The Dragon’s Path

by Abraham Daniel

  Elsewhere in the station, the representatives of the formerly warring factions were in rooms of their own, with secretaries of their own. Most of them hated Fred, which wasn’t particularly a problem. Most of them feared him too. Not because of his standing in the OPA, of course. Because of the protomolecule.

  The political rift between Earth and Mars was probably irreparable; the Earth forces loyal to Protogen had engineered a betrayal too deep for apologies, and too many lives had been lost on both sides for the coming peace to look anything like it had been before. The naive among the OPA thought this was a good thing: an opportunity to play one planet against the other. Fred knew better. Unless all three forces—Earth, Mars, and the Belt—could reach a real peace, they would inevitably fall back into a real war.

  Now if only Earth or Mars thought of the Belt as something more than an annoyance to be squashed after their true enemy was humiliated… But in truth, anti-Mars sentiment on Earth was higher now than it had been during the shooting war, and Martian elections were only four months away. A significant shift in the Martian polity could ease the tensions or make things immeasurably worse. Both sides had to see the big picture.

  Fred stopped before a mirror, adjusted his tunic for the hundredth time, and grimaced.

  “When did I turn into a damned marriage counselor?” he said.

  “We aren’t still talking about General Sebastian, are we, sir?”

  “No. Forget I said anything. What else do I need to know?”

  “There’s a possibility that Blue Mars will try to disrupt your presentation. Hecklers and signs, not guns. Captain Shaddid has several Blues in custody, but some may have slipped past her.”

  “All right.”

  “You have interviews scheduled with two political narrowcasts and a news source based on Europa. The Europa interviewer is likely to ask about Anderson Station.”

  “All right. Anything new from Venus?”

  “Something’s happening down there,” his secretary said.

  “It’s not dead, then.”

  “Apparently not, sir.”

  “Great,” he said bitterly.

  Ladies and gentlemen, we stand at a crossroads. On one hand there is the very real threat of mutual annihilation, and on the other—

  And on the other, there’s the bogeyman of Venus, getting ready to crawl up out of its well and slaughter you all in your sleep. I have the live sample, which is your best, if not only, hope of divining what its intentions and capabilities are, and which I have hidden so that you can’t just march over and take it from me. It’s the only reason any of you are listening to me in the first place. So how about a little respect here?

  His secretary’s terminal chirped, and she consulted it briefly.

  “It’s Captain Holden, sir.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “It would be best if he felt he was part of the effort, sir. He has a track record of amateur press releases.”

  “Fine. Bring him in.”

  The weeks that had passed since Eros Station had come apart in the thick skies of Venus had been good to Holden, but prolonged high-g dives like the one the Rocinante had sustained chasing Eros had long-lasting effects. The burst blood vessels in the man’s sclera had healed; the pressure bruising was gone from around his eyes and the back of his neck. Only a little hesitation in the way he walked spoke of the deep joint pain, cartilage still on its way back to its natural form. Acceleration swagger, they’d called it, back when Fred had been a different man.

  “Hey,” Holden said. “You’re looking pretty. Did you see the latest feed from Venus? Two-kilometer-high crystal towers. What do you think that is?”

  “Your fault?” Fred suggested, keeping the tone friendly. “You could have told Miller to drive it into the sun.”

  “Yes, because two-kilometer-high crystal towers coming out of the sun wouldn’t be creepy at all,” Holden said. “Are those strawberries?”

  “Have some,” Fred said. He hadn’t been able to eat anything since that morning.

  “So,” Holden said around a mouthful of fruit, “are they really going to sue me over this?”

  “Unilaterally giving away all mineral and development rights to an entire planet on an open radio channel?”

  “Yeah,” Holden said.

  “I would guess the people who actually owned those rights are probably going to sue you,” Fred said. “If they ever figure out who they are.”

  “Could you give me a hand with that?” Holden asked.

  “I’ll be a character witness,” Fred said. “I don’t actually make the law.”

  “Then what exactly are you all doing here? Couldn’t there be some kind of amnesty? We retrieved the protomolecule, tracked down Julie Mao on Eros, broke Protogen, and saved Earth.”

  “You saved Earth?”

  “We helped,” Holden said, but his voice had a more somber tone. Miller’s death still bothered the captain. Fred knew how that felt. “It was a joint effort.”

  Fred’s personal secretary cleared her throat and glanced toward the door. They’d need to go soon.

  “I’ll do what I can,” Fred said. “I’ve got a lot of other things on the plate, but I’ll do what I can.”

  “And Mars can’t have the Roci back,” Holden said. “Right of salvage says that’s my ship now.”

  “They aren’t going to see it that way, but I will do what I can.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “It keeps being all I can do.”

  “And you’ll tell them about him, right?” Holden said. “Miller. He deserves the credit.”

  “The Belter who went back into Eros of his own free will in order to save Earth? You’re damn right I’m going to tell them about him.”

