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“It’s snize threat,” Prax said “I don’t know the nitive or networked or some kind of modified immune response”

“Okay, Prax So if the protoet out of whatever constraints they’re putting on it and go rogue, where does that get us?” Naoht, and launched in on the inforive them in the first place

“It means that wherever the s on—it has to be close enough to Ganyet it there before it slipped its leash I don’t kno long that is, and I’ they don’t either So closer is better”

“A Jovian moon or a secret station,” Holden said

“You can’t have a secret station in the Jovian system,” Alex said “There’s tooShit, it’s where ot out to Uranus Put soet pissed because it’s stinking up their pictures, right?”

Naoainst the tabletop, the sound like the ticking of condensate falling inside sheet metal vents

“Well, the obvious choice is Europa,” she said

“It’s Io,” Prax said, i into his voice “I used soet a tariff search on the kinds of arylaentic research” He paused “It’s all right that I did that, isn’t it? Spent the money?”

“That’s what it’s there for,” Holden said

“Okay, soafter you activate thehtly controlled, since you can use the to ith that kind of biological cascade and constraint systems, you’d need them Most of the supplies went to Ganymede, but there was a steady stream to Europa too And when I looked at that, I couldn’t find a final receiver listed Because they shipped back out of Europa about two hours after they landed”

“Bound for Io,” Holden said

“It didn’t list a location, but the shipping containers for them have to follow Earth and Mars safety specifications Very expensive And the shipping containers for the Europa shipment were returned to the manufacturer for credit on a transport bound fro teeth, but he was pretty sure he’d made all the points he needed to for the evidence to be, if not conclusive, at least powerfully suggestive