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“I’m here,” she said after a few seconds

Holden started to reply, then stopped Everything that came into his head to say seemed trite He’d been about to say that he’d loved her since the moment he met her, but that was ludicrous He’d barely even noticed Naoineer When he got to know her better, she’d becoineer, but that was it He felt like they’d eventually became friends, but the truth was he could barely remember the person he’d been back on the Canterbury now

Everyone had lost so in the wake of the protomolecule The species as a whole had lost its sense of its own importance Its primacy in the universal plan

Holden had lost his certainty

When he thought back to the man he’d been before the death of the Cant, he reht, wrong rong, you drew the lines thus and so His time with Miller had stripped hi for Fred Johnson had, if not re nihilism had taken its place A sense that the protomolecule had broken the huotten a two-billion-year reprieve on a death sentence it hadn’t known it had, but ti

Oddly enough, it was Miller who had given him his sense of purpose back Or whatever the Miller construct was He couldn’t really remember that version of himself who’d known exactly where all the lines were drawn He wasn’t sure ofanymore But whatever had cli, it had built Miller too

And it had wanted to talk To hi, enda that it wasn’t explaining The protomolecule didn’t seem particularly sorry for all the chaos and death it had caused

But it wanted to talk And it wanted to talk to him Holden realized he’d found a lifeline there Maybe there was a way out of all of the chaos Maybe he could help find it He recognized that latching on to the idea that the protoent Miller, had picked hiance and self-importance But it was better than despair

And now, only starting to see thatand huusto, noas about to be killed because of yet another petty human with more power than sense It didn’t seem fair He wanted to live to see how humanity bounced back He wanted to be part of it For the first tiht be able to turn into the kind of man who could make a difference

And he wanted to explain this to Nao into a better person The kind of person ould have seen her as o As if he could, by being a different person now, retroactively fix the shallow, vain man he’d been then Maybe even make himself worthy of her

“I like you,” he said instead

“Jim,” she replied after a moment Her voice was thick

“I’ve enjoyed your coineer and shipmate, you were a very likable one”

There was only a faint static hiss on the radio Holden pictured Nao her hair fall across her eyes to hide them in that way she did when she was in an uncomfortable eravity her hair wouldn’t do that But the i her off the hook “Thank you for everything”

“I love you, Jim,” she finally said Holden felt his body relax He saw his co death, and wasn’t afraid of it anyood stuff to follow, but he’d help ood person loved hiot in a lifetime