Caliban's War: Book Two of the Expanse series (37 page)

But now Bobbie wasn’t a Martian Marine anymore.

“I am not a traitor,” Bobbie said to her reflection in the mirror. Mirror Bobbie looked unconvinced.

After the blaring trumpet call’s third repetition, her hand terminal beeped once and fell into a sullen silence. She’d been holding her toothbrush for the last half hour. The toothpaste had started to grow a hard skin. She ran it under warm water to soften it back up and started brushing her teeth.

“I’m not a traitor,” she said to herself, the toothbrush making the words unintelligible. “Not.”

Not even standing here in the bathroom of her UN-provided apartment, brushing her teeth with UN toothpaste and rinsing the sink with UN-provided water. Not while she clutched her good Martian toothbrush and scrubbed until her gums bled.

“Not,” she said again, daring mirror Bobbie to disagree.

She put the toothbrush back into her small toiletry case, carried it into the living room, and placed it in her duffel. Everything she owned stayed in the duffel. She’d need to move fast when her people called her home. And they would. She’d get a priority dispatch on her terminal, the red-and-gray border of the MCRN CINC-COM flashing around it. They’d tell her that she needed to return to her unit immediately. That she was still one of them.

That she wasn’t a traitor for staying.

She straightened her uniform, slid her now quiet terminal into her pocket, and checked her hair in the mirror next to the door. It was pulled into a bun so tight it almost gave her a face-lift, not one single hair out of place.

“I’m not a traitor,” she said to the mirror. Front hallway mirror Bobbie seemed more open to this idea than bathroom mirror
Bobbie had. “Damn straight,” she said, then slammed the door behind her when she left.

She hopped on one of the little electric bikes the UN campus made available everywhere, and was in the office three minutes before five a.m. Soren was already there. No matter what time she came in, Soren always beat her. Either he slept at his desk or he was spying on her to see what time she set her alarm for each morning.

“Bobbie,” he said, his smile not even pretending to be genuine.

Bobbie couldn’t bring herself to respond, so she just nodded and collapsed into her chair. One glance at the darkened windows in Avasarala’s office told her the old lady wasn’t in yet. Bobbie pulled up her to-do list on the desktop screen.

“She had me add a lot of people,” Soren said, referring to the list of people Bobbie was supposed to call in her role as Martian military liaison. “She really wants to get a hold of an early draft of the Martian statement on Ganymede. That’s your top priority for the day. Okay?”

“Why?” Bobbie said. “The actual statement came out yesterday. We both read it.”

“Bobbie,” Soren said with a sigh that said he was tired of explaining simple things to her, but a grin that said he really wasn’t. “This is how the game is played. Mars releases a statement condemning our actions. We go back channel and find an early draft. If it was harsher than the actual statement that was released, then someone in the dip corps argued to tone it down. That means they’re trying to avoid escalating. If it was milder in the early draft, then they’re deliberately escalating to provoke a response.”

“But since they know you’ll get those early drafts, then that’s meaningless. They’ll just make sure you get leaks that give you the impression they want you to have.”

“See? Now you’re getting it,” Soren said. “What your opponent wants
you
to think is useful data in figuring out what
they
think. So get the early draft, okay? Do it before the end of the day.”

But no one talks to me anymore because now I’m the UN’s pet Martian, and even though I’m not a traitor, it is entirely possible that everyone else thinks I am
.

“Okay.”

Bobbie pulled up the newly revised list and made the first connection request of the day.

“Bobbie!” Avasarala yelled from her desk. There was any number of electronic means for getting Bobbie’s attention, but she almost never saw Avasarala use them. She yanked her earbud free and stood up. Soren’s smirk was of the psychic variety; his face didn’t change at all.

“Ma’am?” Bobbie said, taking a short step into Avasarala’s office. “You bellowed?”

“No one likes a smart-ass,” Avasarala said, not looking up from her desk terminal. “Where’s my first draft of that report? It’s almost lunchtime.”

Bobbie stood a little straighter and clasped her arms behind her back.

“Sir, I regret to inform you that I have been unable to find anyone willing to release the early draft of the report to me.”

“Are you standing at attention?” Avasarala said, looking up at her for the first time. “Jesus. I’m not about to march you out to the firing squad. Did you try everyone on the list?”

“Yes, I—” Bobbie stopped for a moment and took a deep breath, then took a few more steps into the office. Quietly she said, “No one talks to me.”

The old woman lifted a snow-white eyebrow.

“That’s interesting.”

“It is?” Bobbie said.

Avasarala smiled at her, a warm, genuine smile, then poured tea out of a black iron pot into two small teacups.

“Sit down,” she said, waving at a chair next to her desk. When Bobbie remained standing, Avasarala said, “Seriously, sit the fuck
down. Five minutes talking to you and I can’t tilt my head forward again for an hour.”

Bobbie sat, hesitated, and took one of the small teacups. It wasn’t much larger than a shot glass, and the tea inside it was very dark and smelled unpleasant. She took a small sip and burned her tongue.

