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“You seen this, Cap’n?” Amos asked

“Yeah,” Holden said

“So”

“Yeah”

Even with the distance between Ceres and the Ring, the vast empty ocean of space, the news that soone in one side of the alien structure and hadn’t come out the other should have only taken about five hours It had happened two days before That’s how long the various govern had been able to cover it up

“This is it, isn’t it?” Naomi said “This is what happened”

Chapter Two: Bull

C

arlos c de Baca—Bull to his friends—didn’t like Captain Ashford Never had

The captain was one of those guys who’d sneer withouthis otten a degree in math from the Lunar Caet it It was like because he had a degree from an Earth university, he was better than other Belters Not that he wouldn’t be happy to bad-rown up down the well Ashford wasn’t one thing or another The way he latched on to whatever seeup in the Belt— to be in command of the mission

“There’s a time element too,” Fred Johnson said

Fred looked like crap Too thin Everyone looked too thin these days, but Fred’s dark skin had taken on an ashy overtone that left Bull thinking about things like autoimmune disorders or untreated cancer Probably it was just stress, years, andelse did Point of fact, Bull was looking a little gray around the temples too, and he didn’t like the crap LEDs that were supposed to shell hadultraviolet