Abaddon's Gate e-3 Page 4

  She opened the red door and walked through it. The office seemed almost bright. A small desk with a built-in display tuned to a cheap accounting system. White frosted glass that let in the sunlight but hid the streets of Baltimore. A formed plastic couch upholstered with the corporate logo of a cheap brand of beer that even people on basic could afford. Two hulking men sat on the couch. One had implanted sunglasses that made him look like an insect. The other wore a T-shirt that strained at his steroidal shoulders. She’d seen them before.

  Travin was at the desk, leaning his thigh against it. His hair was cut close to the scalp, a dusting of white at the temples. His beard was hardly longer. He wore what passed for a good suit in his circles. Father wouldn’t have worn it as a costume.

  “Ah, look, the inimitable Melba.”

  “You knew I was here,” she said. There were no chairs. No place to sit that wasn’t already occupied. She stood.

  “’Course I did,” Travin said. “Soon as you came off the street.”

  “Are we doing business?” she asked. Her voice cut the air. Travin grinned. His teeth were uncorrected and gray at the gums. It was an affectation of wealth, a statement that he was so powerful mere cosmesis was beneath him. She felt a hot rush of scorn. He was like an old cargo cultist; imitating the empty displays of power and no idea what they really meant. She was reduced to dealing with him, but at least she had the grace to be embarrassed by it.

  “It’s all done, miss,” Travin said. “Melba Alzbeta Koh. Born on Luna to Alscie, Becca, and Sergio Koh, all deceased. No siblings. No taxation indenture. Licensed electrochemical technician. Your new self awaits, ah?”

  “And the contract?”

  “The Cerisier ships out, civilian support for the grand mission to the Ring. Our Miss Koh, she’s on it. Senior class, even. Little staff to oversee, don’t have to get your hands dirty.”

  Travin pulled a white plastic envelope from his pocket. The shadow of a cheap hand terminal showed through the tissue.

  “All here, all ready,” he said. “You take it and walk through the door a new woman, ah?”

  Melba took her own hand terminal out of her pocket. It was smaller than the one in Travin’s hand, and better made. She’d miss it. She thumbed in her code, authorized the transfer, and slid it back in her pocket.

  “All right,” she said. “The money’s yours. I’ll take delivery.”

  “Ah, there is still one problem,” Travin said.

  “We have an agreement,” Melba said. “I did my part.”

  “And it speaks well of you,” Travin said. “But doing business with you? I enjoy it, I think. Exciting discoveries to be made. Creating this new you, we have to put the DNA in the tables. We have to scrub out doubled records. I think you haven’t been entirely honest with me.”

  She swallowed, trying to loosen the knot in her throat. The insect-eyed man on the couch shifted, his weight making the couch squeak.

  “My money spends,” she said.

  “As it should, as it should,” Travin said. “Clarissa Melpomene Mao, daughter to Jules-Pierre Mao of Mao-Kwikowski Mercantile. Very interesting name.”

  “Mao-Kwikowski was nationalized when my father went to jail,” Melba said. “It doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “Corporate death sentence,” Travin said as he put the envelope on the desk display. “Very sad. But not for you, ah? Rich men know money. They find ways to put it where little eyes can’t find. Get it to their wives, maybe. Their daughters.”

  She crossed her arms, scowling. On the couch, the bodybuilder stifled a yawn. It might even have been genuine. She let the silence stretch not because she wanted to pressure Travin to speak next, but because she didn’t know what to say. He was right, of course. Daddy had taken care of all of them as best he could. He always had. Even the persecution of the United Nations couldn’t reach everything. Clarissa had had enough money to live a quiet, retiring life on Luna or Mars and die of old age before the capital ran out. But she wasn’t Clarissa anymore, and Melba’s situation was different.

  “I can give you another ten thousand,” she said. “That’s all I’ve got.”

  Travin smiled his gray smile.

