Cibola Burn

“So you’ll let us move the ore you won’t let us mine?” Carol said. “Typical corporate doublespeak.”

“I’m not saying that,” Murtry said, patting the air in a calm down gesture that struck Holden as intentionally patronizing. “I’m saying we hold the explosives when not in use, and your mining crews sign them out when needed. That way nothing goes missing and shows up later as a pipe bomb.”

“Carol, does that seem fair to you?” Holden asked.

“It’ll slow the process down, but it’s not a deal breaker,” she replied.

“Okay,” Holden said, standing up. “We’ll stop there for now. We’ll meet again tomorrow to go over the UN proposal on colony administration and start hammering out details. We also need to talk about environmental controls.”

“The OPA —” Carol started.

“Yes, I have the recommendations from Fred Johnson as well, and those will be discussed. I’d like to transmit a revised plan to the UN and OPA by the end of the week, and get their feedback. Acceptable?”

There were nods from both Murtry and Carol. “Great. I’ll want you two with me when I present today’s agreement at the town hall meeting tonight. Our first show of goodwill and solidarity.”

Murtry rose and walked past Carol without looking at her or shaking hands.

Goodwill and solidarity indeed.

~

“So,” Amos said when Holden exited the town hall meeting that night. “How’d it go?”

“I must have done it right,” Holden replied. “Everyone’s pissed.”

They walked along the dusty street together in companionable silence for a while. Amos finally said, “Weird planet. Walking in open air at night with no moon is breaking my head.”

“I hear you. My brain keeps trying to find Orion and the Big Dipper. What’s weirder is that I keep finding them.”

“That ain’t them,” Amos said.

“Oh, I know. But it’s like my eyes are forcing those patterns on stars that aren’t really lined up the right way to make them.”

There was another moment of silence, then Amos said, “That’s, like, one of them metaphors, right?”

“It is now.”

“Buy you a beer?” Amos said when they reached the doors of the commissary.

“Later, maybe. I think I’m going to take a walk. The night air is nice here. Reminds me of Montana.”

“Okay, see you when I see you. Try not to get shot or abducted or anything.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Holden walked slowly, the dirt of the planet puffing up around his ankles at every stride. The buildings glowed in the darkness, the only human habitation on the planet. The only civilization in the wilds. He put his back to it and kept on going.

He was far enough outside of town that he could no longer see its dim lights when a faint blue glow appeared beside him. The glow was both there and not there. It lit the air around it while also illuminating nothing.

“Miller,” Holden said without looking.

“Hey kid.”

“We need to talk,” Holden finished for him.

“That’s less funny the more you do it,” the detective said, his hands in his pockets. “Did you come out here to find me? I admit, I’m a little flattered, considering your other problems.”

“Other problems?”

“Yeah, that shantytown full of future corpses you’re trying to treat like grown-ups. No way that doesn’t end bloody.”

Holden turned to look at Miller, frowning. “Is that the former cop talking? Or the creepy protomolecule skin doll.”

“I don’t know. Both,” Miller said. “You want a shadow, you got to have light and something to get in its way.”

“Can I borrow the cop for a minute?”

The gray, jowly man hoisted his eyebrows just the way he had in life. “Are you asking me to use your brain to make these monkeys stop killing each other over rare dirt?”

“No,” Holden sighed. “Just advice.”

“Okay. Sure. Murtry’s a psycho who’s finally in a spot where he can do the creepy shit he’s been dreaming about doing all his life. I’d just have Amos shoot him. Carol and her gang of dirt farmers are only alive because they’re too desperate to realize how stupid they are. They’ll probably die of starvation and bacterial infections in a year. Eighteen months tops. Your pals Avasarala and Johnson have handed you the bloody knife and you think it’s because they trust you.”

“You know what I hate about you?”

“My hat?”

“That too,” Holden said. “But mostly it’s that I hate everything you say, but you’re not always wrong.”

Miller nodded and stared up at the night sky.

“The frontier always outpaces the law,” Holden said.

“True,” Miller agreed. “But this place was already a crime scene when you got here.”

“Bombing the heavy shuttle was —”

“Not that,” Miller said. “I mean all of it. All the places.”

“I seem to spend a lot of time asking people to explain themselves lately.”

Miller laughed. “You think somebody built those towers and structures and then just left? This whole planet is a murder scene. An empty apartment with warm food on the table and all the clothes still in the closets. This is some Croatoan shit.”

“The North American colonists who —”