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“Probably”
Serge grinned “Got to go, boss Just when es se cerrado, and they make you XO, keep me in mind for your chair, no?”
“Screw that,” Bull said “When this shit’s done, you can be XO”
“Hold you to, boss,” Serge said, and the connection went dead
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Anna
T
he first seration, fresh out of sele-spaced notes It had been a lengthy dissection of the first chapter of Malachi, focusing on the prophet’s exhortation not to deliver substandard sacrifices to God, and how that related to modern worship It had been detailed, backed by all of the evidence and arguraduate school could bring to bear By the end of it, Anna was pretty sure not one member of the audience was still awake
She’d learned some important lessons from that There was a place for detailed Bible scholarship There was even a place for it in front of the congregation But it wasn’t what people ca a bitcloser and more connected to Him, and the closeness hat e or two of notes, and a lot e on “ at the notes once, and it seeo over very well After she concluded with a short prayer and began the sacraether in companionable silence A few shook hands or clapped each other on the back Anna felt like it e she’d ever delivered
“Well, it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever heard,” Tilly said once the service was over She had the twitchy look she got when she wanted a cigarette, but Anna had asked her not to sh, adetherness is low”
“That’s very flattering,” Anna whispered, then paused to shake hands with a Belter wo Tilly gave the woed not to roll her eyes
“I need a drink,” Tilly said once the woman had left “Come with I’ll buy you a lehed “I have a supplier The guy running the rationing sold me a bottle of their best Ganymede hooch for the low price of a thousand dollars He tossed in the les will happen,” Tilly said, taking out a cigarette and putting it in her et out of here, back into the solar system where I’et out and nothing will matter”
Anna nodded because she didn’t knohat else to say As much as she’d come to enjoy and rely on Tilly’s friendship, she was occasionally reminded how utterly different their worlds were If she and Nono had an extra thousand UN dollars lying around, it would have ie fund Tilly had never in her life had to sacrifice a luxury to get a necessity If there was any actualthe Belters and inner planet naval people had in co thousand-dollar alcohol that night, but Tilly would
God , but He was the only one
“I ad her face with her hand ter habitat drum was built to house a lot more people than it currently held, but they’d stripped a lot of the environmental systems out of it when they converted it to a warship It was starting to see li The teirl raised in Russia andon one of Jupiter’s icy oodbye to the last lingering reation, Anna followed Tilly out It wasn’t much cooler outside the tent, but the spin of the druentle breeze Tilly looked over her flushed red face and sweat-plastered hair with a critical eye and said, “Don’t worry, everyone who’s co a couple days ago This is as hot as it’s going to be And as soon as they find a way to cool us down that doesn’t involve venting our atmosphere into space, they’ll do it”