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Even waiting for Avasarala finally to notice her couldn’t fully da in Avasarala’s office reinforced Bobbie’s impression that the Martian suite was intended to iet Bobbie transferred out of Thorsson’s cole phone call And yet her office had cheap carpet that smelled unpleasantly of stale tobacco smoke Her desk was old and scuffed No cherrywood chairs here The only things that looked lovingly tended in the room were the fresh flowers and the Buddha shrine

Avasarala radiated weariness There were dark circles under her eyes that hadn’t been there during their official hts of the bar where she’d ht blue sari, she looked very sray hair and crow’s-feet ruined the illusion Bobbie suddenly pictured her instead as a cranky doll, cos and forced her to go to tea parties with stuffed anirin

Avasarala tapped at a terrunted with irritation No h, Bobbie thought, then stifled a laugh “Soren, you’veanyht Bobbie into the office and then sort of round cleared his throat It made Bobbie jump He was closer behind her than she’d realized

“Ma’am, you asked me to move a few of the—”

“Yes, yes,” Avasarala interrupted, tapping harder on the terminal’s screen, as if that wouldabout thatlouder when trying to coe

“Okay, there they are,” Avasarala said with irritation “Why you’d put them …”

She tapped a few more times and Bobbie’s terminal chimed

“That,” she said, “is the report and all of my notes on the Ganymede situation Read them Today I may have an update later, once I’ve had a little polite questioning done”

Bobbie pulled out her terh the documents she’d just been sent It went on and on for hundreds of pages Her first thought was Did she really mean read all of this today? This was quickly followed by Did she really just hand overnment’s recent treat,” her new boss continued “There’s al there Lots of bullshit by overpaid consultants who think they can hide the fact that they don’t actually know anything by talking twice as long”

Bobbie nodded, but the feeling of being in over her head had started to outcoeant Draper cleared to access—” Soren said

“Yes I just cleared her Bobbie? You’re cleared,” Avasarala said right over the top of hi my balls, Soren I’m out of tea”

Bobbie made a conscious effort not to turn around and look at Soren The situation was unco home the fact that he’d just been huner with exactly seventeen minutes on the job

“Yes,whether you should alert the security service about your decision to clear the sergeant They do like to be in the loop on that kind of thing”

“Meo cry meo,” Avasarala said “That’s all I heard you say”

“Yes, ma’am,” Soren said

Bobbie finally looked back and forth between the dressed down in front of a new team member as also technically the eneed He looked like he was hurand sound with her teeth