Babylon's Ashes

“It does if we win,” Naomi said. “Free Navy ports weren’t going to refit and refuel us anyway.”

“Right,” Amos said. “So I kind of like that we’re getting work.”

Two of the mechs scuttled forward to the edge of the new hull plate. Welding torches like little suns burst into life, cleaving old technology and new together. There was something about it that Holden disliked and distrusted. But there was also something amazing. The very fabric the lace hull was made from hadn’t existed when he was born, and now it did.

Vast intelligences had designed the protomolecule, the rings, the weird and implacable ruins that covered all the new worlds. They might be extinct, but they were also being incorporated into what humanity knew, what it could do, how it defined itself. A kid born today would grow up in a world where carbon-silicate lace was as common as titanium or glass. That it was a collaboration between humanity and the ghosts of a massive and alien intelligence would go right by them. Holden was one of the lucky generation who would straddle that break point, that seam between before and after that Naomi and Amos and Ip were making literal right now, and so he could be amazed by how cool it was. Creepy, but cool.

“It’s the future,” he said. “We might as well get some practice with it.”

The rest of Fred Johnson’s temporary crew were either already on the Rocinante along with Clarissa or on the way from their quarters on Luna. There was an excitement about the coming action. It was the first time that they—Earth, Mars, and even the less radical splinters of the OPA—would work together to take any direct action against the Free Navy. The heavy lifting would be done by Earth and Mars, but the Rocinante would be there. An observation ship carrying Fred Johnson. A representative, however imperfect, of the Belt. They were ready.

Except that Holden also wasn’t.

Especially now that his parents had come up the well from Earth, the impulse to stay close surprised him. He’d spent most of his adult life off-planet. If anyone had asked, he’d have told them that he didn’t miss Earth. Some people, yes. Some places from his childhood, maybe. But there’d been no sense of longing for the planet itself. It was only now that it had been attacked that he wanted to protect it. Maybe it was always like that. He’d outgrown his childhood home, but in the back of his mind, the unexamined assumption was that it would still be there. Changed, maybe. Grown a little older. But there. Only it wasn’t now. Wanting to stay was the same as wanting to go back a little in time to when it hadn’t happened.

Fred Johnson sent a message. He and weapons technicians Sun-yi Steinberg and Gor Droga were finishing their last meeting. As soon as the new hull was welded into place and the pressure tests complete, they could go. If Holden had any last business on Luna, this was the time for it.

He had some last business on Luna.

The torches flared and died and flared again. The Rocinante was remade a little, the same way it had been over and over through the years. Little changes adding up over time as the ship moved from what it had been to what it would be next. Just like all the people she carried.

“You okay?” Bobbie asked.

“What?” Holden said.

“You were sighing,” she said.

“He does that sometimes,” Alex said.

“I do?” Holden said, realizing as he did that Bobbie was still looped in on the Rocinante-only channel. That he was glad she was. “I didn’t know I did that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Naomi said. “It’s cute.”

“So,” he said. “When you’re done with that, Naomi? Fred’s on his way.”

“Yeah,” she said, and he was probably just imagining the dread in her voice. “All right.”

The cart that drove them down toward the refugee station ran on electromagnetic track that held the wheels to the ground. Part-grumble, part-chime, the sound was loud enough that Holden felt he had to raise his voice a little to be heard over it.

“If she’s still being paid through the UN or Mars, that would be different,” Holden said. “If we’re offering her a place on the ship permanently, I just think we need to be careful about how we do it.”

“She’s good,” Naomi said. “She’s actually trained for a ship like the Roci, which is more than any of us can say. She gets along with the crew. Why wouldn’t you want Bobbie on board?”

The air in the deeper corridors was damp and close. The environmental systems were working at their full capacity, and a little bit more. People shuffled out of the cart’s way, some staring at them as they passed, some not seeming to look at anything.

The refugee station stank of loss and waiting. Almost every person they passed was a lifetime that had been severed from its roots. Holden and Naomi were the lucky ones here. They still had their home, even if it was a changed one.