There was a video message light blinking on his home console. Holden tried his hardest not to hope it was from Naomi and still felt a crushing disappointment when Alex’s round face appeared on the screen. “Hi boss,” the pilot said. “So the thing where I meet up with my ex-wife and we have a tearful reconciliation? Yeah, that was a failure. Probably shoulda thought that one through a little better. But I’m plannin’ on stopping by to see Bobbie before I leave, so there’s a bright spot. How’s my girl? You guys gettin’ her all polished up and pretty for my return? I’ll check in again when I can. Kamal out.”
Holden almost started his reply off by asking for a report on the ex-wife situation, but the little Naomi voice that now lived in his head said Don’t be nosey, so instead he replied, “Thanks for checking in. Give Bobbie my best. The Roci’s still months from ready, so take your time.”
He sat for a minute trying to think of something else to say, then just cut the dead air off the end of the message and sent it. It was strange how a person could be so vitally important in your life, and yet you had nothing to say to them when they weren’t sharing the same air. Normally, he and Alex would talk about the ship, about the other two crew members, about jobs. With them all split up and the Roci in dry dock, there wasn’t much left to say that wasn’t a personal invasion. Thinking about that looked like the beginning of a long dark road to bitter loneliness, so he decided to go investigating instead.
He kind of wished he had a hat.
“Back so soon?” Fred said when Holden was ushered into his office by one of the OPA leader’s minions. “I know my coffee is good, but…”
Holden grabbed a chair and stretched out while Fred puttered with the coffee maker. “So Monica Stuart is on Tycho.”
“Yeah. You think someone like that lands on this station without me knowing about it?”
“No,” Holden admitted. “But do you know why she’s here?”
The coffee maker started hissing to itself, and the office was filled with a rich, bitter smell. While the coffee brewed, Fred leaned over his desk tapping on the terminal. “Something with missing ships, right? That’s what our intel team says.”
“Have your people looked into it at all?”
“Honestly? No. I’d heard rumblings about it, but we’re buried here. Every ship with a functioning Epstein is heading through for the gates. We’ve got our hands full keeping them from running into each other going through the rings. Most of them are going into unexplored systems with no other ships or stations. We don’t hear back from a few, sort of seems like the obvious thing happening.”
Holden accepted a steaming mug from Fred with a grateful nod and took a sip. The old man’s coffee didn’t disappoint. “I get that,” Holden said after another drink. “And I think her theory on it is pretty far-fetched, but it’s the kind of thing that will get public traction if we don’t find a better answer first.”
“She has a theory already?”
“She thinks it’s the protomolecule. The robots and tech waking up on Ilus is her one datapoint.”
“You told me that was a onetime thing,” Fred said, frowning over his coffee mug. When he spoke again his words blew steam in front of them, like a whisp of dragon breath. “Is Miller back?”
“No, he’s not back. As far as I know, there isn’t an active protomolecule culture in existence in the universe. But —”
“But I’ve got the inactive stuff you gave me.”
“Right, and Monica knows about it somehow,” Holden said.
Fred’s frown only deepened at that. “I’ve got a leak somewhere.”
“Yeah, you totally do, but that isn’t the part that worries me.”
Fred’s eyebrows went up in a nonverbal question.
“Monica,” Holden continued, “has decided that we should take out the goo and use it like some sort of Ouija board to summon the ghost of Miller.”
“But that’s stupid,” Fred said.
“Right? So I think we should exhaust all other possibilities before we leap right to tinkering with alien viruses.”
“First time for everything, I guess,” Fred said, only lightly coating the words in sarcasm. “You have alternate theories?”
“I do,” Holden said, “but you won’t like it.”
“I also still have bourbon if we need anesthetic for this operation.”
“It may get there,” Holden replied, then drank off the rest of his coffee to give himself time. No matter how much Fred had aged over the last half decade, Holden found himself still intimidated by the man. It was hard to broach topics Fred might take offense to.
“More?” Fred asked, pointing at his empty cup. Holden declined with a shake of his head.
“So there’s that radical extremist faction of the OPA that you were telling me about,” Holden said.
“I don’t think —”