Cibola Burn (Expanse)

by James S. A. Corey

  “I’m off to get underwear and a toothbrush.”

  The Rocinante would have lit the night sky of Ilus during the final part of her deceleration burn. When she landed in a field outside of the colony’s ramshackle town, she’d kicked up a dust cloud a kilometer across, and the noise of her descent should have rattled windows twice that far away.

  So Holden was a little surprised and disappointed when no one was there to greet them.

  He was the joint OPA and Earth mediator, personally selected by Chrisjen Avasarala of the UN and Fred Johnson, leader of the OPA as much as the OPA could be led, to oversee the settlement talks. In other places, that would merit a formal greeting by the planetary governor and possibly a marching band. Holden would have settled for a ride into town.

  He hefted his two heavy bags and started to trudge toward the settlement. Amos carried three. The third was the one he called his everything has gone to shit bag. Holden sincerely hoped they never had to open it.

  When they were far enough away, Holden sent the signal to Alex and the Rocinante blasted off again, kicking up a massive dust storm for a few seconds.

  “You know,” Amos said conversationally, “we landed so far from town to avoid blowing dust on the locals, and they couldn’t even be bothered to send out a cart to pick us up? Seems ungrateful.”

  “Yeah. A little annoyed at that myself. Next time I have Alex land right in the damn town square.”

  Amos gestured with his head at a massive alien structure rising in the distance. It looked like two thin towers of glass twisted together, like a pair of trees growing beside each other.

  “So, there’s that,” he said.

  Holden had no reply. It was one thing to read about “alien ruins” on the location report. It was another thing entirely to see a massive construct built by another species towering over the landscape. How old was it? A couple billion years, if Miller could be believed on how long the protomolecule masters had been gone. Had humans ever built anything that would last that long?

  “According to the security wonks on the Israel, that’s where they think their people were massacred,” Holden said after they’d walked together for several minutes.

  “Oh good,” Amos replied. “Somebody got killed there. That’s how we claim stuff, you know. This planet is officially ours now.”

  Other than the admittedly hard-to-ignore alien tower, the rest of the landscape could have been the North American southwest. Hardpan dirt, with small shrublike plants. Small creatures scurried away at their approach. For a few moments they were surrounded by a cloud of biting insects, but after a number of them bit, drank their blood, and dropped dead, the rest seemed to pick up that humans weren’t food and lost interest.

  The colony itself looked like a shantytown. A ramshackle mix of prefab buildings and lean-tos made out of scrap metal and brick. A few were made of mud, so someone had decided to try using adobe. Something about the idea of humans traveling fifty thousand light-years and then building houses using ten-thousand-year-old technology put a smile on Holden’s face. Humans were very strange creatures, but sometimes they were also charming.

  A mob had gathered at the center of town. Or, more accurately, at the intersection of the only two dirt roads. Fifty or so colonists were facing off with a dozen people in RCE uniforms. They were shouting at each other, though Holden couldn’t make out the words.

  Someone on the edge of the crowd noticed them walking into town and pointed. The arguing died down, and then the entire crowd surged toward Holden and Amos. Holden dropped his bags and waved, smiling. Amos smiled too, though he casually rested his hand on the butt of his pistol.

  A tall, stocky woman a few years older than Holden rushed over to him and grabbed his hands. Holden was almost certain she was Carol Chiwewe, but if that were true, she’d changed a lot since the picture in his briefing files had been taken.

  “Finally! Now you need to tell these goons —”

  Before she could finish or Holden could respond, the rest of the crowd started shouting at him all at once. Holden could hear snatches of their demands: that he drive off RCE, that he give them food or medicine or money, that he let them sell their lithium, that he prove that the colony had nothing to do with the disappearance of the security officers.

  As Holden tried to quiet the mob, an older man in an RCE security uniform strolled slowly toward him, the rest of the corporate security people following in a wide V, like a flock of geese.

  “Please, stop. I’ll hear out each and every one of your requests once we get settled in. But we can’t do anything if you all yell at —”

  “Chief Murtry,” the RCE man said, moving through the crowd like it wasn’t there, sticking his hand out and smiling. “Royal Charter Energy, head of expedition security.”

  Holden shook his hand. “Jim Holden. Joint UN/OPA mediator.”

  The crowd hushed and moved away, creating a small circle of calm with Holden and Murtry at its center.

  “Those were your people that disappeared,” Holden continued.

  “They got murdered,” Murtry corrected him, not losing his smile. The man made Holden think of a shark. All bared teeth and cold black eyes.

  “My understanding is that that was not proven.”

  “It’s true they cleaned up the scene. But I have no doubt.”

  “Until I have no doubt, no punitive action is to be taken,” Holden said. He felt Amos move up closer behind him, a silent threat.

