Cibola Burn (Expanse 4)

“I know,” Holden said. “And I wish to hell that made it easier.”

“Uh, Captain?” the huge baby-man said.

“Amos?”

“There’s another mess of legal crap just came through from the UN for you.”

Holden sighed. “Am I supposed to read it?”

“Don’t see how they can make you,” Amos said. “Just thought you’d want to ignore it intentionally.”

“Thank you. Sort of,” Holden said, then turned back to them. “I’m afraid I have to deal with bureaucracy for a while. But thank you both very much for coming. Please always feel free to come talk to me.”

Fayez stood, and Elvi followed half a second later. He shook each of their hands in turn, then retreated to a room in the back. Fayez walked out to the street with her. Hassan Smith and his rifle acknowledged them again as they passed by.

The sun glowed in the oxygen-blued sky. She knew it was a little too small, the spectrum of light from it a little slanted toward the orange, but it was familiar to her now. As right as thirty-hour days and her close, familiar hut. Fayez fell into step beside her.

“Heading back to your place?” he asked.

“I should,” she said. “I haven’t been out since I came to see Reeve. I’m sure all my datasets are finished. I probably have a bunch of angry messages from home.”

“Yeah, probably,” he said. “So are you all right?”

“You’re the third person to ask me that today,” Elvi said. “Am I acting like there’s something wrong with me?”

“A little,” Fayez said. “You’ve got a right to being a little freaked out.”

“I’m fine,” Elvi said. Her hand still tingled a little where Holden had held it. She massaged her skin. At the end of the street, a Belter girl was walking fast with her head down and her hands shoved deep in her pockets. Murtry and Chandra Wei stood behind her, watching her suspiciously, their rifles in their hands. The wind coming off the plain lifted swirls of dust in the corners of the alleys. She wanted to go back to her hut, and she didn’t. She wanted to go back up the well, onto the Edward Israel and home again, and she wouldn’t have left New Terra for all the money in the world. She remembered being very, very young and terribly upset about something. Crying into her mother’s shoulder that she wanted to go home, except that she was home when she said it. That was what she wanted now.

“Don’t do it,” Fayez said.

“Don’t do what?”

“Fall in love with Holden.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped.

“In that case, really don’t do it,” Fayez said with a cynical laugh, and turned away.

Chapter Fourteen: Holden

“This is the first colonial arbitration meeting,” Holden said, looking into the camera at the end of the table. “My name is James Holden. Representing the colony of New Terra —”

Ilus,” Carol said.

“— is Carol Chiwewe, colony administrator. Representing Royal Charter Energy is chief of security, Adolphus Murtry.”

“How exactly did that happen?” Carol said. She stared at Murtry when she said it, her expression unreadable. Holden had a feeling Carol might be a very good poker player.

Murtry smiled back at her. His face was equally unreadable. “What’s that?”

“You know exactly what I mean,” Carol snapped back. “What are you doing here? You’re hired security. You have no authority to —”

“You put me in this room,” Murtry said, “when you killed the colonial governor. You do remember that? Big explosion? Crashing ship? It would have been hard to miss.”

Holden sighed and leaned back in his uncomfortable chair. He would let the two of them bicker a bit, release some of the venom they’d been storing up, then put his foot down and drag the discussions back on topic.

RCE had offered to host the talks on their shuttle or the Edward Israel, which would have been a lot more comfortable. But the colony had demanded that the meeting be held in First Landing. Which meant that instead of contour-fitted gel filled chairs, they were sitting on whatever metal and plastic monstrosities the colony had lying around. The table was a sheet of epoxied carbon weave sitting on four metal legs, and the room they were using was barely large enough for the table and three chairs. A small shelf on one wall held a coffee pot that was hissing to itself and throwing a bitter scorched smell into the air. Amos leaned against the room’s one door, arms crossed, and with an expression so far beyond bored that he might actually have been asleep.

“— endless accusations without evidence to bolster your own criminal claims of property rights —” Carol was saying.

“Enough,” Holden cut in. “No more outbursts from either of you. I’m here at the request of the UN and OPA to broker some sort of agreement that can let RCE do the scientific work they’re authorized to do, and to keep the people already living on New Terra —”

“Ilus.”

“— Ilus from being harmed in the process.”

“What about RCE employees?” Murtry asked softly. “Are they allowed to be harmed?”

“No,” Holden said. “No, they are not. And so the mandate of these meetings has changed somewhat in light of recent events.”

“I’ve only seen one person murdered since Holden arrived, and that one is on you,” Carol said to Murtry.

“Madam coordinator,” Holden continued, “there can be no further attacks on the RCE personnel. That’s non-negotiable. We can’t work out any sort of deal here unless everyone knows they’re safe.”

“But he —”

“And you,” Holden continued, pointing at Murtry, “are a murderer, and one I intend to see prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law —”

“You have no —”

“— once we return to a region of space that actually has laws,” Holden said. “Which brings us to our first real discussion point. There are two competing claims regarding who has the right to administrate this expedition. We have to establish who makes the laws here.”

Murtry said nothing, but pulled a flexible display out of his coat and unrolled it on the table. It began slowly scrolling through the text of the UN charter giving RCE the scientific mission on New Terra. Carol snorted and pushed it back across the table at him.