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Half a beat later, the secretary-general barked out a laugh and wagged his finger at the screen before the green connection-ended ht sat back, his palms pressed to his temples Avasarala picked up her cup of tea and sipped it with her eyebrows lifted and her gaze on the ca The tea wasn’t quite down to tepid

“All right,” Errinwright said “You win”

“We’re i him?”

He actually chuckled Wherever he was, it was dark outside his s, so he was on the saht gave thea sense of closeness and inti else

“What do you need to resolve the Venus situation?” he asked

“Resolve?”

“Poor choice of words,” he said “Fro things caluyen”

“Noticed that, did you?”

“These talks are stalled, and I’ a deadlock We need clarity, and we need it a o Ask for the resources you need, Chrisjen, and either rule Venus out or get us proof I’ you a blank check”

“Retireht took it seriously

“If you want, but Venus first This is the most i you”

“I’ll see to it,” she said Errinwright nodded and dropped the connection

She leaned forward on her desk, fingertips pressed to her lips Soht had read enough about Venus to get his own set of the heebie-jeebies, or sootiation Soht to kick her upstairs Did Nguyen have patrons that powerful?

Yes, it gave her what she wanted After all she’d said—and meant when she’d said it—she couldn’t refuse the project, but the success had a bitter aftertaste Perhaps she was reading too h sleep, and fatigue left her paranoid She checked the time Ten o’clock pht Anotherthe weak coffee and pretending to care what the latest aht about dance ht, I need a drink

The Dasihari Lounge catered to the full range in the co pages and clerks leaned into the light, laughing too loud and pretending to be htlyin its own fashion Roberta Draper, the Martian Marine who’d shat on the table that lass dwarfed by her hand and an amused expression on her face Soren would probably be there, if not that night, another ti theone differently

In the center of the room, there were tables with built-in terminals to pipe in encrypted information from a thousand different sources Privacy baffles kept even the waitstaff froe ad their dinners while they worked And in the back were dark wooden tables in booths that recognized her before she sat down If anyone below a certain status walked too close, a discreet young man with perfect hair would sweep up and see them to a different table, elsewhere, with less iin and tonic while the threads of iuyen couldn’t have enough influence to put Errinwright against her Could the Martians have asked that she be removed? She tried to reood suspect ca to do about it?