Babylon's Ashes: Clarissa Mao & Amos Burton and how canon is making me happy
I had pre-ordered Babylon's Ashes a week two ago - the first time I've ever tried pre-ordering an e-book. It was like getting a present to see it suddenly appear on my tablet on the 6th December. Exciting stuff.
I really, really was trying to save the book for the weekend .. but I sneakily read it during the week ... I tried to read it really, really slowly to savour it .. but I couldn't help it .. I ended up devouring it and found myself finished before the weekend. I'm re-reading it now though … and trying to be more slow about it.
In my defence, it is the shortest of the novels so far!
I was particularly delighted by all the little snippets of insight we got about Clarissa Mao and Clarissa and Amos. For instance, that Clarissa like Bobbie and Naomi are not women who were into frills and softness, that like Bobbie she's new and not entirely attune to the rest of the crew's nerves and unease yet - while the rest of the crew is in sync.
I feel as though they haven't written anything that makes any of my fic downright wrong, if that makes sense. Some instances below the cut. Sorry this is so long but this novel and its canon representation of Clarissa and Amos filled me with so much delight!!!
Amos and Clarissa are close and hang out a lot
Although Amos and Clarissa aren't romantically or sexually involved in Babylon's Ashes, they are very very close and so I feel like my fic Redemption could still have happened if you stretch your imagination a little. The book definitely makes it clear that they are very close and pretty much hang out together all the time.
They have the same sleep shifts, meaning that they work at the same time and they sleep at the same time - albeit no with one another. I'm not sure if Amos directed that this be so, that Holden made it so to make sure Clarissa was being supervised, or if it just happened naturally.
The halls of the Rocinante were also dim, set for a night cycle. Holden made his way to the lift. Voices filtered to him from the galley: Amos’ affable rumble and the thinner, reedy sound of Clarissa’s voice.
He takes her out on mission together, although he regrets it later because she doesn't have the training he does and she gets injured.
When Amos spoke, his voice sounded wrong. Too small, too close. “You know, Cap, we’ve got another airlock. Cargo bay’s right down here by the machine shop.”
The penny dropped. Amos sounded different because he was already wearing a vac suit. He was talking through a helmet mic.
“What are you thinking, Amos?”
“Nothing real subtle. Figure we hop outside, kill a few assholes that need killing, patch stuff up when we’re done with the first part.”
…
“All right,” Holden said, reaching for his restraints. “Prep a suit. I’m on my way down.”
“I’ll leave you one,” Amos said, “but I think we’ll get a head start without you.”
“Wait,” Holden said. “We?”
“We’re cycling out now,” Clarissa Mao said. “Wish us luck.”
In my fic Infinite, Clarissa ends up in the med bay and Amos is there at her side. In chapter 4 of my fic Redemption, it's Amos who is injured and Clarissa is at his side in med bay. In Babylon's Ashes, it's Clarissa who is injured and it's Amos who is there by her side - brings her food … peach cobbler of all things …
Clarissa and Amos are pretty much always together onboard.
To Alex’s right, Amos sat grinning like a vaguely ominous Buddha with Clarissa Mao, Sun-yi Steinberg, and a shirtless young man who Alex suspected had been ordered from a menu.
When Amos tells Holden "We're on it", Holden knows that he means him and Clarissa.
The book refers to Alex finishing his checklist - with Amos and Clarissa.
When a power exchange blew out and switched to the fallback, the book mentions that Amos or Clarissa have it flagged for repair before Fred can remember how to pull up the damage control schedule.
It's Clarissa and Amos who do last-minute fixes to Bobbie's combat armour. When they strap into their couches, the book has "Amos and Clarissa" announcing that they are secure. Naomi takes Amos and Clarissa with her to backload the Giambattista’s internal power grid so that everything is on the verge of overload without ever quite tripping.
When Fred dies, Holden doesn't know how it happens, but Amos and Clarissa end up with the duty of preparing Fred's body and it's a good fit with Amos stripping him, Clarissa cleaning Fred’s skin with a damp cloth. In the scene they don't talk or joke. They are the perfect team.
Clarissa swabbed Fred’s body with a calm, businesslike intimacy. Compassionate and unsentimental. Amos helped when Fred needed to be moved and dressed in a fresh uniform and when she needed to slide the body bag under him. It took a little less than an hour from start to finish. Holden didn’t know if that seemed like too long or not long enough. Clarissa hummed something as she worked. A soft melody he didn’t recognize, but one that didn’t seem to rest in either a major key or a minor one. Her thin, pale face and Amos’ thickness seemed perfectly matched. When the bag was sealed, Amos hefted it.
Clarissa understands Amos.
“Dirty dirty? Or inside the error bars but it pisses you off dirty?”
“Second one,” Peaches said, and then grinned. But her grin faded fast. “You all right?”
He smiled. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you’re not all right,” she said.
Amos leaned back, shifted to crack his neck. Part of him wanted to talk to her about the torpedoes, but he couldn’t picture Holden doing it. And this was kind of a Holden thing, so he only shrugged. “Need to talk to the captain about something.”
When Amos asks her about the new seals and she says: "within tolerance," he knows that that was as close as she was probably ever going to get to saying they were good.
The book even mentions that Clarissa's started speaking like Amos!
“Unless whatever we break interferes with us deploying the boats,” Clarissa said. “Then Naomi and I are out there with welding torches trying to pop Bobbie’s stuff loose when the attack ships get back, and everyone has a bad day.” It was weird hearing Amos’ idioms spoken in her voice. The two had spent a lot of time together, though. So maybe it wasn’t.
