Teresa Angelica Maria Blanquita Li y Duarte[1] is the daughter of Winston Duarte, the High Consul and supreme executive officer of the Laconian Empire.
History[]
Before the Laconia-Sol Conflict[]
Raised in the State Building in Laconia Capital City, Teresa is the only child of Winston Duarte. Her mother died when she was young, compounding her sense of loneliness and isolation. At a young age, she was given a Labrador dog, which she named Muskrat.
The Emperor's Heiress[]
Four years after the cessation of the Laconia-Sol Conflict, Teresa is living as normal a life as the teenaged daughter of an immortal emperor can, constantly tended to by her personal tutor, Colonel Jason Ilich. She is keenly aware of her loneliness but realizes that she has little clue of what a "normal" life is like, and so feels ambivalent about the course of her life thus far. Like almost everyone else, she is swept up in the wake of the ambitions of her father, and the strange melancholy of her life is only made more confusing for her when her father asks her to learn the reins of government by watching him, "just in case."
At the behest of her father, Teresa attends a meeting with Carrie Fisk, the figurehead President of the Association of Worlds, where she notes how anxious the woman is. She shows a certain political acumen, noting that Carrie had an almost reflexive reaction when asked about corruption on Auberon. Despite her talent, she is fairly unnerved that her father is preparing her as a backup High Consul, though she does her best not to outwardly show this hesitancy. A bit overwhelmed by the prospect and looking forward to seeing her classroom crush Connor, she requests not to attend further meetings that day, which her father obliges.
But even in the more "normal" setting of a classroom, the trials of authority do not allow her rest. When Muriel Cowper informs Teresa that Connor kissed her, Teresa dismisses the incident. Though she is reduced to tears over it, she finds that she isn't so much devastated at the unrequited infatuation as she is about the danger Muriel and Connor were exposed to when left unattended. Confused and overwhelmed, she leaves the State Building after class for a walk where she encounters James Holden, whom she knows only as an honored prisoner who once performed acts of terrorism against the Laconian Empire. After making friends with Muskrat and chatting with Teresa about the particulars of her home planet, Holden cryptically informs her, "You should keep an eye on me."
Acts of Teenage Rebellion[]
A few days after meeting Holden, she sneaks out of the State Building to see her secret friend Timothy, desperate to vent some of the pressures she faces and discuss things she's interested in with someone who isn't required to show deference to her. Timothy acts as an odd friend and father-figure to her, and he puts her at ease just by showing genuine empathy.
They speak about her interaction with Holden. Timothy makes the uncomfortable comparison between Holden and her father, noting that the latter killed far more people than the former. Teresa defends her father's actions as the necessary evils of war, but Timothy is not impressed. Teresa takes particular interest in why Timothy calls him "the captain." They then both reflect upon their difficult childhoods, with Timothy remarking that Teresa's was the far more dysfunctional. Teresa takes mild offense, noting the advantages she was born with, but Timothy seems to see through this deflection, as well.
Later that evening, she goes through security camera footage that tracked the actions of Holden, discovering that he spent a surprising amount of time with Paolo Cortázar, Laconia's chief medical researcher. Cortazar, slightly inebriated, brags about the Protomolecule modifications made to High Consul Duarte, and waxes philosophic about evolution and human nature. Through the security footage, she discovers the plan for her to receive the same immortality-granting Protomolecule modifications her father was given. She is left chilled when Cortazar speaks of it with jealousy disguised as professional disgust. When Cortazar finishes his rant by saying "Nature eats babies all the time," Holden looks up at the camera he knew was watching him.
