Chapter Seventeen
brICE HAD NEVER BEEN IN the security section of the Bridge before.
He couldn’t say that he liked it much, even though it had the same décor as the Bridge, with the white walls and gleaming floors.
He didn’t know if it was his imagination, yet it seemed to him that a scent hung in the air. Was it the aroma of desperation?
He circled the narrow table one more time. The tiny hexagonal room had to be stuffed full of monitoring devices. Audio, visual, bio…they wouldn’t leave anyone alone in here without them.
Not that he had any real idea of how this place ran from day to day.
And he didn’t give a damn right now. He stopped to pinch the skin over his nose as his head gave out a heavy thump.
The headache had lodged behind his eyes about three days ago and refused to quit despite analgesics and sleep aids.
Not that he had slept, either. His pillow didn’t induce sleep.
It tipped his mind into an endless worn track that had no exit.
Plus, he wasn’t walking enough. His leg was starting to lock up, the way it had been when he’d first stepped out of the hospital after the accident.
How had it come to this? Yet even that, he couldn’t answer.
The door on the other side of the little room opened and Devar Todd stepped through.
Bryce stopped on the other side of the table and examined the man.
And I thought I had it tough, his mind whispered. He had seen Todd at the soiree in the spring. Little resemblance was left of that happy man in this shell of a human standing across from him.
Brice had been braced to explain to Todd that talking to him was a waste of time. Yet now he found himself saying, “Is there anything you need? Anything I can have brought to you?”
“Surprisingly, I’m treated well,” Todd said. “No water boarding.”
“What is water boarding?”
“Something I picked up from history books. Jail is a strange species on the Endurance. I have a food printer to myself, access to all the databases, except the Forum, and a full bathroom. It’s civilized.”
“Only the door is still locked from the other side,” Brice pointed out.
“Well, there is that,” Todd admitted.
“You asked me to come and speak to you. I don’t know if there is anything we can talk about. My position as president of the Tankball Association has rigid limitations.”
“I asked you to speak to me about the one thing you and I have in common,” Todd said. “My mother.”
Brice’s gut twisted. “We don’t have her in common anymore.”
Todd’s eyes narrowed. “It may look that way, only you flinched, just then.” He put his hands in his pockets. “I was going to tell you that you can think what you like about me, but if you think hurting her is part of winning, you’re worse than what they say. Only, you just flinched.”
“I have a headache, that’s all,” Brice said carefully.
“You have to shield her from what’s coming.”
Brice drew in a breath, riding out his reaction. Devar Todd didn’t need his pity.
The man leaned on the table, his stare intense.
Urgent. “She underestimates herself when it comes to anything but what’s in her heart.
She won’t reach out to anyone for help. She thinks she doesn’t deserve it, that getting help makes her weak.
And she can’t…” Devar swallowed. “I don’t want her to be alone, when the end comes. ”
Brice held up his hand. “She doesn’t want me near her. With reason.”
“Because you signed the charges?” Todd shot back. “How deeply was Zana Magro’s knife buried in you when you signed it?”
Brice found he was sitting in the spindly chair, with no clear memory of having sat down. “Deep,” he said.
Devar nodded. “My mother might spit at you because of that. Yet if she truly hated you, she wouldn’t bother spitting at all.” He moved over to the wall and pulled the other chair over to the table and sat in it. He laced his hands together in front of him. “She’ll need you.”
Brice let out a gusty sigh. The headache retreated. A little. “I’ll tell you what I told her. I have a feeling that you might believe me. I’m watching for a way out of this.”
Devar considered him. “You are walking a thin line, aren’t you? If Magro finds out you’re making a break for it, she will…well, let’s say I think she is responsible for more dead bodies than I’m supposed to have produced.”
“Murder isn’t her style.”
“Metaphorical murder. If you have no money, no assets, no friends and no life, you might as well be dead.”
The entire ship will hate your guts by the time I’m through with you. You won’t find work anywhere on the ship. You and everyone in your life will be shunned. I will make sure of it. Brice shivered. He could hear her voice as clearly in his mind as when she had spoken the words.
He met Devar’s gaze. “I’ll be careful.”
“Good,” Devar said and sat back, apparently satisfied.
“Well…” Brice reached for his cane.
“Where are you going?” Devar said sharply. “I get thirty minutes. I haven’t spoken to anyone in ten days. Sit down.”
Brice sat. “I’m not a good conversationalist.”
“Haven’t you heard? I suck at social skills, too. Tell me anything. Everything. Tell me about your time as a Void Hound.”
“I didn’t think you liked tankball.”
“I like competency, in all its forms. And by all accounts, you were very, very good. So tell me.”
Baffled, Brice raked his fingers through his hair. Then he settled the cane against his knee once more and began to talk.
·
When he emerged from the gates into the Aventine, forty minutes later, Bryce felt as though a small ice age had passed by. This wasn’t the same ship, anymore.
He didn’t think he had ever believed that Devar Todd was guilty. Now he knew in his bones that Devar had not killed fifty-three people for the sake of profits via a rigged game.
The man hadn’t proclaimed his innocence. He hadn’t pleaded with Brice to withdraw the charges. He had been clear-eyed about the political forces amassing against him.
And Brice had to admire a man who could calmly make arrangements for the people he loved, when facing such overwhelming odds.
Brice felt pathetic in comparison. He had been whining about a headache.
He realized he was thumping the cane into the floor as he walked. Taking it out on plasteel.
