aliens already. And if whatever had made the protomolecule was out there to greet them, then what?
Would they all die like Julie had?
There was life out there. They had proof of it now. And the proof came in the shape of a weapon, so what did that tell him? Except that maybe the Mormons deserved a little warning about what they were signing their great-grandkids up for.
He laughed to himself when he realized that was exactly what Holden would say.
The bourbon arrived at the same moment his hand terminal chimed. The video file had a layered encryption that took almost a minute to unpack. That alone was a good sign.
The file opened, and Havelock grinned out from the screen. He was in better shape than he'd been on Ceres, and it showed in the shape of his jaw. His skin was darker, but Miller didn't know if it was purely cosmetic or if his old partner had been basking in false sunlight for the joy of it. It didn't matter. It made the Earther look rich and fit.
"Hey, buddy," Havelock said. "Good to hear from you. After what happened with Shaddid and the OPA, I was afraid we were going to be on different sides now. I'm glad you got out of there before the shit hit the fan.
"Yeah, I'm still with Protogen, and I've got to tell you, these guys are kind of scary. I mean, I've worked contract security before, and I'm pretty clear when someone's hard-core. These guys aren't cops. They're troops. You know what I mean?
"Officially, I don't know dick about a Belt station, but you know how it is. I'm from Earth. There are a lot of these guys who gave me shit about Ceres. Working with the vacuum-heads. That kind of thing. But the way things are here, it's better to be on the good side of the bad guys. It's just that kind of job."
There was an apology in his expression. Miller understood. Working in some corporations was like going to prison. You adopted the views of the people around you. A Belter might get hired on, but he'd never belong. Like Ceres, just pointed the other way. If Havelock had made friends with a set of inner planets mercs who spent their off nights curb-stomping Belters outside bars, then he had.
But making friends didn't mean he was one of them.
"So. Off the record, yeah, there's a black ops station in the Belt. I hadn't heard it called Thoth, but it could be. Some sort of very scary deep research and development lab. Heavy science crew, but not a huge place. I think discreet would be the word. Lots of automated defenses, but not a big ground crew.
"I don't need to tell you that leaking the coordinates would get my ass killed out here. So wipe the file when you're done, and let's not talk again for a long, long time."
The datafile was small. Three lines of plaintext orbital notation. Miller put it into his hand terminal and killed the file off the Ganymede server. The bourbon still sat beside his hand, and he drank it off neat. The warmth in his chest might have been the alcohol or it might have been victory.
He turned on the hand terminal's camera.
"Thanks. I owe you one. Here's part of the payment. What happened on Eros? Protogen was part of it, and it's big. If you get the chance to drop your contract with them, do it. And if they try to rotate you out to that black ops station, don't go."
Miller frowned. The sad truth was that Havelock was probably the last real partner he'd had. The only one who'd looked on him as an equal. As the kind of detective Miller had imagined himself to be.
"Take care of yourself, partner," he said, then ended the file, encrypted it, shipped it out. He had the bone-deep feeling he wasn't ever going to talk to Havelock again.
He put through a connection request to Holden. The screen filled with the captain's open, charming, vaguely naive face.
"Miller," Holden said. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah. Great. But I need to talk to your Fred guy. Can you arrange that?"
Holden frowned and nodded at the same time.
"Sure. What's going on?"
"I know where Thoth Station is," Miller said.
"You know what?"
Miller nodded.
"Where the hell did you get that?"
Miller grinned. "If I gave you that information and it got out, a good man would get killed," he said. "You see how that works?"
It struck Miller as