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“You have to understand how these things work,” Thorsson said, turning away fro with his terh, and no one wants to be the person that screwed it up”

He put his terave her a wink “Careers are at stake here”

“Careers …”

Thorsson just nodded and tapped on his terminal someup into the star-filled void above Gany Her suit radio dead, her ar’s face Without a suit in the radiation and hard vacuum, the red snowfall of flash-frozen blood around its claws And no one at this table wanted to talk about it because it ht affect their careers?

To hell with that

When the ’s attendees had shuffled back into the room and taken their places around the table, Bobbie raised her hand She felt faintly ridiculous, like a fifth-grade student in a room full of adults, but she had no idea what the actual protocol for asking a question was The agenda reader shot her one annoyed glance, then ignored her Thorsson reached under the table and sharply squeezed her leg

She kept her hand up

“Excuseher increasingly unfriendly looks and then pointedly turning away Thorsson upped the pressure on her leg until she’d had enough of hirabbed his wrist with her other hand She squeezed until the bones creaked and he snatched his hand aith a surprised gasp He turned his chair to look at her, his eyes wide and his mouth a flat, lipless line

Yellow-sari placed a hand on the agenda reader’s ar Okay, that one is the boss, Bobbie decided

“I, for one,” Grandy at the rooeant Draper has to say”

She reeant?” Grandma said

Bobbie, unsure of what to do, stood up

“I’ about the matic smile returned No one spoke The silence slid adrenaline into Bobbie’s blood She felt her legs starting to tre in the world, she wanted to sit down, to et her and look away

She scowled and locked her knees

“You know,” Bobbie said, her voice rising, but she was unable to stop it “The monster that killed fifty soldiers on Ganymede? The reason we’re all here?”

The room was silent Thorsson stared at her like she had lost her ed once at her yellow sari and s up the agenda, “I’ets to screho on the second Thursday after the winter solstice is all very iravity and her tirade see to have robbed her of air She could see it in their eyes She could see that if she just stopped now, she’d be an odd thing that happened and everyone could go back to work and quickly forget her She could see her career not crashing off a cliff in flames

She discovered that she didn’t care