Holden dozed, on and off, on the back of the creature that housed a convenient approximation of the mind of Miller. A tentacle to either side of him kept him from falling off Miller's back. The pincer creature's gait was odd, not quite level like a four-wheeler car's, but not the rhythmic footfalls Holden associated with terrestrial animals. It felt almost shivery. Like a centipede. Considering the amount of limbs Miller currently had, that wasn't far off.
The ceiling rushed past monotonously. Miller's flood lighting lit it up in perhaps half a dozen shades of gray, if Holden were being charitable. That and the shivering gate were enough to lull Holden back to sleep soon after he woke.
But eventually, his body had had enough of sleep as well. He stirred, feeling his gun dig at his hip where he was pressed against the tentacle.
The tunnels weren't an uncomfortable temperature exactly, but the tentacle was surprisingly warm. He couldn't resist curling up against it. It wasn't some need for warmth, or a place to rest, but something else. A something else that nonetheless hit some primal need deep within him like sleep or food or- Oh.
James Holden sighed. He wouldn't have thought that he'd had time to develop the urge, but apparently, away from his ship and tossed into the middle of two sets of people who'd both ended up hating him, after experiencing both cataclysmic amounts of stress and also a cataclysm, his body apparently wanted the animal comfort of another body, and had chosen the very worst moment to express it. He was currently the being furthest away from any fellow humans on this planet. In fact, on a galactic scale, it would be hard to come up with a way to be more isolated without intentionally floating off into the vacuum.
"You're distracted," Miller said.
"Not exactly."
"From your extremely ill-advised pharmacological trip?"
"No, actually." Holden weighed his options for a moment, then decided that if he was going to be doing something momentuous in a bit, he might be better off setting his monkey brain right. "I just need a hug."
The settlers and expedition folk wouldn't have this problem, touch-based as their society had momentarily become, but James Holden had spent the past ... well, spent a consecutive period of at least four days on unpaused slug cleaning duty, followed by rushing off to wherever this place was. He hadn't exactly had time for cuddle piles. He hadn't thought his brain was capable of finding cuddle piles necessary. Perhaps this, too, was a reaction to the speed crash.
"Oh." Miller was silent for a moment before raising a trio of free cutting appendages to join the tentacles holding Holden. "I can help you with that," he said. "I can help you with other matters as well."
Was it the protomolecule? Did being in extended close contact with one of its creations improve its accuracy?
Or perhaps this was just its model of Miller, being scarily good at reading him. "Fine," Holden said. He was going to scrub the last node of protomolecule off the Rocinante after they were done here. This could not come back to haunt him. He just ... would let Miller, the protomolecule, the construct do its thing, and then he'd find the dead zone and see about using it as a kill switch.
Miller tightened his tentacular hold on Holden. "Relax," he said. "Enjoy the ride."
Before Holden could express any second thoughts or momentary outbursts of sanity, Miller's pincer arms tweezed open the seams of his suit. They weren't broken, just unsealed. Holden found the level of fine control in the creature's forearm-length cutting implements disconcerting.
Holden twitched as the arm on the left coiled itself over his chest, pincer propped beneath his jaw. The tentacle portion was smooth and the pincer even smoother and somehow cool. "I was hoping for something warmer."
"That can be arranged." The arm suddenly warmed up to slightly warmer than human body temperature. Holden couldn't help the keening exhalation that left him. "Tell me if it's too warm."
"It's good." Holden swallowed. Miller had opted to keep the tentacle appendages firmly by his sides and let the cutting arms be the ones to explore his genitals. "Ah, do be careful."
"Yes, I recall," Miller said in an unconvincing facsimile of a man who had once owned a penis and testicles.
A smooth pincer, shut, stroked its way up Holden's dick, warming to human body temperature mid-stroke. Holden choked on a breath as he found the palpable danger sent blood rushing downstairs.
The pincer arm coiled on his chest kept him from moving. He was pinned down on the carapace of some giant that consisted entirely of pinch points, and he could feel Miller's curiosity weigh him down further. He felt like a specimen in one of the biologists' sample bags.
This naked curiosity felt altogether alien. The protomolecule itself, perhaps, projecting itself through the persona of Miller it had put on like an EVA suit.
Holden's thoughts were interrupted by the pincer stroking his dick again. It was slightly open this time, hinge just off his delicate skin, and the cutting – or perhaps crushing – edges ghosted over his dick. The sensation was utterly alien, warm and cool and oddly textured unlike any toy he'd ever tried, but like the green gunk that had rained from the skies into the expedition's eyes, had found a niche that suited it and which had no competition. Another stroke dissolved Holden's brain into a mass of static.
For a moment, Holden saw Miller superimposed over the mass of tentacles, flickering through several positions in the air, clothed, trying to match the inhuman physical sensations Holden felt, before the next stroke of the pincer disintegrated the image. He shuddered, thrusting into it as much as his confines allowed, and closed his eyes. He could almost pretend it was a human laying on top of him, warm and alive, a mammal raised on the light of Sol. He saw Miller, not clothed and superimposed over a machine, but in the nude, a product of Holden's own imagination rather than its protomolecular highjacking-
The pincer worked him over once more, tentacle arm digging into his perineum as the functional end moved, and Holden came with a jerk. The world dissolved in a mess of static and light.
He expelled all the air in his lungs and twitched beneath his tentacle straitjacket. Reality was returning, and with it the reality of New Landing. Murtry – the storm – the blindness – he shuddered madly, as if finally grasping the magnitude of events beyond his ability to grasp.
"We're almost there," Miller said.
But reality needed James Holden once more, and he had no time for a breakdown. "All right," he said. "Seal me up and put me down."
Miller made a questioning noise, but Holden had pulled himself together in worse circumstances. He took a deep breath as Miller removed the tentacle from above him and sealed up his suit. He realized he missed the warmth.
But that was a realization for later. James Holden had work to do.