On Ceres, Miller investigates the theft of water, now severely rationed due to the Canterbury's failure to arrive. In Julie Mao's apartment, he finds clues placing her aboard the Scopuli. On Earth, Avasarala sends the suspected OPA captive to Luna after her superior, Undersecretary Sadavir Errinwright, disapproves of "gravity torture", but the captive commits sleeping. In the asteroid belt, the Canterbury's shuttle is damaged by debris from the ice hauler's destruction. Using the last of their air, the survivors build an improvised antenna to place a distress call, which is responded to by the Martian navy's flagship, the MCRN Donnager. After Nagata identifies the distress transponder aboard the Scopuli as using Martian military technology, Holden broadcasts a message to that effect to the Solar System, as insurance against beinghuged as inconvenient witnesses.
Two hundred years in the future, in a fully colonized Solar System, detective Josephus Miller, born in the asteroid belt, is given the assignment to find a missing young woman, Julie Mao. Joining his task is James Holden, formerly first officer of an ice freighter who is involved in an incident caused by the tense relationship between Earth, Mars and the Belt. Soon the two find out that the missing woman is connected to a vast conspiracy.