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“No—”

“Yes Yes it could We could be leaving a couple ht noho don’t know it yet Melissa and Santichai? Remember them? Now think of them stripped down to whatever pieces the protomolecule finds most useful at theis loose on Ganymede, then that’s what they are”

“Ji in her voice now “This is what I’s isn’t evidence You are about to accuse a man who’s been your friend and patron for the last year ofan entire moon full of people That isn’t the Fred we know And you owe hi position, part of hi to physically distance hiry with her for not syave it to hiht to my face he’d never use it But that’s not what I san there You call him my friend, but Fred has only ever done ould advance his own cause Even helping us was just another ame”

“Experiments on kidnapped children?” Naomi said “A whole moon—one of the most important in the outer planets—put at risk and ht? Does that make any sense to you? Does that sound like Fred Johnson?”

“The OPA wants Ganymede even more than either inner planet does,” Holden said, finally ad he’d feared since they’d found the black filaive it to hi to drive thee for the moon That would at least explain the heavy inner planets traffic we’ve been seeing—”

“No Stop,” she said “I don’t want to sit here and listen to you talk yourself into this”

Holden started to speak, but Naoently put her hand over his mouth

“I didn’t like this new Jiuy who’d rather reach for his gun than talk? I know being the OPA’s bagman has been a shitty job, and I knoe’ve had to do a lot of pretty rotten things in the na the Belt But that was still you I could still see you lurking there under the surface, waiting to co her hand away froh Noon in the streets of Tycho? That’s not Jinize that ht I do recognize him But his name was Miller”

For Holden, the most awful part was how calry Instead, infinitely worse, there was only a resigned sadness

“If that’s who you are now, you need to drop o with you anymore,” she said “I’m out”

Chapter Twenty-Three: Avasarala

Avasarala stood at her , looking out at thehaze In the distance, a transport lifted off It rode an exhaust pluht white cloud, and then it was gone Her hands ached She knew that soht now had coht-minutes away Ganymede Station, once the safest place without an atmosphere, then a war zone, and noasteland She could no ht of its death than pluck a particular molecule of salt from the ocean, but she kneas there, and the fact was like a stone in her belly

“I can ask for confir his cohteen hours Once we have that—”

“We’ll knohat he said,” Avasarala snapped “I can tell you that right now The Martian forces took a threatening position, and he was forced to respond aggressively La la fking la Where did he get the ships?”