An hour later Lucien was no closer to finding a way to escape his fate. The inspection tour hadn’t given him any ideas, nor had it given him much time to think on the problem. He’d been asked to review or sign off on things every few minutes, although after a while he’d just started approving automatically. Why not? One way or another, none of it would matter to him soon.
It was nearing lunchtime and his hangover was dragging him down. He’d stopped even noticing where the inspection tour was taking him, but familiar smells and sounds dragged his attention back and even made him smile slightly.
He was in the engineering section now, the place he’d started off as a mechanic’s assistant. He’d been the lowliest of the low, the butt of many jokes, but he’d held fast to his dreams of one
