Miller skimmed the rest. The tone seemed consistent. The second draft reply was dated two days later. He skipped to it.

Mom:

  I’m sorry we’ve been so estranged these last few years. I know it’s been hard for you and for Daddy. I hope you can see that the decisions I’ve made were never meant to hurt either of you.

About the Razorback, I wish you’d reconsider. She’s my first boat, and I

It stopped there. Miller leaned back.

“Steady on, kid,” he said to the imaginary Julie, then opened the last draft.

Ariadne:

  Do what you have to.

Julie

Miller laughed and raised his bottle to the screen in toast. They’d known how to hit her where it hurt, and Julie had taken the blow. If he ever caught her and shipped her back, it was going to be a bad day for both of them. All of them.

He finished the beer, dropped the bottle into the recycling chute, and opened the last message. He more than half dreaded learning the final fate of the Razorback,but it was his job to know as much as he could.

Julie:

  This is not a joke. This is not one of your mother’s drama fits. I have solid information that the Belt is about to be a very unsafe place. Whatever differences we have we can work out later.

FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY COME HOME NOW.

Miller frowned. The air recycler hummed. Outside, the local kids whistled high and loud. He tapped the screen, closing the last Bullshit Guilt Trip message, then opened it again.

It had been sent from Luna, two weeks before James Holden and the Canterburyraised the specter of war between Mars and the Belt.

This sideshow was getting interesting.

Chapter Nine: Holden

  The ships are still not responding,” Naomi said, punching a key sequence on the comm panel.

“I didn’t think they would. But I want to show the Donnagerthat we’re worried about being followed. It’s all covering our asses at this point,” Holden said.

Naomi’s spine popped as she stretched. Holden pulled a protein bar out of the box in his lap and threw it at her.

“Eat.”

She peeled the wrapping off while Amos clambered up the ladder and threw himself into the couch next to her. His coverall was so filthy it shined. Just as with the others, three days on the cramped shuttle hadn’t helped his personal hygiene. Holden reached up and scratched his own greasy hair with distaste. The Knightwas too small for showers, and the zero-g sinks were too small to stick your head in. Amos had solved the hair-washing problem by shaving all of his off. Now he just had a ring of stubble around his bald spot. Somehow, Naomi’s hair stayed shiny and mostly oil free. Holden wondered how she did that.

“Toss me some chow, XO,” Amos said.

“Captain,” Naomi corrected.

Holden threw a protein bar at him too. Amos snatched it from the air, then considered the long, thin package with distaste.

“Goddamn, Boss, I’d give my left nut for food that didn’t look like a dildo,” Amos said, then tapped his food against Naomi’s in mock toast.

“Tell me about our water,” Holden said.

“Well, I’ve been crawling around between hulls all day. I’ve tightened everything that can be tightened, and slapped epoxy on anything that can’t, so we aren’t dripping anywhere.”

“It’ll still be right down to the wire, Jim,” Naomi said. “The Knight’s recycling systems are crap. She was never intended to process five people’s worth of waste back into potables for two weeks.”

“Down to the wire, I can handle. We’ll just learn to live with each other’s stink. I was worried about ‘nowhere near enough.’ ”

“Speaking of which, I’m gonna head to my rack and spray on some more deodorant,” Amos said. “After all day crawling in the ship’s guts, my stink’s even keeping me awake tonight.”

Amos swallowed the last of his food and smacked his lips with mock relish, then climbed out of his couch and headed down the crew ladder. Holden took a bite of his own bar. It tasted like greased cardboard.

“What’s Shed up to?” he asked. “He’s been pretty quiet.”

Naomi, frowning, put her half-eaten bar down on the comm panel.

“I wanted to talk to you about that. He’s not doing well, Jim. Out of all of us, he’s having the hardest time withc what’s happened. You and Alex were both navy men. They train you to deal with losing shipmates. Amos has been flying so long this is actually the thirdship that’s gone down under him, if you can believe that.”

“And you are made entirely of cast iron and titanium,” Holden said, only pretending to joke.

“Not entirely. Eighty, ninety percent. Tops,” Naomi said with a half smile. “Seriously, though. I think you should talk to him.”

“And say what? I’m no psychiatrist. The navy version of this speech involves duty and honorable sacrifice and avenging fallen comrades. Doesn’t work as well when your friends have been murdered for no apparent reason and there’s essentially no chance you can do anything about it.”

“I didn’t say you had to fix him. I said you needed to talk to him.”

Holden got up from his couch with a salute.

“Yes, sir,” he said. At the ladder he paused. “Again, thank you, Naomi. I’d really—”

“I know. Go be the captain,” she said, turning back to her panel and calling up the ship ops screen. “I’ll keep waving at the neighbors.”

  Holden found Shed in the Knight’s tiny sick bay. Really more a sick closet. Other than a reinforced cot, the cabinets of supplies, and a half dozen pieces of wall-mounted equipment, there was just enough room for one stool stuck to the floor on magnetic feet. Shed was sitting on it.

“Hey, buddy, mind if I come in?” Holden asked. Did I actually say ‘Hey, buddy’?

Shed shrugged and pulled up an inventory screen on the wall panel, opening various drawers and staring at the contents. Pretending he’d been in the middle of something.

“Look, Shed. This thing with the Canterburyhas really hit everyone hard, and you’ve—” Holden said. Shed turned, holding up a white squeeze tube.

“Three percent acetic acid solution. Didn’t realize we had this out here. The Cant’s run out, and I’ve got three people with GW who could really use it. Why’d they put it on the Knight,I wonder,” Shed said.

“GW?” was all Holden could think to reply.

“Genital warts. Acetic acid solution is the treatment for any visible warts. Burns ’em off. Hurts like hell, but it does the job. No reason to keep it on the shuttle. Medical inventory is always so messed up.”

Holden opened his mouth to speak, found nothing to say, and closed it again.

“We’ve got acetic acid cream,” Shed said, his voice increasingly shrill, “but no elemcet for pain. Which do you think you’d need more on a rescue shuttle? If we’d found anyone on that wreck with a bad case of GW, we’d have been set. A broken bone? You’re out of luck. Just suck it up.”

“Look, Shed,” Holden said, trying to break in.

“Oh, and look at this. No coagulant booster. What the hell? Hey, no chance anyone on a rescue mission could, you know, start bleeding.Catch a case of red bumps on your crank, sure, but bleeding? No way! I mean, we’ve got four cases of syphilis on the Cantright now. One of the oldest diseases in the book, and we still can’t get rid of it. I tell those guys, ‘The hookers on Saturn Station are banging every ice bucker on the circuit, so put the glove on,’ but do they listen? No. So here we are with syphilis and not enough ciprofloxacin.”

Holden felt his jaw slide forward. He gripped the side of the hatch and leaned into the room.

“Everyone on the Cantis dead,” Holden said, making each word clear and strong and brutal. “Everyone is dead. No one needs the antibiotics. No one needs wart cream.”