Leviathan Falls

Chapter Eighteen: Jim

The panic was deep and irrational. It felt so much like the station itself was vibrating that Jim had to physically test that it was really just him. He realized the message had been playing and he didn’t know what it had said. He slid it back to the start, breathing deeply, and tried to keep his mind from bouncing off it again.

“This message is for Naomi Nagata. My name is Anton Trejo. I think you know who I am and the situation we’re both in. It’s past time that you and I talk. I would like to propose an alliance.

“We have our differences, and I’m not here to underplay or deny that. We also have access to certain information that makes clear the vulnerabilities that we’re both trying to address in our ways. We share a problem, you and I. The ring space and the unknown entities within it pose an existential threat for humanity. We must control access to the rings to limit this danger. We also both know that when it comes to getting people to deny their own immediate needs in favor of a greater good, asking nicely almost never works.”

Trejo spread his hands in a gesture of powerlessness. What option do they give us? Jim’s hands ached, and he forced his fists to unclench.

“I have here a copy of a document you wrote. Protocols for the safer use of the gates. I also have my own traffic analysis data that tell how well this project is going for you. I’ve had my best people analyze it and I have to say, it’s a damned good piece of work. Solid. If it were put in place, it might go a long way toward managing the threat of these incidents. The only thing it’s missing is a method of enforcement. Out of a shared concern for humanity as a whole and in recognition of our common history and moral bonds, I would like to put my forces at your disposal. On behalf of Laconia and High Consul Duarte, I am offering the underground not just armistice, but collaboration.

“We have to end these petty squabbles and fights. I think you know that. And I am willing to do so. Furthermore, I will commit to stationing two Laconian destroyers inside the ring space, even with the risk that we both know that exposes them to, with the sole mission of enforcing your transit protocol. We will not take aggressive action. We will not limit or control trade. I will guarantee the safety of any ship making use of the gates, and grant blanket amnesty for the underground.

“And I will begin by reassigning the forces presently in Freehold to that mission,” Trejo said. “That’s my offer. A unified front against the real enemies of humanity. And all I’d ask from you, as a gesture of your trust and goodwill, is the return of your present passenger. You know as well as I do that she’s in no danger from us. We only want to bring her home. And with this rapprochement between us, there’s no reason for her to be living in exile.”

The message ended, and for a moment, Jim wasn’t there. The cabin in Draper Station, the cot, the soft gravity, all of it was still present, but it became less immediate, less real than the holding cell in the depths of Laconia’s State Building. The fear was real, but more than that was the twin sense of despair and responsibility. The conviction that everything depended on him, and that he was powerless. Like watching something precious and delicate falling, and knowing that he couldn’t get to it in time. Everything was going to break, and even though there was nothing he could do, the grief pressed on him like he was the only one carrying it.

He’d done so much, tried so hard, and accomplished so little. And now they were coming to ask their questions and drown his answers out with pain until he’d say anything. Or they wouldn’t ask anything, they’d just beat him until he understood that he was at their mercy, and they were merciless.

A small, still part of him that watched the rest of his mind noticed how odd it was. When he’d been a prisoner on Laconia, he’d been able to hold himself together. To rise to the occasion, plan, scheme, and even suffer with a resolve that he couldn’t find now. After he’d escaped, he’d felt euphoric. Calm and whole and returned to the life he’d given up hoping for.

But the honeymoon faded, and the version of him it left behind was scarred and broken. He didn’t feel weak. He felt annihilated.

Years were gone. Years of prison and torture, which had been bad, and of pretending to be an honored guest while the threat of death invisibly followed one step behind. The dancing bear years. They’d been the worst because they’d broken down his sense of himself. Of who he was. Of what was true. The Jim Holden who had tripped the alarms in Medina Station was gone. The Jim who’d schemed against Cortázar and for Elvi Okoye had been half a lie from the start. He was all that was left. The dregs of himself. The scrapings.

Jim. Jim, come back to me.

His awareness shifted. The little cabin came back into focus like someone was tuning a video screen. Naomi was there. He didn’t remember her coming in. She was holding his hand.

“Hey,” he said, trying to sound bright and cheerful. “Imagine meeting you here.”

“You saw the message then?”

“Yup. Yes. Indeed I did.”

“I was hoping you were still asleep. I should have come here first.”

“No,” he said, “I’m fine. Just processing a little old trauma. Thinking about what to have for dinner. The usual. What did I miss?”

“We don’t have to talk about this now.”

“It won’t help,” he said, and squeezed her fingers in his. “Not talking about it? It won’t help. If you’re here, I’ll be fine. Getting it out will help me even. Promise.” He didn’t know that was true, but he didn’t know that it wasn’t.

He could see it when she decided to believe him.

“He’s surrendering,” Naomi said.

“Only if he gets to be your police force,” Jim said. “That’s not what surrendering means.”

