“Ok-ay,” Holden said.
“My point is,” Elvi said, “not all of them wake up. They don’t have to. As long as enough of the organisms reactivate when the time comes, enough that the population survives, even if individuals don’t. It’s never a hundred percent. And shutting down and coming back up is a complicated, dangerous process.”
Holden took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair. He had thick, dark hair. It looked like he hadn’t washed it in a while. Amos lost his game, scooped up the cards, and started shuffling them with slow, deliberate movements.
“So,” Holden said, “you think that these… things we’re seeing are artifacts or organisms or something trying to wake up?”
“And failing. At least sometimes,” she said. “I mean, the moon melted. And that thing in the desert was clearly broken. Or anyway, that’s what it was looking like to me.”
“Me too,” Holden said. “But just because it was moving, we kind of knew things were waking up.”
“No, that’s not the point,” Elvi said. “There are always a small percentage of organisms that don’t wake up, or wake up wrong. These things? If that’s the model, they’re the ones waking up wrong.”
“Following you so far,” Holden said.
“Failure rates are usually low. So why aren’t we seeing a bunch of things waking up right?”
Holden went over to the table and sat on its edge. He looked frightened. Vulnerable. It was strange seeing a man who’d done so much, who’d made himself known across all civilization by his words and deeds, look so fragile.
“So you think there are more of these things – maybe a lot more – that are activating, and we’re just not seeing it?”
“It would fit the model,” she murmured.
“All right,” he said. And a moment later, “This isn’t making my day better.”
Chapter Twenty-Five: Basia
Basia sat alone on the operations deck of the Rocinante. He was belted into a crash couch next to what he’d been told was the comm station. The controls were quiet, waiting for someone to request a connection, occasionally flashing a system status message across its screen. The messages were incomprehensible mixtures of acronyms, system names, and numbers. The text was in a gentle green font that made Basia think they weren’t particularly urgent.
Alex was in the cockpit, the hatch closed. That didn’t mean anything. The hatches closed automatically to seal each deck from the others in case of atmosphere loss. It was a safety measure, nothing more.
It still felt like being locked out.
The panel startled him with a burst of static followed by a voice. The volume was just loud enough that Basia could tell it was a conversation between two men without understanding any of the words. A red RECORDING status blinked in one corner of the screen. The Rocinante, monitoring and recording all of the radio transmissions around Ilus. Maybe Holden was doing that on purpose to have a record of his mission when he returned to Earth. Or maybe warships did it by default. It wasn’t something that a welder had to worry about. Or a miner. Or whatever he’d been with Coop and Cate.
Basia was looking for a way to turn up the volume and listen in when Alex’s voice blared from the panel. “Got a call comin’ in.”
“Okay,” Basia said, not sure if the pilot could hear him. He didn’t know if he needed to press a button to respond.
The message on the comm panel changed, and a male voice said, “You don’t need to do anything.”
For a moment, Basia had the irrational feeling that the person speaking had read his mind. He was about to reply when another voice, younger, male, said, “Just talk?” Jacek. The second voice was Jacek. And now Basia recognized the older voice as Amos Burton. The man who’d guarded him at the landing field. “Yeah,” Amos said. “I’ve opened a connection to the Roci.”
“Hello?” Jacek said.
“Hey, son,” Basia replied around the lump in his throat.
“They made our hand terminal work again,” Jacek said. By they Basia guessed he meant Holden and Amos.
“Oh yeah?” Basia said. “That’s real good.”
“It only talks to the ship,” Jacek said, his young boy’s voice bright with excitement. “It doesn’t play videos or anything like it used to.”
“Well, maybe they can make it do that too, later.”
“They said someday we’ll be on the network, like everyplace in Sol system. Then we can do whatever.”
“That’s true,” Basia said. Water was building up in his eyes, making it hard to see the little messages flashing by on the screen. “We’ll get a relay and a hub and then we can send data back and forth through the gates. We’ll have everything on the network then. There’s still going to be a lot of lag.”
“Yeah,” Jacek said, then stopped. There was a long silence. “What’s the ship like?”
“Oh, it’s pretty great,” Basia said with forced enthusiasm. “I have my own room and everything. I met Alex Kamal. He’s a pretty famous pilot.”
“Are you in jail?” Jacek asked.
“No, no, I get to go anywhere I want on the ship. They’re real nice. Good people.” I love you. I am so sorry. Please, please be all right.
“Does he let you fly it?”
“I never asked,” Basia said with a laugh. “I’d be scared to, though. It’s big and fast. Lots of guns on it.”
There was another long silence, then Jacek said, “You should fly it and blow up the RCE ship.”
“I can’t do that,” Basia said, putting as much smile in his voice as he could. Making it a joke.
“But you should.”
“How’s your mom?”
“Okay,” Jacek said. Basia could almost hear the shrug in his voice. “Sad. I started playing soccer more. We have enough for two teams, but we trade players a lot.”
“Oh yeah? What do you play?”
“Fullback right now, but I want to play striker.”
“Hey, defense is important. That’s an important job.”
“It’s not as fun,” Jacek said, again with the verbal shrug. There was a long silence while both of them reached for something to say. Something that could be said. Jacek gave up first. “I’m gonna go now, okay?”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Basia said, trying to keep the thickness in his throat from changing his voice. Trying to keep his tone light, fun. “Don’t run off yet. I need to ask you to do something.”