  “Not ‘the Belter.’ Him. Josephus Aloisus Miller.”

  Holden had stopped eating the free strawberries. Fred crossed his arms.

  “You’ve been reading up,” Fred said.

  “Yeah. Well. I didn’t know him all that well.”

  “Neither did anybody else,” Fred said, and then softened a little. “I know it’s hard, but we don’t need a real man with a complex life. We need a symbol of the Belt. An icon.”

  “Sir,” the secretary said. “We really do need to go now.”

  “That’s what got us here,” Holden said. “Icons. Symbols. People without names. All of those Protogen scientists were thinking about biomass and populations. Not Mary who worked in supply and raised flowers in her spare time. None of them killed her.”

  “You think they wouldn’t have?”

  “I think if they were going to, they owed it to her to know her name. All their names. And you owe it to Miller not to make him into something he wasn’t.”

  Fred laughed. He couldn’t help it.

  “Captain,” he said, “if you’re saying that I should amend my address to the peace conference so that it wasn’t a noble Belter sacrificing himself to save the Earth—if you’re suggesting that I say something like ‘We happened to have a suicidal ex-cop on-site’ instead—you understand this process less than I thought you did. Miller’s sacrifice is a tool, and I’m going to use it.”

  “Even if it makes him faceless,” Holden said. “Even if it makes him something he never was?”

  “Especially if it makes him something he never was,” Fred said. “Do you remember what he was like?”

  Holden frowned and then something flickered in his eyes. Amusement. Memory.

  “He was kind of a pain in the ass, wasn’t he?” Holden said.

  “That man could take a visitation from God with thirty underdressed angels announcing that sex was okay after all and make it seem vaguely depressing.”

  “He was a good man,” Holden said.

  “He wasn’t,” Fred said. “But he did his job. And now I’ve got to go do mine.”

  “Give ’em hell,” Holden said. “And amnesty. Keep talking up the amnesty.”

  Fred walked down the curving hallway, his secretary
close behind him. The conference halls had been designed for smaller things. Petty ones. Hydroponics scientists getting away from their husbands and wives and children to get drunk and talk about raising bean sprouts. Miners coming together to lecture each other about waste minimization and tailings disposal. High school band competitions. And instead, these work carpets and brushed-stone walls were going to have to bear the fulcrum of history. It was Holden’s fault that the shabby, small surroundings reminded him of the dead detective. They hadn’t before.

  The delegations were seated across the aisle from each other. The generals and political appointees and general secretaries of Earth and Mars, the two great powers together at his invitation to Ceres, to the Belt. Territory made neutral because neither side took it seriously enough to be concerned about their demands.

  All of history had brought them here, to this moment, and now, in the next few minutes, Fred’s job was to change that trajectory. The fear was gone. Smiling, he stepped up to the speaker’s dais, the podium.

  The pulpit.

  There was a scattering of polite applause. A few smiles, and a few frowns. Fred grinned. He wasn’t a man anymore. He was a symbol, an icon. A narrative about himself and about the forces at play in the solar system.

  And for a moment, he was tempted. In that hesitation between drawing breath and speaking, part of him wondered what would happen if he shed the patterns of history and spoke about himself as a man, about the Joe Miller who he’d known briefly, about the responsibility they all shared to tear down the images they held of one another and find the genuine, flawed, conflicted people they actually were.

  It would have been a noble way to fail.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “We stand at a crossroads. On one hand, there is the very real threat of mutual annihilation. On the other… ”

  He paused for effect.

  “On the other, the stars.”

  Acknowledgments

  Like most children, this book took a village. I would like to express my deep gratitude to my agents, Shawna and Danny, and to my editors DongWon and Darren. Also instrumental in the early formation of the book were Melinda, Emily, Terry, Ian, George, Steve, Walter, and Victor, of the New Mexico Critical Mass writers group, and also Carrie, who read an early draft. An additional thanks goes to Ian, who helped with some of the math, and who is responsible for none of the mistakes I made understanding it. I also owe an enormous debt to Tom, Sake Mike, Non-Sake Mike, Porter, Scott, Raja, Jeff, Mark, Dan, and Joe. Thanks, guys, for doing the beta testing. And finally, a special thanks to the Futurama writers and Bender Bending Rodriguez for babysitting the kid while I wrote.

  extras

  meet the author

  JAMES S. A. COREY is the pen name of fantasy author Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, George R. R. Martin’s assistant. They both live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Find out more about this series at www.the-expanse.com.

  interview

  Leviathan Wakes is the first book in a series called The Expanse. What kind of story are you telling in this series?

  There’s a lot of science fiction that talks about the near future. There’s a lot about great galaxy-spanning empires of the distant future. But there’s not much that talks about the part in between. The Expanse is playing on that bridge. Whatever drives us off Earth to the rest of the solar system or from there to the stars, the problems we have are the ones we bring with us. What I want to do is write good old-fashioned space opera centered around human stories, but with an increasingly large backdrop.

