The universe is always stranger than you think. It didn’t matter how broad her imagination was, how cynical, how joyous and open, how well researched… - James S. A. Corey

But under it there was a faint, not-unpleasant odor of rotting seaweed and salt. The ocean, just outside, seeped into everything. An olfactory reminder to everyone passing through the Ellis Island of the space age that Earth was absolutely unique to the human race. The birthplace of everything. The salt water flowing in everyone’s veins first pulled from the same oceans right outside the building. The seas had been around longer than humans, had helped create them, and then when they were all dead, it’d take their water back without a thought.
That, at least, wasn’t a lie.

They’d made a plan, and so far everything was more or less going the way they’d hoped. The thought left Holden increasingly terrified.

Routine was what kept the darkness at bay, when anything did.