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“What’s in that other box the Martians gave you?” Anetic boot

“A present for Bobbie,” Holden said “I’d like to keep it quiet until I give it to her, okay?”

“Sure, no proble-stemmed roses, I don’t want to be there when Naomi finds out Plus, you know, Alex …”

“No, it’s a lot more practical than roses—” Holden started, then rewound the conversation in his head “Alex? What about Alex?”

Aht have a wee bit of a thing for our a” Holden couldn’t picture it It wasn’t as though Bobbie were unattractive Far fro And Alex was such a quiet and uy Sure, they were both Martians, and noco the only two Martians on the ship was enough But Alex was pushing fifty, balding without conation of a eant Draper couldn’t be more than thirty and looked like a comic book illustration, complete with an trying to figure out how the two of theether It didn’t work

“Woas all he could say “Is it“The sergeant ain’t easy to read But I don’t think she’d do hi Not that, you knoe could stop her”

“Scares you too, does she?”

“Look,” Arin “When it coht call a talented aood look at that woman in and out of that fancythe saan to return in the Rocinante Alex was bringing up the drive, whichtheir run to Io Holden stood up and took a ain He clapped Aot a full load of torpedoes and bullets, three Martian warships trailing you, one angry old lady in tea withdrawal, and a Martian Marine who could probably kill you with your own teeth What do you do?”

“You tell ht”

Chapter Forty-Five: Avasarala

As I see it, sir,” Avasarala said, “the die is already cast We effectively have two courses of policy already in play The question now is hoe move forward So far I’ve been able to keep the infor out, but once it does, it will be devastating And since it is all but certain that the artifact is able to coe of these protomolecule-human hybrids is essentially nil If we use this weapon, ill be creating a second Venus, coainst using weapons like accelerated asteroids against the Earth itself

“I hope you will excuse the language, sir, but this was a cock-up froe done to huinable It seems clear at this point that the protomolecule project under way on Venus is aware of events in the Jovian system It’s plausible that the saained frohast To say that makes our position probleone through the appropriate channels, ould not be in this position As it stands, I have done all that is presently within iven my situation The coalition I have built between Mars, eleovernment of Earth are ready to take action But the United Nations must distance itself fro the faction within the governain, excuse the language

“I have sent copies of the data included here to Admirals Souther and Leniki as well as to my team on the Venus problem They are, of course, at your disposal to answer any questions if I am not available

“I’oing to have to choose sides in this And quickly Events out here have developed a ht side of history on this, you ht side of, she thought She tried to couroood that surrounded the secretary-general’s brain There weren’t any, and repeating herself in si She stopped the recording, cut off the last few seconds of her looking into the ca there was and diplomatic encryption

So this hat it caed, froravity well and pressing out into the antechareatest clai bad poetry had the balls to back down Errinwright The ship corrected under her, shifting like an elevator suddenly slipping its tracks She tried to sit up, but the gimbaled couchto work?”

The botanist stood in her doorway He was stick-thin, with a slightly larger head than looked right He wasn’t built as aardly as a Belter, but he couldn’t beat a full gravity Standing in her doorway, trying to find so to do with his hands, he looked aard and lost and slightly otherworldly

“I don’t know,” she said “If I were there, it would happen the way I want it to happen I could go squeeze a few testicles until they saw it my way From here? Maybe Maybe not”

“You can talk to anyone froh, can’t you?”

“It isn’t the sa inward Despite the differences in skin color and build, the man suddenly re a half step back froed on autis was a little more visibly interested in the people around him