again. This isn't a coup. Earth is pulling out of here, we aren't pushing."
"That's bullshit, sir," someone shouted. Shaddid raised her hand.
"There's a lot of loose talk," Shaddid said. "I don't want to hear any of it from you. The governor's going to make the formal announcement at the start of the next shift, and we'll get more details then. Until we hear otherwise, the Star Helix contract is still in place. A provisional government is being formed with members drawn from local business and union representation. We are still the law on Ceres, and I expect you to behave appropriately. You will all be here for your shifts. You will be here on time. You will act professionally and within the scope of standard practice."
Miller looked over at Muss. His partner's hair was still unkempt from the pillow. It was pushing midnight for them both.
"Any questions?" Shaddid said in a voice that implied there ought not be.
Who's going to pay Star Helix? Miller thought. What laws are we enforcing? What does Earth know that makes walking away from the biggest port in the Belt the smart move?
Who's going to negotiate your peace treaty now?
Muss, seeing Miller's gaze, smiled.
"Guess we're hosed," Miller said.
"Had to happen," Muss agreed. "I better go. Got a stop to make."
"Up at the core?"
Muss didn't answer, because she didn't have to. Ceres didn't have laws. It had police. Miller headed back to his hole. The station hummed, the stone beneath him vibrating from the countless docking clamps and reactor cores, tubes and recyclers and pneumatics. The stone was alive, and he'd forgotten the small signs that proved it. Six million people lived here, breathed this air. Fewer than in a middle-sized city on Earth. He wondered if they were expendable.
Had it really gone so far that the inner planets would be willing to lose a major station? It seemed like it had if Earth was abandoning Ceres. The OPA would step in, whether it wanted to or not. The power vacuum was too great. Then Mars would call it an OPA coup. Then... Then what? Board it and put it under martial law? That was the good answer. Nuke it into dust? He couldn't quite bring himself to believe that either. There was just too much money involved. Docking fees alone would fuel a small national economy. And Shaddid and Dawes - much as he hated it - were right. Ceres under Earth contract had been the best hope for a negotiated peace.
Was there someone on Earth who didn't want that peace? Someone or something powerful enough to move the glacial bureaucracy of the United Nations to take action?
"What am I looking at, Julie?" he said to the empty air. "What did you see out there that's worth Mars and the Belt killing each other?"
The station hummed to itself, a quiet, constant sound too soft for him to hear the voices within it.
Muss didn't come to work in the morning, but there was a message on his system telling him she'd be in late. "Cleanup" was her only explanation.
To look at it, nothing about the station house had changed. The same people coming to the same place to do the same thing. No, that wasn't true. The energy was high. People were smiling, laughing, clowning around. It was a manic high, panic pressed through a cheesecloth mask of normalcy. It wasn't going to last.
They were all that separated Ceres from anarchy. They were the law, and the difference between the survival of six million people and some mad bastard forcing open all the airlocks or poisoning the recyclers rested on maybe thirty thousand people. People like him. Maybe he should have rallied, risen to the occasion like the rest of them. The truth was the thought made him tired.
Shaddid marched by and tapped him on the shoulder. He sighed, rose from his chair, and followed her. Dawes was in her office again, looking shaken and sleep deprived. Miller nodded to him. Shaddid crossed her arms, her eyes softer and less accusing than he'd become used to.
"This is going to be tough," she said. "We're facing something harder than anything we've had to do before. I need a team I can trust with my life. Extraordinary circumstances. You understand that?"
"Yeah," he said. "I got it. I'll stop drinking, get myself together."
"Miller. You're not a bad person at heart. There was a time you were a pretty good cop. But I don't trust you, and we don't have