Leviathan Wakes - James S. A. Corey [26]
“Selective effect?” Havelock said. “You’re seriously arguing in favor of selective effect? I never thought I’d hear that shit coming out of you.”
“What’s that?”
“Racist propaganda bullshit,” Havelock said. “It’s the one that says the difference in environment has changed the Belters so much that instead of just being a bunch of skinny obsessive-compulsives, they aren’t really human anymore.”
“I’m not saying that,” Miller said, suspecting that it was exactly what he was saying. “It’s just that Belters don’t take the long view when you screw with basic resources. That water was future air, propellant mass, and potables for us. We have no sense of humor about that shit.”
The cart hit a ramp of metalwork grate. The lower level fell away below them. Havelock was silent.
“This Holden guy didn’t say it was Mars. Just that they found a Martian battery. You think people are going to… declare war?” Havelock said. “Just on the basis of this one guy’s pictures of a battery?”
“The ones that wait to get the whole story aren’t our problem.”
At least not tonight, he thought. Once the whole story gets out, we’ll see where we stand.
The station house was somewhere between one-half and three-quarters full. Security men stood in clumps, nodding to each other, eyes narrow and jaws tight. One of the vice cops laughed at something, his amusement loud, forced, smelling of fear. Miller saw the change in Havelock as they walked across the common area to their desks. Havelock had been able to put Miller’s reaction down to one man’s being oversensitive. A whole room, though. A whole station house. By the time they reached their chairs, Havelock’s eyes were wide.
Captain Shaddid came in. The bleary look was gone. Her hair was pulled back, her uniform crisp and professional, her voice as calm as a surgeon in a battlefield hospital. She stepped up on the first desk she came to, improvising a pulpit.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “You’ve seen the transmission. Any questions?”
“Who let that fucking Earther near a radio?” someone shouted. Miller saw Havelock laugh along with the crowd, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Shaddid scowled and the crowd quieted.
“Here’s the situation,” she said. “No way we can control this information. It was broadcast everywhere. We have five sites on the internal network that have been mirroring it, and we have to assume it’s public knowledge starting ten minutes ago. Our job now is to keep the rioting to a minimum and ensure station integrity around the port. Station houses fifty and two thirteen are helping on it too. The port authority has released all the ships with inner planet registry. That doesn’t mean they’re all gone. They still have to round up their crews. But it does mean they’re going.”
“The government offices?” Miller said, loud enough to carry.
“Not our problem, thank God,” Shaddid said. “They have infrastructure in place. Blast doors are already down and sealed. They’ve broken off from the main environmental systems, so we aren’t even breathing their air right now.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Yevgeny said from the cluster of homicide detectives.
“Now the bad news,” Shaddid said. Miller heard the silence of a hundred and fifty cops holding their breath. “We’ve got eighty known OPA agents on the station. They’re all employed and legal, and you know this is the kind of thing they’ve been waiting for. We have an order from the governor that we’re not going to do any proactive detention. No one gets arrested until they do something.”
Angry voices rose in chorus.
“Who does he think he is?” someone called from the back. Shaddid snapped at the comment like a shark.
“The governor is the one who contracted with us to keep this station in working order,” Shaddid said. “We’ll follow his directives.”
In his peripheral