You will return any material on the case to me. You will wipe any data you have in your personal partition. And you'll do it before the end of shift."
Miller's brain spun, but he kept his face impassive. She was taking Julie away. He wasn't going to let her. That was a given. But it wasn't the first issue.
"I have some inquiries in process... " he began.
"No, you don't," Shaddid said. "Your little letter to the parents was a breach of policy. Any contact with the shareholders should have come through me."
"You're telling me it didn't go out," Miller said. Meaning You've been monitoring me.
"It did not," Shaddid said. Yes, I have. What are you going to do about it?
And there wasn't anything he could do.
"And the transcripts of the James Holden interrogation?" Miller said. "Did those get out before... "
Before the Donnanger was destroyed, taking with it the only living witnesses to the Scopuli and plunging the system into war? Miller knew the question sounded like a whine. Shaddid's jaw tensed. He wouldn't have been surprised to hear teeth cracking. Dawes broke the silence.
"I think we can make this a little easier," he said. "Detective, if I'm hearing you right, you think we're burying the issue. We aren't. But it's not in anyone's interests that Star Helix be the one to find the answers you're looking for. Think about it. You may be a Belter, but you're working for an Earth corporation. Right now, Earth is the only major power without an oar in the water. The only one who can possibly negotiate with all sides."
"And so why wouldn't they want to know the truth?" Miller said.
"That isn't the problem," Dawes said. "The problem is that Star Helix and Earth can't appear to be involved one way or the other. Their hands need to stay clean. And this issue leads outside your contract. Juliette Mao isn't on Ceres, and maybe there was a time you could have jumped a ship to wherever you found her and done the abduction. Extradition. Extraction. Whatever you want to call it. But that time has passed. Star Helix is Ceres, part of Ganymede, and a few dozen warehouse asteroids. If you leave that, you're going into enemy territory."
"But the OPA isn't," Miller said.
"We have the resources to do this right," Dawes said with a nod. "Mao is one of ours. The Scopuli was one of ours."
"And the Scopuli was the bait that killed the Canterbury," Miller said. "And the Canterbury was the bait that killed the Donnager. So why exactly would anyone be better off having you be the only ones looking into something you might have done?"
"You think we nuked the Canterbury," Dawes said. "The OPA, with its state-of-the-art Martian warships?"
"It got the Donnanger out where it could be attacked. As long as it was with the fleet, it couldn't have been boarded."
Dawes looked sour.
"Conspiracy theories, Mr. Miller," he said. "If we had cloaked Martian warships, we wouldn't be losing."
"You had enough to kill the Donnanger with just six ships."
"No. We didn't. Our version of blowing up the Donnager is a whole bunch of tramp prospectors loaded with nukes going on a suicide mission. We have many, many resources. What happened to the Donnager wasn't part of them."
The silence was broken only by the hum of the air recycler. Miller crossed his arms.
"But... I don't understand," he said. "If the OPA didn't start this, who did?"
"That is what Juliette Mao and the crew of the Scopuli can tell us," Shaddid said. "Those are the stakes, Miller. Who and why and please Christ some idea of how to stop it."
"And you don't want to find them?" Miller said.
"I don't want you to," Dawes said. "Not when someone else can do it better."
Miller shook his head. It was going too far, and he knew it. On the other hand, sometimes going too far could tell you something too.
"I'm not sold," he said.
"You don't have to be sold," Shaddid said. "This isn't a negotiation. We aren't bringing you in to ask you for a goddamn favor. I am your boss. I am telling you. Do you know those words? Telling. You."
"We have Holden," Dawes said.
"What?" Miller said at the same time Shaddid said, "You're not supposed to talk about that."
Dawes raised an arm toward Shaddid in the Belt's physical idiom of telling someone to be quiet. To Miller's surprise, she did as the OPA man said.
"We have Holden. He and his crew didn't die, and