  “All that pretty money flown away, ah? And what takes you out into the darkness, eh? I wondered. So I looked. You are very, very good. Even knowing to squint, I didn’t see more than shadows. Didn’t hear more than echoes. But—” He put the envelope on the desk before him, keeping one finger on it the way her brother Petyr did when he was almost sure of a chess move but hadn’t brought himself to commit. It was a gesture of ownership. “I have something no one else does. I know to look at the Ring.”

  “Ten thousand is all I have. Honestly. I’ve spent the rest.”

  “Would you need more, then?” Travin asked. “Investment capital, call it? Our little Melba can have ten thousand, if you want it. Fifty thousand if you need it. But I will want more back. Much more.”

  She felt her throat tighten. When she tilted her head, the movement felt too fast, too tight. Birdlike. Scared.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, willing her voice to sound solid. Formless threat hung in the air like bad cologne: masculine and cheap. When he spoke again, false friendliness curved all of his vowels.

  “Partners. You are doing something big. Something with the Ring and the flotilla, ah? All these people heading out in the dark to face the monsters. And you are going with them. It seems to me that such a risk means you expect a very great return. The sort one expects from a Mao. You tell me what is your plan, I help you how I can help you, and what comes your way from this, we divide.”

  “No deal.” The words were like a reflex. They came from her spine, the decision too obvious to require her brain.

  Travin pulled back the envelope, the plastic hissing against the table. The soft tutting sound of tongue against teeth was as sympathetic as it was false.

  “You have moved heaven and earth,” he said. “You have bribed. You have bought. You have arranged. And when you say that you have held nothing in reserve, I believe you. So now you come to my table and tell me no deal? No deal is no deal.”

  “I paid you.”

  “I don’t care. We are partners. Full partners. Whatever you are getting from this, I am getting too. Or else there are other people, I think, who would be very interested to hear about what the infamous Mao have been so quietly doing.”

  The two men on the couch were paying attention to her now. Their gazes were on her. She turned to look over her shoulder. The door to the gamblers’ den was metal, and it was locked. The window was wide. The security wire in it was the sort that retracted if you wanted the glass to open and let the filthy breeze of the city in to soil the air. The insect-eyed one stood up.

  Her implants were triggered by rubbing her tongue against the roof of her mouth. Two circles, counterclockwise. It was a private movement, invisible. Internal. Oddly sensual. It was almost as easy as just thinking. The suite of manufactured glands tucked in her throat and head and abdomen squeezed their little bladders empty, pouring complex chemistry into her blood. She shuddered. It felt like orgasm without the pleasure. She could feel conscience and inhibition sliding away like bad dreams. She was fully awake and alive.

  All the sounds in the room—the roar of street traffic, the muffled cacophony of the gambling decks, Travin’s nasty voice—went quieter, as if the cocktail flowing into her had stuffed foam in her ears. Her muscles grew tense and tight. The taste of copper filled her mouth. Time slowed.

  What to do? What to do?

  The thugs by the couch were the first threat. She moved over to them, gravity’s oppressive grip forgotten. She kicked the bodybuilder in the kneecap as he rose, the little beer coaster of bone ripping free of its tendons and sliding up his thigh. His face was a cartoon of surprise and alarm. As he began to crumple, she lifted her other knee, driving it up into his descending larynx. She’d been aiming for his face. Throat just as good, she thought as the cartilage collapsed
against her knee.

  The insect-eyed one lunged for her. He moved quickly, his own body modified somehow. Fused muscular neurons, probably. Something to streamline the long, slow gap when the neurotransmitters floated across the synapses. Something to give him an edge when he was fighting some other thug. His hand fastened on her shoulder, wide, hard fingers grabbing at her. She turned in toward him, dropping to pull him down. Palm strike to the inside of the elbow to break his power, then both her hands around his wrist, bending it. None of her attacks were conscious or intentional. The movements came flowing out of a hindbrain that had been freed of restraint and given the time to plan its mayhem. It was no more a martial art than a crocodile taking down a water buffalo was; just speed, strength, and a couple billion years of survival instinct unleashed. Her tai chi instructor would have looked away in embarrassment.

