Chapter Ten
brICE ONLY REALIZED HE WAS standing at the window, looking down on what was left of the arena, and the crews still working on cleaning up the area, when Cathi tapped on the door and dared to lean in.
He had been zoning out a lot, lately. Most of the time, he would come back to reality and realize he was smiling, his thoughts far away from tankball.
He smiled at Cathi now and raised his brow.
“Um…boss…Zana Magro is here to speak to you.”
The chair of the board? Here? That was the equivalent of the Endurance running backward. He was always summoned to her apartment high on the Aventine, with a jaw-dropping view of the ship all the way down to the Field of Mars.
“You’d better let her in,” he told Cathi. He moved back to the desk and picked up the cane. He wanted to be able to walk relatively straight. He moved over to the door and got there as Cathi opened it again and stepped back.
Zana Magro was a tall woman, with short black hair cut blunt and straight, and an overly large mouth that she painted a bright red no matter what she was wearing. It was supposed to look dramatic, he’d guessed. The combination was too harsh for a woman who had little prettiness to begin with.
She made up for that with iron hard expectations, and an unforgiving nature. Brice respected her, but he would never like her.
“Zana,” he acknowledged politely, as she strode through the door. Behind her came none other than the vice chair, Tayget Penn. He looked short beside Zana, although he was of average height. He also looked nervous.
Bronson stepped into the room with them, and raised his brow silently at Brice. He didn’t know what this was about, either.
A third person came in. Brice took a moment to remember who it was. The most recent appointee to the board, Lakewood. The baby expert.
“Please, have a seat,” Brice told them. “Coffee, anyone?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” Zana said firmly.
The others declined quickly, too.
They all settled themselves in the armchairs over by the window. The grouping was supposed to be informal and relaxed, only the way Zana Magro sat, with her feet together and her hands on each arm, Brice knew that the next few minutes would be anything but casual.
Forewarned, he pushed Bronson toward the last chair, and settled his rear on the window sill behind it. That gave Brice height that he might need.
He skipped all the pleasantries he would have started any other meeting with. “This visit is both unscheduled and unexpected, Madam Chairman. Perhaps you should just cut to the point?”
Zana Magro didn’t seem to react. She didn’t nod, or clear her throat. She just spoke, her tone flat, her voice rasping. “It has been nearly five months since the tragedy.”
He winced. “Yes.” He was well aware of this fact. The date would forever be emblazoned on his mind.
“The public demand for a scapegoat, to pay for the arena mess, has not subsided in all that time.”
“Do you blame them?” Brice said cautiously. Why did he feel as though she was laying traps?
“Not at all,” Zana replied. “I feel the same way. Especially today.”
What? “Why today?” he asked, keeping his tone polite.
The other two board members, Lakewood and Penn, shifted uncomfortably on their chairs.
Brice could tell from the angle of Bronson’s head that he watched them shifting, too. Now Brice wished Bronson was sitting in the chair Penn was using so Brice could see his face.
Too late, now.
He looked at Zana with an enquiring air.
“Late last night, the Bridge issued an interim report on their investigation into the tragedy,” Zana said.
“That’s strange,” Bronson said. “I didn’t receive it. And the Bridge assured me I would be the first to get their report when they issued it. They have repeated that every time I have enquired about when we might receive it.”
As that was what Brice had been about to say, he just nodded. Bronson was on top of things, as usual. Except that he’d been left off the distribution list this time around.
“The copy was delivered by hand to me last night just after dinner,” Zana said.
A hard copy? Brice thought he could understand why Zana was here with backups, now. Whatever was in the report had to be incendiary for the Bridge to send a printed copy to the chair of the Association, and no one else.
“Reading it gave me indigestion,” Zana added, her big mouth twisting into a grimace of distaste. She paused, although she didn’t have to. Everyone was watching her anyway. “They’ve established who is responsible for the tragedy.”
Brice felt as though someone had slapped him. Zana had set it up to deliver shock. He’d seen her at board meetings leading people to a place where she could dump something on them and sit back and watch them react. She had done it now.
