Cibola Burn

“They won’t listen.” Basia sighed. “They’re talking about killing the RCE people. All of them. And Jim Holden and his people too.”

Lucia shook her head, a gentle negation. “And you?”

“At this point, they may be talking about killing me too. I don’t think they will as long as I don’t get in their way. But I can’t take part. I told them so. I’m so sorry I let it get this far, Lucy. I’m a very stupid man.”

Lucia gave him a sad smile, and put her hand on his arm. “Not doing anything now keeps you on their side.”

Basia frowned. The night air still held the earthy smell of the recent dust storm. A graveyard scent. “I can’t stop them by myself.”

“Holden is here to do that. He’s back from whatever he was doing out in the desert with the science teams. You could talk to him.”

“I know,” Basia said, admitting what he’d already been thinking. The fact that it was necessary didn’t make it feel like any less of a betrayal of his friends. “I know. I will.”

Lucia laughed her relief. At Basia’s puzzled look, she grabbed him in her arms and pulled him close. “I’m so happy to know that the Basia I love is still in there.”

Basia relaxed into her embrace, letting himself feel safe and loved for a moment.

“Baz,” Lucia whispered in his ear.

Don’t say anything that will ruin this moment, he thought.

“Felcia is leaving on the shuttle for the Barbapiccola. Now. Tonight. I gave her permission.”

Basia pulled himself away, holding Lucia at arm’s length. “She’s doing what?”

Lucia frowned at him, and gripped his upper arms tightly. “Let her go.” There was a warning in her voice.

Basia pulled himself free and leaped to his feet. Lucia called after him, but he was already running down the road toward the landing site as fast as his legs would carry him.

His relief when he saw the shuttle still sitting there was so powerful he almost collapsed. One of the colony’s electric carts whizzed by, nearly running him over in the dark. The bed of the cart was filled with ore. They were still loading the shuttle. He had time.

Felcia stood a few meters from the airlock, a suitcase in each hand, chatting with the pilot. They were in a bright pool of illumination cast by the work lights surrounding the ship, and her dark olive skin seemed to glow. Her black hair hung about her face and down her back in loose waves. Her eyes and mouth were wide as she spoke on some topic that excited her.

In that moment, his daughter was so beautiful it made Basia’s chest ache. When she spotted him, her face lit up with a smile. Before she could speak, Basia wrapped her in his arms and squeezed her tight.

“Papa,” she said, worry in her voice.

“No, baby, it’s okay,” he shook his head against her cheek. “I didn’t come to stop you. I only… I couldn’t let you leave without saying goodbye.”

His cheek felt wet. Felcia was crying. He held her by the shoulders and pushed her away to look at her face. His little girl, all grown up but crying in his arms. He couldn’t help but see the four-year-old she’d once been, weeping when she fell and hurt her knee.

“Papa,” she said, her voice thick. “I was worried you would hate me for going. But Mama said —”

“No, baby, no.” Basia hugged her again. “You go, and when they let the ship leave, you go to Ceres and become a doctor and have a fantastic life.”

“Why?”

Because the people here see your death as a tool for winning a public opinion battle. Because I’ve lost all the children I ever plan to lose. Because I can’t have you see me when they finally arrest me.

“Because I love you, baby,” he said instead. “And I want you to go be amazing.”

She hugged him, and for that one moment, all was right in the universe again. Basia watched as she boarded, stopping just inside the airlock to wave and blow him a kiss. He watched as they loaded the last of the ore into the cargo compartment. He watched as the shuttle lifted off with a roar and wash of heat.

Then he turned back toward town to find Holden.

~

Holden and Amos were sitting in the commissary’s tiny bar. Amos drank and watched everyone who came in through the door. He held his glass with his left hand, his right never far from the gun at his belt. Holden was typing rapidly on a hand terminal lying on the table. Both men looked tense.

Basia walked toward them, smiling and nodding his head and keeping his hands visible and away from his body. Amos smiled back. The big man’s scalp looked pale and shiny under the commissary’s white LEDs. When he leaned forward in his chair it looked perfectly natural and non-threatening, and Basia noted that it also put the gun closer to hand seemingly by accident.