Following Fred's death, the book says: The only ones not to speak were Amos, smiling his amiable and meaningless smile, and Clarissa, her brow furrowed in concentration like it was all a puzzle she was trying to solve.
Clarissa's a good worker and a hard worker who doesn't complain
I had written something similar in chapter 2 of Redemption so I was pretty chuffed that it turned out to be canon of sorts.
Peaches turned out to be a pretty good worker. Smart, focused, seemed to really enjoy fixing things, and never bitched about the stresses of shipboard life. Perspective, he figured. Shittiest ship there was still had to be better than the best cell in the pit, if only because you got to pick that you were in it.
Clarissa is very careful not to push her luck
We get a definite sense that at the start of the novel, Clarissa is hanging around edges, ghost-like, quiet and unobtrusive. Trying not to attract anyone's attention.
The ship was quiet and empty and familiar. The only things that kept Holden from feeling perfectly comfortable were the silence that came from the powered-down reactor and the ghostlike presence of Clarissa Mao.
Clarissa … [Holden] didn’t know where Clarissa was. Ever since the last hard burn, he’d only caught fleeting glimpses of her, like she was a spirit they’d picked up that couldn’t bear being seen straight on.
Holden, Naomi, Alex, and Amos sat together in a group across from them, a couple of chairs marking the border on either side. Holden didn’t realize until they’d all sat down that Clarissa hadn’t come. He hadn’t even considered bringing her. This was a meeting of the Rocinante’s crew, after all, and she was ….
Another description here makes it clear that Clarissa is remaining out of sight as much as she can, ducking out of view … trying to be invisible.
“You’re welcome,” Fred said as they passed into the ship’s cargo hold. Amos Burton-wide-shouldered and friendly-stopped the mech he was driving and let them pass through with a nod. Fred had never met the infamous Clarissa Mao in person, but the girl who ducked away from the lift and into the machine shop was unmistakable. Wasn’t the strangest alliance he’d seen, but it was close.
There's also a line in the book that says: "Clarissa stood in the doorway, uncertain but present." and also: "Clarissa slid in and took a seat behind Amos as if she could hide behind him."
Alex is wary but accepting of Clarissa, Naomi is completely accepting of Clarissa, Holden is very suspicious and uncomfortable
This is a particular interesting insight into Clarissa, Naomi and Amos.
“Why does she bother you so much?” Naomi asked. They were in their shared cabin, held to the bunk by the moon’s fractional gravity and their own exhaustion.
“She killed a bunch of people,” Holden said, his sleepiness robbing him of the ability to think clearly. “Is that not enough? It seems like it should be enough.”
The cabin was at low light. The crash couch cradled their paired bodies. He felt Naomi’s breath against his side, familiar and warm and grounding. Her voice had the same slushy softness as his. They were both almost too tired to sleep. “That was a different her.”
“Everyone else seems certain of that. Not sure how we got there.”
“Well, I think Alex is still not sure about her.”
“But Amos is. And you are.”
She made a thick sound in the back of her throat. Her eyes were closed. Even in the dimness, he could see the deeper darkness of her lids. He thought for a moment she’d managed to fall asleep, but then she spoke. “I have to believe she can change. That people can.”
“You weren’t like her,” Holden said. “Even when … even when people died, you weren’t like her. You’re not a cold-blooded killer.”
“Amos is.”
“True. But Amos is Amos. It’s different in my head.”
“Because?”
“Because he’s Amos. He’s like a pit bull. You know he could tear your throat out, but he’s loyal to a fault and you just want to hug him.”
She's clearly on his mind a lot though based on the Holden chapters, Holden spends a lot of time thinking about her, troubled by her - pondering her to a degree that he doesn't really think about Bobbie …
Most of what he heard about her-that she was building up her strength, that her black market implants were making her less nauseated, that she’d tracked down the bad coupler that was making the machine shop lights dim-he heard from the others in the crew. He didn’t like it, but at least he didn’t have to talk to her.
It wasn’t just that, though. It was also the same thing [Holden]’d felt driving him to talk to Bobbie. And to Clarissa Mao before that. He wanted things to be all right, and he had the growing feeling that they weren’t. That they weren’t going to be.
When Naomi and Holden talk about giving Bobbie a part ownership stake in the Roci, Holden's reluctance stems from the fact that he does not want to let Clarissa have a share in the Roci but his sense of fairness makes him unable to give Bobbie a share without giving Clarissa a share.
“I don’t want to give Clarissa Mao ownership of the Roci,” Holden said. “I just … She’s here, and okay, fine. I’m still not sanguine about that, but I can deal with it. And I want to bring Bobbie all the way into the crew, but I just- I can’t. I can’t agree that Clarissa ever gets to call my ship her home. There’s a difference between letting her be there and pretending she’s like Bobbie. Or you. Or me.”
“No forgiveness?” Naomi asked, halfway between teasing and serious.
“Plenty of forgiveness. Loads of forgiveness. Some boundaries too.”
Throughout the book, Holden is constantly thinking about Clarissa with unease.
“We’re on it,” Amos agreed.
We. Meaning Clarissa. He was really going to have to get over that. He felt guilty that he hadn’t already, but he didn’t have a clear idea how to let his discomfort with her go. He pushed the issue back down his priority list again, the way he always did. And who knew? Maybe they’d all die in a hail of gunfire before it came up again and he wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Holden is eventually won over and he and Clarissa have a talk of sorts
In Redemption, after a period of unease, Holden finally comes to terms with Clarissa being onboard and accepts her as a member of the crew. In Babylon's Ashes, to my delight he actually has an outright talk to her which is really so much more better and satisfying than anything I could have imagined in fan fiction …
“We should probably have had this talk before,” Holden said.
