“Ship come in?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“EMCN?” he asked. The Earth-Mars Coalition Navy often passed through Ceres on its way to Saturn, Jupiter, and the stations of the Belt, but Miller hadn’t been paying enough attention to the relative position of the planets to know where the orbits all stood. Havelock shook his head.
“Corporate security rotating out of Eros,” he said. “Protogen, I think.” A serving girl appeared at Miller’s side, tattoos gliding over her skin, her teeth glowing in the black light. Miller took the drink she offered him, though he hadn’t ordered. Soda water.
“You know,” Miller said, leaning close enough to Havelock that even his normal conversational voice would reach the man, “it doesn’t matter how many of their asses you kick. Shaddid’s still not going to like you.”
Havelock snapped to stare at Miller, the anger in his eyes barely covering the shame and hurt.
“It’s true,” Miller said.
Havelock rose lurching to his feet and headed for the door. He was trying to stomp, but in the Ceres spin gravity and his inebriated state, he misjudged. It looked like he was hopping. Miller, glass in hand, slid through the crowd in Havelock’s wake, calming with a smile and a shrug the affronted faces that his partner left behind him.
The common tunnels down near the port had a layer of grime and grease to them that air scrubbers and astringent cleaners could never quite master. Havelock walked out, shoulders hunched, mouth tight, rage radiating from him like heat. But the doors of the Blue Frog closed behind them, the seal cutting off the music like someone hitting mute. The worst of the danger had passed.
“I’m not drunk,” Havelock said, his voice too loud.
“Didn’t say you were.”
“And you,” Havelock said, turning and stabbing an accusing finger at Miller’s chest. “You are not my nanny.”
“Also true.”
They walked together for maybe a quarter of a kilometer. The bright LED signs beckoned. Brothels and shooting galleries, coffee bars and poetry clubs, casinos and show fights. The air smelled like piss and old food. Havelock began to slow, his shoulders coming down from around his ears.
“I worked homicide in Terrytown,” Havelock said. “I did three years vice at L-5. Do you have any idea what that was like? They were shipping kids out of there, and I’m one of three guys that stopped it. I’m a good cop.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m damn good.”
“You are.”
They walked past a noodle bar. A coffin hotel. A public terminal, its displays running a free newsfeed: COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS PLAGUE PHOEBE SCIENCE STATION. NEW ANDREAS K GAME NETS 6 BILLION DOLLARS IN 4 HOURS. NO DEAL IN MARS, BELT TITANIUM CONTRACT. The screens glowed in Havelock’s eyes, but he was staring past them.
“I’m a damn good cop,” he said again. Then, a moment later: “So what the hell?”
“It’s not about you,” Miller said. “People look at you, they don’t see Dmitri Havelock, good cop. They see Earth.”
“That’s crap. I was eight years in the orbitals and on Mars before I ever shipped out here. I worked on Earth maybe six months total.”
“Earth. Mars. They’re not that different,” Miller said.
“Try telling that to a Martian,” Havelock said with a bitter laugh. “They’ll kick your ass for you.”
“I didn’t mean… Look, I’m sure there are all kinds of differences. Earth hates Mars for having a better fleet. Mars hates Earth for having a bigger one. Maybe soccer’s better in full g; maybe it’s worse. I don’t know. I’m just saying anyone this far out from the sun? They don’t care. From this distance, you can cover Earth and Mars with one thumb. And… ”
“And I don’t belong,” Havelock said.
The door of the noodle bar behind them opened and four Belters in gray-green uniforms came out. One of them wore the split circle of the OPA on his sleeve. Miller tensed, but the Belters didn’t come toward them, and Havelock didn’t notice them. Near miss.
“I knew,” Havelock said. “When I took the Star Helix contract, I knew I’d have to work to fit in. I thought it’d be the same as anywhere, you know? You go, you get your chops busted for a while. Then, when they see you can take it, they treat you like one of the team. It’s not like that here.”
“It’s not,” Miller said.
Havelock shook his head, spat, and stared at the fluted glass in his hand.
“I think we just stole some glasses from the Blue Frog,” Havelock said.
“We’re also in a public corridor with unsealed alcohol,” Miller said. “Well, you are, anyway. Mine’s soda water.”
Havelock chuckled, but there was despair in the sound. When Havelock spoke again, his voice was only rueful.
“You think I’m coming down here, picking fights with people from the inner planets so that Shaddid and Ramachandra and all the rest of them will think better of me.”
“It occurred to me.”
“You’re wrong,” Havelock said.
“Okay,” Miller said. He knew he wasn’t.
Havelock raised his fluted glass. “Take these back?” he asked.
“How about Distinguished Hyacinth?” Miller countered. “I’ll buy.”
The Distinguished Hyacinth Lounge was up three levels, far enough that foot traffic from the port levels was minimal. And it was a cop bar. Mostly Star Helix Security, but some of the minor corporate forces-Protogen, Pinkwater, Al Abbiq-hung out there too. Miller was more than half certain that his partner’s latest breakdown had been averted, but if he was wrong, better to keep it in the family.
The decor was pure Belt-old-style ships’ folding tables and chairs set into the wall and ceiling as if the gravity might shut off at any moment. Snake plant and devil’s ivy-staples of first-generation air recycling-decorated the wall and freestanding columns. The music was soft enough to talk over, loud enough to keep private conversations private. The first owner, Javier Liu, was a structural engineer from Tycho who’d come out during the big spin and liked Ceres enough to stay. His grandchildren ran it now. Javier the Third was standing behind the bar, talking with half of the vice and exploitation team. Miller led the way to a back table, nodding to the men and women he knew as he passed. While he’d been careful and diplomatic at the Blue Frog, he chose a bluff masculinity here. It was just as much a pose.
“So,” Havelock said as Javier’s daughter Kate-a fourth generation for the same bar-left the table, Blue Frog glasses on her tray, “what is this supersecret private investigation Shaddid put you on? Or is the lowly Earther not supposed to know?”
“Is that what got to you?” Miller asked. “It’s nothing. Some shareholders misplaced their daughter and want me to track her down, ship her home. It’s a bullshit case.”
“Sounds more like their backyard,” Havelock said, nodding toward the V and E crowd.
“Kid’s not a minor,” Miller said. “It’s a kidnap job.”
“And you’re good with that?”
Miller sat back. The ivy above them waved. Havelock waited, and Miller had the uncomfortable sense that a table had just been turned.
“It’s my job,” Miller said.
“Yeah, but we’re talking about an adult here, right? It’s not like she couldn’t go back home if she wanted to be there. But instead her parents get security to take her home whether she wants to go or not. That’s not law enforcement anymore. It’s not even station security. It’s just dysfunctional families playing power games.”
Miller remembered the thin girl beside her racing pinnace. Her broad smile.
“I told you it was a bullshit case,” Miller said.
Kate Liu returned to the table with a local beer and a glass of whiskey on her tray. Miller was glad for the