  Murtry’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re the boss.”

  “Mediator,” Holden said, his tone letting Murtry know that as far as he was concerned, it meant the same thing.

  Murtry nodded and spat to one side.

  “Sure.”

  The dam broke, and the crowd rushed back in toward them, a tall woman pushing her way to the front. She jabbed her hand at Holden in an angry demand for a handshake. If Murtry had gotten one, she was going to get one too.

  “Carol Chiwewe, colony coordinator,” she said giving his hand two firm pumps. So that first woman had to have been someone else.

  “Hello, madam coordinator,” Holden started.

  “This man,” she continued, stabbing her fingers at Murtry, “is threatening us with martial law! He claims that the charter gives RCE the right to —”

  “Enforce the laws of the UN charter, and keep the peace,” Murtry said, somehow managing to talk over the top of her without raising his voice.

  “Keep the peace?” Carol said. “You gave your people a shoot-first directive!”

  The crowd rumbled in disapproval at this, and the shouting started up again. Holden waved his arms to calm them back down. He hoped it looked more dignified and commanding than it felt. When Murtry spoke, his voice was calm but hard.

  “I have a hard time seeing how we’d be shooting first. Everybody that’s died so far, your people killed. I won’t tolerate any further threats against RCE employees or property.”

  A tall man with the large cranium of someone raised in the Belt pushed his way to the front. “Sounds like a threat right there, mate.”

  “Coop, please, don’t make this worse,” Carol said with a resigned sigh. Ah, Coop is a troublemaker, Holden thought, making a note to remember the face.

  “Just seems to me,” Coop said, turning to look back at the mob with a grin, raising his voice to play to the crowd. “Just seems to me that the only one making threats right now is you.”

  The crowd rumbled encouragement, and Coop grinned from ear to ear, enjoying the power that came from giving the mob a voice.

  Murtry nodded at him, still smiling. “There isn’t anything I won’t do to protect the lives of my team, that’s true. And we’ve lost too many already to take further chances.”

  “Hey, don’t blame us, mate, if you can’t keep track of your people.” Someone in the crowd laughed.

  “Don’t worry,” Murtry said, his smile still didn’t change, but he stepped in close to Coop. “I’ll find out what happened
to them.”

  “Maybe you should be careful,” Coop said, looking down at the shorter man, his grin turning feral. “Or, you know, it might happen to you too.”

  “That,” Murtry said, drawing his gun, “was definitely a threat.”

  He shot Coop in the right eye. The Belter man went limp and dropped like a machine that had been unplugged. Holden’s own gun was in his hand and pointed at Murtry even before he fully processed what had just happened. Amos stepped up next to him, his pistol trained on the RCE security chief. The entire RCE team pulled weapons and aimed them back at Holden. The crowd was deathly silent.

  “What the hell!” Holden said. “I just said no punitive action. I mean, I just said that.”

  “You did. That wasn’t punitive action, it was a response to a direct verbal threat.” Murtry put his pistol away and turned back to Holden. “We’ve established martial law here, under article 71 of the UN charter for exploration of this world. Any threat to RCE personnel will be dealt with swiftly and with prejudice.”

  He stared at Holden for several long seconds, then said, “Might should put your gun away, Captain.”

  Amos took a half step forward, but Holden put a hand on his arm. “Put it away, Amos.” He holstered his own gun, and a second later the RCE team did the same.

  “I’m glad we could establish this working rapport so quickly. I’d recommend you get settled in,” Murtry said. “I’ll come by for a visit later.”

  The coordinator had set aside rooms for Holden and Amos in the large, boxy prefab warehouse structure that had been converted into a combination of general store, commissary, and pub. The rooms in back were furnished with a cot, a table, and a water basin for washing.

  “They gave us the presidential suite, I see,” Amos said, dumping his bags on the floor of his tiny room. “I need a drink.”

  “Give me a second,” Holden said, then went into his own room and called up to the Rocinante. He delivered a full report of the landing and the shooting of Coop. Naomi promised to beam it back to Fred and Avasarala for him, and told him to be careful.

  The bar, such as it was, consisted of four shaky card tables and twenty or so chairs scattered near the commissary corner of the building. Amos was waiting with two bottles of beer when Holden finished up his report.

  “That went well.”

  “Get the feeling we may be in over our heads here?” Amos asked after a few companionable sips of beer.

  “Feels about normal to me,” Holden replied.

  “Yep.”

  They were on their second beer each when Murtry arrived. He talked to the bartender for a minute, then sat down across from Holden and put a bottle of whiskey and three glasses on the table.

  “Have a drink with me, Captain,” he said, pouring out three shots.

  “You’re going to go to prison for what you did today,” Holden said, then tossed back his shot. The whiskey had the sour moldy taste of Belter distillations. “I plan to make sure of that.”