The Roci’s captain stood at the bedside, looking like he wasn’t sure whether to sit.
…
The James Holden who was king of her personal mythology was sure of himself, and this man was profoundly ill at ease.
“Okay,” she said, not certain what else to say.
Holden crossed his arms. “I … um. Yeah, I didn’t really expect you to come on this ship. I’m not comfortable with it.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
He waved the comment away. “It’s made me skip this part, and I shouldn’t have. That’s on me, okay? I know you and Amos trekked across a big part of North America after the rocks came down, and I know that you handled yourself just fine then. And you have experience on ships.”
Experience as a terrorist and murderer, he didn’t say.
“The thing is,” he went on, “you aren’t trained for this kind of action. Going out on the float with a gun in your hand is different from being on the ground. Or being a technician inside a ship. You’ve got those implants, but using them out there, you’d have wound up crashing out and choking to death on your own vomit, right?”
“Probably,” she said.
“So going out again like that’s not something you should do. Amos took you because … because he wants you to know you belong here.”
“But I don’t,” she said. “That’s what you’re saying.”
“Not everyplace Amos goes, no,” Holden said. He met her gaze for the first time. He looked almost sad. She couldn’t understand why. “But as long as you’re on my ship, you’re crew. And it’s my job to protect you. I screwed that up. You don’t go into battle in a vac suit anymore. At least not until I think you’re trained. That’s an order. Understood?”
“Understood,” she said. And then, trying the word out to see how it felt in her mouth, “Understood, sir.”
He had been her sworn enemy. He had been the symbol of her failure. He’d even become a symbol, somehow, of the life she could have had if she’d made different choices. He was only a man in his early middle age that she barely knew, though they had some friends in common. He tried a smile, and she returned it. It was so little. It was something.
She offers him a bulb of coffee and he takes it despite everything.
Clarissa rose up from the lift, a pale smile on her lips. She’d spent enough time on the float now to be natural with it. She moved from grip to grip along the wall like she’d been born a Belter. When she got to Holden, she held out a bulb from the galley.
“You said you hadn’t been able to sleep,” she said. “I thought you’d want some coffee.”
Holden took it; her smile widened a degree. The bulb was warm against his palm. Probably it wasn’t poisoned. She wasn’t really likely to do that anymore. He steeled himself a little before he took a sip.
Holden finally accepts her as part of the team.
Holden took a long, last drink and stowed the coffee bulb. He wanted it over. He wanted this moment to last forever in case it was the last one he had with Naomi. And Alex and Amos. Bobbie. Hell, even Clarissa. With the Rocinante. You couldn’t be in a place like the Roci for as long as he had been and not be changed by it. Not have it be home.
And then without knowing it, he lets Clarissa know that she's part of the team.
“What about us?” Clarissa asked. Her voice had dread in it. A hollowness. “What do we do now?”
“We join the union,” Jim said. “I mean, we’ll need to vote on it here in the family, but it seems weird to push for a new architecture for the colonies and then not be part of it. And there’ll be a lot of work for a good ship. We have a good ship.”
Clarissa’s gaze flickered up to Naomi, then, with an almost invisible smile, away. Jim hadn’t understood what she’d really been asking. Now that the war’s over, do I still have a place here? And he didn’t know that he’d answered yes. He had a genius for assuming things that let Clarissa trust him. Naomi handed the girl a napkin so she wouldn’t have to dab her eyes with a cuff.
Clarissa is genuinely remorseful for what she's done. That she has nightmares.
I was glad that nothing about Babylon's Ashes blew my fic Prisoner 42-82-4131 out of the water … I liked the insights we got into Clarissa, that she had participated in a poetry course in prison, that she had nightmares - albeit not as violent as the ones I gave her in Redemption. We learn that the poetry made the nightmares worse, made her more introspective …
I have killed, but I am not a killer because a killer is a monster, and monsters aren’t afraid. She’d never spoken the words aloud. Never written them down. They’d become her words of power, a private prayer too sacred to give form. She went back to them when she needed them.
There's a line where it says "Clarissa Mao ate kibble and water. Prison food.", you can't help wondering if this is some sort of penance or punishment. That she doesn't want to take up valuable food - that she doesn’t feel worth enough to eat the better food.
Alex and Amos were in the next room where Naomi was combing through the station logs with an OPA engineer named Costas, arguing about something that involved yogurt and black beans. Only Clarissa hadn’t come on [Medina] station, and Holden hadn’t asked why. His memories of the Behemoth were bad enough. He couldn’t imagine hers.
Clarissa almost dies helping the crew - but is saved by a member of the crew
In my fic Infinite, I have Clarissa spinning off into space after a mishap during repairs and she's saved by Amos, Bobbie and Alex. In Babylon's Ashes, she goes with Amos to try to defend against people who are trying to cut their way into the Roci. While outside the Roci, she's injured and almost dies - but is saved by Holden.
This was it. This was how she died. The idea was weirdly consoling. She’d end here, under billions of stars. In the unending, unshielded light of the sun, fighting for her friends. It felt bright, like a hero’s death. Not the cold fading away on a hard, gray cot in the prison infirmary she’d expected. How strange that this should feel like victory. Time seemed to slow, and she wondered if maybe she’d triggered her implants by mistake. That would be silly. Amping up her nervous system would do her exactly no good when all her speed came from the thruster’s nozzle. But no. It was only fear and the certainty that she was rushing to her death.
