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“What’s up first today?” she asked as he handed her a little cup of white kibble and sauce

His hesitation was ale came in from Captain Holden of the Rocinante”

“Sum it up?”

The hesitation was more pronounced this time “Perhaps you should watch it, ma’am”

Theroom was on the outermost deck of the People’s Home drum Coriolis in the void city was trivial to anyone who’d spent ti station, but outsiders who’d only known ravity before still found it bothersoray, the table a veneer of blond baht to the deck Dru Most of the others around her—E, and all the other representatives of the board and budget office—knew her well enough to gauge herthe presentation had never met her before

“It’s been a question of priorities,” the man said His name was Fayez Okoye-Sarkis, and he’d coovernroup that pushed for science research Chernev Institute, based out of Ganymede and Luna “Over the last decades—really since the bombardment of Earth—the vast, vastfood yield and infrastructure And y thatstation Every planet we’ve been to has had artifacts and old technologies”

“Yes,” Dru Get on with it Okoye-Sarkis s

“When raduate, back in the day,” he said, “her fieldwork involved tracking rodent species that had adapted to live in high-radiation zones Old reactors and fission test sites They had evolved to fit into environments that were specifically created By hu ourselves into spaces and environroups of species that created all this The changes in technology we’ve seen are i”

“Okay,” Drummer said Okoye-Sarkis took a drink of water from a bulb The furrows in his forehead said he kneas losing her Hopefully it wouldparts, and get to what he wanted so she could say no and get back to her job

“There has been a lot of speculation about what sort of beings built all the things we’ve found Whether they were conscious individuals like us or some kind of hive mind Whether they were one species in a co in concert Whether—and I know this sounds weird—whether they had the sareat thought Great theory What there hasn’t been is testing The Chernev Institute wants to be the spearhead for a new generation of scientific research into the deepest questions that the ring gates embody Who or what built them? What happened to those species between the tiate? Did they leave records that we can translate and understand? Our belief is that soates or within the gates the that acts like a kind of Rosetta stone So that places all the other discoveries in context Our goal is to crack the present work in y, botany, geology, even the philosophy of science wide open”

Drumm

er leaned back in her chair, tilted her head “So … you think the probleh?”

“Well, I think that progress is always better and more efficient when—”

“Because it seee of being able to deal hat’s already on our plate I don’t see howto help us”

“This ispains,” the man said He delivered the line with a certainty and authority that Drummer respected as a performance He was a charismatic little shit She sahy they’d sent him To her left, Eht have , itan asshole With a conscious effort, she pulled her irritation back