Anna said, and was gratified when Bull straightened a little in his walker. In her experience, most strong-willed men had equally strong-willed mothers, and she knew how to hit some of the same buttons.

“Look,” Bull said, trying to reclaim the initiative. Anna spoke over the top of him.

“Forget God for a moment,” she said. “Do you believe in the concept of forgiveness? In the possibility of redemption? In the value of every human life, no matter how tainted or corrupted?”