She resumes her efforts to reflect her father's magnanimity well when she meets a six-year-old Elsa Singh. Knowing that the girl is in a vulnerable position after the execution of her father, Teresa attempts to play a "game" of Prisoner's Dilemma with Elsa, but is left shocked when Elsa lashes out after losing a round, prompting Elsa's mother to retrieve and console the young girl. Having been raised to react logically instead of emotionally, Teresa does not understand why Elsa isn't taught the lesson of the game, as Teresa herself had been. The interaction weighs upon her when she is retrieved by Ilich and brought to her father, who discusses the disastrous results of the tit-for-tat test at the Tecoma gate and asks her what she thinks should be done next. She disagrees with her father that the antimatter bomb "experiments" against the Ring Entities should continue, but he wants her to continue coming to the meetings nonetheless, so that she can rule in the same way he does when she is made immortal.
At another secret meeting with Timothy, Teresa recounts the Elsa Singh incident. She is surprised when, after expressing that she'd never seen anger like Elsa's, Timothy responds with, "Seriously? You're one of the angriest people I know, Tiny." He discusses her anger, asking her if she's scared or frustrated, which she cannot answer. He makes a comment about being worried about "assassins with pocket nukes," at which point she begins to talk about Cortazar and Holden's recorded conversation. Before she can finish, the Ring Entities attack. When Timothy and Teresa return to awareness, Teresa is sent away, with Timothy noting that people will be looking for her, exhibiting a forcefulness she had never seen from him before. She begins to make her way back to the State Building, but she is found midway through the trip by Colonel Ilich, who coldly demands she get into the flyer sent to find her. When she asks how he found her, Ilich informs her that she was implanted with a location tracker at birth. Her father indulged the acts of "rebellion and autonomy," as he himself had sneaked out several times in his youth on Mars.
Breakdown of Authority[]
Teresa discovers that she was retrieved because, concurrent with the Slow Zone catastrophe, her father had been incapacitated: left alive and ambulatory, but with seemingly no ability to respond to any outside stimuli. She is sworn to secrecy about his father's condition, and Ilich demands she return to her normal activities. In the stress of the situation, Ilich's interactions with Teresa become condescending and authoritarian.
She becomes more despondent as the days tick by with no change to the High Consul's condition. Ilich's gentle guidance has almost completely disappeared, as he spends almost all of his time away from her, and when he is present, he speaks down to her. She now recognizes the anger Timothy had seen in her, and all of Laconia's responses only infuriate her further. On the edge of collapse once again, she escapes to see Timothy at night, partly to spite Ilich, who she knew would detect her rebellion. When Timothy emerges from his cage with a gun, she breaks down into laughter, then sobs uncontrollably. Timothy listens once again, and she accepts his awkward attempts at reassuring her, desperate for any kind of relief.
The catharsis is short-lived. Muskrat and Timothy detect someone approaching, and when Teresa finally informs Timothy that she is being tracked, he sighs, knowing that he is about to have a last stand with Ilich and the Laconian soldiers. He tells her to lie down and cover her ears. She pleads with Ilich not to attack, but Timothy roars and opens fire. She is horrified as she watches Timothy attack the squad of soldiers with his bare hands, only to be killed when he is shot in the head and chest. When they return to the State Building, Admiral Trejo, who has been governing in her father's stead, demands to know everything she told Timothy, informing her that his name is actually Amos Burton, and lashes out at her for the damage she has done by revealing the inner workings of the empire to a known high-ranking member of the Underground.
The Scorned Princess[]
Trejo and his staff question her relentlessly, pushing her past the point of breakdown without stopping the interrogation. A few days after Amos's death, she is sent to question James Holden, who is now being held in a prison cell after being beaten severely. He has no further information to give his captors about what Amos was doing on Laconia, and out of sympathy for Teresa, she asks that the relatively gentle interrogation be cut short. Before he leaves, he affirms to her that Amos wouldn't have faked being her friend, but she isn't sure that she believes it.
Beginning to suffer PTSD, she gradually sleeps less and becomes unable to eat, but the panicking Laconian military commanders pay little attention to her, only concerned with making sure she still mimes normality for the people of the empire, who are looking to the absent High Consul and his staff for assurance in the present crisis. After she is made to understand that she is little more than a tool to maintain a lie, she is forced back into her peer class, until she is retrieved by Cortazar for reasons unknown to her. Elvi Okoye stops whatever is about to happen, and Teresa begins to understand that something sinister is brewing around her.