  The bodybuilder sloped down to the floor, blood pouring from his mouth. The insect-eyed man pulled away from her, which was the wrong thing to do. She hugged his locked joints close to her body and swung from her hips. He was bigger than she was, had lived in the gravity well all his life. He buffed up with steroids and his own cheap augmentations. She didn’t need to be stronger than him, though. Just stronger than the little bones in his wrist and elbow. He broke, dropping to his knee.

  Melba—not Clarissa—swung around him, sliding her right arm around his neck, then locking it with the left, protecting her own head from the thrashing that was about to come. She didn’t need to be stronger than him, just stronger than the soft arteries that carried blood to his brain.

  Travin’s gun fired, gouging a hole in the couch. The little puff of foam was like a sponge exploding. No time. She shrieked, pulling the power of the scream into her arms, her shoulders. She felt the insect-eyed man’s neck snap. Travin fired again. If he hit her, she’d die. She felt no fear, though. It had been locked away where she couldn’t experience it. That would come soon. Very soon. It had to be done quickly.

  He should have tried for a third bullet. It was the smart thing. The wise one. He was neither smart nor wise. He did what his body told him to and tried to get away. He was a monkey, and millions of years of evolution told him to flee from the predator. He didn’t have time for another mistake. She felt another scream growing in her throat.

  Time skipped. Her fingers were wrapped around Travin’s neck. She’d been driving his skull into the corner of his desk. There was blood and scalp adhering to it. She pushed again, but he was heavy. There was no force behind her blow. She dropped him, and he fell to the floor moaning.

  Moaning.

  Alive, she thought. The fear was back now, and the first presentiment of nausea. He was still alive. He couldn’t still be alive when the crash came. He’d had a gun. She had to find what had happened to it. With fingers quickly growing numb, she pulled the little pistol from under him.

  “Partners,” she said, and fired two rounds into his head. Even over the gambling decks, they had to have heard it. She forced herself to the metal door and checked the lock. It was bolted. Unless someone had a key or cut through it, she was all right. She could rest. They wouldn’t call the police. She hoped they wouldn’t call the police.

  She slid to the floor. Sweat poured down her face and she began shaking. It seemed unfair that she’d lose time during the glorious and redemptive violence and have to fight to stay conscious through the physiological crash that followed, but she couldn’t afford to sleep. Not here. She hugged her knees to her chest, sobbing not because she felt sorrow or fear, but because it was what her flesh did when she was coming down. Someone was knocking at the door, but the sound was uncertain. Tentative. Just a few minutes, and she’d be… not all right. Not that. But good enough. Just a few minutes.

  This was why glandular modification had never taken root in the military culture. A squad of soldiers without hesitation or doubt, so full of adrenaline they could tear their own muscles and not care, might win battles. But the same fighters curled up and mewling for five minutes afterward would lose them again. It was a failed technology, but not an unavailable one. Enough money, enough favors to call in, and enough men of science who had been cured of conscience. It was easy. The easiest part of her plan, really.

  Her sobs intensified, shifted. The vomiting started. She knew from experience that it wouldn’t last long. Between retching, she watched the bodybuilder’s chest heaving for air through his ruined throat, but he was already gone. The smell of blood and puke thickened the air. Melba caught her breath, wiping the back of her hand against her lips. Her sinuses ached, and she didn’t know if it was from the retching or the false glands that lay in that tender flesh. It didn’t matter.

  The knocking at the door was more desperate now. She could make out the voice of the fat man by the door. No more time. She took the plastic envelope and shoved it in her pocket. Melba Alzbeta Koh crawled out the window and dropped to the street. She stank. There was blood on her hands. She was trembling with every step. The dim sunlight hurt, and she used the shadows of her hands to hide from it. In this part of Baltimore, a thousand people could see her and not have seen anything. The blanket of anonymity that the drug dealers and pimps and slavers arranged and enforced also protected her.

