He glanced once around the inside of the gloomy space, looking over their flimsy barricade, then pulled a chair away from it and sat down without commenting on it.
“The shooting is over. It’s safe to sit,” he said, gesturing at the other chairs. He looked better than he had in a while. His suit had been cleaned and somehow he’d found a way to wash his thick white hair. But that wasn’t all of it. Some of his self-assurance had returned. He seemed confident and in charge again. Anna climbed up off the floor and took a chair. After a moment, Tilly did the same.
“I’m sorry you were frightened,” Cortez said with a smile that didn’t seem sorry at all.
“What’s going on, Hank?” Tilly asked, her eyes narrowing. She took out a cigarette and began playing with it without lighting it. “What are you up to?”
“I’m not up to anything, Matilda,” Cortez said. “What’s happening is that the rightful authority on this ship has been restored, and Captain Ashford is once more in command.”
“Okay, Hector,” Tilly replied, “but how are you involved? Seems like internal OPA politics to me. What’s your play?”
Cortez ignored her and said to Anna, “Doctor Volovodov, may we speak privately?”
“Tilly can hear anything—” Anna started, but Tilly waved her off.
“I think I’ll go outside for a smoke.”
When she’d left the tent, Cortez pulled his chair close enough that his knees were almost touching Anna’s. He leaned forward, taking her hands in his own. Anna had never had the sense that Hector was interested in her sexually, and still didn’t, but somehow the closeness felt uncomfortably intimate. Invasive.
“Anna,” he said, giving her hands a squeeze. “Things are about to change dramatically on this ship, and in our calling here. I’ve been fortunate in that Captain Ashford trusts me and has sought my counsel, so I’ve had some input on the direction these changes take.”
The forced intimacy, combined with the bitter taste still in her mouth from having seen a man murdered, brought up an anger she hadn’t expected. She pulled her hands away from him with more violence than she intended, then couldn’t help but feel a twinge of satisfaction at the hurt and surprise on his face.
“How nice for you,” she said, carefully keeping her tone neutral.
“Doctor Volovodov… Anna, I would like your support.” Anna couldn’t stop the snort of disbelief in time, but he pressed on. “You have a way with people. I’m fine in front of a camera, but I’m not as good one-on-one, and that’s where you shine. That’s your gift. And we are about to face terrible personal challenges. Things people will have a hard time understanding. I would like your voice there with me to reassure them.”
“What are you talking about?” Anna said, barely squeezing the words past a growing lump in her throat. She had the sense of a terrible secret about to be revealed. Cortez shone with the invincible certainty of the true believer.
“We are going to close the gate,” he said. “We have a weapon in our possession that we believe will work.”
“No,” Anna said more in disbelief than in denying his claims.
“Yes. Even now engineers work to refit this vessel’s communications laser to make it powerful enough to destroy the Ring.”
“I don’t mean that,” Anna started, but Cortez just continued speaking.
“We are lost, but we can protect those we’ve left behind. We can end the greatest threat the human race has ever known. All it requires is that we sacrifice any hope of return. A small price to pay for—”
“No,” Anna said again, more forcefully. “No, you don’t get to decide that for all of these people.” For me, she thought. You don’t get to take my wife and daughter away like that. Just because you’re afraid.
“In times of great danger and sacrifice such as this, some will step forward to make the difficult decisions. Ashford has done that, and I support him. Now it is our role to make sure the people understand and cooperate. They need to know that their sacrifice will protect the billions of people we’ve left behind.”
“We don’t know that,” Anna said.
“This station has already claimed hundreds of lives, maybe thousands.”
“Because we keep making decisions without knowing what the consequences are. We chased Holden’s ship through the Ring, we sent soldiers to the station to hunt him, we keep acting without information and then being angry when it hurts us.”
“It didn’t hurt us. It killed us. A lot of us.”
“We’re like children,” Anna said, pushing herself to her feet and lecturing down at him. “Who burn their hands on a hot stove and then think the solution is to blow up all the stoves.”
“Eros,” Cortez started.
“We did that! And Ganymede, and Phoebe, all the rest! We did it. We keep acting without thinking and you think the solution is to do it one more time. You have allied yourself with stupid, violent men, and you are trying to convince yourself that being stupid and violent will work. That makes you stupid too. I will never help you. I’ll fight you now.”
Cortez stood up and called to the people waiting outside. A Belter with protective chest armor and a rifle came into the tent.
“Will you shoot me too?” Anna said, putting as much contempt into the words as she could.
Cortez turned his back on her and left with the gunman.
Anna sank down into her chair, her legs suddenly too shaky to support her. She doubled over, rocking back and forth and taking long shuddering breaths to calm herself. Somehow, she didn’t black out.
“Did he hurt you?” Tilly said from behind her. Her friend put a gentle hand on the back of her neck as she rocked.
“No,” Anna said. It wasn’t technically a lie.
“Oh, Annie. They have Claire. They wouldn’t let me talk to her. I don’t know if she’s a hostage or—”
Before she knew she was going to do it, Anna had jumped to her feet and run out of the tent. They’d be going to the elevator that ran up the side of the drum and connected with the passages to the command decks and engineering. They’d be going to the bridge. Men like Cortez and Ashford, men who wanted to be in charge, they’d be on the bridge. She ran toward the elevator as fast as her legs would carry her. She hadn’t actually run in years. Living in a small station tunneled into the ice of Europa, it just hadn’t come up. She was out of breath in moments, but pushed on, ignoring the nausea and the stitch in her ribs.