At a peer class taught by Elvi, Teresa is nervously questioned by Connor about the present crisis. She lies, telling him that everything is under control, remarking to herself that she hadn't done it to comfort him, but because it was easier than telling the truth. Teresa faints as the two dissect frogs, and she is rushed to her pediatrician by Elvi. The doctor is concerned, clearly suspecting that Teresa is starving herself, but neither Elvi nor Teresa heeds the doctor, as Elvi knows the secret eating away at them both. Teresa's world is shaken even further when Elvi informs her that Cortazar intends to kill and vivisect her.
As more time passes without any improvement to the High Consul's condition, Teresa grows even more despondent. Despite his lack of mental presence, she sits with him as he makes incoherent noises, tearfully telling her father about Cortazar's plans and begging him to come back, to no avail. Despite his responsibility for her well-being, Ilich somehow grows even less nurturing. He berates her harshly for her inability to pretend everything is normal, then threatens that if she does not eat on her own, she will be force fed. When she fires back with her own anger over his killing of Amos, Ilich tries to break her down even further by showing her Timothy's possessions, particularly the attack plans and tactical nuke, in order to drive home that Amos was a spy and a saboteur. It does not have the intended effect; Teresa instead wonders why Amos didn't follow through with the attack. She recalls Holden's words, "If he said he was your friend, then he was your friend." Ilich is none the wiser for his failure of influence, but he humiliates her by babysitting her while she is forced to eat a meal that is far too large.
Cooperation of Prisoners[]
Out of her view, Winston Duarte emerges momentarily from his internal world to deal with the threat to Teresa's life, killing Cortazar with an inexplicably powerful wave of the hand.
After the final humiliation from Ilich, she views his lesson on the Prisoner's Dilemma in a different light, realizing that in her version of the game, Ilich, Trejo and the machinery of the empire were forcing her to cooperate, when the only thing that made sense was to defect. Laconia was no longer her home, she decides.
As the Siege of Laconia raged through their home system, Teresa's quinceñera goes ahead as planned. She gives a speech to the numerous guests, taking pleasure in lying to them all about the state of events. After the placation, she converses with a nerve-wracked Elvi, not so subtly asking about the status of the Falcon after the Ring Entity attack, and suggesting that repairs on the stricken ship be expedited. Focused as she is on finding an escape route, she fails to notice how frightened Elvi and Fayez are at the line of inquiry.
When one of the Underground's Donnager-class ships begins to fail in an isolated place and its escorts move in to assist, Ilich cannot resist bragging to Teresa when the Voice of the Whirlwind moves in for the kill. When the situation is revealed to be a ruse to allow the Rocinante and a small battle group to approach Laconia, Teresa recognizes it as her chance to make good her escape. After incapacitating the two soldiers guarding James Holden, she springs him from his cell and calls for the Rocinante to evacuate them both, intending to exchange the ship's once and future captain for safe passage.
When they have nearly reached the evac point, they are intercepted by Elvi, Fayez and Muskrat. She clarifies to them that Holden has not kidnapped her as they believed, while Holden is forced to admit to Teresa that he fanned the flames of Cortazar's jealousy, so that the sociopathic doctor would plot to kill her. Holden hoped this would spur the High Consul to dismiss Cortazar and give Elvi the head researcher's job. Teresa dismisses this all as irrelevant and continues on to the rendezvous point with Muskrat and Holden as the two scientists return to assume command of Laconia's science division.
Before the Rocinante can arrive, the three escapees are caught by Ilich and a squad of guards. When Teresa refuses the Colonel's demand to return with him, he threatens to kill Muskrat. She almost complies, but before she can say anything, a resurrected Timothy arrives to resolve the situation. Shooting some of the guards and killing the others with his bare hands before gravely wounding Ilich. He leaves Ilich's fate in Teresa's hands, and when she disowns the Colonel, Timothy kills him with two shots to the head.
