Abaddon's Gate (The Expanse, #3)

by James S.A. Corey

“Well, if I didn’t like you I’d ask you to call me Reverend Doctor, but I do like you very much, so please don’t,” she said.

“You can’t sugarcoat it with me. We both know that killing someone doesn’t make you admirable. I’m not about to forget this. I just hope you have enough soul left that what you’ve done still bothers you.” The recording ended, and Bull smiled at the blank screen wearily. “Every time,” he told the hand terminal. “And next time too.”

She would go home, become Clarissa again, and do whatever else she could to restore her family’s name. Honor required it. If she’d stayed, it would have meant being like Julie.

“I still like Alex’s name,” Naomi replied. “Dandelion sky?” Monica said with a snort.

Holden was starting to feel like they were all monkeys playing with a microwave. Push a button, a light comes on inside, so it’s a light. Push a different button and stick your hand inside, it burns you, so it’s a weapon. Learn to open and close the door, it’s a place to hide things. Never grasping what it actually did, and maybe not even having the framework necessary to figure it out. No monkey ever reheated a frozen burrito.

It was a lesson he’d never forgotten. That humans only have so much emotional energy. No matter how intense the situation, or how powerful the feelings, it was impossible to maintain a heightened emotional state forever. Eventually you’d just get tired and want it to end.

“There was supposed to be something. A lot of something. There was supposed to be… shit, I don’t have the right words. An empire. A civilization. A home. More than a home, a master. Instead, there’s a bunch of locked doors and the lights on a timer. I don’t want you charging into the middle of that. You’ll get your ass killed.”

“I’m aware. The station is in lockdown, and they didn’t exactly give me the root password. I need you to open it up for me.”