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“No one knows it’saside from you, me, Dru as I can, but e get to Luna, I think I have to tell Smith and Avasarala”

“Of course you do,” Holden said “Why wouldn’t you tell them?”

Fred blinked His laugh, when it ca It came up from his belly and filled the air “Just when I think you’ve changed, you co that is uniquely James Holden I don’t knohat to think about you I really don’t”

“Thanks?”

“Welco for the gates Martian reat deal to know if they answered to Inaros or to someone else”

“Like the one who got the protomolecule sample?”

“Anyone, really I want to talk to Nagata”

The atate her”

“I do”

“And you’re asking my permission?”

“It seemed polite”

“I’ll talk to her about it when she’s recovered a little more,” Holden said

“Couldn’t ask for anything e of the ladder, he paused Holden watched hi down the sides the way Gor had He watched Fred decide not to Rung by rung, Fred cli the hatch behind hiain His head felt filled with cotton

He’d been so focused for so long on distracting himself from Naomi’s absence, now she was back, he felt aled, and he didn’t know anymore what his place was in them Even if he turned away from Fred and Avasarala and the politics of his own minor celebrity, what could an independent ship do in this new, remade solar system? Were there banks that would be able to pay hio to the Jovian h the rings to new, alien worlds? Would the Free Navy really stop resupply fro out to theetting back?

More than anything, the attacks seeenerations showing the Belters that they were disposable, there ht have been some way… soer human expansion A way to draw all humanity forward, and not just part of it