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“I hope you will excuse the language, sir, but this was a cock-up froe done to huinable It seems clear at this point that the protomolecule project under way on Venus is aware of events in the Jovian system It’s plausible that the saained frohast To say that makes our position probleone through the appropriate channels, ould not be in this position As it stands, I have done all that is presently within iven my situation The coalition I have built between Mars, eleovernment of Earth are ready to take action But the United Nations must distance itself fro the faction within the governain, excuse the language

“I have sent copies of the data included here to Admirals Souther and Leniki as well as to my team on the Venus problem They are, of course, at your disposal to answer any questions if I am not available

“I’oing to have to choose sides in this And quickly Events out here have developed a ht side of history on this, you ht side of, she thought She tried to couroood that surrounded the secretary-general’s brain There weren’t any, and repeating herself in si She stopped the recording, cut off the last few seconds of her looking into the ca there was and diplomatic encryption

So this hat it caed, froravity well and pressing out into the antechareatest clai bad poetry had the balls to back down Errinwright The ship corrected under her, shifting like an elevator suddenly slipping its tracks She tried to sit up, but the gimbaled couchto work?”

The botanist stood in her doorway He was stick-thin, with a slightly larger head than looked right He wasn’t built as aardly as a Belter, but he couldn’t beat a full gravity Standing in her doorway, trying to find so to do with his hands, he looked aard and lost and slightly otherworldly

“I don’t know,” she said “If I were there, it would happen the way I want it to happen I could go squeeze a few testicles until they saw it my way From here? Maybe Maybe not”

“You can talk to anyone froh, can’t you?”

“It isn’t the sa inward Despite the differences in skin color and build, the man suddenly re a half step back froed on autis was a little ot to Nicola,” he said “They s about me About Mei”

“Of course they did That’s what they do And if they wanted to, they’d have papers and police reports to back it all up, backdated and put in the databases of everywhere you ever lived”

“I hate it that people think I did that”

Avasarala nodded, then shrugged

“Reputation never has very much to do with reality,” she said “I could naons of virtue that are horrible, small-souled, evil people And some of the best men I know, you’d walk out of the room if you heard their names No one on the screen is who they are when you breathe their air”

“Holden,” Prax said

“Well He’s the exception,” she said