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“Was in the neighborhood saying goodbye to a bunch ofback this way, so thought I’d better say hi now if I was going to at all”

Tears welled up in her eyes, and she took his hand The contact eird Her fingers felt too thin, waxy Seeh, so he tried to remember what people were like when they had an intimate moment like this He pretended he was Naomi and squeezed Clarissa’s hand

“Thank you For re ?”

“Well, shit,” Amos said “How much they tell you about what happened on Ilus?”

“The censors don’t letinvolving Mao-Kski or the protoht be disruptive for me”

Aets this call…”

For maybe forty-five minutes, maybe an hour, he laid out all the stuff that had happened since the Rocinante turned Clarissa Mao over to the authorities Telling stories that didn’t have a punch line wasn’t so he had much practice with, so he was pretty sure that as story ti water on beach sand Theto whatever was happening in her bloodstream

Her eyes started to close like she was going to sleep, but her fingers didn’t lose their grip on his Her breath got deeper too He wasn’t sure if that was part of theelse He stopped talking, and she didn’t see anything, but he also didn’t want to wake her up just to do it So he sat for a while, looking at her because there wasn’t anything else to look at

The weird thing was, she looked younger No wrinkles at the sides of herin her cheeks Like the time she’d spent down in the prison didn’t count As if she’d never get old, never die, just be here wishing for it It was probably some kind of side effect of the shit they’d pumped into her There were kinds of environmental p

oisoning that did that too, not that he knew the details She’d killed a lot of people, but he had too, one way and another See out She felt bad about all the things she’d done Maybe that was the difference Regret and punishment the flip sides of the kar randorets, and he was locked up just the same

Aet his hand free when the Klaxons went off Clarissa’s eyes shot open and she sat up, present and alert and not even sort of groggy So maybe she hadn’t been asleep after all

“What is that?” she said

“I was about to ask you”

She shook her head “I haven’t heard that one before”

It seeet his hand back He went to the door, but his escort was already there co at anything