Persepolis Rising полностью

The sunlight was subtly redder than Holden expected, making the shadows seem blue and giving the sense of permanent twilight. Or maybe dawn. A flock of local bird-analogs flew overhead in a V, their wide, transparent wings buzzing in an eerie harmony. It was a beautiful planet in its way. The gravity was a little less than half a g—more than Mars, less than Earth—and the planetary tilt and spin made the daylight just eight hours and change, the night a little over nine. Two minor moons were tide-locked to a big one almost a third the mass of the planet. The large moon even had a thin atmosphere, but nothing lived there. Not yet, anyway. If Freehold made it another few generations, someone would probably put another little town up there too, if only to get away from the locals. That seemed to be the human pattern—reach out to the unknown and then make it into the sort of thing you left in the first place. In Holden’s experience, humanity’s drive out into the universe was maybe one part hunger for adventure and exploration to two parts just wanting to get the hell away from each other.

It was always strange seeing the Rocinante on her belly. The ship had been designed to rest that way when it came down the gravity well. It didn’t do any damage. It just seemed wrong. The PDCs that studded her side shifted as they got closer, restless and active. The crew airlock stood open, a length of ladder leading down to the ground. Amos sat with his legs dangling over the lip of the open airlock door, a rifle resting across his thighs. Holden was a little surprised that Clarissa wasn’t there with him. Bobbie waved as they drew close, and Amos lifted his hand in response without taking his eyes off the trail behind them.

Holden went up first, then turned, standing between the ladder and Amos while Bobbie clambered up to them. Back toward the town, four people stood in a clump, not coming close, but clearly watching. At this distance, Holden wasn’t sure if they’d been at the meeting or if they were new. Bobbie hit the panel, and the ladder retracted into the ship.

“How’d it go?” Amos asked, levering himself to his feet and stepping back from the outer door.

Bobbie cycled the door closed, raising her voice over the sound of the servos. “Back with no shots fired. I count that as a win.”

The inner door opened, and Amos stowed the rifle in a locker that their weird orientation made look like a drawer. Holden walked along the wall, heading toward the ops deck. Which should have been up, but was, for the moment, to the left.

“I’m going to be glad when we’re out of here,” he said.

Amos smiled, the expression amiable and empty as ever, and followed after. Naomi and Alex were sitting in their crash couches, playing a complex combat-simulation game that they’d picked up in the last couple of years. Holden was reassured to see an exterior feed of the path to the town on both of their screens. Whatever else they were doing to pass the time, everyone was keeping their eyes on the town. Just in case.

“Hey, there, Captain,” Alex said, his drawl a little thicker than usual. “We ready to pull up stakes and mosey on out of here?”

“We’re waiting twelve hours,” Holden said, sitting in his couch. The gimbals didn’t shift. The fixed gravity of the planet meant all the couches were locked in place, their workstations rotated to the correct orientation. Naomi twisted to look at him.

“Twelve hours? For what?”

“I may have renegotiated the deal a little,” he said. “I said if they turned over the governor to us for trial, there wouldn’t be a quarantine.”

Naomi lifted an eyebrow. “Does the union know about this?”

“I figured I’d send them a message when I got back here.”

“You think Drummer’ll be okay with it?”

“Cap changing the rules?” Amos said with a shrug. “That’s just a day that ends in y far as I can tell. If she didn’t leave some wiggle room for it, that’s her mistake.”

“I’m not going to hold the whole colony responsible for what a few administrators did,” Holden said. “It’s collective punishment, and it’s not the kind of thing that the good guys should do.”

“At least not without twelve hours’ warning?” Naomi said.

Holden shrugged. “This is the window they have to make a choice. If they have the chance to do something different and they still double down, I feel a little better about closing them off. At least we’ll have tried.”

“‘A little better’ meaning ‘not totally guilt-ridden.’”

“Not totally,” Holden said, lying back. The gel was cool against the back of his head and shoulders. “Still don’t love the whole cutting-people-off-from-supplies-they-need thing.”

“Should have agreed to run the union when you had the chance,” Alex said. “Then it could all be the way you wanted.”

“It’d be pretty to think so anyway,” Holden said.