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Before anyone else could react, naval personnel were strea men and women with holstered sidearency creorked Medical technicians came in and scraped foam off the would-be suicide He seemed more surprised than hurt They handcuffed him and loaded him onto a stretcher He was out of the roouns seemed to relax a little

“They certainly put hi wo hardly older than a schoolgirl, laughed “This is a battleship, ma’am Our fire-suppression systems are robust”

Cortez had darted across the roo voice He sounded upset Father Michel seee to join hi at the roolass Her face was pale apart froht red dots on her cheeks “Maybe this trip won’t be boring after all”

Chapter Nine: Bull

I

t would have gone faster if Bull had asked forwhat, he didn’t want to trust too many people Or anyone

A thousand people in the crew s a little muddier than they would have been in so, the security chief could look for things like crewup at odd times Deviations from the pattern that every ship had Since this was the shakedown voyage, the Behemoth didn’t have any patterns yet It was still in a state of chaos, crew and ship getting to know one another Making decisions, for was nore

On the other hand, it was only a thousand people

Every ship had a black econo sex for favors Soame or set up a pachinko parlor or start a little protection racket People would be bribed to do things or not do things It hat happened when you put people together Bull’s job wasn’t to stamp it all out His job was to keep it at a level that kept the shipand safe And to set boundaries

Alexi Myerson-Freud was a nutritionist He’d workedthe bioengineering to produce the righthumans alive He’d been married twice, had a kid he hadn’t seen in five years, was part of a netar-ga theht years younger than Bull He had mouse-ass brown hair, an aard s a combination stimulant and euphoric the Belters called pixie dust Bull had worked it all until he was certain

And even once he knew, he’d waited a few days Not long Just enough that he could follow Alexi around on the security systeer fish above hi a lower profile, or a connection to Bull’s own team—or else, God forbid, Ashford’s There wasn’t

Truth was, he didn’t want to do it He knehat had to happen, and it was always easier to put it off for another fifteen minutes, or until after lunch, or until tooing on shift stoned,injured, or getting killed

The moment came in the middle of second shift Bull turned down his console, stood up, took a couple of guns from the are?”