“Heroes of the hour, we are,” Marwick said. “Not that they really have much clue back there what it was really like. One of those things you can explain as clearly and concretely as you want, and they still don’t get it.”
“That’s fine,” Havelock said. “They don’t need to. I’m going to have a request list from the research and survey team. Do you think there’s anything else we can give them?”
“Depends,” Marwick said. “The Rocinante convoying back to the Ring with us?”
“I think so,” Havelock said. “I can confirm that.”
“If we’ve got them for backup, I can strip the place down a little bit more. Not a great deal, but we could break down one of the backup generators and drop it to them. And biomass for the galleys.”
“Actually, I think we’re okay on that. Doctor Okoye was talking about a way to convert the local flora into something that could be turned into something that they could eat. It had something to do with right-handed molecules, whatever those are.”
“Well, good on her, then,” Marwick said. “Almost makes you want to stay a while, doesn’t it? See how it all plays out?”
“Oh shit no,” Havelock said. “No, you should see this place. It’s tiny, it’s filthy, and everything about it is slapped together with hot glue and prayer. Also, there are slugs that instantly kill you. If these people survive for a year, I’ll be surprised.”
“Really?”
“You know that in a month or two or eight or whatever, something’s got to happen. The hydroponics will fail out, or there’ll be another thing like that eye-eating goop only they won’t happen to have a treatment for it ready to hand, or one of the attack moons will drop out of the sky. Shit, the fucking death-slugs could grow wings. How do we know they can’t do that? We do know there are power plants in the ocean big enough to damn near blow the planet off course. Holden says they’re all dead now, but he could be wrong. Or turning everything off might mean there’s some kind of reactor core sinking down into the planet. We don’t know anything.”
Marwick looked nonplussed, but he nodded. “I suppose that’s true.”
“No, what I want is Ceres Station or Earth or Mars. You know what they have in New York? All-night diners with greasy food and crap coffee. I want to live on a world with all-night diners. And racetracks. And instant-delivery Thai food made from something I haven’t already eaten seven times in the last month.”
“You make it sound like paradise indeed,” Marwick said. “Still, I can’t help feeling uncomfortable at the idea of leaving all these poor people if they’re really going to die from staying.”
“Maybe they won’t,” Havelock said. “Wouldn’t be the first time recently I was wrong about something. And… well, they’ve got some things in the plus column too. I think they’ve got more scientists and engineers per capita than anyplace else in the universe. And we’re giving them all the supplies we can manage.”
“Still, seems thin.”
Havelock sat up a degree, his crash couch shifting and hissing on its gimbal. “They also have each other. For now, anyway. You have to figure when we started this, everyone was ready to slit everyone else’s throat, and they’re down here now putting up tents together. If nothing new comes along to kill them, there will be native-born New Terran babies as soon as biology permits. And I wouldn’t bet that the parents will all have come here on the same ship.”
“Well,” Marwick said. “It’s good to recall that wherever people start, whatever they bring with them, humanity can still pull together in heavy weather.”
Havelock shrugged. Koenen’s voice was still fresh in his memory, and Williams drifting flatlined and dead. Naomi Nagata in her cell. The Belter engineer whose locker people had been pissing in. The shuttle he’d rigged as a weapon. Jesus, he felt bad enough about Williams. He could barely imagine what it would have been like if he’d deployed the weaponized shuttle.
“Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t. These people could just as easily have gone down with their teeth in each other’s throats. That happens too. It’s just the folks that go that way aren’t around to write the history books.”
“Amen,” Marwick said, chuckling. “Amen indeed.”
Chapter Fifty-Six: Holden
The Rocinante had really taken a beating.
The ship had a variety of puncture wounds in the outer hull all along her port side. Holden could see the bright spots where Basia and Naomi had replaced damaged thruster ports, but they hadn’t had the time or materials to patch all the holes. It was a testament to Alex’s skill as a pilot that he’d been able to bring them down at all without burning up. At least one PDC housing was riddled with damage, and the weapon inside was probably unsafe to use. And there was a long scar across the top of the ship where, according to Naomi, an improvised missile had hit.
Holden cheerfully noted each future repair on his itemized bill for Avasarala.
The Rocinante sat on a wide stretch of nothing half a kilometer from where First Landing had once stood. The frames of new construction were starting to appear. People, building on the ruins of what had come before, just like they always did. So many things had been lost, but it was the missing people that hurt the most.
Just like they always did.
Holden noted a spot of minor damage on the drive cone, then came around the stern of the ship to find a pair of Belters throwing up a temporary shelter a dozen yards away. A man in his early thirties was running cable while an older woman hammered spikes into the muddy ground. A second woman stood by with a long pole to flick away any slugs that might get too close.
“You can’t put that there,” Holden said, walking toward them and making a shooing gesture. “Ask Administrator Chiwewe where to put your tent.”
“This spot hasn’t been claimed by anyone,” the man said. “We have just as much right —”
“Yes, yes. I’m not telling you where you can and can’t build. But in a few hours this ship is going to lift off, and it will flatten your little tent.”
“Oh,” the man said, sheepish. “Right. We’ll just wait for you to go.”
“Thank you. You folks have a good afternoon.” Holden gave them a wave and a smile and headed off toward New First Landing. These people were still the same ones who had been willing to fight RCE to the death to hang on to their claim. They weren’t going to put up with being bossed around by outsiders. But the catastrophe had at least taught them to respect high-speed winds.