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Only Nao at him Her hair was pulled up into a thick tail, and her dark, alht into his It was fairly disconcerting
“I’ve recently figured out so Nao you all like you oweAnd none of you do And thatyou like shit”
“No,” Alex started without looking up
“Yes,” Holden said, and stopped until Alex looked up at him “Yes You maybe more than anyone else Because I’ve been scared to death and cowards always look for an easy target And you’re about the nicest person I know, Alex So I treated you badly because I could get aith it And I hope you forgive me for that, because I really hate that I did it”
“Sure, I forgive you, Cap,” Alex said with a smile and his heavy drawl
“I’ll try to earn it,” Holden answered, bothered by the easy reply “But Alex said so about a lot He reminded me that none of you are employees We’re not on the Canterbury We don’t work for Pur’n’Kleen anymore And I don’t own this ship any more than any of you do We took contracts froe for pocket money and ship expenses, but we never talked about how to handle the excess”
“You opened that account,” Alex said
“Yeah, there’s a bank account with all of the extra rand in there I said we’d keep it for ship expenses, but who am I to make that decision for the rest of you? That’s not my money It’s our money We earned it”
“But you’re the captain,” Amos said, then pointed at the coffeepot
While Holden fixed him a cup, he said, “Am I? I was the XO on the Canterbury It ot nuked”
He handed the cup to Amos and sat down at the table with the rest of the crew “But we haven’t been those guys for a long time now Who we are now is four people who don’t actually work for anyone—”
Prax cleared his throat at this, and Holden nodded an apology at hiovern me authority over this crew We’re just four people who sort of own a ship that Mars will probably try to take back the first chance they get”
“This is legitie,” Alex said
“And I hope the Martians find that co when you explain it to thee my point: Who are we?”
Nao We’ve left a lot of this kind of stuff just up in the air because we’ve been running full tilt since the Canterbury”
“And this,” Holden said, “is the perfect tiot a contract to help Prax find his little girl, and he’s paying us so we can afford to run the ship Once we find Mei, hoe find the next job? Do we go looking for a next job? Do we sell the Roci to the OPA and retire on Titan? I think we need to know those things”
No one spoke Prax pushed hih the cabinets After a e that read CHOCOLATE PUDDING on the side and said, “Can I hed Alex said, “Knock yourself out, Doc”