“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying let’s go see if we can find some horses or zebras before we start a unicorn hunt.”
An intriguing new mystery didn’t mean Holden no longer had a day job, but it did give him something to think about other than missing Naomi. And Amos. And Alex. But mostly Naomi. As he crawled along the exposed ribs of the Rocinante’s flank with a plasma torch in his hand and looked for cracks, he pondered where ships could go when they disappeared. Monica was right; the number was too high to be just random system failures. There were a lot of other possibilities, even discounting her protomolecule unicorn theory. But Holden had stopped believing in coincidence about when he’d first started spending time with Detective Miller. And the other big thing going on was that radical OPA factions were launching attacks on inner planet holdings like Callisto. And even Earth.
A violent faction of the OPA was dead set against colonization. And, now, colony ships loaded with supplies were vanishing without a trace. Also, Medina Station – nee Behemoth nee Nauvoo and the hub of all the ring gates – was solidly in the control of the OPA. It made a compelling narrative, even if he didn’t have any actual evidence that it was true.
In that scenario, the ships would be boarded by OPA pirate crews, the supplies taken, and the colonists… spaced? A gruesome idea if it were true, and still not the most horrific thing humans had ever done to each other. But that left the ships. They’d keep the ships, and then they’d have to make them disappear. That meant changing the transponder codes. The fact that the Rocinante was no longer the Tachi was proof that the OPA had that ability.
“Sakai,” Holden said, chinning the radio frequency to the private channel he and the chief engineer shared. “Yo, you around?”
“Problem?” he replied in a tone of voice that sounded like he was daring Holden to have a problem. Holden had learned not to be offended by it. Impatience was Sakai’s default state.
“More of a riddle.”
“I hate riddle
s,” Sakai said.
“Let’s say you’re trying to figure out if someone has stolen a bunch of ships and changed the transponder codes. How would you find those ships, if you had to?”
The engineer huffed thoughtfully for a moment.
“Don’t look for the missing ships,” Sakai replied. “Look for the new ones that show up out of nowhere.”
“Yes, good. That,” Holden said, “is exactly right. Thanks.”
He stopped at a cracked weld between the inner hull and one of the ship’s ribs and started touching it up with the torch. His faceplate darkened, turning the world into a black place with one bright blue light in it. While he worked, he thought through how you’d track the magically appearing new ships down. The public ship registry was a good place to start, but you’d drown in data trying to do it manually. If Naomi were here, he had no doubt she’d have been able to build a program to find what he wanted in ten minutes on her hand terminal. He, sadly, didn’t have her programming skills, but Fred had software engineers on the payroll, and if he —
“Why?” Sakai said. It had been so long since the engineer had spoken that it took Holden a moment to remember the context for the question.
“Why what? Why do I want to know how to find lost ships?”
“Yeah.”
“So I have this reporter friend who’s looking into some missing ships. I said I’d give her a hand. Just trying to think of ways to actually do that.”
“Stuart,” Sakai said. It was half statement, half question. “I heard she was on the station.”
“Yeah, my old buddy Monica. Truth is, I think she’s snipe hunting, but I said I’d help. And I need something to do that isn’t feeling lonely and sorry for myself.”
“Yeah,” Sakai said, then after a long moment added, “So shit hasn’t gone weird enough for you to believe in snipes?”
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?”