Stars Rise

XXXVIII. Ignatius Varian at the Meeting

Ignatius Varian spoke up, for the first time all morning. He had listened carefully for the past three quarters of an hour, looking back and forth from Exequi Liao to Exequi Nero and feeling as if he were watching a ping pong match.

Both had such excellent points. He never felt sure where he landed on the along spectrum from Sunyin Aura to Solin to Marius. Expansion to reduction. Whoever won the battle of wills, or wits, or whatever this was a battle of, he would be satisfied, probably.

He would vote for whatever proposal most everyone else seemed to think was best.

Except.

As of this morning Ignatius felt he owed a little bit of loyalty to Exequi Marius, and by extension, Exequi Nero. And so, as the argument waged on to the point where Portia appeared to be backed up in a corner, with no one on her side, Ignatius decided to offer her a small supportive push.

"We've listened to Exequi Liao's proposal. I would like to hear what Exequi Nero has to propose. I'm sure she too has prepared a presentation that she would like to share with the committee." He noticed Mariana Aurelius glancing down at her watch, perhaps thinking that she didn't have time to listen to two presentations this morning. So he added, "I'm confident we all agree it's in the best interests of all Solari that we remain in this room until we have heard both sides, both proposals."

Tony Solari spoke up. "I'm not sure we need to hear a whole other presentation, but let's consider walking back some of these numbers. It's a radical change to put into place, and I would be surprised if the board as a whole passed it. Let's put together a reasonable plan that the entirety of the board can get behind."

Ignatius turned to Portia Nero for her reaction. She had the dazed look of a victim wandering out of a bomb blast; however, her eyes became alert in seconds and she recovered her attention.

And her voice, finally. She stood.

"At this point, I see no reason to delve into the presentation I had prepared for today," she said, eyeing all of them, each in turn, as if they had all betrayed her. Ignatius included. "This  proposal will never pass across the board. There's no evidence for a tipping point phenomena, it's based on a made up model with an imaginary effect, commissioned by executives with a large stake in the company to bring in profits. The faction I represent today as spokesperson is not unreasonable — we ask that this company bear responsibility for the loss of life resulting from the existence of its products.

"I did not want to resort to this. I have here, in these files, documentation regarding highly classified developments taking place under Gaia Solin's watch. I believe that when you see it, you will understand my concerns about expanding router sales and magical licensing to the citizens of Soliara." She slid the stack of documents along the table. Sunyin Aura took a page, and passed the stack along, running her eyes over the contents. Ignatius waited patiently for the stack to make its way around the table; Tony passed it to him with four copies left. Ignatius took one and passed the stack.  The hushed of reading fell.

Ignatius read. The page was funny; it wasn't a printed document of consecutive writing, but a compilation of photocopied text from different sources, as if someone had stuck various news clippings down the page. "Transportation of Constellation engineers to distant resource rich planets will bring competition-free wealth to Soliara," one read. "Authorization to advance research in space travel." Below, President Gaia Solin's signature.

The details of the proposed method of transportation to another planet were not included, assumably because they were highly classified.

The next clump of photocopied text read, "Authorization to advance research in stellar power detonation." All text immediately previous and immediately following was blacked out, redacted by a black marker.