Leviathan Wakes

Miller goes into analytic mode. The flophouse ambush was sloppy; otherwise, Holden and his crew would have been taken or killed. Miller explains his presence: He’s looking for a crew member on the Scopuli. Holden says they’re also looking for someone who was on the Scopuli—someone who was supposed to be at the flophouse. Miller wonders if it’s Julie. They all head for the room Lionel Polanski is supposed to be occupying. Holden knocks on the door, but there’s no answer. Amos kicks in the door, revealing a dark room with an unpleasant smell.

They inspect the room. Holden orders everyone not to touch anything. They follow a trail of dark fluid, not blood, to the bathroom, where the smell is worse. The lights inside are all destroyed. Black tendrils reach toward the broken fixtures. In the shower stall, Julie lies dead, naked except for the tendrils and tubes coming out of her orifices and the bony spurs she’s grown. Miller orders everyone out.

Sematimba arrives, and Miller tells him the girl he was looking for is dead in the room. He admits that he’s in over his head. He knows the attack was a set-up. He gestures toward Holden and tells Sematimba who he is.

They leave the scene of the crime. Out of Miller’s earshot, Naomi tells Holden that Miller knew the dead woman. She could see his shock at Julie’s condition.

Miller wants to know how Holden knew someone from the Scopuli would be in that room. Holden wants to know how Miller knew the missing girl case was connected to something bigger. They both give half answers. Neither knows who the gunmen were or why they attacked, but Miller says it was a botched operation. Alex wonders why no one is talking about the condition of the corpse in the room.

Miller confesses that he didn’t actually know Julie. The investigation gave him a picture of her: She was a good kid, a good racer. He wanted to get her back alive. He guesses at Julie’s password (“Razorback”), which allows Naomi to access her terminal, which Naomi manipulates through sealed plastic bag to reduce risk of contamination. Naomi opens a notes file that contains Julie’s account of catching the “Phoebe bug.” Julie referred to the “brown stuff” and described her symptoms, which included fever. She observed that the thing feeds on radiation and is anaerobic—meaning it does not require oxygen. Julie recorded the notes as she traveled to Eros, then contacted Fred Johnson.

The group has no clue what caused all the tubes and spurs to sprout on Julie. The Roci crew decides to follow up on coordinates found in Julie’s notes for answers. They think she may have hidden a ship and want to check it out. Miller wants to go with them to find out who killed Julie.

Holden is angry because the Roci is in lockdown, unable to leave Eros. Miller says Sematimba wants to make sure they stick around in case he needs them.

Miller makes his case for leaving with the Roci. Holden is unsure; he doesn’t know Miller well enough to trust him. Holden, Naomi, Amos, and Alex simultaneously receive a message, which they share with Miller. It’s from Fred Johnson, warning them to be careful: They caught a mole—a spy—on Tycho who revealed that danger awaits them on Eros. It’s too late for the warning, but it does lead them to conclude that someone wanted to use Julie’s infected body to carry out biological warfare. They doubt Eros, a backwater Belt station, was the target and wonder where Julie’s body was supposed to be shipped.

A message over the station PA announces that Eros is in emergency lockdown and the population is at risk of radiation exposure. Everyone is ordered to go to the casino level. On the way, the group gets caught in a crush of people leaving. Miller says the radiation shelter space is limited—not everyone will get in. Amos says it doesn’t matter because they’re heading toward the Roci, not the shelters, which Holden confirms.

Miller sees a security guard with highly recognizable scars and markings: He’s a thug Miller once arrested on Ceres, and he’s wearing the riot gear that was stolen from Star Helix. Miller realizes there’s a much bigger picture—whatever’s happening on Eros is a coordinated attack. When they reach a secluded spot away from security, he grabs Holden and says, “Don’t go.”

Miller explains that the cops are mobsters who vanished from Ceres. He thinks they’re putting everyone in some kind of lockup and suggests ducking into a high-voltage maintenance corridor. They can hide there until the crowd passes, then make for the docks. Holden wants to know what the mobsters are up to. He appeals to Miller’s curiosity, and the pair decides to investigate while the other three wait. Holden tells Naomi to take off without them if they’re not back in three hours.

Holden and Miller follow the guards, who put people in a radiation shelter and then lock the door. All the guards leave the area except one. They approach him and ask to join the group inside. When he refuses, Miller puts a gun to his head; the guard complies. Inside, the shelter is dark. It’s filled with people lying on the floor, seemingly dead. The guard takes a few steps in and falls. Miller and Holden cough and stumble. Their terminals flash alarms: They’ve been exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. They have about six hours to get the Roci’s computerized med bay or they’ll die. They realize the “Phoebe bug” that infected Julie feeds on radiation. All the people sent to the “shelters” were likely sent there to be infected and used as incubators.

Miller and Holden have two hours to get to the Roci before Naomi and the others leave. Armored guards are ordering people to go the other way. Already feeling the effects of radiation poisoning, they decide to retry the maintenance tunnels. There, they encounter a couple guards. Miller kills one but spares the other for questioning, recognizing him from a criminal incident on Ceres. The guy reveals who he’s working for: Protogen, the private Earth company based on Luna and led by Julie Mao’s father. Once he has answers, Miller shoots the guy in the gut, planning to take the body for “medical attention” as a ruse to get past security. As they carry the corpse through the corridor, Miller reflects on when he lost his humanity. He realizes that it has been a cumulative process, starting with his first kill. He figures the Julie of his fantasies is a symbol of the humanity he craves—that he could have had if he’d made choices that didn’t push him away from love.

