“First thing we did,” he said, “was destroy the biggest source of wealth and complex organics in the system. The only supply of complex organics that work with our metabolisms. The worlds on the other side of the ring? Different genetic codes. Different chemistries. Not something we can import and eat. But that was okay. Projections were clear. We could build a new economy, put together infrastructure, make a sustainable network of microecologies in a cooperative-competitive matrix. Base the currencies on—”
“Nico,” she said.
“Right. Right. We needed to start building it all as soon as the rocks fell.”
“I know,” she said.
“You don’t,” he said. Tears sheeted across his eyes, clung to his skin. “No recycling process is perfect. Everything degrades. The colony ships? The supplies? They’re all stopgap. They’re the measure of how long we have to make a living Belt. Look here. This green curve is the projected output of the new economic models. The ones we’re not doing, yeah? And this”—he pointed to a descending red curve—“is the best case of how long the conscripted supplies will last. Equilibrium is here. Five years out.”
“All right.”
“And this line here, the base we would need between them to keep the present population of the Belt alive.”
“We stay above it.”
“We would have,” Sanjrani said, “if we’d kept to the plan. Here’s where we are now.”
He shifted the green line. Michio felt her throat tighten as she understood what she was looking at.
“We’re fine now,” Sanjrani said. “We’ll be fine for three years. Maybe three and a half. Then the recycling systems stop being able to meet demand. We won’t have infrastructure in place to fill the gaps. And then we’ll starve. Not just Earth. Not just Mars. The Belt too. And once we start, we’ll have no way to stop.”
“All right,” Michio said. “How do we fix it?”
“I don’t know,” Sanjrani said.
The Panshin left a day later, taking Sanjrani and what little remained of Michio’s peace of mind with it. Her crew did their part, building out the port, ringing the new wires. Messages seeped into the Connaught’s antennas, some of them for her. Iapetus needed more food-grade magnesium. A collection of prospecting ships had exhausted their filters and needed replacements. The Free Navy poured out what they called news, some of it about how much Belter material she’d given over to the enemy.
Whenever she tried to sleep, the sense of dread welled up in her heart. When the hard times came, when the starving began, it would come like a ratchet. It was hard to make a new, shining city in the void when the people designing it, building it, living in it were dying from want. When they were dying because she and Marco were at each other’s throats instead of following the plan.
She had to remind herself that she hadn’t been the one to change things. Marco had gone off script before her. She’d made her break because he had. She was trying to help. Only when she closed her eyes, she saw the red line sloping down toward nothing, and no upward green swoop to answer it. Three years. Maybe three and a half. But to make it work, they had to start now. Had to have started already.
Or they had to make a very new plan, and neither she nor Sanjrani knew what that was.
The others avoided her, giving her food and water and space to think. She woke alone, worked her shift, slept alone, and didn’t feel the loss of company. And so she was surprised when Laura came to find her in the gym.
“Message came for you, Captain,” she said. Not Michi, but Captain. So Laura was not her wife then, but her comm officer on duty.
Michio let the tension bands slide back into their housings and wicked the sweat off her skin with a towel. “What is it?”
“Tightbeam relayed through Ceres,” Laura said. “It’s from the Rocinante en route to Tycho Station. It’s flagged captain-to-captain.”
Michio considered telling Laura to play it. That they were family, and didn’t have any secrets. It was a dangerous impulse. She stifled it.
“I’ll take it in my quarters,” she said.
When she opened the message, James Holden looked out from the screen. Her first thought was that he looked like crap. Her second thought was that she probably did too. She tucked her sweat-damp towel into the recycler. No recycling process is perfect. She shuddered, but Holden had started talking.
“Captain Pa,” he said. “I hope this gets to you quickly. And that everything’s all right with your ship and your crew and … Well. Anyway. I’m in kind of a weird situation, and to be honest, I was hoping I could ask you for a favor.”
He tried a smile, but his eyes looked haunted.
“I’ll tell you the truth,” he said. “I’m kind of desperate here.”
Chapter Thirty-Two: Vandercaust
When the guards got bored kicking him, they rolled Vandercaust into the cell and sealed the door.
He lay in the dark for some stretch of time—five minutes, an hour. Not more than that. When he sat up, his ribs and back ached, but not with the deepness or grinding sensation that broken bones carried. The only light was a single recessed LED at the joint where the back wall and ceiling met. Its dimness stole the color from everything, so the little streaks of blood on his shirt only looked black.