When the Rocinante lands, Teresa hurriedly boards the ship with Amos, Holden and Muskrat, and they appear to have escaped, but are caught by the Whirlwind as they attempt to escape the planet's orbit. They are hailed by the captain of the giant ship, Admiral Gujarat, and ordered to surrender, but just when it appears that the Magnetar-class ship will obliterate them all, Teresa steps in. She boldly lies to Gujarat, claiming to be on a secret mission at the behest of her father and ordering the admiral to return to her post. When Gujarat expresses doubt, Teresa blithely dares the Whirlwind's commanding officer to shoot the Roci down before dismissing the hail. Teresa calmly informs the stunned Roci crew that they can leave orbit, and she settles in for the long ride into hiding.
Mechanic's Apprentice[]
For almost a year following her flight from Laconia, Teresa is trained in the maintenance of the Rocinante by Amos. Naomi, Jim and Alex give her something of a wide berth, impressed by her ability to grow up so quickly, but finding it difficult to relate to her unique upbringing, and troubled by the consequences of having someone so important to the enemy on their crew. For her part, though she at first is anxious to get off the old gunship, she quietly settles into her role over the year following the Siege of Laconia but doesn't bond with anyone except Amos on more than a functional level.
Part of her hesitancy to become crew with her nominal enemies is due to knowing her value as a "hostage." She holds no ill will over the fact, even going so far as to reassure Jim - as he suffers a panic attack while hiding from a Laconian frigate - that she wouldn't let the Laconians hurt him. She is slightly offended when Jim snaps back that he doesn't want to rely on her to save him twice, but she relents when Amos clarifies that Jim's conscience won't let him use Teresa as a human shield.
Shortly after escaping the Kronos system under the frigate's nose, Amos suffers a seizure, which greatly disturbs her. Though Amos recovers quickly, Teresa, like everyone else on the ship, is left shaken by the experience, and frustrated by the little information they're able to glean regarding the emergency.
Unbeknownst to her, an application had been put in on her behalf to a boarding school on New Egypt. Run by one of her mother's cousins, it seems to be a good place to hide from the empire, but Teresa isn't sure she wants to leave the Roci. She understands that going to ground would be safer than remaining on the Roci, but she expresses to Jim that she has come to like her place on the old ship. Mildly hurt at being pawned off, Teresa makes a modest effort to remain. When Jim makes her aware that the decision to leave or stay will be final, she is left unsettled, but agrees to head down to the planet to meet her cousin and see the school, knowing she'll likely be pressured to leave.
She finally confides with Amos about her anger that it feels like Holden is trying to get rid of her. She is shaken when Amos tells her he doesn't want her to stay, as the Roci is a warship, and it is almost inevitable that she will die in battle - either against the Ring Entities or Laconia - if she stays on the ship.
Unbeknownst to any of the Roci crew, they have been outmaneuvered by an agent of the empire. Colonel Aliana Tanaka, tasked by Trejo to recover the vanished High Consul by any means necessary, plans to use Teresa to lure him out of hiding. When the Laconian agent meets them at the front door of the boarding school, Teresa begins to confront her, but Amos holds her back, sensing the danger. She continues to assert that Tanaka should leave, but she is sobered by the revelation that they have been bracketed by a team of Laconians in powered armor. She contemplates going with Tanaka before things get out of hand, especially when Tanaka threatens to kill the rest of the Roci crew. Attempting one more time to assert control, Teresa berates Tanaka for talking about her like she isn't there, but finally relents. Holden tells her she doesn't have to go, and she's left with a better impression of the captain than before when she sees he was willing to die to protect her.
