Chapter Nineteen
MOST ADULTS ON THE ENDURANCE used personal pads to keep up with Forum news and messages.
Luciana had been one of the oddities who would rather talk to people in person.
Until now. In the last few weeks, the pad had been a life saver.
She could reach so many more people with it than she could in person.
She had still spoken to as many people as possible without it. She had been busy.
That was why, while she was waiting to be called into the mystery meeting she had been summoned to the Bridge to attend, she had seen the announcement as soon as it popped up on the Forum.
Brice Falcon resigns his position as President of the Tankball Association. Board will search for replacement immediately.
The streamer slipped past before she could grab it and open it. Her heart thudding, she did a manual search to find the original source.
She found the formal Tankball Association news announcement and read it from top to bottom.
She had to wade through business-speak. How the Association regretted Falcon’s departure and how much he and his work would be missed.
A short biography on Brice and his career achievements wrapped it up.
The biography failed to mention he was a Capitolino.
A cautiously worded outro said the Association would be searching for a replacement for Brice in the near future.
Luciana shut off her pad, and watched the Captain’s staff move around the room, working at desks and standing screens. She barely saw them. She was thinking.
Why had Brice resigned? He loved tankball. He had raised the profile of the game to make it the most popular pastime on the ship. At the Association, he could stay connected to the game.
What could possibly have the power to make him resign?
“Luciana?” The man called David had come up to her without her noticing.
“Sorry, I was thinking.” Luciana put the pad away and got to her feet. “Is this to be another ambush, David?”
He looked startled. “Oh! No, not at all!” He moved up the corridor to the same door as before.
That wasn’t a good sign. Luciana slowed down. “Who is in there?” she demanded as he raised his hand to the door panel.
“The Captain,” David said.
“Really?”
“See for yourself.” He opened the door.
Luciana stepped into the room. The woman she recognized as Captain Travers from her Forum profile sat at the top of the table. She had two pads in front of her and looked up as Luciana entered.
“David always pushes people through that door,” Travers said. She waved. “Come and sit up here, so I don’t have to shout.”
“Maybe a smaller room would be better, then?” Luciana suggested, as she walked the long length of the table. “Captain,” she tacked on quickly.
Travers rose to her feet as Luciana reached the head of the table. “A smaller room might feel more comfortable, although none of them have the electronic shielding that this one does. It’s just a Faraday cage with doors.”
“I see,” Luciana said cautiously. She didn’t know what a Faraday cage was, but she would find out, later. Electronic shielding she understood though. This room was secure—more than other rooms nearby.
The door that was closest to the top of the table where they were standing slid open.
Devar stepped through. He looked pale, and all the life and energy that had once played in his eyes was gone.
A little exclamation squeezed out of Luciana’s mouth. She covered it.
“You’d better hug him and say hello, so this meeting can get started,” Travers said.
Devar frowned.
Luciana ignored his suspicion and hugged him. He was too thin beneath the baggy coveralls.
At the other end of the room, the back door opened, and an armed guard moved into the room and took up a position at the back of it. She kept her hands behind her back.
Luciana sighed.
“The guard is a formality,” Travers said. “I don’t feel that I am in immediate threat from you, Devar Todd. For right now, and for the next little while, we must be careful to follow every rule and formality.”
“One would only worry about being seen to do all the right things, if they were planning on not doing the right things,” Devar said.
Luciana turned to Travers to catch her reaction.
Travers waved toward the table. “Please. Sit.”
Luciana drew Devar over to the table, and pulled out a chair for him. She took the chair beside him.
They both looked at Travers expectantly.
Travers cleared her throat. “This meeting is being recorded. The record won’t be made public. It is…backup, shall we say?”
“Caution upon wariness,” Devar murmured.
Luciana agreed. This was extraordinary.
The captain pushed aside one of the pads and pulled the other in front of her. “I’ve had a busy few days.” She paused. “A satisfying few days,” she added. “I think I have found a way to have the mutiny charges dropped.”
Luciana gasped.
Devar swallowed. “What small miracle would that take?” His voice was calm, but Luciana could see the pulse throbbing in his neck. “No one on this ship will be happy about that unless you sell them on something even better.”
