The man they paused to get bowls of noodles and sauce from gave them extra packets of peanuts and a twist of cinnamon sugar candy, on the house. An older woman they walked past as they headed aft toward engineering and the docks smiled at them, then stopped and stroked Naomi’s shoulder until little tears appeared in the older woman’s eyes. A group of young men heading the other way made room for them to pass long before they needed to and nodded their respect. It wasn’t, Holden decided, that people recognized him and deferred to his celebrity. All the citizens of Medina were treating each other like everyone was made from spun sugar. Likely to shatter if you breathed on them too hard. He recognized it from being on Luna after the rocks had fallen on Earth. The deep human instinct to come together in crisis. To take care of each other. In its best light, it was what made humanity human. But he also had the dark suspicion that it was a kind of bargaining.
Even if it was only grief and fear, he’d take it. Anything that helped them all treat each other well.
Beside a little café that served tea and rice-flour cakes, a dozen people in Laconian uniforms were building something—a wall made from cubes two and a half meters to a side, eight wide, and three high, with steel walls and backs and wide mesh doors facing the pathway. Like kennels. Half a dozen locals stood watching, and Naomi went to stand beside them. A young woman with mud-brown hair and a scattering of freckles across her cheeks made a little space for them. Another small kindness, like a coin in a wishing well.
“Are they expecting prisoners, then?” Naomi asked the woman as if they were friends. As if everyone who wasn’t Laconian was part of the same group now.
“That’s the thought,” Freckles said, then nodded a greeting to Holden. “Making a show of it. Supposed to keep us all in line, isn’t it?”
“That’s how it works,” Holden said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Show everyone what the punishment is. Enough fear, and we’ll all be obedient. They’ll train us like dogs.”
“That’s not how you train dogs,” Freckles said. She made a little, deferential bow when he looked at her, but she didn’t back down. “You train dogs by rewarding them. Punishment doesn’t actually work.” Tears glistened in her eyes, and Holden felt a lump in his own throat.
“I didn’t know that,” he said. Banal words, the closest he could offer to comfort.
“Punishment never works,” Naomi said, her voice hard. Her face was unreadable. She shifted her weight like she was looking at sculpture in a museum. The spectacle of power considered as art. “Not ever.”
“Are you from here?” Freckles asked. She hadn’t recognized them.
“No,” Holden said. “Our ship’s in the dock. Or our old ship anyway. The one we came in on. And the crew we flew with.”
“Mine’s in lockdown too,” Freckles said. “The
“Not on your ship?”
She shook her head. “The docks are off-limits. No one’s allowed on their ships without escort. I’m hoping we can find rooms, but I’ve heard we may have to camp out here in the drum.”
Naomi turned, and he saw everything that he was thinking mirrored in her face. If the docks were off-limits and the crews turned out, the others wouldn’t be on the
Holden coughed out a small, harsh laugh. Naomi tilted her head.
“Nothing,” he said. “It’s just not very long ago I was thinking how