Escaping the Hunter[]
When Tanaka finally loses patience and begins to count to three, Amos draws down on her and a firefight erupts. Amos covers Teresa as they withdraw to the Rocinante, which had just arrived to retrieve them and began to hover nearby. Just when it appears that the armored troopers will easily take them all prisoner, the Roci's PDCs open fire, obliterating everyone but Tanaka. She manages to board the ship unscathed, but when Amos is apparently killed, she has to spur Holden to hurry onto the ship. Teresa puts on her bravest face, stowing Muskrat for the flight but wearing her shock on her face.
After a brief orbital skirmish with the Sparrowhawk - a fast scout ship coopted by Tanaka for her mission - the Rocinante moves towards the New Egypt ring gate, leaving the small Laconian ship apparently incapacitated. On the day of her 16th birthday, her father visits her in an ethereal form, wishing her a happy birthday and telling her that everything will be OK. When she insists that it won't, her father cryptically informs her that he "can see better now," and promising "you'll see better, too." Immediately after, she finds that the rest of the crew has set up a small celebration, complete with a cake made of flavored fungal protein and a lively song. She reflects on her previous birthday, remarking to herself how much simpler, cheaper, but more authentic this celebration was. She listens quietly as Jim, Naomi and Alex discuss the different birthday traditions celebrated across Earth, Mars and the Belt. She is charmed by the discussion, but alienated by the large gap in age between her and everyone else on the ship.
As they pass through the Freehold gate, she worries when she sees the healed patch on Amos's chest where he was shot. Together, they reflect on the changes both to himself and to her father. She begins to express discomfort about what her father has become, but she is unable to have the full discussion, as the crew is alerted that another Laconian destroyer, the Rising Derecho, waits in orbit above the planet.
When they arrive, the destroyer's captain, Botton, is threatening to destroy the planetside settlement, which would kill more than a hundred thousand people, if the Gathering Storm isn't surrendered. The Rocinante sneaks to Draper Station and is resupplied there, but as they lay low, the Sparrowhawk arrives in hot pursuit. The ship broadcasts an offer for Naomi throughout the system: if the Underground joins forces with Laconia, Naomi will be given command of Laconian ships to police the ring space, hostilities will cease, and the ships in the Freehold system will withdraw. Teresa is again ready to turn herself over, not willing to sacrifice thousands of lives for her freedom. Naomi refuses the offer, deducing the ruse to make her responsible for further Laconian atrocities, but Teresa and the rest of the crew are held on the station when Jillian Payne accepts the offer anyhow. When Tanaka arrives, she proves Naomi right to distrust the offer when she begins to slaughter everyone on the station as she looks for Teresa. Jillian sacrifices her life to give Teresa and the Rocinante crew cover to escape the system.
There is little respite for any of the crew after rabbiting away from the battle, as Teresa once again witnesses one of Amos's seizures. He again recovers, informing the crew that they need to go see Elvi in the Adro system. She brings Amos soft food and a drink before heading off to finish the job the two had been working on, prompting Holden to marvel at her competence under pressure.
On their way to the Adro system, Teresa witnesses the gates light up after her father saves a ship, which was in the midst of going dutchman. After docking with the Falcon, she stays on the Rocinante with Alex as Jim, Amos and Naomi head over to Elvi's ship. She and Muskrat provide welcome levity for Cara and Xan, who have not had contact - much less entertainment - with other children in decades. As they play, Alex notes that she is laughing, and remarks to himself how rare the occurence is.
She flees Freehold with the Rocinante crew narrowly finding cover in Adro system where they rendezvous with Elvi Okoye about the Laconian Science Directorate ship Falcon
Goes into the ring station with Holden and Tanaka looking for her father.
Flees the ring space aboard the Falcon heading for Earth with Muskrat, Amos, Naomi, Elvi, Fayez, Cara, and Xan
Trivia[]
Teresa is a viewpoint character in the novel Tiamat's Wrath (11 chapters) and Leviathan Falls.[2]
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ The Expanse Novel: Tiamat's Wrath, chapter 4 - Teresa
- ↑ Tiamat's Wrath (Novel): Chapters 4 / 9 / 14 / 20 / 22 / 27 / 31 / 36 / 40 / 45 / 48