Clarissa closed her eyes. If anything, she went a little paler. “Not exactly. It’s a volcano that blew itself up a long, long time ago. Sent ash eighty kilometers up. Shock waves went around the world seven times.”

“But it’s not North Africa?”

“No,” she said. “I can’t believe they really did it. They’re dropping rocks. I mean, who would even do that? You can’t… you can’t replace Earth.”

“Maybe you kind of can now,” Amos said. “Lot of planets out there now weren’t around before.”

“I can’t believe someone would do this.”

“Yeah, but they did.”

Clarissa swallowed. There had to be stairs around here. They’d be locked up so that prisoners couldn’t get to them, but Amos figured there’d have to be stairs. He went to the window to the hall and pressed his head against it. He couldn’t see anything down the hall either way. Kicking the glass out seemed unlikely too. Not that he was looking to try. Just thinking.

On the screen, a mushroom cloud rose over a vast and empty sea. Then, as a woman’s voice calmly talked about megatonnage and destructive capacity, a map was displayed with one bright red dot on North Africa, another in the ocean.

Clarissa hissed.

“Yeah?” Amos said.

“If the spacing’s even,” Clarissa said, “if there’s another one, it’s going to be close.”

“Okay,” Amos said. “Can’t do anything about that, though.”

The hinges were on the other side of the door too, because of course they were. It was a fucking prison. He clicked his tongue against his teeth. Maybe they’d take it off lockdown and send him on his way. Might happen. If it didn’t, though… Well, this was going to be a stupid way to die.

“What’re you thinking?” she asked.

“Well, Peaches. I’m thinking that I stayed on this mudball a day too long.”

Chapter Twenty-three: Holden

Holden sat back, light-headed, his eyes still on the screen. The immensity of the news made Fred’s office seem fresh and unfamiliar: the desk with the fine black lines of wear at the corner; the captain’s safe set into the wall like a little privacy window; the industrial carpeting. It was like he was seeing Fred, leaning forward on his elbows, grief in his eyes, for the first time. Less than an hour earlier, reports had come through with red frames around the feed windows to show how serious everything was. The previous headlines – a meteor or possibly a small comet had struck North Africa – were forgotten. The ships carrying the prime minister of the Martian Republic were being approached by an unknown and apparently hostile force, his escort moving to intercept. It was the news of the year.

Then the second rock hit Earth, and what might have been a natural disaster was revealed as an attack.