He went back to the office. He could feel the pall of the place trying to pull him back under, to sink into the morass of self-pity once more. He shrugged it off. He hadn’t realized until just now how much he hated the building, his office and all it represented.
He pushed that knowledge aside, too. Instead, he rolled up his mental sleeves and got to work.
He had a lot to catch up on. He first went to the Forum for messages, and found his attention snagged there.
Not only had his personal messages built up, but the community message boards were exploding with debate the likes of which he hadn’t seen since…
As he scrolled through and flipped pages, he realized that he had never seen the ship this roiled, this vocal.
All over Devar’s fate.
Brice spent three hours combing through the Forum, reading messages and comments, polemics and essays, videos and more.
He sat back, his gaze drawing to the view through the window.
The whole ship was angry. Hostile.
For the next few days, Brice monitored the Forum with sharp attention.
The tension existed beyond the Forum. Brice hadn’t noticed it because he had been too deeply focused upon his own concerns.
It seemed to hang like a pall over the entire ship.
In the Aventine market, at lunchtime, people snapped at each other.
Customers shouted at vendors. No one stopped to listen to the musicians, or applauded their music, and the players would hit sour notes, as if they weren’t engaged with the performance either.
No one came up to Brice and babbled at him about tankball. No one. A few people would nod at him and give a brusque “Falcon,” as they hurried by.
In the evenings, it felt as though the entire ship was on the Forum, all speaking at once. The conversations blended, became a sound wall, a text-based scream. The fury over Devar’s prescribed fate was almost palpable.
The comments and messages were all variations of a single theme. Punish Devar for rigging a game, and killing people, sure. Execute him? That’s not what we do on this ship. That’s not the Endurance way. None of us deserves to live if he dies.
Brice grew aware of the beat of his heart, running faster than usual, all through the day, as if his instincts were braced and waiting for something to happen.
Three days after he spoke to Devar on the Bridge, Brice walked from the Palatine hub to the Aventine, and realized just how long it was since he had taken an extended walk.
He realized why; walking the length of the Artery meant passing the Capitol, and Luciana’s house sitting within sight of the rail line.
He had recovered his composure by the time he reached the office. As soon as he arrived, Cathi hurried up to him. “Bronson would like you to stop by. He asked me to watch out for you.”
“He’s here already?” It was early for Bronson.
“In his office.” Cathi bit her lip and hurried away. It was another odd note. Cathi normally hovered to check if he needed anything else.
Brice made his way to Bronson’s big office, leaning heavily on the cane. He had taxed the bad leg with the walk from the Palatine. He would pay for that today. He should have kept up the walking.
He knocked and stepped into Bronson’s office.
Jenny was sitting in one of the comfortable visitor chairs in front of Bronson’s desk, leaning over with her face in her hands, while Bronson ineffectively patted her shoulder. Bronson looked relieved to see Brice.
Jenny looked up. Her face was red and puffy, most of the loveliness disguised.
“What’s happened?” Brice asked.
Bronson sighed. “She’s been assigned a child.”
Jenny jumped to her feet and hurried over to Brice. “The other parent isn’t Marianne!” She threw her arms around Brice’s neck and sobbed.
Brice held her while she cried and soothed her with gentle pats. “Who is the other parent?”
“Some guy,” Bronson said, with another sigh. “He’s just as unhappy. He’s got a partner, too.”
“I didn’t think we’d ever get a baby,” Jenny said into Brice’s shoulder. “We don’t fit the parent profile. I can’t refuse a child!”
More of Lakewood’s typecasting and value judgements. Brice was beginning to dislike the man. “The accouchement AIs know what they’re doing,” he said. “They can’t pay attention to who is living with whom. They’d never keep up.”
Jenny had stopped crying. Now she gave another hiccupping sob. Bronson winced.
Brice lifted Jenny’s face, so she was looking at him. “There’s an easy fix for this, you know.”
Jenny sniffed. “There is?”
He nodded. “You should read more history. It’s right there on the Forum. The dress designer, Liya Cassel. Her partner was assigned a child, and the other parent was also in a committed relationship. So the four of them set up a house and raised the child together.”
Jenny’s mouth dropped open.
Bronson said, “I think one of them was a Skinwalker, too.”
“Cassel’s partner, the parent. It was a scandal at the time, because Skinwalkers were an extremely high-risk profession,” Brice said. “Yet having three other parents off-set even that factor.”
Jenny twisted her hands together. “That…might work,” she whispered.
Hope soared in her eyes. “I’ve been sick since I got the message from the Institute.
I didn’t want to give up the baby. Especially now, when the ship needs children so badly.
” She drew in a breath and gave another great sniff. “I need to talk to Marianne. And Neil…”
“And Neil’s partner, too,” Bronson told her, moving around behind his desk.
Brice went to his office. Neither of them noticed him leave.
The day was one more day of odd tensions and strange notes, and it ended on yet another unexpected chord.
Just as Brice was considering heading home, Cathi squealed loudly enough that he heard it through the closed door.
He hurried out into the front office. Bronson emerged from his office on the other side of the suite.
Cathi was weeping and laughing at the same time, while everyone watched her, waiting for her to tell them what was wrong.
“I’ve been assigned a child!” she cried.
Everyone else looked stunned. Even Brice felt a tiny dollop of surprise.
Then they smiled. And laughed. They all moved in around Cathi, babbling and trying to hug her.
Bronson rolled his eyes and went back into his office.
One of the screens still hovering over his desk was flashing. He moved around it and read the message on the screen.
Please come and speak to me immediately.
—Tokyo Travers.