Babylon's Ashes

After the abandonment of Ceres, Dawes had gone on playing the role of elder statesman for a while, even as Pa’s rebellion made it impossible to pretend things were on track. When Aimee Ostman had found him, told him that Fred Johnson was putting together a meeting on Tycho, it had looked like an opportunity to broker peace. If not between Earth and the Free Navy, at least with the remains of the OPA. It had been the perfect way to leverage his relationship with Fred into a place at the table.

Another woman came in, sitting beside the one in the hijab. They exchanged soft words. Two men came in together, sat in the back. Change of shift was coming. Mourners would be stopping in on their way to work, or on their way back from it. Dawes felt a twinge of resentment that they should interrupt his time alone in the chapel. It was irrational and he knew it.

And anyway, Fred Johnson had made his wishes clear, even if he hadn’t meant to. And Dawes still owed the colonel something.

“Is fucking bullshit is what it is,” Aimee Ostman said. “James pinché Holden can fuck himself.”

Dawes sipped his espresso and nodded. Holden’s first move had been to humiliate her. For reasons Dawes understood. But still, for her to begin by losing face was hard.

“Forgive him for it,” Dawes said. “I have. You should too.”

“For for?”

Aimee Ostman scowled and scratched her chin. Her quarters in the station were wide and luxurious. One wall was taken entirely by a screen tied to an exterior camera, the resolution so fine it was indistinguishable from a window into space. The divan was spotless cream, the air scented with volatile molecules that mimicked sandalwood and vanilla. Dawes gestured at it all with his demitasse.

“Look at this,” he said. “Room for an ambassador. For a president.”

“And?”

“And he gave it to you,” Dawes said and took another sip. “Thought it was doing you honor. Best suite in the station.”

“He spat in your face,” Aimee Ostman said, pointing index and middle finger at him together like the barrel of a gun. “Kicked you out.”

Dawes laughed, shrugged. Invited her to laugh and shrug with him. It bit at his soul, but it was the thing to do. “I showed up unannounced. It was rude of me. Holden was in the right. How would you have been if I’d brought him to the back room at the Apex without telling you first?”

She scowled, her eyes tracking low and to the left. “Should have been more polite about it.”

“Maybe. But he’s new at this part.”

She sat across from him, folded her arms. The clouds in her eyes weren’t gone. He wouldn’t have expected them to be. But they weren’t thick with thunderbolts either. “Maybe,” she said. Grudgingly. “But I’m not staying. Not after that.”

“You should reconsider,” Dawes said. “If the plan came from Fred Johnson, it will be solid. And better that you be part of it than not.”

She grunted, but there was a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. That one found home. Dawes leaned into it a little, pressing his advantage.

“There has to be a grown-up in that room,” he said. “Holden’s a puppy. We both know that. We need you there to keep him from fucking everything up.”

“Holden’s the most experienced man in the system,” Dawes said. “He’s been on Medina. He’s been past it to the colonies. He walked off Eros Station before it woke up. He fought pirates for us. He went on diplomatic missions for us. His ship has berthed at Tycho Station more than anyplace else since the day he stole it from Mars. Holden has years working with the OPA.”

“There’s OPA,” Liang Goodfortune said, turning left down the corridor so that Dawes had to trot to keep up with them, “and there’s OPA.”

Tycho Station didn’t have the same breadth and depth as Ceres. Everyone here had a job or access to one. The brothels were all licensed, the drugs all from a dispensary, the gambling all taxed. But the station was also a home to people who’d lived their lives in quiet rebellion against the inner planets, and that meant a kind of demimonde had existed there too. Workers for an Earth corporation whose first loyalty was to the Belt. And so there were clubs where the music had lyrics shouted in Belter cant, where the drinks and food called back nothing to a farmland under the bare sun, where the games were shastash and Golgo instead of poker and billiards. Liang Goodfortune fit in there like they’d never left.

“So it was Johnson’s OPA,” Dawes said. “He was a good ally.”

“He was useful for an Earther,” Liang Goodfortune said. “That’s not saying much. And Holden’s just the same. Another Earther for us to rally around? You know better than that, Anderson. Holden’s worked for Johnson and Earth.”

“On behalf of the Belt,” Dawes said. “UN Navy kicked him to the curb before any of this began. His career was with a water hauler because he couldn’t stomach being part of imperial Earth. Coyo can’t change where he was born, where he grew up, but he’s lived on float. His lover’s one of ours.”