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The mask, he called it As if the person she hen she faced the world was the false one, and the one who spoke to hihters was authentic She thought he rong, but the fiction was so co

“Today, very heavy What are you doing now, love?”

“Reading Kukurri’s thesis draft It needs work”

“Are you in your office?”

“Yes”

“You should go to the garden,” she said

“Because that’s where you want to be? We can go together when you’re hohed

“I may be very late,” she said

“Wake rinned as if he’d felt the caress She cut the connection By long habit, they didn’t tell each other goodbye It was one of a thousand se

Avasarala turned to her desk syste up the tactical analysis of the battle on Ganyures within Mars, and the , already half filled in by the generals in the time since her conference She took a pistachio from her purse, cracked its shell, and let the raw inforh it In thebehind her, other stars struggled through the light pollution of the Hague, but Venus was still the brightest

Chapter Six: Holden

Holden was drea corridors filled with half-hu woke hiled for a moment with the unfamiliar straps on the bunk before he unbuckled and floated free in the ain Holden pushed off the bed to it and hit the button to bring the cabin lights up The cabin was tiny A seventy-year-old crash couch above a personal storage locker craainst one bulkhead, a toilet and sink built into a corner, and across from the bunk, a wall panel with the name Somnambulist etched above it

The panel buzzed a third time This time Holden hit the reply button and said, “Where are we, Nao to believe this, but they’re et in line?”

“Yep,” Nao all the ships that are landing on Ganymede”