  Murtry shrugged. “Maybe. My plan is to make sure all my people survive long enough for prison to be an issue. I’ve lost almost twenty now, between the attack on the shuttle and the murder of my ground team. I won’t lose any more.”

  “You’re a corporate security detail. You don’t get to declare martial law and shoot people who don’t cooperate. I wouldn’t put up with that from legitimate governments, much less a rent-a-cop like you.” Holden poured himself another drink and sipped at it.

  “What’s the name of this planet?”

  “What?”

  “The planet. What’s its name?”

  Holden leaned forward, the word Ilus on his lips. He paused. Murtry’s smile was thin.

  “You’ve spent a lot of time working for the OPA, Captain Holden. And you’re on record as harboring a deep-seated dislike of the kind of business that employs me. I have some reservations about your ability to address the situation here in an unbiased manner. Threatening me and calling me names doesn’t do much to reassure me.”

  “You undermined my authority by killing a Belter within five minutes of my arrival,” Holden said.

  “I did. And I understand that could make you feel that I’m not taking your role here seriously. But your friends in the UN are a year and a half away,” Murtry said. “Think about that. It takes between eight and eleven hours to have the first two exchanges of a conversation, and almost nineteen months to get here from there at civilian speeds. Our local governor has been murdered by terrorists. My people have been killed for trying to enforce our legal rights. Do you honestly think I’m going to wait for you to fix what’s wrong here? No, I’ll shoot everyone who threatens the RCE expedition or its employees, and I’ll sleep well afterward. That’s the reality of where you are now. Better get used to it.”

  “I know who you are,” Amos said.

  The big man had been so quiet that both Murtry and Holden started with surprise.

  “Who am I?” Murtry asked, playing along.

  “A killer,” Amos said. His face was expressionless, his tone light. “You’ve got a nifty excuse and the shiny badge to make you seem right, but that’s not what this is about. You got off on smoking that guy in front of everyone. You can’t wait to do it again.”

  “Is that right?” Murtry asked.

  “Yeah. So, one killer to another, you don’t want to try that shit with us.”

  “Amos, easy,” Holden warned, but the other two men ignored him.

  “That sounded like a threat,” Murtry said.

  “Oh, it really was,” Amos replied with a grin.

  Holden realized both men had their hands below the table. “Hey, now.”

  “I think maybe one of us is going to end bloody,” Murtry said.

  “How about now?” Amos replied with a shrug. “I’m free now. We can just skip all the middle part.”

  Murtry and Amos smiled at each other across the table for an endless moment while Holden ran though contingencies in his mind: What if Amos gets shot, what if Murtry gets shot, what if I get shot.

  “You fellas have a nice day,” Murtry said, standing slowly. His hand was not on his gun. “Keep the bottle.”

  “Thanks!” Amos replied, pouring another drink.

  Murtry nodded at them, then walked out of the bar.

  Holden let out an exhalation that he’d been holding for what seemed like an hour. “Yeah, I think we are in way over our heads here,” he admitted.

  “I’m gonna need to shoot that guy at some point,” Amos said, then tossed back another shot.

  “I wish you wouldn’t. This is already looking like a train wreck, and in addition to chewing up a few hundred colonists and scientists, which is bad enough, it will also be my fault when it all falls apart.”

  “Shooting him might help.”

  “I hope not,” Holden said, but he was worried that Amos was right.

  Interlude: The Investigator

  — it reaches out it reaches out it reaches out it reaches out —

  One hundred and thirteen times a second, nothing answers and it reaches out. It feels no frustration, though parts of it do. It is not designed to incorporate consciousness or will, but to use whatever it finds. The minds within it are encysted, walled off. They are used when they are of use, as is everything and it reaches out.

  It is not a plan. It is not even a desire, or it is only a desire without knowledge of that longing’s object. It is a selective pressure pressed against chaos. It does not think of itself this way because it does not think, but the environment changes, a new branch of possibilities opens, and it forms the investigator and leans into the new crack. The new space. The minds within it interpret this differently. As a hand reaching up through graveyard soil. As finding a door in a room where no door had been before. As a breath of air to a drowning woman. It is not aware of these images, but awareness of them is part of it.

  The investigator puts pressure on the aboriginal, and the aboriginal takes action. The environment changes again.
Patterns begin to match patterns, but there can be no recognition because it is not conscious to recognize. It would be aware of the aboriginal accelerating, of it slowing, the vectors shifting zero to one to a different zero in a different location, if it were aware, but it is not aware. It reaches out.

  Patterns match, and it reorients and reaches out. Cascades of implicit information bloom, and the conscious parts of it see a lotus opening forever, hear a shout that is made of other shouts that are made of other shouts in a fractal constructed of sound, pray to God for a death that does not come.