He shakes his head. He doesn't say anything at first. Jim doesn't have four centuries to forget. He'd be astonishingly lucky to have four decades, given the way his life is going.
People will remember Ilus for a long while, he thinks. Because it's the first: first planet where humans breathed the air and looked at the sky and didn't see the stars at home.
Or maybe they won't. Maybe the explosion of worlds means everyone's gonna forget. Maybe there'll be a thousand different humanities before Holden dies, or maybe he won't be able to stop it when someone triggers the next galaxy-wide apocalypse.
It's too big to think about for too long.
"Nothing special to you," he says, rough-voiced. "But it was kind of a big deal to us. Is kind of a big deal." Maybe soon-to-be-was. He changes the subject, or his wandering brain changes the subject for him: "Ran out of amphetamines. I think I took a lot of them."
no subject
People will remember Ilus for a long while, he thinks. Because it's the first: first planet where humans breathed the air and looked at the sky and didn't see the stars at home.
Or maybe they won't. Maybe the explosion of worlds means everyone's gonna forget. Maybe there'll be a thousand different humanities before Holden dies, or maybe he won't be able to stop it when someone triggers the next galaxy-wide apocalypse.
It's too big to think about for too long.
"Nothing special to you," he says, rough-voiced. "But it was kind of a big deal to us. Is kind of a big deal." Maybe soon-to-be-was. He changes the subject, or his wandering brain changes the subject for him: "Ran out of amphetamines. I think I took a lot of them."