Naomi and Alex were shouting in her ears. Amos too. She couldn’t make sense of any of it. It occurred to her like a conclusion she was watching someone else make that Amos might feel bad when she was gone. She should have told him how grateful she was for every day he’d given her outside the hole.
…
The mech flickered, drawing closer. When she started braking, it seemed to surge toward her, an illusion of relative velocity, but with enough truth to end her.
And then, inexplicably, the mech driver slumped against his harness. The mech arms waved, suddenly uncontrolled. One reached down, gouging the hull and sending the great yellow machine spinning away from the Rocinante and toward the stars. She watched, uncomprehending, until a hand grabbed her uninjured shoulder and an arm looped across her back. In the bright sunlight, the other suit’s helmet was opaque. She didn’t understand what had happened until she heard the voice over her radio.
“It’s all right,” Holden said. “I’ve got you.”
Clarissa is shown as human despite what she has done - that she cares about the others and has become a member of the team
When Holden is reunited with his family, Clarissa is shown as being the most moved.
The book mentions her being one of the two mechanics onboard, running updates, doing the post-fight spit and polish with Amos. She installs new seals and checks them when the polymerization’s done. There's no doubt that she's pulling her weight and earning her place on the crew.
Naomi pressed her hand to her lips, like she was trying to hold words or emotions in. Alex was grinning as widely as any of Holden’s family, his eyes shining. Avasarala and Bobbie seemed pleased, like people who’d pulled off a good surprise party. Weirdly, Clarissa Mao, standing alone with a pressure cast on her wounded arm, was shaking with barely controlled sobs. Amos looked at all of them like he’d walked in on the last line of a joke, then shrugged and let them get on with whatever the hell this was. Holden felt a rush of affection for the man.
Twice, it's mentioned that Naomi and Clarissa like singing and in this instance, Bobbie is looking out for Clarissa:
By the end of the night, even Clarissa had a turn on stage. It turned out she had a good singing voice, and after she got down, a local boy with Loca Griega tattoos tried to hit on her until Bobbie gently made it clear nothing was going to happen.
When Clarissa is tending to Fred's body with Amos, she shows genuine compassion.
Clarissa nodded to Holden as they passed out of the medical bay. Her skin was bruised at the back of her neck and all along the arms where the blood had pooled during the burn. “We’ll take care of him,” she said.
“He was important,” Holden replied, and wasn’t ashamed at the catch in his voice.
Something like sorrow or amusement flickered in Clarissa’s eyes. “I’ve spent a lot of time with the dead. He’ll be okay now. You go take care of the ones that lived through it.”
Amos smiled amiably and carried the bag out. “You need to get drunk or in a fistfight later, just let me know.”
“Yeah,” Holden said. “All right.”
When Holden tells Amos he'd rather have him stay onboard, Amos tells him: "That’s sweet, but you don’t need me, Cap …Peaches here knows the ship as well as I do. Anything you need done, she can do it." He's deliberately trying to make Holden and Clarissa spend time together to get to know one another - to realise that they can trust one another. When the Roci's damaged, it's Clarissa who says she'll swap out some sensor arrays and plug a couple holes on the outer hull.
When Naomi says she's not going to be able to sleep but is intending to stay up watching newsfeeds and Alex and Holden say they'll join her, Clarissa says she will, too.
“Me too,” Clarissa said, and then didn’t add if I’m invited. Against the backdrop of the war, it was such a small thing, and Naomi was still glad to see it.
Towards the end of the book, Clarissa's also (cautiously) participating in the crew's decision-making.
Alex answered over the ship comm. “I’d vote for shooting them.” And a moment later, Clarissa, “Seconded.”
And also venturing her opinion on Holden's actions and words.
“Seriously?” Alex called from above. “‘Sounds good, we’ll be right over’?”
“I may kind of suck at this job,” Holden called back.
The voice over the ship’s comm was Clarissa’s: “I thought it was sweet.”
Clarissa shows that she genuinely cares about Naomi.
Clarissa pushed over to Naomi’s couch, her sharp face bent by a frown. Naomi looked up at her and wiped her eyes. A droplet of a tear floated in the air, drifted toward the recycler intake.
“I’ll be all right,” Naomi said. “It’s just that my son’s on one of those ships.”
Clarissa’s eyes sheened over too and she put a hand on Naomi’s arm. “I know,” Clarissa said. “If you need me, you can find me.”
“It’s okay, Peaches,” Amos said. “Me and the captain had a talk about it. We’re good.” He gave Holden a cheerful thumbs-up.
…
“Well,” Amos said. “Me and Peaches better go strap in. You know. In case.”
Clarissa touched Naomi’s shoulder one last time, then turned and launched herself, following Amos down the lift toward engineering.
And then at the end, she's just a member of the team ... just like everyone else ...
Eventually, without the flow of conversation abating, Alex made enough chicken with peanut sauce for everyone and passed bowls out while Clarissa told a surprisingly funny story about being in a prison writing workshop. Naomi ate the chicken with a fork, leaning against Jim as she did.
Clarissa is drinking tea while the others drink alcohol
OK this is such a tiny thing, but in chapter 2 of Redemption, I had Clarissa drink matcha tea while the crew drank vodka. And the book had this bit:
Back on board, the group moved together to the galley, not ready yet for the day to be over. Clarissa made herself some tea, but there wasn’t any more alcohol. Just the six of them, lounging in a galley designed to serve many more.
So yes - colour me delighted. This book has so many good bits about it, but most of all - the canon confirmation about my Clarissa Mao head canon and my Clarissa Mao-Amos Burton head canon is such a wonderful surprise.
