Page 23 of Breaking Point
Her first thought, that everyone nearby would see, swiftly evaporated.Somehow, between them, they moved inside, shut the door and reached the couch in front of her desk, their mouths still together.
?
The entire ship fell into unproclaimed mourning.While days proceeded normally, few people smiled.Someone on the Forum suggested that the entire ship’s population was in shock and should be treated as patients, too.
Slowly, though, the outrage built.People wanted to know who to blame.They wanted to know what had gone wrong.It frightened them that a simple thing like a tankball ball could turn rogue and deliver so much damage that a building which had stood for hundreds of years would collapse.
Captain Tokyo Travers announced on the Forum that a formal investigation would begin immediately, and that everyone was to be patient; it would take time to learn the truth.
One of the first things to emerge from the investigation was that the ball itself had not brought down the building.
“It was the tankball walls falling against the arena structures that brought it down,” Luciana explained to Brice, while she sipped coffee in the corner of his sofa, the one with its back to the glass walls.“The weight of them.Whatever the chemical engineers do to produce walls that won’t shatter makes them extremely heavy.Plus, the arena itself, especially the framework that holds up the stall seating, is old.They think it might even be original to the building.Which makes it centuries old.They tested every few years for the usual stress indicators.They think that the alloy the original builders used reached the limit of its life.”
“I don’t remember reading that in the report on the Forum,” Brice said, putting aside the pad he had been reading.
“It’s in the structural investigation report the Bridge just released,” Luciana said, lifting her pad.“It’s the same idea as annealing metal to make it soft.There are other processes—manipulation makes it hard.Only, if you manipulate it too hard, it can shatter like glass.”
“Which is what the stress tests are for, yes?”
“Yes.The last one was four years ago.The alloy might have reached its limits in that time, and a halfway decent tap, like those girders landing on the stands, and down it all went.”
“You really are the child of engineers, aren’t you?”Brice’s smile was small, but it was there, which was a change from the sober and tired expression he had been wearing since he had returned to work.“Perhaps you should be in the meeting tomorrow, when the Association will be formally presented with the report.”
“Oh, I only know basic things,” Luciana said quickly.“You need Devar’s Caelen for that.She’s the real genius when it comes to engineering.”
“She’s with the institute?”
“Third year and apparently quite brilliant,” Luciana said proudly.“She got a place there all by herself.No sponsorships…she’s an orphan, you know.”
“I didn’t.You mean her parents both died when she was young?”
“When she was three.She was raised by…well, lots of people in the Capitol.She told me that her bedroom when she was younger was the pack on her back.She moved around from letterbox to letterbox.If people ran out of money to feed her, someone else would always step up.”
Brice rubbed his temple.“It seems to me the only way one could ever know everything about everyone on the ship would be to talk to them directly, and that would take a lifetime.There are stories happening all around us and we’re ignorant.”
“We all have priorities, Brice.”
“You know everyone in the Capitol, though.You know their names and something about them.I don’t even know who lives in that green house through the trees, there.”He pointed.
“That’s the old Grey house,” Luciana said.“Danni Allison lives there at the moment.I spoke to him when I was walking through the trees a while ago.”
Brice’s eyes narrowed.“Planning on starting a market here, Luciana?”
She laughed and moved over to his sofa and sat beside him.She took the pad away from him.“You’re stressed and you’re cranky because of it.”
He sighed.“You have no idea.The board is screaming at me to come up with explanations, plans, ways to save tankball…and their incomes.”
“Do you think tankballcanbe saved?”Luciana asked softly.
“I don’t know.”His voice was flat.“We’ve already cancelled the finals and refunded all the tickets.If we can’t explain what happened to the ship, the taint will spread into next season.If there will even be a next season.To have a next season, we need an arena.And to build an arena in time, we should have started last year at least.If we even breathe a word in public about starting to build an arena now…well, I don’t much like my chances of surviving if I tried to walk the Artery, after that.”
She cupped his face.“Is there anything I can do to help?”
He pulled her into his lap, and brushed her hair off her face and over her shoulder.“Just having you here is keeping me sane.”
Luciana rested her hands on his pleasingly wide shoulders.“I wondered if you minded tripping over me so much.My house…echoes, these days.”
Brice’s gaze roamed over her face.It seemed to her that he was measuring her in some way.Then he said, his tone casual, “Taking a vacation, Luciana?”
