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“The guy I used to know? The dead one? He was a detective, and it was using him to look for where to report in Only he—the reconstructed version of him—noticed that there was this place that killed off protomolecule activity He said it was like a bullet that someone had fired to kill off the … the civilization … that … Bring that where I can see it better?”

Singh enlarged the ie Holden blinked The weariness seeotten When he spoke, his voice had a firh hadn’t heard there before “That’s not Ilus Where is that?”

“It appeared in Sol system On one of our ships”

“Oh Fuck that,” Holden said “All right, listen There’s a woman you need to find Her name’s Elvi Okoye She was a scientist on Ilus I don’t knohere she is now, but she spent years researching the artifacts there, including that one She went through it”

“Went through it to where?”

“Not like a door Like she carried part of the protomolecule’s network into it, and it killed off the sample Turned it all inert And she said it turned her sort of off while it did”

“Turned her off Like she lost consciousness?” Singh said “Lost time?”

“Soo through it But I did see the thing on the station I sahat happened to them”

Singh found he was leaning forward His blood felt like it was fizzing And as s echoed in Holden’s battered face

“There was a station on Ilus?” he asked

“No The one here The station that controls the ring space The first tiuy took s turned on But I saw things there Like a record of the old civilization? My friend, the dead guy, was looking through it for so me to do it, I saw it all too Whatevertiot here Billions of years,to stop it by burning away entire solar systems And it didn’t work Whatever they tried to do, it failed, and they were all just wiped aith just their roads and their oldthat showed up on your ship? That’s the before Earth and Mars were part of the gate network”

“But ould it appear now?”

Holden choked on a laugh “Well, I don’t know Have you people been doing anything different recently?”

Singh felt a little stab of embarrassment It was a fair point For the first tienerator in an uncontrolled environment both here and in Sol syste else about the battleships built on the platforms Or …

“Look,” Holden said “You andto be friends I will oppose you and your eht now, none of that ates and the proto in? They iped out And the thing that wiped them out just took a shot at you”