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“Happens when you’re losing,” Bobbie said Even without turning, Alex could hear the smile in her voice

Froasps Even the relatively ht was three tihtbeaht Chrisjen Avasarala’s recorded voice, other tiured

The Razorback had been a toy once, and while the screens were decades out of date, they still had some bells and whistles He set the wall screens to match external cameras, and the wide starscape bloohter here than it would have been on Earth, but constrained by the li whiteness The curves of the Milky Way glowed all along the plane of the ecliptic, the billions of starssurrounded byin a cloud of fireflies, and behind theht, the drive plumes of the attackers anted them dead

And also Naomi

Bobbie sighed “You know, a thousand of those stars out there are ours now That’s like, what? Three ten-thousandths of a percent of our galaxy? That’s e’re fighting over”

“You think?”

“You don’t?”

“Nah,” Alex said “I figure we’re fighting over who gets the mostrights Who believes in which gods Who has the most money The usual primate issues”

“Kids,” Bobbie said

“Kids?”

“Yeah Everyone wanting to make sure their kids have a better shot than they did Or than everyone else’s kids So like that”

“Yeah, probably,” Alex said He shifted his personal screen back to tactical, pulling up the latest data on the Pella It still had the strange, cheap-looking civilian craft tethered to it Alex couldn’t tell if they were taking so on So far, it was the only craft in the little force that wasn’t clearly n There hadn’t been any ood thing or a proble on the ship every fiveat a scab

“You ever worry about your kid?” Bobbie asked

“Don’t have one,” Alex said

“You don’t? I thought you did”