Abaddon's Gate (Page 141)
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 144
“More than you have,” Holden said, but there was an apology in his tone. He didn’t want to disappoint Anna and he didn’t want to do what she said. No way for him to win.
“What if I bought the Rocinante?” Anna said.
“It’s not for sale,” Holden said.
“Not from you. I know about your legal troubles. What if I bought the Rocinante from Mars. Gave you the rights to it, free and clear.”
“You’re going to buy a warship?” Alex said. “Do churches get to do that?”
“Sure,” Holden said, “do that, and I’ll smuggle her out.”
Anna held up a finger, then pulled her hand terminal out of her pocket. Clarissa could see her hands were trembling. She tapped at the screen, and a few seconds later a familiar voice came from the box.
“Annie,” Tilly Fagan said. “Where are you? I’m having cocktails with half a dozen very important people and they’re boring me to tears. The least you can do is come up and let them fawn over you for a while.”
“Tilly,” Anna said. “You remember that really expensive favor you owe me? I know what it is.”
“I’m all ears,” Tilly said.
“I need you to buy the Rocinante from Mars and give it to Captain Holden.” Tilly was silent. Clarissa could practically see the woman’s eyebrows rising. “It’s the only way to take care of Clarissa.”
Tilly’s exhalation could have been a sigh or laughter.
“Sure, what the hell. I’ll tell Robert to do it. He will. It’ll be less than I’d get in a divorce. Anything else, dear? Shall I change the Earth’s orbit for you while I’m at it?”
“No,” Anna said. “That’s plenty.”
“You’re damn right it is. Get up here soon. Really, everyone’s swooning over you, and it’ll be much more amusing for me to watch them try to squeeze up next to you in person.”
“I will,” Anna said. She put her hand terminal back in her pocket and took Clarissa’s hand in her own. Her fingers were warm. “Well?”
Holden’s face had gone pale. He looked from Clarissa to Anna and back and blew out a long breath.
“Um,” he said. “Wow. Okay. We may not be going home right away, though. Is that cool?”
Clarissa held out her hand, astounded by its weight. It took them all a moment to understand what she was doing. Then Holden—the man she’d moved heaven and earth to humiliate and murder—took her hand.
“Pleased to meet you,” she croaked.
They installed a medical restraint cuff to her ankle set to sedate her on a signal from any of the crew, or if it detected any of the products of her artificial glands, or if she left the crew decks of the ship. It was three kilos of formed yellow plastic that clung to her leg like a barnacle. The transfer came during the memorial service. Captain Michio Pa, her face still bandaged from the fighting, spoke in glowing terms about Carlos Baca and Samantha Rosenberg and a dozen other names and commended their ashes to the void. Then each of the commanders of the other ships in the flotilla took their turns, standing before the cameras on the decks of their own ships, speaking a few words, moving on. No one mentioned Ashford, locked away and sedated. No one mentioned her.
It was the last ceremony before the exodus. Before the return. Clarissa watched it on her hand terminal when she wasn’t looking at the screen that showed the shuttle’s exterior view. The alien station was inert now. It didn’t glow, didn’t react, didn’t read to the sensors as anything more than a huge slug of mixed metals and carbonate structures floating in a starless void.
“They’re not all going back, you know,” Alex said. “The Martian team is plannin’ to stay here, run surveys on all the gates. See what’s on the other side.”
“I didn’t know that,” Clarissa said.
“Yeah. This right now,” the pilot said, gesturing toward the screen where a UN captain was speaking earnestly into the camera, her eyes hard as marbles and her jaw set against the sorrow of listing the names of the dead. “This is the still point. Before, this was all fear. After this, it’ll all be greed. But this…” He sighed. “Well, it’s a nice moment, anyway.”
“It is,” Clarissa said.
“So, just to check, are you still plannin’ to kill the captain? Because, you know, if you are it seems like you at least owe us a warning.”
“I’m not,” she said.
“And if you were?”
“I’d still say I wasn’t. But I’m not.”
“Fair enough.”
“Okay, Alex,” Holden said from the back. “Are we there yet?”
“Just about to knock,” Alex said. He tapped on the control panel, and on the screen the Rocinante’s exterior lights came on. The ship glowed gold and silver in the blackness, like seeing a whole city from above. “Okay, folks. We’re home.”
Clarissa’s bunk was larger than her quarters in the Cerisier, smaller than the one from the Prince. She wasn’t sharing it with anyone, though. It was hers as much as anything was.
All she had for clothing was a jumpsuit with the name Tachi imprinted in the weave. All her toiletries were the standard ship issue. Nothing was hers. Nothing was her. She kept to her room, going out to the galley and the head when she needed to. It wasn’t fear, exactly, so much as the sense of wanting to stay out of the way. It wasn’t her ship, it was theirs. She wasn’t one of them, and she didn’t deserve to be. She was a paid passenger, and not a fare they’d even wanted. The awareness of that weighed on her.
Over time, the bunk began to feel more like her cell on the Behemoth than anything else. That was enough to drive her out a little. Only a little, though. She’d seen the galley before in simulations, when she’d been planning how to destroy it, where to place her override. It looked different in person. Not smaller or larger, exactly, but different. The crew moved through the space going from one place to another, passing through in the way she couldn’t. They ate their meals and had their meetings, ignoring her like she was a ghost. Like she’d already lost her place in the world.
“Well,” Holden said, his voice grim, “we have a major problem. We’re out of coffee.”
“We still got beer,” Amos said.
“Yes,” Holden said. “But beer is not coffee. I’ve put in a request with the Behemoth, but I haven’t heard back, and I can’t see going into the vast and unknown void without coffee.”
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 144