He would have felt this way even if she hadn’t gone for high impact. “Someone deliberately did this?” Horror curled through him. “Why? What possible reason could justify killing fifty-three people. Including children, damn it?”
Penn cleared his throat. “It is a horrific act. Does it matter why?”
“Of course it matters,” Brice shot back. “If life on this ship could produce someone who thinks murder is a good idea, it could produce more people like that. The reasons why have to be pulled apart, analyzed and above all, they have to be changed.”
“The reasons why and their ramifications are the purview of the bridge,” Zana said. “And we should be thankful for that.”
“Why?” Bronson asked, puzzled. It wasn’t often that Bronson couldn’t keep up with a conversation.
“Because the rest of the ship will want to know why, too,” Brice said. “They’ll react just as I did. They will demand answers. And I don’t think the Bridge has those answers.” He looked at Zana. “Do they?”
She pressed her lips together. “The report did not supply any explanations for the act, no.” She lifted a big, square hand.
“And as I said, for right now, the reasons why don’t matter.
The report did make it clear that their findings had been verified by three independent Institution experts, who were brought into the Bridge under a secrecy order. ”
The Bridge had clearly been thorough and careful. That was probably why it had taken so long for them to produce even an interim report, despite mutterings on the Forum, wondering why it was taking them so long.
A deliberate act of cold-blooded murder. No wonder the Bridge had gone out of their way to verify their findings and establish that the facts were beyond doubt. He would have done the same.
“The Bridge will be laying charges, then,” Brice said. “That’s why they sent a hard copy to you. To warn us.”
“No, the Bridge won’t be pressing charges,” Zana said. “You will.”
Brice’s middle jumped. “Me?”
“As the President of the Tankball Association, you will file civilian charges, and the Bridge will prosecute per our charges. I spoke to Captain Travers last night and secured her agreement.”
Even Lakewood looked nervous now.
Bronson got to his feet. “Why would you do that? The Association should remain neutral. We’re already in enough trouble with public perception because we’re jumping into building a new arena too quickly to suit everyone!”
“It is a criminal act,” Brice added, keeping his tone mild. “Only the bridge can prosecute criminal charges.”
“Prosecute, yes. Anyone can file criminal claims against anyone else,” Zana said with implacable calm.
“And it must be the Association who does the filing this time.
The public enthusiasm for tankball has dropped down to next to zero, overnight.
Even if we still had an arena and the season was ongoing, no one would attend the games and that is a public relations disaster.
“If we file the charges, then it will look as though we’re on the ship’s side, that we’re fighting for what everyone on the ship wants. Justice, not just next year’s ticket revenue.”
You only care about the revenue. The thought popped into Brice’s mind, and he gritted his teeth against saying it aloud.
“If we don’t appear to be fighting for justice, if we sit back and let the Bridge do all the work, tankball will never recover,” Zana added.
“The future of the Association and tankball itself hinges upon us being seen hounding the Bridge into action. And you, as the most popular Association President we’ve ever had, must do this, Brice. ”
Caution flooded him—a bigger dose than the wariness that he’d felt with Zana’s unexpected arrival.
Every instinct he had was yelling at him.
They had stepped into personal territory now.
He cleared his throat and kept his tone mild.
“You’ve had the report for hours, Zana. I’m still processing that someone did it deliberately.
I’m still asking why. Whoever it was, they’d have to know coding, engineering, physics…
If they’d wanted to murder people, they could have knifed them in the Field of Mars and got their jollies that way.
Why this elaborate scheme? Was it directed at tankball fans?
This association? The why is even more important now. ”
Zana dismissed his questions with a wave of her hand. “I want your word, Brice, that you will follow through on this, with all your energy and time.”
He stared at her, surprised by her vehemence.
“You understand why I am insisting upon this?” she added.
Bronson, who was still on his feet and shifting about in the space between the chairs and Brice’s desk, was trying to catch his attention by staring hard.
Brice couldn’t interpret that stare. And it didn’t matter, anyway.
He could guess what Bronson wouldn’t say aloud.
Just say yes and tug your forelock. We’ll deal with it later.