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There are no souls, Melba thought with a touch of pity We are bags of hosts, no spirits, no souls The only thing that survives is the story people tell about you The only thing thatClarissa would think The kind of thing her father would have said She didn’t say it aloud

“Maybe that’s why Earth’s bringing all those priests,” Soledad said and took a scoop of her food “To put thereed, and then she turned to hera private conversation Melba frowned and accepted the connection

“What’s up?” she said

His voice, when it ca if you could look at An anomaly”

“On my way,” Melba said She dropped the connection and downed her ree ss, then dropped the plate into the recycler on her way out Ren was at a workstation in one of the storage bays It was one of the new spaces he could work in that had a ceiling high enough that he wouldn’t have to hunch Around him, blue plastic crates stood fixed to the floor or one another with powerful electroot?” she asked

He stood back and nodded at theUn,” he said

Her blood went cold

“Why?” she said too sharply, too quickly

“It’s catching a lot of outliers Raised a flag I’a Nitroethenes y sa”

She hadn’t thought of this She’d known that the ships did passive gas , but it had never occurred to her that stray ht in the filters, or that anyone would check Ren took her silence as confusion

“Built a profile,” he said “Ninety percent fit with a ot explosives on board,” Melba said “It’s a warship Explosives is what they do, right?” Despair and embarrassment warred in her chest She’d screwed up She just wanted Ren to be quiet, to not say the things he was saying That he was going to say

“This isand excavation,” he said “You inspected that deck You reht have been hard to see This stuff’s putty until it hits air”

“You think it’s a bo full load of gekke A guy tried to light hi with the camera”

“That wasn’t political,” she said “He’s a perforether a lot of different kinds of people think a lot of different kinds of things Doesn’t bring out the best in people I was a kid, I watchedto be a Belter And everybody know everybody back down the well’s watching That kind of attention changes people, and it don’tto make a statement, si no?”