“But you’re pretty good at dying if that’s what it takes to make things right.”
“Turns out that is a talent of mine,” Miller said with a lopsided grin. “There’s always new mysteries out there. We get those for free.”
The dark things shifted again, deforming the space, reaching into it. Trying to change its nature, and this time, touching the ring gates. Pushing through them to the systems beyond. Their attention felt slick and muscular. Wet, somehow. Holden reached out to pull them back, and the effort was terrible.
“Harder to do on your own,” Miller said.
“You could help.”
And the feeling changed, as if there really were two of them and not just an illusion made from memories in a dying body. The thick, slimy reach of the things beyond the gates squirmed and resisted, pushing past Holden’s will, trying to find one more way to end the intrusion.
“Just give me a little fucking time,” Holden said, but if the enemy could hear him, it ignored him. Holden redoubled his efforts, and slowly, reluctantly, the invisible tentacle retracted into its own universe and left him spent and exhausted.
If an attack came again, he wouldn’t be able to stop it.
“You left it all on the field,” Miller said. “Whatever that means.”
“Football.”
“What?”
“It’s a football thing.”
“Oh,” Miller said, and scratched his neck. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
The Rocinante cleared the Nieuwestad gate. Two other ships passed through to Sol. The only things left alive in the ring space were Holden and the Falcon. He could feel Naomi on the ship. And Amos. His actual body shuddered and wept, and he did everything he could to ignore it.
“Kind of funny,” Miller said. “You being here to do this.”
“Yeah, it’s hilarious.”
“It actually is, smartass. Mister make-sure-everyone-has-a-voice. Fight against everyone who is making decisions for other people. Your whole fucking life has been that. Now here you are. Those colony systems aren’t baked yet. A lot of them rely on trade. We do this, and some of them aren’t going to make it.”
“I know.”
The dark things shifted, pressed. They weren’t tired at all. Holden felt their hunger and didn’t know if it was real, or just something he projected onto them. The Falcon drew nearer to the Sol gate. Each second, it moved faster than the second before. Falling toward safety and away from him faster than just falling would have done. Go, he thought. Please be safe. The rings sang their songs in light. The blue sludge in his veins plucked at him, changed him, offered ways that he could live and spread and know.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong. My analysis of the situation is a lot like yours. But you got to see there’s an irony in it. All the shit you gave me about giving people all the information and trusting them to do the right thing? Most of these fuckers aren’t gonna know what happened. This decision you’re making for the whole human race.”
“Is there a reason you’re needling me like this?”
Miller’s expression went stern and sorrowful. “I’m trying to keep you awake, old fella. You’re drifting.”
Holden realized that was true. He made an effort to pull his mind back together. The Falcon was approaching the Sol gate. Not minutes now. Less.
“I absolutely believe that people are more good on balance than bad,” he said. “All the wars and all of the cruelty and all of the violence. I’m not looking away from any of that, and I still think there’s something beautiful about being what we are. History is soaked in blood. The future probably will be too. But for every atrocity, there’s a thousand small kindnesses that no one noticed. A hundred people who spent their lives loving and caring for each other. A few moments of real grace. Maybe it’s only a little more good than bad in us, but . . .”
The Falcon passed through the Sol gate. Nothing was left in the ring space but him.
“And yet,” Miller said, “we’re about to consign millions of people to slow deaths. That’s just the truth. Are you sure this thing you’re about to do is the right one?”
“I don’t have a fucking clue,” Holden said, and then did it anyway.
For an instant, there was a release of energy second only to the beginning of the universe. There was no one there to see it.
The ring gate faded. Its recent brightness went first, and then the distortion at its center . . . faded. Where there had been a mystery and a miracle, a gateway to the galaxy, now there were just distant stars framed by a dull loop of metal a thousand kilometers across.