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“If you receive this,” she said, pressing the handset close to her lips, “please retranse is for Janetic bottle has been sabotaged Do not start the reactor without reloading the hardware drivers froe, please retransmit”

Halfway through the last word, the handset chirped that the thirty seconds were up and returned to the base o, floated back from the wall She spread her aro She hoped it had worked It was theto contend with if Marco wanted to keep as happening unclear, but it was just as likely he was enjoying being a spectacle And if she was right, if they were going after the Martian prione over by the best intelligence services that still existed

Jim wasn’t safe, not yet She knew it, but for a moment, she didn’t feel it The darkness would couilt and the fear She didn’t doubt that, but now, right now, she felt only light She’dwould reach hi uring out what exactly she’d done The laughter that ca out of her throat felt like victory

The voices froh the all clear hadn’t been called, she heard people nized Cyn’s voice, raised in alarainst the wall, and she reached out to hook her wrist into the handhold No point bothering with the lift Hand over hand, she pulled herself along the shaft and then into the corridors The faces that peered from the dooride-eyed One ht of her Nao the hallith a kick and flew straight as an arrow, not even touching the handholds along the way to steady herself Her shoulder ached The wound on her scalp was bleeding again She felt serene

Cyn hauled himself around a corner, then braced and watched her, his jaw slack, his eyes round She lifted a fist in greeting as she floated by

“Anyone needs me,” she said, “I’ll be in my quarters, yeah?”

Chapter Thirty-three: Holden

Most of hue and chaos, when civilizations had fallen in the course of a single night, the places remained more or less the sa to stay what it had always been, at least over the span of human evolution And whether you called it France or the Common European Interest Zone, Paris was closer to Orléans than Nice It was only when they moved out to Mars and then the Belt and the worlds beyond it that the distance between the great centers of human life became a function of time From Tycho Station, Earth and Luna were almost on the far side of the sun Mars was closer, but retreating with every hour Saturn was closer than either and the Joviancaiven in Holden’s life; uncommented and unremarkable It was only times like this that facts of orbital periodicity started to see deeper

As soon as Fred s back to the Rocinante And then the rest of the crew’s possessions too He’d found Ah canvas bag Alex’s had been thrown haphazardly in a case, half in a h which set was clean and which bound for the laundry, Holden couldn’t tell Naos had been in his suite A spare pair of boots, an unpaired sock, underwear She’d left a ht red and flat black and no bigger than his thumb – on the bathroo to her or if she would even reotten it froh Careful to wrap it and put it in a cushioned box It was the closest thing he had to taking care of the woed to, so that hat he did

Being back in the Rocinante was like co home, except that it was too empty The narrow corridors of the crew deck see of the expansion joints adjusting to shifts in tehosts When the repair team were somewhere he could hear them, Holden resented the voices and footsteps that weren’t his crew’s When they were gone, the silence oppressed him

He told hi, he’d have Alex back in the cockpit and Aently what he was screwing up and how to do it better He’d go to Luna, and they’d be there All of them Somehow

Except he still hadn’t heard froe froht for now, but that ash was falling on the ranch like snointer And nothing from Amos

Sooodbyes, but not always Not often Most people’s last parting of ere so small, the people involved didn’t even notice them Now, in the darkness of the co beside hi twelve-bar blues, Holden was pretty sure he’d said a couple of his own final goodbyes and not known it He replayed everything in his head, hisless authentic and more painful every time he did

“We’re all that’s left,” he said to the ship “You’re all I’ve got”

The Rocinante didn’t answer for a longrequest alert appeared on his console Holden wiped his teary eyes with a sleeve and accepted it Fred Johnson appeared in a , his brows furrowed