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“Ships?” Ashford said

“Maybe”

“How many?”

“Over a hundred, under a hundred thousand Probably”

Bull leaned forward, his elbows on the table Ashford and Pa were looking around the table at the graying faces They’d known before, because they weren’t going to wait for a staffthe reactions So he’d give them a reaction Control the fall

“Be weirder if there wasn’t anything there If it was an attack fleet, they’d have attacked by now”

“Yeah,” Ruiz said, latching on to the words

Ashford opened the floor for questions Howwould it take so at six hundred meters per second to reach one of the structures? Had they tried sending small probes in? Had there been any contact from the protomolecule itself, the stolen voices of humans, the way there had been with Eros? Chan did his best to be reassuring without actually having anything more that he could say Bull assu, and he wondered as in it Being kept out chafed

“All right This is all interesting, but it’s not our focus,” Ashford said, bringing the Q-and-A session to a halt “We’re not here to send probes through the Ring We’re not here to start a fight We’re justsure that whatever the inner planets do, we’re at the table If so, we’ll worry about it then”

“Yes, sir,” Bull said, throwing his oeight behind Ashford’s It wasn’t like there was another strategy Better that the crew see the how this all came down, and not just the crew

“Mister Pa?” Ashford said The XO nodded and glanced at Bull Instinct dropped a weight in his gut

“There have been so structure,” Pa said “Chief Engineer Rosenberg?”

Sam nodded, surprise on her face “XO?” she said

“I’ to have to restrict you to quarters and revoke your access privileges until this is all clarified Chief Watanabe will relieve you Mister Baca, you’ll see to it”

The roo behind it was different now Sa fury

“Excuse aze coolly, and Bull understood all of it in an instant