The folds of the crate’s lid rose of their own accord. Alex jumped back, misjudged the gravity, stumbled. A dark-haired head came up over the crate’s edge, a thin ghost-pale face with ink-black eyes. Alex’s heart started going triple time. Clarissa Mao, psychopath and murderer, smiled at him tentatively.

“Hey,” she said.

Alex took a long, shuddering breath. “Ah. Hey?”

“See?” Amos said, clapping the girl’s shoulder. “Told you it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“You have to tell him,” Alex said, keeping his voice low. Bobbie was telling Holden about the work she’d been doing with veterans’ affairs in Londres Nova, so he wasn’t paying attention to them.

“I’m gonna,” Amos said.

“You have to tell him now. She’s on our ship.”

Amos shrugged. “She was on our ship for months when we were coming back from the slow zone.”

“She was a prisoner. Because of all the people she killed. And now she’s on our ship by herself.”

“I’ll give you that does make this situation a little different,” Amos said.

“Is there a problem?” Holden asked. “What are we talking about?”

“Little something I wanted to run past you,” Amos said. “It’ll wait until after the dog and pony show.”

The meeting room in the security compound was built in an outdated architectural fashion: open archways and wide, sky-blue ceilings with indirect light and subtle geometric patterning. Everything about it was pointedly artificial, like the idea of an afternoon courtyard without the afternoon or the courtyard. Avasarala’s voice came before she did, staccato and impatient. When she stepped through one of the archways, a young, seriously dressed man at her side, Bobbie stood up. Holden followed her lead.

“— if they want a voice in the decision. We’re not going to fuck around bullshit electoral posturing.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the young man said.

Avasarala waved that they should sit back down as she took her own seat even as she kept talking to her assistant. “Take it to Kleinmann first. Once he’s behind me, Castro and Najjar will have the cover they need.”

“If you say so, ma’am.”

“If I say so?”

The assistant inclined his head. “With permission, Chung is in a stronger position than Kleinmann.”

“Are you second-guessing me, Martinez?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Avasarala shrugged. “Chung, then. Now go.” As the young man left, she turned her attention to them. “Thank you all for – Where’s Nagata?”

“Medical bay,” Holden said. “The doctors are still deciding whether she’s stable enough to release.”

Avasarala hoisted an eyebrow and tapped a message onto her hand terminal. “They can make a fucking exception. I want her here. Thank most of you for coming. I’d beat around the bush and make everyone feel at home, but I’ve been in meetings for the last thirty-six hours, and I’m cranky. We’re all clear that Earth is fucked, yes?”

“Hell yeah,” Amos said.