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In the one fro fear to cautious hope to complacency Every day that the United Nations and the Martians hadn’t started so had been another bit of evidence that they wouldn’t He’d let hi was ot bad and there was a shooting war, it wouldn’t be here Ganynetosphere, it was the safest place for pregnant wo the lowest incidence of birth defects and stillbirth in the outer planets It was the center of everything that made human expansion into the solar systeile, and the people in charge would never let the war co obscene Prax looked up at her She ran a hand through her thin white hair, turned, and spat

“Lost connectivity,” she said, holding up the hand terminal “Whole network’s locked down”

“By who?”

“Station security United Nations Mars Hoould I know?”

“But if they—”

The concussion was like a giant fist coency brakes kicked in with a bone-shaking clang The lights went out, darkness sing thebird-fast heartbeats Four battery-powered eain as the cart’s power canostics started to run:interface spooling through checksu before a run Prax stood up and walked to the control panel The shaft sensors reportedHe felt a shudder as containment doors closed somewhere above them and the exterior pressure started to rise The air in the shaft had been blown out into space before the eency systeone

He put his hand to hissoil across his chin until he’d already done it Part of his s that needed to be done to save the project—contact his project rant applications, get the data backups to rebuild the viral insertion saone still and eerily cal two men—one bent on desperate —felt like the last weeks of hisat her wide lips She put out her hand

“It was a pleasure working with you, Dr Meng”

The cart shuddered as the eency brakes retracted Another i Soldiers shelling each other on the surface Maybe even fighting deeper in the station There was no way to know He shook her hand

“Dr Bourne,” he said “It has been an honor”

They took a long, silent hed

“All right,” she said “Let’s get the hell out of here”

Mei’s day care was deep in the body of the moon, but the tube station was only a few hundred yards fro dock, and the express trip down to her was noIn three decades of living on Ganymede, Prax had never even noticed that the tube stations had security doors