“It’s a Lapsang souchong,” Avasarala said. “My husband buys it for me. What do you think?”

“I think it smells like hobo feet,” Bobbie replied.

“No shit, but Arjun loves it and it’s not bad once you get used to drinking it.”

Bobbie nodded and took another sip but didn’t reply.

“Okay, so,” Avasarala said, “you’re the Martian who was unhappy and got tempted over to the other side by a powerful old lady with lots of shiny prizes to offer. You’re the worst kind of traitor, because ultimately everything that’s happened to you since you came to Earth was because you were pouting.”

“I—”

“Shut the fuck up now, dear, the grown-up is talking.”

Bobbie shut up and drank her awful tea.

“But,” Avasarala continued, the same sweet smile on her wrinkled face, “if I were on the other team, you know who I’d send misinformation leaks to?”

“Me,” Bobbie said.

“You. Because you’re desperate to prove your value to your new boss, and they can send you blatantly false information and not really care if they fuck your shit up in the long run. If I were the Martian counterespionage wonks, I’d have already recruited one of your closest friends back home and be using them to funnel a mountain’s worth of false data your direction.”

My closest friends are all dead
, Bobbie thought.

“But no one—”

“Is talking to you from back home. Which means two things. They are still trying to figure out my game in keeping you here, and they don’t have a misinformation campaign in place because they’re as confused as we are. You’ll be contacted by someone in
the next week or so. They’ll ask you to leak information from my office, but they’ll ask it in such a way that winds up giving you a whole lot of false information. If you’re loyal and spy for them, great. If not and you tell me what they asked for, also great. Maybe they’ll get lucky and you’ll do both.”

Bobbie put the teacup back on the desk. Her hands were in fists.

“This,” Bobbie said, “is why everyone hates politicians.”

“No. They hate us because we have power. Bobbie, this isn’t how your mind likes to work, and I respect that. I don’t have time to explain things to you,” Avasarala said, the smile disappearing like it had never been. “So just assume I know what I’m doing, and that when I ask you to do the impossible, it’s because even your failure helps our cause somehow.”

“Our
cause?”

“We’re on the same team here. Team Let’s-Not-Lose-Together. That is us, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Bobbie said, glancing at the Buddha in his shrine. He smiled at her serenely.
Just one of the team
, his round face seemed to say. “Yes it is.”

“Then get the fuck back out there and start calling everyone all over again. This time take detailed notes on who refuses to help you and the exact words they use in their refusal. Okay?”

“Solid copy on that, ma’am.”

“Good,” Avasarala said, smiling gently again. “Get out of my office.”

Familiarity might breed contempt, but Bobbie hadn’t much liked Soren right from the start. Sitting next to him for several days had ratcheted up her dislike to a whole new level. When he wasn’t ignoring her, he was condescending. He talked too loud on his phone, even when she was trying to carry on a conversation of her own. Sometimes he sat on her desk, talking to visitors. He wore too much cologne.

The worst thing was he ate cookies all day.

It was impressive, given his rail-thin build, and Bobbie was not generally the kind of person who cared at all about other people’s dietary habits. But his preferred brand of cookie came out of the break room vending machine in a foil packet that crinkled every time he reached into it. At first, this had only been annoying. But after a couple of days of the Crinkle, Crunch, Chomp, and Smack Radio Theater, she’d had enough. She dropped her latest pointless connection and turned to stare at him. He ignored her and tapped on his desk terminal.

“Soren,” she said, meaning to ask him to dump the damn cookies out on a plate or a napkin so she didn’t have to hear that infuriating crinkle sound anymore. Before she could get more than his name out, he held up a finger to shush her and pointed at his earbud.

“No,” he said, “not really a good—”

Bobbie wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or someone on the phone, so she got up and moved over to his desk, sitting on the edge of it. He gave her a withering glare, but she just smiled and mouthed, “I’ll wait.” The edge of his desk creaked a little under her weight.

He turned his back to her.

“I understand,” he said. “But this is not a good time to discuss— I see. I can probably— I see, yes. Foster won’t— Yes. Yes, I understand. I’ll be there.”

He turned back around and tapped his desk, killing the connection.

“What?”

“I hate your cookies. The constant crinkle of the package is driving me insane.”

“Cookies?” Soren said, a baffled expression on his face. Bobbie thought that it might be the first honest emotion she’d ever seen there.

“Yeah, can you put them on a—” Bobbie started, but before she could finish, Soren grabbed up the package and tossed them into the recycling bin next to his desk.

“Happy?”

“Well—”

“I don’t have time for you right now, Sergeant.”

“Okay,” Bobbie said, and went back to her desk.

Soren kept fidgeting like he had more to say, so Bobbie didn’t call the next person on her list. She waited for him to speak. Probably the cookie thing had been a mistake on her part. Really, it wasn’t a big deal. If she weren’t under so much pressure, it wasn’t the sort of thing she’d probably even notice. When Soren finally spoke up, she’d apologize for being so pushy about it and then offer to buy him a new package. Instead of speaking, he stood up.