Without the slightest sadness over Goda's collapse, next up was Malice, saddled with an enormous debt.
In the Administrative Hall of Alicia Hive City, the four of them stood in a line from tallest to shortest, enduring a double scolding from Hogg and Amelia:
"You four sorry excuses for people ought to take a good look at yourselves. You want to do great things? The four of you couldn't put together one complete brain! That was my money. Who told you to mess around with it?
"I'll let Goda off the hook—he's a dog! But Erda, are you blind? You still haven't learned your lesson? You really thought those crappy glass knickknacks of yours could make big money?"
Hogg had never been so furious. He could put up with the losses of war, and he could put up with large-scale relief programs. Those things were either profitable or unavoidable. But these four idiots had brought this disaster on themselves!
His skin, already pale, had flushed red as the blood rushed to his head. Hogg wanted nothing more than to drag the idiots outside and execute them by firing squad.
But Erda had clearly learned nothing. She was still making excuses:
"This was all Malice's idea. She said her luck had turned around, and even demonstrated it to us on the spot. The first batch of vases sold, and we didn't even lose money. Besides, we didn't lose money because of the glass. It was the merchant ships. If they hadn't gotten lost in the Warp, we wouldn't have been in the red."
"Exactly. It was all because of the Warp. If you exclude the compensation for the leased merchant ships, we should have made a profit."
Malice picked up where Erda left off, then pulled out a flyer and handed