Cibola Burn

Murtry looked out from the display, listening to Havelock’s report. Gravity changed the shape of his face, pulling down at his cheeks and eyes. It actually looked pretty good on him. Some people just belonged down a well.

“We had one incident with Pierce and Gillett.”

“Those are the two in marine biology?”

“Gillett is. Pierce is actually a soil guy. It didn’t amount to anything more than a little domestic spat, but… well, tempers are fraying. All these folks came out here to work, and instead, they’re stuck here. We’re doing sensor sweeps and dropping the occasional high-atmo probe, but it’s like giving starving people a cracker when they can smell the buffet. It’s starting to come out at the seams a little.”

“That makes sense,” Murtry said.

“Plus which they hate null g. The autodoc’s been pumping out antinausea drugs like there’s no tomorrow. I’m surprised we aren’t just putting that shit in the water at this point.”

Murtry’s smile was perfunctory. Havelock wanted to float the idea of a second colony. Maybe something in the temperate zone near a river and a beach. The kind of place someone might, for example, string up a hammock. It would let the expedition’s crew get working, and the problems with the squatters could work themselves out without putting anyone else in harm’s way. The words hovered at the back of Havelock’s throat, but he didn’t say them out loud. He already knew the arguments against it. You treated a tumor when it was small, before it spread. He could even hear it in his boss’s voice. Havelock cracked his knuckles.

“The shuttle?” Murtry asked.

Havelock looked over his shoulder, even though he knew the office was empty apart from him. When he spoke, his voice was quieter.

“I got some pushback because it meant halving the supply schedule, but people got over it. I thought of having the hold stacked with high-density ceramics for shrapnel, and putting in a few pallets of the geology survey’s shaped charges, but I don’t have anything that’s going to make a bigger explosion than the shuttle’s reactor would. I’ve taken out all the safety overrides the way you asked, though. Physical and software. Honestly, it’s a little scary going on it anymore, just knowing that it could go off.”

“And the controls.”

“The standard protocols are all stripped out. You can fly it or I can. Anyone else is talking to a brick.”

“Good man.”

“Captain Marwick’s not happy about it.”

“He’ll cope,” Murtry said. “Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”

“And we have the ship’s drive,” Havelock said. “If we pointed the Israel’s ass at the Barbapiccola and fired it up, we could slag it.”

“Right range, we could take out the Rocinante too,” Murtry said. “Except that they could say the same, and they’ve got missiles. No, we’re just getting ready for contingencies. Which brings me to the point. I’ve got the solution to one of your problems.”

“Sir?”

“All those bored scientists. We’ve lost a lot of the security team, and we’re in a more hostile environment than we’d expected. I need you to do some cross training.”

“You mean hire them into security?”

“Nothing official,” Murtry said. “But if we had a dozen people who were familiar with the riot gear and had some practice in low g, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings.”

Havelock nodded. “A militia, then.”

“I established that we’re in de facto control of First Landing. Holden thinks he’s some kind of fucking Solomon. I’m fine letting him go with it for now, but when the time comes, we may need to put boots on the ground here. Or on the Barbapiccola. I’m happy if we don’t, but I want the option. Can you do that?”

“Let me look into it,” Havelock said. “I’m pretty sure it would mean bending corporate policy. The home office is pretty touchy about liability.”

“They sent us to the ass end of nowhere and let a bunch of squatters take their best shot at us,” Murtry said. “I don’t particularly care what they think. It doesn’t need to be official. Make it a club. Just a few folks enjoying a shared hobby for low-g tactics. Fabricate them a few paint guns. Just make sure they’re ready.”

“In case we need them.”

“Right,” Murtry said with his dragging, full-gravity smile. “In case.”

Technically, Havelock could have spent the time in the main security office, strapped into Murtry’s couch and using his desk. Instead, he tended to stick to his own familiar place beside the brig. He told himself it was because the system was already customized with his preferences and access codes, but he also knew it was more than that. Murtry had a way of claiming space even if he wasn’t occupying it, and Havelock wouldn’t have been comfortable. So when the second shift ended, the chief of the engineering workgroup came to him at the brig.