Page 6 of Breaking Point
“You two should dance,” Luciana told them.“It is a soiree, after all.”
Devar gave her a quick smile.“Someone else arrived while you were gone.”
There were people arriving all the time, yet he clearly meantsomeone.
“Who?”Luciana asked, picking up her champagne.
“Anton Lakewood.”Caelen’s eyes shone.
Luciana didn’t look around.She didn’t need to know what he looked like because Lakewood injected photos of himself into far too many pages on the Forum.He was always talking about something, usually to do with the fact that he was the only person in the history of the Endurance who had been giventwochildren.
“Oh, him.”Luciana rolled her eyes.
“He’s tiresome, but no one can argue he doesn’t know how to present himself well,” Devar said, his tone judicious.He was watching something across the ballroom.Luciana assumed it was Lakewood he watched.
“He’s offering a course,” Caelen said.
“A course to learn what?”Luciana asked.
“How to make yourself look just right for the algorithms.”Caelen leaned forward eagerly.“So you have the best chance of being given a child.”
Devar looked back at Caelen, lifted her hand and kissed it, before returning his attention to Lakewood.
Luciana was genuinely speechless, which was a rare state for her.She wanted to ask how Caelen could fall for Lakewood’s obvious manipulations.Yet even Devar thought the man was offering a genuine service.
She wanted to cry: “It was just a simple computer error!He has no better ideas about why he was given two children than you!”
Caution held her tongue.Something was going on here that she didn’t quite understand.
She watched Devar and Caelen both staring at Lakewood, analyzing their expressions, their posture.Caelen’s eagerness.Devar’s absorbed thoughtful look.
They wanted a child.That alone spoke volumes, and her heart swelled.Did they want a child so badly that even Devar would fall prey to Lakewood’s bilge?
Luciana felt a touch of anger, low in her belly.Lakewood was offering a false hope.He was trading upon it to make money.And Devar, who was surely the smartest person she knew—and she knew most of the ship (except for Falcon and his people)—Devar was falling for what Lakewood peddled.
Her heart ached.How could she dash either of their hopes?No one knew why the algorithms picked anyone.Often the choices made were baffling.She didn’t know why she had been given Devar.She had been a naïve twenty-two-year-old, one of the youngest people to ever receive a child, and it had changed her life.No one refused a child and neither had she, even though she had been terrified about being responsible for such a tiny, indecipherable bundle of humanity, when she was barely into adulthood herself.
She would not ruin this evening for them with a dash of cold reality.It would be cruel.So Luciana pretended not to notice their interest in Lakewood, and their transparent desire for a child.She let the moment pass.Eventually Devar stirred and came back to himself.He and Caelen got up and danced, and Luciana watched in fascination.When had Devar learned to dance?Or had he taught himself from a file he’d found on the Forum?That would be just like him.
There were many people Luciana knew well here at the ball, and they asked her to dance, too.She said yes to anyone who asked, because that was what a soiree was for.And she applied herself to forgetting about anything but dancing, and chatting with her partners.And in between, while she caught her breath, she watched Devar and Caelen, or spoke to them when they were at the table at the same time as her.
It was a fine, fine evening, one of the best soirées she’d attended, in her estimation.It ended late, although she didn’t feel tired at all.She was buoyed up by exhilaration and joy.She could dance all night.Yet the ballroom was emptying rapidly.
So she kissed Devar, and Caelen, too, and waved goodbye.She would walk home.The walk would let her sleep.She would not go through the Field of Mars, not this time of night.A lesser used, possibly unknown path ran right beside the Artery.Most people disliked using it because the traffic racing passed, so close, sent hot, smelly air gusting against them.
It was so late, now, that the Artery was empty.Once the pods that carried the soiree guests away from the arena were gone, it was silent and still.Illumination on the ship had been turned down to the late night/early morning level, which was just enough to see one’s way ahead.
There were a few people who were walking the Artery as she was, but they were in pairs, and talking quietly.They were far enough apart that Luciana was left to her own thoughts.
She was nearly at the end of the angular tubing, mechanical equipment, towers of mysterious electronics and more than made up the Field of Mars when she spotted someone sitting on one of the squat boxes, right at the corner of the Field, where the Capitol began.A man in a dark suit…which was nearly every man who had attended the soiree.
As she drew closer, she could see he was digging his fingers into the flesh above his knee.Massaging it.
Then she saw the cane resting against the other knee.
Brice Falcon.
He waswalking?