“I read the agreement he sent,” she said. “He really has seen my traffic control protocol. It’s almost word for word in some places. And it puts his ships at my command.”

“All right.”

“He wants to make the underground into a new Transport Union. We’d be responsible for setting policy. We’d be independent of the Laconian hierarchy. We’d have the authority to deny passage to Laconian ships.”

“And you’re thinking?”

“That it smells like bullshit. Sounds too good to be true,” she said. “But… How else do peace treaties get made? That happens, doesn’t it? History’s full of wars that ended because people chose to end them. We hurt Laconia badly. We broke the construction platforms, and they’re not coming back. Not anytime soon. Duarte was the architect of the whole thing, and he’s off the board. The glitches where people turn off or the rules of physics change? They’re the threat.”

“They are,” Jim agreed.

Naomi shook her head once. “Everything in me says the offer’s a trap, but if it isn’t, and I turn away? If this isn’t the opening I was looking for, I’m not sure what our goal is with them.”

The door to the little common room opened, and Alex’s and Teresa’s voices mixed, talking over each other. Muskrat barked once, a low conversational woof. Naomi leaned close, pressing her forehead to his like they were both wearing helmets and she wanted to say something only he could hear.

“I’ll be okay,” he said. “I’m better. I’m fine.”

“Hey, back there,” Amos said. “You talking about the thing?”

“We’ll be right out,” Jim said, loud enough to carry.

She put a hand on the top of his head, like she was gently hugging it, and then they walked out together. Alex and Teresa were leaning against the walls, Amos sitting on the floor idly scratching Muskrat’s neck. The dog smiled her soft, canine smile, looking from Amos to Teresa and back.

“How’s the resupply going?” Naomi asked.

“Good,” Alex said. “We have a good pit crew here. Always have had.”

“I keep forgetting how long this was home for you,” Jim said. “I missed that part.”

“These are good people,” Alex said. It occurred to Jim how many families Alex had gathered on his path through life. His time in the navy, his first wife, the crew of the Canterbury. He might not be good at marriage, but he had a talent for making homes. Or finding them.

“Repairs are something different,” Amos said. “They’ll take longer, and some of them, if we start we’ll be grounded until they’re complete. That could take longer than the folks on Freehold have got. I thought we should hold off until we were sure.”

Naomi nodded and pressed her thumb against her lower lip the way she did sometimes when she was thinking. She looked old, which was fair. They were both old. But more than that, she looked hard, and Jim wasn’t sure they were hard. Only that they’d had to act that way so many times in so many situations. They’d gotten good at it, her and him both.

“And that brings us back to the thing, doesn’t it?” Jim said.

“It does,” Amos said.

“What do you think?” Naomi asked, as if Amos were the same man he’d been before.

“I think he didn’t say what happens if you turn him down. I’m guessing it’s pretty much where we’re at now.”

“In that case, we’ve got a little over two days before the Derecho starts killing people,” Jim said. “We’ve got a little more than that before we need to leave here, assuming that our cover isn’t totally shredded.”

“Oh, our cover’s totally shredded,” Amos said. “I thought that was a gimme.”

“It is,” Naomi said. “We don’t have a lot of options, and what we have got are bad.”

“What do you mean? You hand me over,” Teresa said. “Are we talking about this? Obviously you hand me over.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, Tiny,” Amos said.

The girl furrowed her brow. “I’m not worth a hundred thousand people.”

Jim raised his hand like a student in a classroom. “Are you saying that you want to go back?”

“No, I don’t. Being there was killing me, but I’m one person and they’re most of a planet. You’re going to hand me over. You have to.”

“I don’t have to,” Amos said with a deceptive mildness. Jim heard the expectation of violence behind it, even if Teresa didn’t.

“Are we thinking that Trejo means what he says?” Alex said. “Just looking at the logistics? I don’t love it. If we did let Teresa go back, that means showing ourselves. Docking with one of their ships, maybe. And I’ve seen their power suits in action. If they decided to board us, they could go through us like tissue paper.”

Teresa’s frown shifted. It was fascinating. Knowing Laconia as well as she did, having seen it from as far inside as anyone could be, her first instinct was still to trust them. If Trejo was making the offer, it must be real. He must be sincere. A part of Jim wondered if that might not be a truer guide than his distrust or Naomi’s. The fresh eyes of the young seeing more clearly, or else the benefit of experience showing where the traps were set.

“Trejo was a Martian before he was Laconian,” Alex went on. “He betrayed his nation. I’m not sure that says a lot in favor of him keeping his word now.”

“My father was Martian too,” Teresa said, but there was no real heat in the words. More like she was thinking something through.

“The question is whether we can trust him to do what he’s promising,” Jim said. “The answer to that is inside Trejo’s skull, and we don’t have access to it. It’s just which side do we bet on?”

“That’s not the only question,” Amos said. “If we hand over Tiny, are we still the good guys? That’s a question too.”

“It is,” Jim agreed.

