Cibola Burn (Expanse 4)

“You weren’t going to leave without saying goodbye, were you?” he asked.

“I don’t ship until tomorrow,” she said. “I was just going out for dinner with friends.”

“Well, I’m pleased to see you all the same. Do you have a minute?”

“For the military head to the largest terrorist organization in known space?” she said. “How could I not. What’s on your mind?”

Fred Johnson walked forward slowly and she fell into step with him. The atrium was polished stone. A fountain in the center let water flow slowly down the sides of an abstract and genderless human figure. He sat at the fountain’s edge. She thought the slow ripples made the liquid seem oily.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t support you more in there,” Fred said. “But you understand how it is.”

“I do. We’ll do what we can around the edges, the same as we always do.”

“We have a lot of Belters in those ships. If I take too hard a line with them, it’ll be worse than taking one that’s too soft.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me,” Avasarala said. “We’re both constrained by the realities of the situation. And anyway, at least we’re not as fucked as Pratkanis.”

“I know,” Johnson said, shaking his head.

“Is Anderson Dawes still managing the political side out there?”

Johnson shrugged. “For the most part. It’s herding kittens. If kittens had a lot of guns and an overdose of neo-Libertarian property theory. What about you? How’s Gao doing as secretary-general?”

“She isn’t stupid, but she’s learning to fake it,” Avasarala said. “She’ll say all the right words and make all the right hand gestures. I’ll see to it.” Fred Johnson grunted. The fountain burbled and the crappy soothing music failed to soothe. She felt like they were on the edge of something, but that was an illusion. In truth, they’d gone over the edge a long time back.

“Take care of yourself, Fred,” she said.

“We’ll be in touch.”

~

Joint Martian and UN security had blocked off the tube station for her. She sat in a tube car with blacked-out windows and three armed security men at the doors. The shaped-plastic seat faced the side, and she could see herself in the reflection. She looked tired, but at least the low g made her seem younger. She was afraid age had been making her jowly. The car hissed along its track. Outside, the tube was in vacuum to reduce drag. She laid her head against the side of the car and let her eyes close for a moment.

Mars had been the first. Not the first station or the first colony, but the first attempt by humanity to cut ties from Earth. The upstart colony that declared its independence. And if Solomon Epstein hadn’t been a Martian and hadn’t perfected his drive just when he had, Mars would have been the site of the first true interplanetary war. Instead, Earth and Mars had made the kind of rough friendship where each side could feel superior to the other and they’d set about carving up the solar system. So it had been for as long as she could remember.

That was the danger of being old and a politician. Habits outlived the situations that created them. Policies remained in place after the situations that inspired them had changed. The calculus of all human power was changing, and the models she used to make sense of it shifted with them, and she had to keep reminding herself that the past was a different place. She didn’t live there anymore.

The tube stopped in Nariman, and Avasarala got out. The station was packed with locals who’d been put off until her journey was complete. On Earth, they would have been a mishmash of Anglo and African, Asiatic and Polynesian. Here, they were Martian, and she was an Earther. As the security detail ushered her out to an electric cart, she wondered what they would be next. New Terrans, she supposed. Unless the squatters’ naming schema won out. Then… what? Ilusians? Illusions? It was a stupid fucking name.

And God, but she was tired. It was all so terribly large and so terribly dangerous, and she was so tired.

The private room at the back of the restaurant had been closed off for her. A space made for two, maybe three hundred people. Crystal chandeliers. Silverware that was actually silver. Cut crystal wineglasses and carpeting that had been manufactured to mimic centuries-old Persian carpets. Bobbie Draper sat at the table making everything around her seem small just by being near it.

“Fuck,” Avasarala said. “Am I late?”

“They told me to come here early for the security check,” Bobbie said, standing up. Avasarala walked to her. It was odd. She could embrace Fred Johnson with ease and grace, and she barely cared about him as anything more than a political rival and a tool. Bobbie Draper she genuinely liked, and she wasn’t sure whether she should hug the former gunnery sergeant, shake her hand, or just sit down and pretend they saw each other every day. She opted for the last.

“So veteran’s outreach?” she said.

“It pays the bills,” Bobbie said.

“Fair enough.”

A young man with sharp, beautiful features and carefully manicured hands ghosted forward and poured water and wine for them both.

“And how have you been?” Bobbie asked.

“All right, over all. I got a new hip. Arjun says it makes me cranky.”

“He can tell?”

“He’s got a lot of practice. I fucking hate the new job, though. Assistant to the undersecretary was perfect for me. All the power, less of the bullshit. Now with the promotion, I have to travel. Meet with people.”

“You met with people before,” Bobbie said, sipping the water and ignoring the wine. “That’s what you do. You meet with people.”

“Now I have to go there first. I don’t like being on a ship for weeks to have a conversation I could have had over a link from my own fucking desk.”

“Yeah,” Bobbie said, smiling. “I think I see what Arjun meant.”

“Don’t be a smartass,” Avasarala said, and the beautiful young man brought them salads. Crisp lettuce and radishes, dark, salty olives. None of it had ever seen the sun. She picked up her fork. “And now this.”

“I’ve been following it in the newsfeeds. Right-to-gate access treaties?”

“No, that’s bullshit. We feed that to the reporters so they have something to talk about. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

Bobbie’s fork paused halfway to her mouth. She frowned. Avasarala swigged down half a glass of wine. It was good, she supposed.