  She’d be okay. She’d made it. The last tool was in place, and all she had to do was get to her hotel, drink something to put her electrolytes back in balance, and sleep a little. And then, in a few days, report for duty on the Cerisier and begin her long journey out to the edge of the solar system. Holding her spine straight, walking down the street, avoiding people’s eyes, the dozen blocks to her room seemed longer. But she would do it. She would do whatever had to be done.

  She had been Clarissa Melpomene Mao. Her family had controlled the fates of cities, colonies, and planets. And now Father sat in an anonymous prison, barred from speaking with anyone besides his lawyer, living out his days in disgrace. Her mother lived in a private compound on Luna slowly medicating herself to death. The siblings—the ones that were still alive—had scattered to whatever shelter they could find from the hatred of two worlds. Once, her family’s name had been written in starlight and blood, and now they’d been made to seem like villains. They’d been destroyed.

  She could make it right, though. It hadn’t been easy, and it wouldn’t be now. Some nights, the sacrifices felt almost unbearable, but she would do it. She could make them all see the injustice in what James Holden had done to her family. She would expose him. Humiliate him.

  And then she would destroy him.

  Chapter Four: Anna

  Annushka Volovodov, Pastor Anna to her congregation on Europa—or Reverend Doctor Volovodov to people she didn’t like—was sitting in the high-backed leather chair in her office when the wife beater arrived.

  “Nicholas,” she said, trying to put as much warmth into her voice as she could manage. “Thank you for taking the time.”

  “Nick,” he said, then sat on one of the metal chairs in front of her desk. The metal chairs were lower than her own, which gave the room a vaguely courtroom-like setting, with her in the position of judge. It was why she never sat behind the desk when meeting with one of her parishioners. There was a comfortable couch along the back wall that was much better for personal conversations and counseling. But every now and then, the air of authority the big chair and heavy desk gave her was useful.

  Like now.

  “Nick,” she said, then pressed her fingertips together and rested her chin on them. “Sophia came to see me this morning.”

  Nick shrugged, looking away like a schoolboy caught cheating on an exam. He was a tall man, with the narrow, raw-boned look outer planets types got from hard physical labor. Anna knew he worked in surface construction. Here on Europa, that meant long days in a heavy vacuum suit. The people who did that job were as tough as nails. Nick had the attitude of a man who knew how he looked to others, and used his air of physical competence to intimidate.

  Anna smiled at him. It won’t work on me.


  “She wouldn’t tell me what happened at first,” she said. “It took a while to get her to lift her shirt. I didn’t need to see the bruises, I knew they’d be there. But I did need pictures.”

  When she said pictures, he leaned forward, his eyes narrowing and shifting from side to side. He probably thought it made him look tough, threatening. Instead it made him look like a rodent.

  “She fell—” he started.

  “In the kitchen,” Anna finished for him. “I know, she told me. And then she cried for a very long time. And then she told me you’d started hitting her again. Do you remember what I said would happen if you hit her again?”

  Nick shifted in his chair, his long legs bouncing in front of him with nervous energy. His large, bony hands squeezing each other until the knuckles turned white. He wouldn’t look directly at her. “I didn’t mean to,” he said. “It just happened. I could try the counseling again, I guess.”

  Anna cleared her throat, and when he looked at her she stared back until his legs stopped bouncing. “No, too late. We gave you the anger counseling. The church paid for you to go right up until you quit. We did that part. That part is done.”

  His expression went hard.

  “Gonna give me one of those Jesus speeches? I am sick right up to here”—Nick held his hand under his chin—“with that shit. Sophia won’t shut up about it. ‘Pastor Anna says!’ You know what? Fuck what Pastor fucking Anna says.”

  “No,” Anna said. “No Jesus speeches. We’re done with that too.”

  “Then what are we doing here?”

  “Do you,” she said, drawing the words out, “remember what I said would happen if you hit her again?”

  He shrugged again, then pushed up out of the chair and walked away, putting his back to her. While pretending to stare at one of the diplomas hanging on the wall he said, “Why should I give a fuck what you say, Pastor Anna?”