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He’d been out in the dark since he enty-two He was over forty now And Fred, his superior officer under two different governantry sloped out ahead of the like snake scales There was a constant low-level whine, the vibrations of the construction equipravity here was a little less than the standard one-third g on Tycho Station proper, and Ashford wasdown for the Earthers Bull slowed his own steps down just a little to er

“Time element? What’s that look like, Colonel?” Ashford asked

“Not as bad as it could be,” Fred said “The Ring hasn’tthe incident No one else has gone through, and nothing’s co their pants to just high alert Mars is approaching this as a strictly ot half a dozen science vessels on high burn already”

“How ates,” Fred said “Earth isup next year, and the secretary-general’s been catching hell about turning a blind eye to rogue corporate entities”

“Wonder why,” Bull said dryly Even Ashford sen and Mao-Kski, the order and stability of the solar system had pretty one, taken over by an alien technology and crashed into Venus Gany less than a quarter of its previous food output, leaving every population center in the outer planets relying on backup agricultural sources The Earth-Mars alliance was the kind of quaint ht talk about after too ood old days, before it all went to hell

“He’s putting on a show,” Fred went on “Media Religious leaders Poets Artists They’re hauling the so that every feed he can reach is pointed away from him”

“Typical,” Ashford said, then didn’t elaborate Typical for a politician Typical for an Earther “What are we looking at out there?”

The gantry sang for aand shaking until industrial dampers kicked in and killed the vibration before it reached the point of doing dah the Ring at high ballistic speeds and didn’t co his hands in the physical shrug of a Belter “Now there’s so Could be that the idiot kid’s ship got eaten by the Ring and converted into soah to account for the mass of the ship Could be that he broke it Could be that it opened a gate, and there’s a bunch of little green h and an, but Ashford talked over hi,” Fred said

Venus was dead For years after a corrupted Eros Station fell through its clouds, all hu as the alien protoled in the violence and heat Crystal towers kiloh rose and fell away Networks of carbon fibers laced the planet and degraded to nothing The weapon had been meant to hijack simple life on Earth, billions of years before Instead, it had the complex ecosystem of human bodies and the structures to sustain theer to carry out its plan Maybe having co pointed to it being finished with Venus And all that reallyin the emptiness outside the orbit of Uranus that sat there dead as a stone

Until now

“What are we supposed to do about it?” Bull asked “No offense, but we don’t got the best science vessels And Earth and Mars blew the crap out of each other over Ganymede”

“Be there,” Fred said “If Earth and Mars send their ships, we send ours If they put out a statement, we put out one of our own If they lay a clai, we counterclaim What we’ve done to make the outer planets into a viable political force has reaped real benefits, but if we start letting them lead, it could all evaporate”