  It seems like Leviathan Wakes is a science fiction book, but it borrows from a lot of other genres as well, including horror and noir. Did you intend to blend those genres? What kind of book do you feel this is?

  It’s definitely science fiction of the old-school space opera variety. That’s the story I wanted to tell. But half of the story was a detective story, and as soon as Detective Miller hit the page, he told me in a loud voice that he was a classic noir character. It was in his voice and the way he talked about things, you know? As for the horror feel, that’s just the way I roll. I’ve never written anything in my life that didn’t at least blur the line into horror. If I wrote greeting cards, they’d probably have a squick factor.

  Leviathan Wakes has two protagonists with very different worldviews, which are often in conflict. Can you describe those views and why you chose that particular conflict?

  You know how they say science fiction is about the future you’re writing about, but it’s also about the time you’re writing in? Holden and Miller have got two different views on the ethical use of information. That’s very much a current argument. Holden’s my holy fool. He’s an idealist, a man who faces things with this very optimistic view of humanity. He believes that if you give people all of the information, they’ll do the right thing with it, because people are naturally good. Miller is a cynic and a nihilist. He looks at the dissemination of information as a game you play. He doesn’t have faith in anyone else’s moral judgment. Control of information is how you get people to do what you want, and he doesn’t trust anyone else to make that call. I picked those two characters because they’re both right, and they’re both wrong. By having them in the same story, I can have them talk to each other. And that central disagreement is sort of underneath everything else that happens.

  Leviathan Wakes has a gritty and realistic feel. How much research did you do on the technology side of things, and how important was it to you that they be realistic and accurate?

  Okay, so what you’re really asking me there is if this is hard science fiction. The answer is an emphatic no. I have nothing but respect for well-written hard science fiction, and I wanted everything in the book to be plausible enough that it doesn’t get in the way. But the rigorous how-to with the math shown? It’s not that story. This is working man’s science fiction. It’s like in Alien, we meet the crew of the Nostromo doing their jobs in this very blue-collar environment. They’re truckers, right? Why is there a room in the Nostromo where water leaks down off of chains suspended from the ceiling? Because it looks cool and makes the world feel a little messy. It gives you the feel of the world. Ridley Scott doesn’t explain why that room exists, and when most people watch the film, it never even occurs to them to ask. What kind of drive does the Nostromo use? I bet no one walked out of the film asking that question. I wanted to tell a story about humans living and working in a well-populated solar system. I wanted to convey a feeling of what that would be like, and then tell a story about the people who live there.

  So how does the Epstein drive work?

  Very well. Efficiently.

  In your acknowledgments you thank the New Mexico Critical Mass writers group. What effect did having that workshop environment have on your work?

  Well, Critical Mass is a lot more than a workshop or critical group. It’s more like a writer’s mafia. Just about anything you might need, someone in the group can get it for you. Walter Jon Williams, who wrote the brilliant Dread Empire’s Fall space opera series, was there to give important tips about writing in that genre. S. M. Stirling and Victor Milan write some of best action in the business, and there was a lot of action for them to critique. Ian Tregillis is an actual astrophysicist and made himself available for technical questions. Melinda Snodgrass is pretty much the Yoda of letting you know when you’ve wandered too far away from your plot. And the entire group, including Emily Mah, Terry England, and George R. R. Martin, was there to read and critique the early drafts of the book, and a lot of changes were made based on their advice.

  You’ve worked with George R. R. Martin a lot in the past. What kind of advice did he have for this project?

  Yes, I’ve done a number of projects with him in one incarnation or another. In this case, he was mostly just encouraging. He likes old-fashioned space opera, and he followed my progress on the book with great interest. He was also the first to read the final version. He was very complimentary. He said at one point that it was the best bo
ok about vomit zombies he’d ever read. That was nice.

  Where do you see the Expanse series going from here?

  Well, I’m contracted with Orbit for at least two more books. They are titled Caliban’s War and Dandelion Sky. I hope to keep exploring the idea of human expansion into the solar system and beyond, and balancing the very real threats that the galaxy poses for the fledgling human diaspora against the threats that those same humans will bring with them. For up-to-date information on what I’m up to and where the project is headed, people can visit www.the-expanse.com and get the latest.

  introducing

  If you enjoyed LEVIATHAN WAKES,

  look out for

  CALIBAN’S WAR

  Book Two of The Expanse

  by James S. A. Corey

  “Snoopy’s out again,” Private Hillman said. “I think his CO must be pissed at him.”

  Gunnery Sergeant Roberta Draper of the Martian Marine Corps upped the magnification on her armor’s heads-up display and looked in the direction Hillman was pointing. Twenty-five hundred meters away, a squad of four United Nations marines were tromping around their outpost, backlit by the giant greenhouse dome they were guarding. A greenhouse dome identical in nearly all respects to the dome that was behind her.