I really, really was trying to save the book for the weekend .. but I sneakily read it during the week ... I tried to read it really, really slowly to savour it .. but I couldn't help it .. I ended up devouring it and found myself finished before the weekend. I'm re-reading it now though … and trying to be more slow about it.
In my defence, it is the shortest of the novels so far!
- Leviathan Wakes: 592 pages
- Caliban's War: 624 pages
- Abaddon's Gate: 576 pages
- Cibola Burn: 624 pages
- Nemesis Games: 576 pages
- Babylon's Ashes: 544 pages
I was particularly delighted by all the little snippets of insight we got about Clarissa Mao and Clarissa and Amos. For instance, that Clarissa like Bobbie and Naomi are not women who were into frills and softness, that like Bobbie she's new and not entirely attune to the rest of the crew's nerves and unease yet - while the rest of the crew is in sync.
I feel as though they haven't written anything that makes any of my fic downright wrong, if that makes sense. Some instances below the cut. Sorry this is so long but this novel and its canon representation of Clarissa and Amos filled me with so much delight!!!
Amos and Clarissa are close and hang out a lot
Although Amos and Clarissa aren't romantically or sexually involved in Babylon's Ashes, they are very very close and so I feel like my fic Redemption could still have happened if you stretch your imagination a little. The book definitely makes it clear that they are very close and pretty much hang out together all the time.
They have the same sleep shifts, meaning that they work at the same time and they sleep at the same time - albeit no with one another. I'm not sure if Amos directed that this be so, that Holden made it so to make sure Clarissa was being supervised, or if it just happened naturally.
The halls of the Rocinante were also dim, set for a night cycle. Holden made his way to the lift. Voices filtered to him from the galley: Amos’ affable rumble and the thinner, reedy sound of Clarissa’s voice.
He takes her out on mission together, although he regrets it later because she doesn't have the training he does and she gets injured.
When Amos spoke, his voice sounded wrong. Too small, too close. “You know, Cap, we’ve got another airlock. Cargo bay’s right down here by the machine shop.”
The penny dropped. Amos sounded different because he was already wearing a vac suit. He was talking through a helmet mic.
“What are you thinking, Amos?”
“Nothing real subtle. Figure we hop outside, kill a few assholes that need killing, patch stuff up when we’re done with the first part.”
…
“All right,” Holden said, reaching for his restraints. “Prep a suit. I’m on my way down.”
“I’ll leave you one,” Amos said, “but I think we’ll get a head start without you.”
“Wait,” Holden said. “We?”
“We’re cycling out now,” Clarissa Mao said. “Wish us luck.”
In my fic Infinite, Clarissa ends up in the med bay and Amos is there at her side. In chapter 4 of my fic Redemption, it's Amos who is injured and Clarissa is at his side in med bay. In Babylon's Ashes, it's Clarissa who is injured and it's Amos who is there by her side - brings her food … peach cobbler of all things …
Clarissa and Amos are pretty much always together onboard.
To Alex’s right, Amos sat grinning like a vaguely ominous Buddha with Clarissa Mao, Sun-yi Steinberg, and a shirtless young man who Alex suspected had been ordered from a menu.
When Amos tells Holden "We're on it", Holden knows that he means him and Clarissa.
The book refers to Alex finishing his checklist - with Amos and Clarissa.
When a power exchange blew out and switched to the fallback, the book mentions that Amos or Clarissa have it flagged for repair before Fred can remember how to pull up the damage control schedule.
It's Clarissa and Amos who do last-minute fixes to Bobbie's combat armour. When they strap into their couches, the book has "Amos and Clarissa" announcing that they are secure. Naomi takes Amos and Clarissa with her to backload the Giambattista’s internal power grid so that everything is on the verge of overload without ever quite tripping.
When Fred dies, Holden doesn't know how it happens, but Amos and Clarissa end up with the duty of preparing Fred's body and it's a good fit with Amos stripping him, Clarissa cleaning Fred’s skin with a damp cloth. In the scene they don't talk or joke. They are the perfect team.
Clarissa swabbed Fred’s body with a calm, businesslike intimacy. Compassionate and unsentimental. Amos helped when Fred needed to be moved and dressed in a fresh uniform and when she needed to slide the body bag under him. It took a little less than an hour from start to finish. Holden didn’t know if that seemed like too long or not long enough. Clarissa hummed something as she worked. A soft melody he didn’t recognize, but one that didn’t seem to rest in either a major key or a minor one. Her thin, pale face and Amos’ thickness seemed perfectly matched. When the bag was sealed, Amos hefted it.
Clarissa understands Amos.
“Dirty dirty? Or inside the error bars but it pisses you off dirty?”
“Second one,” Peaches said, and then grinned. But her grin faded fast. “You all right?”
He smiled. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you’re not all right,” she said.
Amos leaned back, shifted to crack his neck. Part of him wanted to talk to her about the torpedoes, but he couldn’t picture Holden doing it. And this was kind of a Holden thing, so he only shrugged. “Need to talk to the captain about something.”
When Amos asks her about the new seals and she says: "within tolerance," he knows that that was as close as she was probably ever going to get to saying they were good.
The book even mentions that Clarissa's started speaking like Amos!
“Unless whatever we break interferes with us deploying the boats,” Clarissa said. “Then Naomi and I are out there with welding torches trying to pop Bobbie’s stuff loose when the attack ships get back, and everyone has a bad day.” It was weird hearing Amos’ idioms spoken in her voice. The two had spent a lot of time together, though. So maybe it wasn’t.
