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He tensed a little, but kept his voice light and airy “Like man-and-woman talk?”

“Worse,” she said “XO and captain”

“What’s up?”

They stepped into a lift, and she pushed the button for their deck The lift chihts It wasn’t really that she didn’t knohat needed to be said He wasn’t going to like this any more than she did

“We need to look at hiring on more crew”

She knew enough about Jinize this one She looked up into his blank expression, his eyes blinking a fraction more quickly than usual

“Really?” he said “See just fine”

“We are We have been The Roci’s a n Smart A lot of automation, a lot of redundancy That’s e’ve been able to run her at a third of her standard crew for this long”

“That and we’re the best damned crew in the sky”

“That doesn’t hurt Looking at skills and service, we’ve got a strong group But we’re brittle”

The lift shifted, the co the space feel unsteady She was sure it was just the movement

“I’m not sure what you mean by brittle,” Jim said

“We’ve been on the Rocinante since we salvaged her off the Donnager We’ve had no change in staff No turnover Name me one other ship you can think of where that’s true There were runs where the Canterbury had a quarter of the staff on their first ether And…”

The doors slid open They stepped out, o in Nao to each other as the lift doors closed Jim was quiet as they walked back toward their suite When he finally spoke, his voice was low and thoughtful

“You’re thinking one of them may not come back? Amos? Alex?”