they couldn't hear Miller, they could hear Holden talking to him though.
the little reference to monkeys and microwaves is a nod to my favourite passage from the books(not a spoiler).
“Holden was starting to feel like they were all monkeys playing with a microwave. Push a button, a light comes on inside, so it’s a light. Push a different button and stick your hand inside, it burns you, so it’s a weapon. Learn to open and close the door, it’s a place to hide things. Never grasping what it actually did, and maybe not even having the framework necessary to figure it out. No monkey ever reheated a frozen burrito. So here the monkeys were, poking the shiny box and making guesses about what it did.”
Peadar O'Ruadhán
2020-03-09 03:57:35 +0000 UTC
The Expanse story is actually 9 novels - 8 have already been released; the 9th and final one will be out later this year. In addition, there are a few novellas and short stories that provide some additional background.