Following Fred's death, the book says: The only ones not to speak were Amos, smiling his amiable and meaningless smile, and Clarissa, her brow furrowed in concentration like it was all a puzzle she was trying to solve.
Clarissa's a good worker and a hard worker who doesn't complain
I had written something similar in chapter 2 of Redemption so I was pretty chuffed that it turned out to be canon of sorts.
Peaches turned out to be a pretty good worker. Smart, focused, seemed to really enjoy fixing things, and never bitched about the stresses of shipboard life. Perspective, he figured. Shittiest ship there was still had to be better than the best cell in the pit, if only because you got to pick that you were in it.
Clarissa is very careful not to push her luck
We get a definite sense that at the start of the novel, Clarissa is hanging around edges, ghost-like, quiet and unobtrusive. Trying not to attract anyone's attention.
The ship was quiet and empty and familiar. The only things that kept Holden from feeling perfectly comfortable were the silence that came from the powered-down reactor and the ghostlike presence of Clarissa Mao.
Clarissa … [Holden] didn’t know where Clarissa was. Ever since the last hard burn, he’d only caught fleeting glimpses of her, like she was a spirit they’d picked up that couldn’t bear being seen straight on.
Holden, Naomi, Alex, and Amos sat together in a group across from them, a couple of chairs marking the border on either side. Holden didn’t realize until they’d all sat down that Clarissa hadn’t come. He hadn’t even considered bringing her. This was a meeting of the Rocinante’s crew, after all, and she was ….
Another description here makes it clear that Clarissa is remaining out of sight as much as she can, ducking out of view … trying to be invisible.
“You’re welcome,” Fred said as they passed into the ship’s cargo hold. Amos Burton-wide-shouldered and friendly-stopped the mech he was driving and let them pass through with a nod. Fred had never met the infamous Clarissa Mao in person, but the girl who ducked away from the lift and into the machine shop was unmistakable. Wasn’t the strangest alliance he’d seen, but it was close.
There's also a line in the book that says: "Clarissa stood in the doorway, uncertain but present." and also: "Clarissa slid in and took a seat behind Amos as if she could hide behind him."
Alex is wary but accepting of Clarissa, Naomi is completely accepting of Clarissa, Holden is very suspicious and uncomfortable
This is a particular interesting insight into Clarissa, Naomi and Amos.
“Why does she bother you so much?” Naomi asked. They were in their shared cabin, held to the bunk by the moon’s fractional gravity and their own exhaustion.
“She killed a bunch of people,” Holden said, his sleepiness robbing him of the ability to think clearly. “Is that not enough? It seems like it should be enough.”
The cabin was at low light. The crash couch cradled their paired bodies. He felt Naomi’s breath against his side, familiar and warm and grounding. Her voice had the same slushy softness as his. They were both almost too tired to sleep. “That was a different her.”
“Everyone else seems certain of that. Not sure how we got there.”
“Well, I think Alex is still not sure about her.”
“But Amos is. And you are.”
She made a thick sound in the back of her throat. Her eyes were closed. Even in the dimness, he could see the deeper darkness of her lids. He thought for a moment she’d managed to fall asleep, but then she spoke. “I have to believe she can change. That people can.”
“You weren’t like her,” Holden said. “Even when … even when people died, you weren’t like her. You’re not a cold-blooded killer.”
“Amos is.”
“True. But Amos is Amos. It’s different in my head.”
“Because?”
“Because he’s Amos. He’s like a pit bull. You know he could tear your throat out, but he’s loyal to a fault and you just want to hug him.”
She's clearly on his mind a lot though based on the Holden chapters, Holden spends a lot of time thinking about her, troubled by her - pondering her to a degree that he doesn't really think about Bobbie …
Most of what he heard about her-that she was building up her strength, that her black market implants were making her less nauseated, that she’d tracked down the bad coupler that was making the machine shop lights dim-he heard from the others in the crew. He didn’t like it, but at least he didn’t have to talk to her.
It wasn’t just that, though. It was also the same thing [Holden]’d felt driving him to talk to Bobbie. And to Clarissa Mao before that. He wanted things to be all right, and he had the growing feeling that they weren’t. That they weren’t going to be.
When Naomi and Holden talk about giving Bobbie a part ownership stake in the Roci, Holden's reluctance stems from the fact that he does not want to let Clarissa have a share in the Roci but his sense of fairness makes him unable to give Bobbie a share without giving Clarissa a share.
“I don’t want to give Clarissa Mao ownership of the Roci,” Holden said. “I just … She’s here, and okay, fine. I’m still not sanguine about that, but I can deal with it. And I want to bring Bobbie all the way into the crew, but I just- I can’t. I can’t agree that Clarissa ever gets to call my ship her home. There’s a difference between letting her be there and pretending she’s like Bobbie. Or you. Or me.”
“No forgiveness?” Naomi asked, halfway between teasing and serious.
“Plenty of forgiveness. Loads of forgiveness. Some boundaries too.”
Throughout the book, Holden is constantly thinking about Clarissa with unease.
“We’re on it,” Amos agreed.
We. Meaning Clarissa. He was really going to have to get over that. He felt guilty that he hadn’t already, but he didn’t have a clear idea how to let his discomfort with her go. He pushed the issue back down his priority list again, the way he always did. And who knew? Maybe they’d all die in a hail of gunfire before it came up again and he wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Holden is eventually won over and he and Clarissa have a talk of sorts
In Redemption, after a period of unease, Holden finally comes to terms with Clarissa being onboard and accepts her as a member of the crew. In Babylon's Ashes, to my delight he actually has an outright talk to her which is really so much more better and satisfying than anything I could have imagined in fan fiction …
“We should probably have had this talk before,” Holden said.
