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“Where you are’s as good as anyplace Just put the web on in case we bu to a stronger, more clipped cadence: “Tycho control, this is the Rocinante Are we cleared for docking?”
Prax heard a distant voice speaking to Alex alone
“Roger that,” Alex said “We’re comin’ in”
In the dramas and action fil a ship had always looked like a fairly athletic thing SweatingAlex was nothing like it He still had the two joysticks, but his ravity under Prax changed, his couch shifting under him by a few centimeters Then another tap and another shift The heads-up display showed a tunnel through the vacuuht, ending against the side of the turning ring
Prax looked at thesent to Alex and said, “Why fly at all? Couldn’t the ship just use this data to do the docking itself?”
“Why fly?” Alex repeated with a laugh “’Cuz it’s fun, Doc Because it’s fun”
The long bluish lights of the s in Tycho’s observation do out at hiet that the screens in the cockpit weren’t s: The urge to look out and wave, to watch someone wave back, was profound
Holden’s voice came over Alex’s line, the words unidentifiable and the tone perfectly clear
“We’re looking fine, Cap,” Alex said “Ten more minutes”
The crash couch shifted to the side, the wide plane of the station curving down as Alexon a ring that ould de inertial forces, but under Alex’s hand, ship and station drifted together slowly and gently Before Prax had gotten married, he’d seen a dance performance based on neo-Taoist traditions For the first hour, it had been utterly boring, and then after that, the sether, bending, and falling away, had been entrancing The Rocinante slid into place beside an extending airlock port with the same beauty Prax had seen in that dance, but e that instead of skin and h-tensile steel and live fusion reactors
The Rocinante eased into her berth with one last correction, one last shifting of the gi spin had been no more than any of the small corrections Alex hadas the station’s docking hooks latched on to the ship
“Tycho control,” Alex said “This is the Rocinante confir the clamps in place Can you confirm?”
A moment passed, and a ood to be back”
Gravity in the ship had shifted subtly Instead of thrust froht, it now ca they were clahtly to the side whenever he stood up straight, and had to fight the urge to overcoalley when Prax reached it, the coffee htest bend to the streah school class reether They were all together now, and Prax felt the tiht to thank them all for what they’d done for him For Mei, as probably dead The naked pain on Holden’s face stopped hi over her shoulder
“You’re heading out,” Holden said
“I a froht, then,” Holden said
For a few seconds, no one htly on the cheek The captain’s arms moved out to e out through the narrow hallith the air of a woman on her way solances