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If they kill us all, Druy, not their strategy, not the invisible cycle of history It’ll be our inability to do anything without five cos to talk about it

“I haven’t read the draft, Adet et this muddy any more than you do”

Hu nodded sharply and smiled as if Drummer had capitulated The technician touched her cheeks with a rouge brush and considered her like she was a painting She had to fight the iue out at him

And then it was tias walked out first, and then Hu They took the podiums to either side Drue visible only to her, running through the lines of the speech She lifted her chin

It didn’t ht All that counted right noas how she looked and sounded Let those carry confidence, and she could find the real thing later

“Thank you all for co in Laconia system has now made an unauthorized transit into Sol system The union’s stance is unequivocal on this al It is a violation of the union’s authority and the sovereignty of the Earth-Mars Coalition We stand as one body in the defense of the Sol system and all its citizens”

Druroup, Chrisjen Avasarala stood up from her wheelchair and dusted the pistachio bits off her sari Her smile was visible even from here

“And the union,” Drummer said, “will dedicate all its resources to the defense effort”

Just like you told us to, you old bitch, she thought She didn’t say it

In her dream, Saba was dead

She didn’t kno he’d died or where, and with the non-logic of sleep, she didn’t question that It was simply the truth: Saba was dead and she wasn’t She’d never see hiain She wouldn’t wake up beside him The rest of her life was emptier and smaller and sadder because of it In the dream, she knew all of that But what she felt was relief

Saba was dead, and so he was safe now Nothing bad could happen to him anyht of his disappointment She woke into darkness, a uilt The darkness, at least, she could control She h to leave everything in monochrome

She could feel the thrust gravity when she turned The absence of even trace Coriolis telling her what she already knew She wanted to send aof hi for the failures that would lose him forever But she’d cut that line of coood reason to change that policy

Instead she stretched in the near dark Only half of her sleep cycle was done, but she wasn’t interested in diving back into the pillow Instead, she showered and ordered up a bulb of tea and a tortilla with fruit jam Comfort food Then she checked the system map

The Tempest was still out in the vastness between the orbits of Uranus and Saturn A billion and a half kiloate and the first human habitats of any real size, even if Saturn and its ate sohard for the inner solar system At its present acceleration, it would take weeks to reach her Drummer pulled on her uniform and went out into People’s Home The tube station was near her quarters The void city knehere she was and arranged a private car for her without her even having to ask for it Her security detail shadowed her with the practice of years Even at the height of a shift change, she host town Only the litter and sered as a promise that she wasn’t as alone as she felt