The Roci’s captain stood at the bedside, looking like he wasn’t sure whether to sit.
…
The James Holden who was king of her personal mythology was sure of himself, and this man was profoundly ill at ease.
“Okay,” she said, not certain what else to say.
Holden crossed his arms. “I … um. Yeah, I didn’t really expect you to come on this ship. I’m not comfortable with it.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
He waved the comment away. “It’s made me skip this part, and I shouldn’t have. That’s on me, okay? I know you and Amos trekked across a big part of North America after the rocks came down, and I know that you handled yourself just fine then. And you have experience on ships.”
Experience as a terrorist and murderer, he didn’t say.
“The thing is,” he went on, “you aren’t trained for this kind of action. Going out on the float with a gun in your hand is different from being on the ground. Or being a technician inside a ship. You’ve got those implants, but using them out there, you’d have wound up crashing out and choking to death on your own vomit, right?”
“Probably,” she said.
“So going out again like that’s not something you should do. Amos took you because … because he wants you to know you belong here.”
“But I don’t,” she said. “That’s what you’re saying.”
“Not everyplace Amos goes, no,” Holden said. He met her gaze for the first time. He looked almost sad. She couldn’t understand why. “But as long as you’re on my ship, you’re crew. And it’s my job to protect you. I screwed that up. You don’t go into battle in a vac suit anymore. At least not until I think you’re trained. That’s an order. Understood?”
“Understood,” she said. And then, trying the word out to see how it felt in her mouth, “Understood, sir.”
He had been her sworn enemy. He had been the symbol of her failure. He’d even become a symbol, somehow, of the life she could have had if she’d made different choices. He was only a man in his early middle age that she barely knew, though they had some friends in common. He tried a smile, and she returned it. It was so little. It was something.
She offers him a bulb of coffee and he takes it despite everything.
Clarissa rose up from the lift, a pale smile on her lips. She’d spent enough time on the float now to be natural with it. She moved from grip to grip along the wall like she’d been born a Belter. When she got to Holden, she held out a bulb from the galley.
“You said you hadn’t been able to sleep,” she said. “I thought you’d want some coffee.”
Holden took it; her smile widened a degree. The bulb was warm against his palm. Probably it wasn’t poisoned. She wasn’t really likely to do that anymore. He steeled himself a little before he took a sip.
Holden finally accepts her as part of the team.
Holden took a long, last drink and stowed the coffee bulb. He wanted it over. He wanted this moment to last forever in case it was the last one he had with Naomi. And Alex and Amos. Bobbie. Hell, even Clarissa. With the Rocinante. You couldn’t be in a place like the Roci for as long as he had been and not be changed by it. Not have it be home.
And then without knowing it, he lets Clarissa know that she's part of the team.
“What about us?” Clarissa asked. Her voice had dread in it. A hollowness. “What do we do now?”
“We join the union,” Jim said. “I mean, we’ll need to vote on it here in the family, but it seems weird to push for a new architecture for the colonies and then not be part of it. And there’ll be a lot of work for a good ship. We have a good ship.”
Clarissa’s gaze flickered up to Naomi, then, with an almost invisible smile, away. Jim hadn’t understood what she’d really been asking. Now that the war’s over, do I still have a place here? And he didn’t know that he’d answered yes. He had a genius for assuming things that let Clarissa trust him. Naomi handed the girl a napkin so she wouldn’t have to dab her eyes with a cuff.
Clarissa is genuinely remorseful for what she's done. That she has nightmares.
I was glad that nothing about Babylon's Ashes blew my fic Prisoner 42-82-4131 out of the water … I liked the insights we got into Clarissa, that she had participated in a poetry course in prison, that she had nightmares - albeit not as violent as the ones I gave her in Redemption. We learn that the poetry made the nightmares worse, made her more introspective …
I have killed, but I am not a killer because a killer is a monster, and monsters aren’t afraid. She’d never spoken the words aloud. Never written them down. They’d become her words of power, a private prayer too sacred to give form. She went back to them when she needed them.
There's a line where it says "Clarissa Mao ate kibble and water. Prison food.", you can't help wondering if this is some sort of penance or punishment. That she doesn't want to take up valuable food - that she doesn’t feel worth enough to eat the better food.
Alex and Amos were in the next room where Naomi was combing through the station logs with an OPA engineer named Costas, arguing about something that involved yogurt and black beans. Only Clarissa hadn’t come on [Medina] station, and Holden hadn’t asked why. His memories of the Behemoth were bad enough. He couldn’t imagine hers.
Clarissa almost dies helping the crew - but is saved by a member of the crew
In my fic Infinite, I have Clarissa spinning off into space after a mishap during repairs and she's saved by Amos, Bobbie and Alex. In Babylon's Ashes, she goes with Amos to try to defend against people who are trying to cut their way into the Roci. While outside the Roci, she's injured and almost dies - but is saved by Holden.
This was it. This was how she died. The idea was weirdly consoling. She’d end here, under billions of stars. In the unending, unshielded light of the sun, fighting for her friends. It felt bright, like a hero’s death. Not the cold fading away on a hard, gray cot in the prison infirmary she’d expected. How strange that this should feel like victory. Time seemed to slow, and she wondered if maybe she’d triggered her implants by mistake. That would be silly. Amping up her nervous system would do her exactly no good when all her speed came from the thruster’s nozzle. But no. It was only fear and the certainty that she was rushing to her death.
