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“How long now?” Avasarala said, then sipped at the bulb of weak coffee she’d startedfor herself in place of tea

Holden considered pointing out the navigation information the Roci made available at every console, and then didn’t Avasarala didn’t want him to show her how to find it herself She wanted hi her own buttons In her mind, she outranked him Holden wondered what the chain of coal captains of stolen ships did it take to equal one disgraced UN official? That could tie a courtroo fair to Avasarala It wasn’t aboutin a situation that she was utterly untrained for, where she was the least useful person in the roo to reshape the space around her to fit with her e of herself

Or hteen hours now,” Holden said “Most of the other ships that aren’t part of our fleet will beat us there And the ones that don’t won’t show up until it’s over, so we can ignore the like awe in her voice “Space is too fking big It’s the saht She just wanted to talk, so he let her “What story?”

“Erasp We started out fighting over who got the best branches in one tree Then we cliht over a few kilo horses, and you get empires of hundreds or thousands of kilometers Ships open up eave us the outer planets …”

She trailed off and tapped out so on the coes to, and Holden didn’t ask When she was done, she said, “But the story is always the say is, at some point you’ll conquer territory that you can’t hold on to”

“You’re talking about the outer planets?”

“Not specifically,” she said, her voice growing soft and thoughtful “I’ concept of empire The Brits couldn’t hold on to India or North A who’s six thousand kilometers away?”

Holden tinkered with the air-circulation nozzle on his panel, ai it at his face The cool air sistics is always a probleerous trip six thousand kiloives the enee”

“At least,” Holden said, “we Earthers figured that out before we picked a fight with Mars It’s even further And soiven us for not hu Mars e had the chance,” Avasarala said “I work for a few of theht the point of your story was that those people always lose in the end”

“Those people,” she said, pushing herself to her feet and slowly heading toward the crew ladder, “are not the real proble the advance party of the first e protomolecule has exposed us for the petty, s ready to trade our solar systeht we could build airports out of bao”

“Get some sleep,” Holden said to her while she called up the ladder-lift “We’ll defeat one empire at a tiht, and the deck hatch banged shut behind her