“If you can choose between one person and a hundred thousand, it’s not a hard call,” Teresa said. “I won’t even die.”

But Naomi’s gaze had turned inward. Something in Teresa’s words had done the trick. Jim saw her understand even before he knew what she’d understood. Naomi lifted her eyebrows and shook her head, just a millimeter back and forth.

“You know what this is?” she said. “This is him making me responsible for what he does. Teresa’s right. She’s got exactly the frame I’m supposed to use. One person for a multitude. But I’m not looking to kill a multitude. That’s him. If I do what he says, I’ll be saving all the people he would kill to punish me if I didn’t.”

Amos’ laugh was almost the same timbre and cadence as Muskrat’s little bark. When he spoke, he was mimicking the soft, threatening whine of an abusive lover. “Look what you made me do, baby. Why do you have to make me so mad?”

“That’s it,” Naomi said. “I couldn’t put my finger on it, but that’s why I can’t do this. He’s holding a gun to their heads and then pretending that I’m the only one who can decide whether he pulls the trigger. That’s not a trust exercise. It’s just another threat.”

“Don’t forget the surrender. The amnesty,” Jim said. “There’s a carrot along with the stick.”

“Carrots don’t matter when he still gets to hold the stick,” Naomi said. “I’m done with sticks. Sticks are disqualifying. If he’d led by pulling the Derecho back from Freehold, it would be a different thing. He didn’t. He chose this, and I don’t trust him.”

Jim smiled at her. “Also, he’s asking us to hand over to him a young girl who doesn’t want to go, so fuck him. We don’t do that.”

“Fuck him,” Amos agreed.

The room was silent. Naomi pursed her lips and shook her head almost imperceptibly, continuing the conversation in her head. He wondered what she was saying, and to whom. He had the sense that, whoever they were, they were probably happier not being present for it.

“We’ve got two good ships,” he said.

“We’ve got two ships anyway,” Amos said. “I love ’em both, but the Roci’s feeling her years and the Storm’s gone a long way between updates.”

“We’ve got two mostly okay ships,” Jim said. “Not bad anyway. We load up everyone on Draper Station, burn hard for the ring gate, and take the Sparrowhawk out if it tries to stop us. With the Storm in the open, no reason to bomb Freehold anymore. At least the planet would be safe.”

“Best bad plan we’ve got,” Naomi said.

Jim headed for the door. He almost felt like himself again. The panic and fear weren’t gone, but they’d grown smaller. Manageable. “First thing is make sure we’re all the way topped up on rail-gun slugs,” he said, and pulled the handle. The door didn’t move, and an alert popped up on the locking panel. The error was so out of place that he pulled on the door twice more before he understood what he was seeing. EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN. VACUUM HAZARD.

“Uh, that’s weird,” he said.

Naomi was already on her hand terminal. “Jillian. What’s going on?”

The voice that answered was hard and brittle. “I understand that you’re upset, ma’am.”

“What did you do?”

“While I respect the civilian branch of the underground which you represent, this is a military matter. The enemy has a hundred thousand of our people they’re prepared to spare in exchange for one girl who they aren’t even going to hurt. There’s no dishonor in a prisoner exchange.”

“Do you think Trejo’s really going to walk away once he’s got her?” Naomi said. Rage buzzed, but she didn’t raise her voice.

“According to our best sources on the man, he will honor his word,” Jillian said.

“You don’t get to make that call,” Naomi said. “That’s my job.”

“Respectfully? As the captain of the Gathering Storm, which is the flagship of our military branch, I have authority over military decisions. This is a military decision.”

“Jillian,” Alex said, loud enough for Naomi’s hand terminal to pick him up. “You don’t need to do this. Bobbie wouldn’t have done this.”

“Captain Draper understood that one individual can’t stand in the way of the greater good, Mr. Kamal. If she were here, she’d be doing the same thing I’m doing.”

Amos chuckled. “You can tell yourself that, Sunshine. Don’t make it true.”

“The Sparrowhawk is on its way with a representative of Laconia. The Derecho is burning this way as an escort force with an understanding that both ships will leave the system once the handoff is complete. Until it is, I’m restricting you all to your quarters,” Jillian said. “Once this is over, and your emotions are calm enough that you can see that this decision was correct, we can discuss whether you want to fracture the underground’s leadership or back my authority.”

“Jillian,” Naomi said, but the connection was dead.

The walls of the common room felt as small as a cell, and the fear rolled up Jim’s spine, as fresh and angry as if he’d never put a lid on it. The others were talking, their voices washing over each other. Alex saying I can talk sense into her if we can just get her to pick up again. Amos guessing out loud how long it would take to get down the hallway in hard vacuum, and whether the rest of them would survive even if he did. Naomi repeating Jillian’s name again, trying the connection. He was the only one who stayed quiet. Or, no, Teresa did too.

She looked at him like they were alone together. He nodded to her. She nodded back.