They reach the hideout a few minutes past the deadline. No one is there.

Holden, who hadn’t thought his crew would leave him behind, realizes he’s going to die because Naomi followed his order. Miller suggests they continue to the ship, though Holden doubts it will be there. In Miller’s view, they have no better options; perhaps they’ll kill a bunch of mafia on the way. Holden agrees. Along the way, he sees a fake guard shoot a kid. Holden charges toward the cop and empties his gun on him, but his fire doesn’t kill him. The guard aims at Holden’s head, but before he can shoot, Miller kills him. They arrive at the port, where mercenary cops with machine guns are blocking the way.

Miller recognizes that he has two minds: There’s his usual cop self who is still planning his next move and his “death self.” The name comes from a poem he once read.

Holden wonders why someone would orchestrate such an elaborate deadly scheme. Miller says Protogen doesn’t know what the bug that infected Julie will do. He believes Eros is one big experiment, and the scientists are observing the results. Just then, a horde of infected people appears. They move like zombies, vomiting brown goo. Doors are opening all over the station, and more are pouring in. A riot cop starts shooting the zombies; their wounds ooze brown stuff.

Miller gets an idea. He realizes the thugs are going to fall back to get out, which means they can follow the mercenaries and be ignored as long as they stay far enough behind them—and well ahead of the zombie mob. Both Holden and Miller are in bad shape from the radiation poisoning; time is short. They follow the mercenaries.

Holden is on the verge of collapse. He grabs Miller’s belt, and Miller drags him along. They pause at the outer levels of the station; the men they’re following have stopped to argue.

An infected man lurches toward them. Holden objects when Miller raises his gun, saying Miller can’t ride on the Roci if he kills one more person without Holden’s approval. They’re trapped between the infected man and close to 100 heavily armed men, who are blocking the corridor to the Roci. One faction looks professional; the other looks like the thugs from Ceres. They start shooting at each other. Bodies fall, and the fighting moves down the corridor toward the ship.

Four thugs approach. Miller waits for Holden’s permission before he starts shooting, killing them. They take the dead men’s armor and helmets to make a run for it. Progress is slow due to the radiation poisoning, and they both take shots that further impede their pace. They limp toward the elevator that will take them to the Roci on the off chance it’s still there. After the lift rises, the door opens to reveal Amos on the other side of the airlock, an assault rifle in each hand.

Miller wakes from fitful dreaming. Something is sticking out of his neck; Naomi tells him it’s a good thing their sick bay is very well stocked. He sleeps, then wakes again. He sees Holden, who looks terrible. Miller smiles to himself and falls unconscious again. Sometime later, while half-awake, he hears Holden tell Naomi that he loves her. Naomi admits that she fell for him more than four years earlier, but he only got interested in her when she was the only woman available. She knows his pattern—she’s seen it repeatedly—and a brief fling is not good enough for her.

Miller coughs and sits up. Naomi says both men died several times, but the ship’s medical resources saved them. They’re both going to have to be checked for cancer every month for the rest of their lives. They’ve had various parts removed; Holden’s thyroid was replaced with an implant, and Miller lost more than a foot of his small bowel. They’re probably sterile now, too, but otherwise they’re in good shape. Eros, however, is dead. There were 1.5 million people on the station.

Miller and Holden discuss their escape and the men they killed along the way. Holden says he’s fine with it, but Miller doesn’t believe it. He says it’s good that Holden’s haunted by it and that the feeling won’t go away—so long as he still has a soul. He also tells Holden not to let Naomi put him off. In Miller’s imagination, Julie tells him she loves him too, and she’ll take care of him.

Holden and Miller spend five days in the sick bay. Assorted explanations for the death of Eros are circulating, some political, some not. The Roci is heading for Julie’s asteroid.

There’s distance between Naomi and Holden, who regrets his ill-timed romantic gesture. He gets up and finds he can walk. He heads to the ops deck, where Naomi is at a computer station. Holden starts to speak, wanting to have a personal conversation, but Naomi hits a button, and Fred Johnson’s face appears. Fred says they haven’t been able to get anything out of the data from the Donnager. Kelly died for that data, Holden recalls. He wonders if it’s showing Mars who killed the Donnager by revealing the enemy ship’s drive signature.

Miller joins them, and Holden asks him to solve a mystery: If he knew who killed someone, why would he send his partner the clues instead of just naming him? Miller says in case he’s wrong. He would want his partner to examine the clues and reach his own conclusion. Naomi thinks Earth is behind the whole thing.

Holden wants to make another general broadcast to share the information they have, but Miller stops him, lest Holden make the largest war of all time—which he started—even bigger. Whoever did all this made it look like Mars killed the Cant, but it didn’t. They made it look like the OPA killed the Donnager—but it didn’t. Now Holden is going to drag Earth into it when he doesn’t know for sure. Holden sees it differently: He’s just releasing data, just exposing the secrets that will enable someone to find the answers.

They reach Julie’s asteroid and, sure enough, there’s a ship tethered there: the Anubis.