Page 49 of Breaking Point
“Since Devar Todd was arrested, I’m guessing,” Travers said.
Brice’s middle jumped.He looked at her.How much about his life did she know, exactly?Had that been a stab in the dark?Travers was a politician.She played to the audience.So maybe she had glanced at his profile on the Forum before calling him over?And had she known that he was at the Association offices, which were a short walk from the Collinas Gate?
His hunger slightly mollified, Brice sat back and ate at a more social pace.“I suspect that I’m not the only one eating when they’re reminded to, these days.”
Travers took her bowl over to the recycle maw and dropped it in, then set up one of the food printers to print coffee.Two cups, he saw.
She sat and put the cup with the milk and sweetener pots attached to it in front of him.
She took hers black, he saw.She sipped and sat back.Crossed her arms.“That’s the reason I wanted to speak to you.Then you’ve noticed the mood of the ship?”
“The anger?”Brice asked.When she nodded, he said, “Oh, yes, I’ve noticed.”
“As your name is on the bottom of the fraud charge against Devar, I imagine some of that anger is directed at you.”
He frowned.“No.These days I’m invisible.”He thought of the way he got short nods from most people.
“And that’s unusual for you.”It wasn’t a question.“I’ve seen the videos, especially those from your tankball days.Even after that, you were the visible head of the Tankball Association.And now…nothing?”
“Yes,” Brice admitted.
Travers considered that.“It’s worse than the analyses suggest.”
“Captain?”Brice said, puzzled.
She shifted, bringing her attention back to him.“I’ve had the AIs build a comprehensive demographical and anthropological analysis of around one hundred social factors on the ship.”
“That’s pretty normal, isn’t it?Surveys and analysis?You have to know how people feel about things.”
“We run so many analyses, I have a whole department of people building the queries and analyzing the analyses the AIs produce.Politicians must keep tabs on what the majority opinion is, so they know what they believe in.”She smiled.
Brice laughed.He realized he liked Travers.
“This report that we ran this week, which landed on my desk late today…” Travers shook her head.“Given what you’ve just told me, about being invisible…it’s not good.The anger you’ve noticed… The ship is hovering at a breaking point.”
Brice broke the cream and sugar off the coffee mug and sat back with the cup in his hand.He thought that Travers had put her finger neatly on the nebulous mood he had been trying to bring into focus with all the reading he had been doing on the Forum.
“They’re ignoring you,” Travers continued, “because the whole ship is focused upon the mutiny charges against Devar Todd.And for those, they blame the Bridge.Me.”
Brice considered that.“Yes,” he agreed.“I can see that now.Not everyone is against the capital charges.Some are still arguing in favor.”
“Then you’ve been keeping up with the Forum avalanche, too.Good.That will make this conversation a lot easier.”She rested her hand on the table.It was a small hand, with thick fingers.“I have a dilemma before me, Brice Falcon.”
“Brice is fine.The dilemma… You want to drop the mutiny charges?”
“Even a captain in their first year sitting in the chair would know that listening to the majority opinion and acting accordingly is the way to keep that chair.Yet there are other factors at play here that make it not so easy to just drop the charges.”
“Thirty-five deaths,” Brice said softly.
“That’s one of the bigger factors, certainly,” Travers said.“I also have to pay attention towhowants the mutiny charges upheld.”
Political pressure.Brice smiled grimly.“Is one of those people Zana Magro?”
Travers just smiled.
“Magro can be persuasive,” Brice said.“I speak from experience.”
“She’s never learned how to deal with people,” Travers said.“She means well.Tankball is everything to her.I can see exactly where she is coming from.”
