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“Then you ran into soainst which you had no defense And you lost your teammates and friends”
Bobbie started to reply and realized she’d been holding her breath, so instead of speaking, she exhaled explosively Martens didn’t stop talking
“We need you, Roberta We need you back I haven’t been where you are, but I know a lot of people who have, and I kno to help you If you let me If you talk to me I can’t take it away I can’t cure you But I can make it better”
“Don’t call me Roberta,” Bobbie said so quietly that she could barely hear herself
She took a few short breaths, trying to clear her head, trying not to hyperventilate The scents of the cargo bay washed over her The s scents of gun oil and hydraulic fluid, old and aged right into the metal no matter how ht of thousands of sailors andon their equipht her back to herself
She un and picked it up off the un oil could touch it
“No, Captain, talking to you is not what’s going to getthat killedon Gany with a sharp ave the triple barrels a spin with her hand, and they turned with the fast oily hiss of high-quality bearings “I’ to kill them”
Chapter Nine: Avasarala
The report was ed to find someone with the balls to ads were happening on Venus, stranger than Avasarala had known or guessed A network of filaments had nearly encased the planet in a pattern of fifty-kiloons, and apart from the fact that they seemed to carry superheated water and electrical currents, no one knehat they were The gravity of the planet had increased by 3 percent Paired inds of benzene and co the impact craters like synchronized swimmers where the remains of Eros Station had smashed into the planetary surface The best scientificat the data with their jaws slack, and the reason no one was panicking yet was that no one could agree on what they should panic about
On one hand, the Venusian metamorphosis was the most powerful scientific tool ever Whatever happened did so in plain sight of everyone There were no nondisclosure agreements or anti-competition treaties to be concerned with Anyone with a scanner sensitive enough could look down through the clouds of sulfuric acid and see as going on today Analyses were confidential, follow-up studies were proprietary, but the raw data was orbiting the sun for anyone to see
Only, so far, it was like a bunch of lizards watching the World Cup Politely put, they weren’t sure what they were looking at
But the data was clear The attack on Ganyy expended on Venus had come at exactly the same time And no one knehy
“Well, that’s worth shit,” she said
Avasarala closed down her hand terminal and looked out theAround them the commissary murmured softly, like the best kind of restaurant, only without the ugly necessity of paying for anything The tables were real wood and arranged carefully so that everyone had a view and no one could be overheard unless they wanted to be It was raining that day Even if the raindrops hadn’t been pelting the s, blurring city and sky, she’d have known by the s that was supposed to be tandoori chicken—sat on the table, untouched Soren was still sitting across from her, his expression polite and alert as a Labrador retriever’s