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Paar-or-Pere passed the ball on to the next player – Sakai, the new chief engineer – while the opposing tealy on the back Nao around Belters – just Belters – eirdly co She loved her crew, but they were two Earthers and a Martian There were some conversations that she could never have with them

She could tell when Ji around The players across the table from her all looked past her as one Their eyes ide, and an air of exciteht as well have – Hey! Look! It’s James Holden!

It was easy to forget that Jim ho he was He’d started tars, and played so the, or the first one that survived anyway He’d been on the alien base in the center of the slow zone and coatha King He’d been to New Terra, the first hued a weird, aard peace there It was al everyone react to that Holden: the one on the screens and in the newsfeeds She knew Ji like that Jas stayed secrets even when you told them

“Hellohis arrapefruit martini

“Forthe cocktail

“Hope so I wouldn’t drink it on a dare”

“Hoy, coyo!” Paar-or-Pere said, holding up the steel ball “Want a throw?”

The laughter around the table was buoyant Soo with us! – and so shot suck None of it had anything to do with the actual ed the nature of a roouess, he probably didn’t

“No,” Jirin “I’m terrible at this Wouldn’t knohere to start”

Naoo Thank you so

“You are todamas welcome, coya-mi

s,” Malikah said It ive you

Naomi took Jim’s elbow and let him steer her out to the h the doorway, light and sound joining in a sensory assault On the dance floor, people roups There had been a ti very, very drunk and throwing herself into the press of bodies would have been an attractive one She could reirl she used to be with fondness, but it wasn’t a youth she cared to recapture She stood at the bar and finished her martini It was too loud to talk, so she aame of is-it-or-isn’t-it in their expressions Jim, for his part, was amiably bored The idea that he was the center of attention was foreign to him It was part of what she loved about him

When her glass was empty, she put her hand on his, and they pressed out to the public corridor outside the club Men and woet in – Belters, alht on Tycho Station, which didn’t ht-hour shifts: leisure, work, sleep Who you knew depended on what shift you worked, like three different cities that all occupied the saers She put her arainst her until she could feel his thigh ainst hers

“We need to talk,” she said