Leviathan Wakes - James S. A. Corey [110]
Holden looked at the guy. Wide shoulders, thick gut. Now that Miller pointed him out, there was something about him that didn’t seem right for a cop.
“I don’t get it,” Holden said.
“A couple months ago, when you started a bunch of riots by saying Mars blew up your water hauler, we found out—”
“I never said—”
“—found out that most of the police riot gear on Ceres was missing. A few months before that, a bunch of our underworld muscle went missing. I just found out where both of them are.”
Miller pointed at the riot-gear-equipped Gabby Smalls.
“I wouldn’t go wherever he’s sending people,” he said. “I really wouldn’t.”
A thin stream of people bumped past.
“Then where?” Naomi asked.
“Yeah, I mean, if the choice is radiation or mobsters, I gotta go with the mobsters,” Alex said, nodding emphatically at Naomi.
Miller pulled out his hand terminal and held it up so everyone could see the screen.
“I’ve got no radiation warnings,” he said. “Whatever happened outside isn’t a danger on this level. Not right now. So let’s just calm down and make the smart move.”
Holden turned his back on Miller and motioned to Naomi. He pulled her aside and said in a quiet voice, “I still think we go back to the ship and get out of here. Take our chances getting past these mobsters.”
“If there’s no radiation danger, then I agree,” she said with a nod.
“I disagree,” Miller said, not even pretending he hadn’t been eavesdropping. “To do that we have to walk through three levels of casino filled with riot gear and thugs. They’re going to tell us to get in one of those casinos for our own protection. When we don’t, they’ll beat us unconscious and throw us in anyway. For our own protection.”
Another crowd of people poured out of a branch corridor, heading for the reassuring presence of the police and the bright casino lights. Holden found it difficult not to be swept along with the crowd. A man with two enormous suitcases bumped into Naomi, almost knocking her down. Holden grabbed her hand.
“What’s the alternative?” he asked Miller.
Miller glanced up and down the corridor, seeming to measure the flow of people. He nodded at a yellow-and-black-striped hatch down a small maintenance corridor.
“That one,” he said. “It’s marked HIGH VOLTAGE, so the guys sweeping for stragglers won’t bother with it. It’s not the kind of place citizens hide.”
“Can you get that door open quickly?” Holden said, looking at Amos.
“Can I break it?”
“If you need to.”
“Then sure,” Amos said, and began pushing his way through the crowd toward the maintenance hatch. At the door, he pulled out his multi-tool and popped off the cheap plastic housing for the card reader. After he twisted a couple of wires together, the hatch slid open with a hydraulic hiss.
“Ta-da,” Amos said. “The reader won’t work anymore, so anyone who wants in comes in.”
“Let’s worry about that if it happens,” Miller replied, then led them into the dimly lit passageway beyond.
The service corridor was filled with electrical cable held together with plastic ties. It stretched through the dim red light for thirty or forty feet before falling into gloom. The light came from LEDs mounted on the metal bracing that sprouted from the wall every five feet or so to hold the cable up. Naomi had to duck to enter, her frame about four centimeters too tall for the ceiling. She put her back to the wall and slid down onto her haunches.
“You’d think they’d make the maintenance corridors tall enough for Belters to work in,” she said irritably.
Holden touched the wall almost reverently, tracing a corridor identification number carved right into the stone.
“The Belters who built this place weren’t tall,” he said. “These are some of the main power lines. This tunnel goes back to the first Belt colony. The people who carved it grew up in gravity.”
Miller, who also had to duck his head, sat on the floor with a grunt and popping knees.
“History lesson later,” he said. “Let’s figure a way off this rock.”
Amos, studying the bundles of cable intently, said over his shoulder, “If you see a frayed spot,