“Don’t go,” he said.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Holden

  What do you mean, don’t go?” Holden asked, yanking his elbow out of Miller’s grasp. “Somebody just nuked the station. This has escalated beyond our capacity to respond. If we can’t get to the Roci,we’re doing whatever they tell us to until we can.”

Miller took a step back and put up his hands; he was clearly doing his best to look nonthreatening, which just pissed Holden off even more. Behind him, the riot cops were motioning the people milling in the corridors toward the casinos. The air echoed with the electronically amplified voices of the police directing the crowds and the buzz of anxious citizens. Over it all, the public-address system told everyone to remain calm and cooperate with emergency personnel.

“See that bruiser over there in the police riot gear?” Miller said. “His name is Gabby Smalls. He supervises a chunk of the Golden Bough protection racket on Ceres. He also runs a little dust on the side, and I suspect he’s tossed more than a few people out airlocks.”

Holden looked at the guy. Wide shoulders, thick gut. Now that Miller pointed him out, there was something about him that didn’t seem right for a cop.

“I don’t get it,” Holden said.

“A couple months ago, when you started a bunch of riots by saying Mars blew up your water hauler, we found out—”

“I never said—”

“— found outthat most of the police riot gear on Ceres was missing. A few months before that, a bunch of our underworld muscle went missing. I just found out where both of them are.”

Miller pointed at the riot-gear-equipped Gabby Smalls.

“I wouldn’t go wherever he’s sending people,” he said. “I really wouldn’t.”

A thin stream of people bumped past.

“Then where?” Naomi asked.

“Yeah, I mean, if the choice is radiation or mobsters, I gotta go with the mobsters,” Alex said, nodding emphatically at Naomi.

Miller pulled out his hand terminal and held it up so everyone could see the screen.

“I’ve got no radiation warnings,” he said. “Whatever happened outside isn’t a danger on this level. Not right now. So let’s just calm down and make the smart move.”

Holden turned his back on Miller and motioned to Naomi. He pulled her aside and said in a quiet voice, “I still think we go back to the ship and get out of here. Take our chances getting past these mobsters.”

“If there’s no radiation danger, then I agree,” she said with a nod.

“I disagree,” Miller said, not even pretending he hadn’t been eavesdropping. “To do that we have to walk through three levels of casino filled with riot gear and thugs. They’re going to tell us to get in one of those casinos for our own protection. When we don’t, they’ll beat us unconscious and throw us in anyway. For our own protection.”

Another crowd of people poured out of a branch corridor, heading for the reassuring presence of the police and the bright casino lights. Holden found it difficult not to be swept along with the crowd. A man with two enormous suitcases bumped into Naomi, almost knocking her down. Holden grabbed her hand.

“What’s the alternative?” he asked Miller.

Miller glanced up and down the corridor, seeming to measure the flow of people. He nodded at a yellow-and-black-striped hatch down a small maintenance corridor.

“That one,” he said. “It’s marked HIGH VOLTAGE, so the guys sweeping for stragglers won’t bother with it. It’s not the kind of place citizens hide.”

“Can you get that door open quickly?” Holden said, looking at Amos.

“Can I break it?”

“If you need to.”

“Then sure,” Amos said, and began pushing his way through the crowd toward the maintenance hatch. At the door, he pulled out his multi-tool and popped off the cheap plastic housing for the card reader. After he twisted a couple of wires together, the hatch slid open with a hydraulic hiss.

“Ta-da,” Amos said. “The reader won’t work anymore, so anyone who wants in comes in.”

“Let’s worry about that if it happens,” Miller replied, then led them into the dimly lit passageway beyond.

The service corridor was filled with electrical cable held together with plastic ties. It stretched through the dim red light for thirty or forty feet before falling into gloom. The light came from LEDs mounted on the metal bracing that sprouted from the wall every five feet or so to hold the cable up. Naomi had to duck to enter, her frame about four centimeters too tall for the ceiling. She put her back to the wall and slid down onto her haunches.

“You’d think they’d make the maintenance corridors tall enough for Belters to work in,” she said irritably.

Holden touched the wall almost reverently, tracing a corridor identification number carved right into the stone.

“The Belters who built this place weren’t tall,” he said. “These are some of the main power lines. This tunnel goes back to the first Belt colony. The people who carved it grew up in gravity.”

Miller, who also had to duck his head, sat on the floor with a grunt and popping knees.

“History lesson later,” he said. “Let’s figure a way off this rock.”

Amos, studying the bundles of cable intently, said over his shoulder, “If you see a frayed spot, don’t touch it. This thick fucker right here is a couple million volts. That’d melt your shit down real good.”

Alex sat down next to Naomi, grimacing when his butt hit the cold stone floor.

“You know,” he said, “if they decide to seal up the station, they might pump all the air outta these maintenance corridors.”

“I get it,” Holden said loudly. “It’s a shitty and uncomfortable hiding spot. You have my permission to now shut up about that.”

He squatted down across the corridor from Miller and said, “Okay, Detective. Now what?”

“Now,” Miller said, “we wait for the sweep to pass us by, and get behind it, try to get to the docks. The folks in the shelters are easy to avoid. Shelters are up deep. Trick’s going to be getting through the casino levels.”

“Can’t we just use these maintenance passages to move around?” Alex asked.

Amos shook his head. “Not without a map, we won’t. You get lost in here, you’re in trouble,” he said.

Ignoring them, Holden said, “Okay, so we wait for everyone to move to the radiation shelters and then we leave.”

Miller nodded at him, and then the two men sat staring at each other for a moment. The air between them seemed to thicken, the silence taking on a meaning of its own. Miller shrugged like his jacket itched.

“Why do you think a bunch of Ceres mobsters are moving everyone to radiation shelters when there’s no actual radiation danger?” Holden finally said. “And why are the Eros cops letting them?”

“Good questions,” Miller said.

“If they were using these yahoos, it helps explain why their attempted kidnapping at the hotel went so poorly. They don’t seem like pros.”

“Nope,” Miller said. “That’s not their usual area of expertise.”

“Would you two be quiet?” Naomi said.

For almost a minute they were.

“It’d be really stupid,” Holden said, “to go take a look at what’s going on, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes. Whatever’s going on at those shelters, you know that’s where all the guards and patrols will be,” Miller said.

“Yeah,” Holden said.

“Captain,” Naomi said, a warning in her voice.

“Still,” Holden said, talking to Miller, “you hate a mystery.”

“I do at that,” Miller replied with a nod and a faint smile. “And you, my friend, are a damn busybody.”

“It’s been said.”

“Goddamn it,” Naomi said quietly.

“What is it, Boss?” Amos asked.

“These two just broke our getaway plan,” Naomi replied. Then she said to Holden, “You guys are going to be very bad for each other and, by extension, us.”