Naomi and Alex were shouting in her ears. Amos too. She couldn’t make sense of any of it. It occurred to her like a conclusion she was watching someone else make that Amos might feel bad when she was gone. She should have told him how grateful she was for every day he’d given her outside the hole.
…
The mech flickered, drawing closer. When she started braking, it seemed to surge toward her, an illusion of relative velocity, but with enough truth to end her.
And then, inexplicably, the mech driver slumped against his harness. The mech arms waved, suddenly uncontrolled. One reached down, gouging the hull and sending the great yellow machine spinning away from the Rocinante and toward the stars. She watched, uncomprehending, until a hand grabbed her uninjured shoulder and an arm looped across her back. In the bright sunlight, the other suit’s helmet was opaque. She didn’t understand what had happened until she heard the voice over her radio.
“It’s all right,” Holden said. “I’ve got you.”
Clarissa is shown as human despite what she has done - that she cares about the others and has become a member of the team
When Holden is reunited with his family, Clarissa is shown as being the most moved.
The book mentions her being one of the two mechanics onboard, running updates, doing the post-fight spit and polish with Amos. She installs new seals and checks them when the polymerization’s done. There's no doubt that she's pulling her weight and earning her place on the crew.
Naomi pressed her hand to her lips, like she was trying to hold words or emotions in. Alex was grinning as widely as any of Holden’s family, his eyes shining. Avasarala and Bobbie seemed pleased, like people who’d pulled off a good surprise party. Weirdly, Clarissa Mao, standing alone with a pressure cast on her wounded arm, was shaking with barely controlled sobs. Amos looked at all of them like he’d walked in on the last line of a joke, then shrugged and let them get on with whatever the hell this was. Holden felt a rush of affection for the man.
Twice, it's mentioned that Naomi and Clarissa like singing and in this instance, Bobbie is looking out for Clarissa:
By the end of the night, even Clarissa had a turn on stage. It turned out she had a good singing voice, and after she got down, a local boy with Loca Griega tattoos tried to hit on her until Bobbie gently made it clear nothing was going to happen.
When Clarissa is tending to Fred's body with Amos, she shows genuine compassion.
Clarissa nodded to Holden as they passed out of the medical bay. Her skin was bruised at the back of her neck and all along the arms where the blood had pooled during the burn. “We’ll take care of him,” she said.
“He was important,” Holden replied, and wasn’t ashamed at the catch in his voice.
Something like sorrow or amusement flickered in Clarissa’s eyes. “I’ve spent a lot of time with the dead. He’ll be okay now. You go take care of the ones that lived through it.”
Amos smiled amiably and carried the bag out. “You need to get drunk or in a fistfight later, just let me know.”
“Yeah,” Holden said. “All right.”
When Holden tells Amos he'd rather have him stay onboard, Amos tells him: "That’s sweet, but you don’t need me, Cap …Peaches here knows the ship as well as I do. Anything you need done, she can do it." He's deliberately trying to make Holden and Clarissa spend time together to get to know one another - to realise that they can trust one another. When the Roci's damaged, it's Clarissa who says she'll swap out some sensor arrays and plug a couple holes on the outer hull.
When Naomi says she's not going to be able to sleep but is intending to stay up watching newsfeeds and Alex and Holden say they'll join her, Clarissa says she will, too.
“Me too,” Clarissa said, and then didn’t add if I’m invited. Against the backdrop of the war, it was such a small thing, and Naomi was still glad to see it.
Towards the end of the book, Clarissa's also (cautiously) participating in the crew's decision-making.
Alex answered over the ship comm. “I’d vote for shooting them.” And a moment later, Clarissa, “Seconded.”
And also venturing her opinion on Holden's actions and words.
“Seriously?” Alex called from above. “‘Sounds good, we’ll be right over’?”
“I may kind of suck at this job,” Holden called back.
The voice over the ship’s comm was Clarissa’s: “I thought it was sweet.”
Clarissa shows that she genuinely cares about Naomi.
Clarissa pushed over to Naomi’s couch, her sharp face bent by a frown. Naomi looked up at her and wiped her eyes. A droplet of a tear floated in the air, drifted toward the recycler intake.
“I’ll be all right,” Naomi said. “It’s just that my son’s on one of those ships.”
Clarissa’s eyes sheened over too and she put a hand on Naomi’s arm. “I know,” Clarissa said. “If you need me, you can find me.”
“It’s okay, Peaches,” Amos said. “Me and the captain had a talk about it. We’re good.” He gave Holden a cheerful thumbs-up.
…
“Well,” Amos said. “Me and Peaches better go strap in. You know. In case.”
Clarissa touched Naomi’s shoulder one last time, then turned and launched herself, following Amos down the lift toward engineering.
And then at the end, she's just a member of the team ... just like everyone else ...
Eventually, without the flow of conversation abating, Alex made enough chicken with peanut sauce for everyone and passed bowls out while Clarissa told a surprisingly funny story about being in a prison writing workshop. Naomi ate the chicken with a fork, leaning against Jim as she did.
Clarissa is drinking tea while the others drink alcohol
OK this is such a tiny thing, but in chapter 2 of Redemption, I had Clarissa drink matcha tea while the crew drank vodka. And the book had this bit:
Back on board, the group moved together to the galley, not ready yet for the day to be over. Clarissa made herself some tea, but there wasn’t any more alcohol. Just the six of them, lounging in a galley designed to serve many more.
So yes - colour me delighted. This book has so many good bits about it, but most of all - the canon confirmation about my Clarissa Mao head canon and my Clarissa Mao-Amos Burton head canon is such a wonderful surprise.