Cibola Burn (Expanse, #4)

by James S.A. Corey

Turning a bubble of metal into a tiny self-contained world. We’ll forget how to do this, Holden thought. Humanity had only just started learning how to live in space, and now they’d forget. Why develop new strategies for surviving on tiny stations like Medina when there were a thousand new worlds to conquer, with air and water free for the taking? It was an astounding thought, but it also left Holden just a little melancholy.

They’d talked for hours, until it was long past time to sleep. Now their conversations were so careful, it was like the words all had glass bones.

“A vast new frontier has opened up for us. We have the chance to create a new society, with untold riches beyond every gate. But this world has treasure, so instead of figuring out the right way to divide up the damned galaxy, we’ll fight over the first crumbs we find.”

The dangers that the people posed were worse because she hadn’t seen it coming. And so she was afraid she wouldn’t next time either.

“The usual state of nature is recovering from the last disaster,”