“You’ve not had access to the Forum since you came here,” Travers told him. “So you have not seen the wholesale shift of opinion, there. Few people are willing to see someone executed, no matter how many lives they ended.”
Luciana said, “He didn’t do it, Captain—”
Devar put his hand on her wrist.
Luciana shut up unhappily.
Travers, though, did not ignore her. She gave Luciana a small smile. “I wish it were possible for the authorities on this ship to judge for themselves the truth of matters like this. Yet we are constrained, for good reasons, to only considering the proofs that are available.”
“All the proof you have says I did it,” Devar said. He didn’t sound angry or resentful.
“While there is no evidence that says you did not,” Travers added.
“There is not even room for reasonable doubt. The evidence is solid and indisputable. Right from the start, we looked for more evidence. And we have not stopped that search, especially in light of your claims of innocence. Despite that search, nothing that even suggested you might not be the culprit has ever appeared. We must form our decisions and actions upon that, not what our hearts or minds or hopes might tell us. Do you see?”
Luciana let out a shaky breath.
“I have understood this from the start,” Devar said.
Luciana sighed. “I understand,” she said. “I hate it, but I understand.”
“So,” Travers said. “There is a compromise that might be made, here, that will let us step around talk of mutiny and execution.”
Luciana was trembling. It built in her middle and spread out to her limbs. She put her hands beneath the table so that Travers would not spot the shaking. “We’re listening,” she said as calmly as she could.
“Very closely,” Devar added.
Travers smiled. “I’m sure.” She tapped the pad in front of her. “As you have…as the evidence declares that you are responsible for the loss of thirty-five lives aboard the Endurance, it seems appropriate that you work to replace those lives.”
Luciana shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I have spent…hours, now, speaking to the head of the accouchement institute. I have obtained their agreement on this. In the end, Johanson was quite happy about the idea.”
“You’re kidding,” Devar said, his tone flat with disbelief.
Accouchement? What? Luciana was mystified. “Pretend that, unlike my son, I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”
“It’s an unexpected idea,” Travers admitted.
“They want to give me a child,” Devar said. “Which I raise, to make up for the lives that were lost.”
Luciana sat back, stunned.
Devar looked at Travers. “What are the conditions?”
“Very good,” Travers said. “There are conditions.” She looked down at the pad. “You are barred from coding for the rest of your life.”
“Yes, yes, that’s obvious. What else?”
“Devar…” Luciana murmured, and touched the back of his hand in warning.
He drew in a breath. Let it out. “Sorry. Please continue.” And he gave Travers one of his warmest smiles. “It often feels as though I am sixty seconds ahead of everyone else’s thought processes in a conversation. It becomes…frustrating.”
Luciana stared at Devar, astonished. She had never heard him apologize like that, before.
Travers smiled back at him. “And not coding…not keeping your mind occupied…that doesn’t bother you?”
“There are other ways to stay occupied,” Devar said. His eyes narrowed. “Unless I am to do nothing but care for the child?”
“That is the next condition,” Travers said.
“You will stay in the quarters you are assigned, or that the other parent provides. You’ll receive a small stipend, so the other parent is not penalized.
You will be monitored and tracked and all your activities treated with suspicion.
We are free to inspect any computers you use, and to investigate your affairs whenever we feel the need. ”
Luciana sat forward. “The other parent. Can it be Caelen Williams?”
Travers hesitated.
Devar let out a gusty sigh. “No,” he said flatly.
“The Accouchement Institute have algorithms, AIs, which decide these matters for reasons well beyond what any of us can grasp. It was difficult enough to get them to agree to just one human-chosen parent. I’m sorry.”
Luciana pressed her lips together, holding in her reaction.
Devar gripped his hands together. “I suppose this is where you point out that on the upside, I get to keep breathing.”
“Well, there is that,” Travers said. “You will be free, too. You won’t be contained in a single cell.
You can socialize on the Forum…although I suspect that you might find that awkward, at least for a while.
Anyone can visit you when they wish, and no permissions are needed.
Within the accommodations you live in, you can live as other people do. ”
“I just can’t go outside?”