Persepolis Rising полностью

He knew the story of Laconia’s founding. He’d been there for it, though he’d been a child at the time. The gates to the thirteen hundred worlds had opened, and the probes had gone through. They’d brought back reports of the different systems, the stars and planets, and the stranger things that they’d seen. All humanity had seen the opportunity of new lands, of new worlds to inhabit, but alone of them all Winston Duarte had recognized the terrible danger that expansion would bring. The chaos and violence as humanity pressed out past the limits of civilization. The choke point of the slow zone and the endless wars it would generate. The unanticipated environmental collapses made worse by the lack of a central response. And he alone had the will to solve the problem.

From among all the planets on the far sides of the gates, he chose Laconia because of the orbital construction platforms. He found the live culture of the protomolecule that he could use to harness Laconia’s power. He found Dr. Cortazár to lead the research and development. And he took a third of the Martian Navy as the seed that would grow to become the world tree. The fraction of humanity that would rebuild on Laconia and come forth to bring order to humanity’s chaos. To bring the peace that would last forever. The end of all wars. Singh doubted none of it. Holden’s version wasn’t incompatible, even if it chose a different emphasis. Holden himself had used the protomolecule on Ilus—or been used by it—to turn on the ancient mechanisms. Only he had done it haphazardly, and with terrible results. Duarte had done it carefully, and to glorious effect.

He sipped his tea. It hadn’t quite gone cold, but it wasn’t as warm as he’d expected. Holden was a problem. He was the key to breaking the terrorist network on Medina. He was also the key to the mystery of the thing that had appeared on the Tempest. His was the only report on the visions from the ring station. He was singular in all humanity because he’d bumbled into being in so many of the right places at so many of the right times. If there was one thing Laconia’s history taught, it was the power of the right person at the right moment.

Singh had always known that the history of Laconia and the history of Sol system were connected. He’d never felt those common roots more deeply than now. The sense that his world and Holden’s were part of a single, much vaster story. The makers of the protomolecule were also a part of that larger frame. The things that had killed them, and then vanished.

The things that had returned.

“I was thinking about the recyclers,” Peaches said. She sounded tired. She always sounded a little tired, but this was more.

“Yeah?” he said.

They were alone in the bunk. She was sitting up, paring her toenails with a little knife he’d found for her. Something about her meds made them thicker and yellow. He knew it was important to her to keep them short, even though she never said anything.

His hands imagined what it would feel like to snap her neck. The tension first, then the grinding feeling of cartilage ripping as it gave way. He saw the look of betrayal in her eyes as the life went out of them. It was as clear as if he’d actually done it.

“The returns aren’t as good as they ought to be,” she said. “We’ve been able to get eighty-eight, ninety percent recovery, but I don’t think we broke eighty-five on the Freehold run.”

“Worth looking at,” Amos said. “You got any suspects?”

“I want to take a look at the water filters. I know they’re supposed to be the best there is without retrofitting to a straight gel system, but I don’t think they’re doing what’s on the label.”

He closed his eyes and the Rocinante’s recycling system appeared in his mind. If the filters were underperforming … yeah, could throw off the pressure going into the recyclers. Might be enough to drop the reclamation percentages. He pictured what else it would do.

“We should take a peek at the feed lines,” he said.

“Look for distention?” she said.

He grunted. Peaches scowled and nodded once, the way she did when they’d come to an agreement. There were still a few things about the Roci that he knew better than she did, but those were few and far between. And mostly about the weapons systems. She didn’t like those, and it had an effect on how much she thought about them. There were conversations he had with her that he couldn’t have with anybody else.

That didn’t keep the thoughts from coming. It didn’t do anything about the thing in his throat. “You think Holden’s okay?” she asked.

“Is or he isn’t,” Amos said. The thing in his throat got a little bigger. A little tighter. He wasn’t sure why.

“I wish there was something more I could do,” she said.

“Naomi’ll come up with something. Whatever needs doing, we’ll do it.”