bribed her former grad students to create the new files for you.”
“Yes.”
“And to vouch for them.”
“Yes. Bribed consortium aides to get ahold of the originals, too.”
She threw up her hands and paced away. Shit. Shit. It’s all going to shit. “So why TRAPPIST-One? Out of all the missions, why did you tank that one?” My sister’s favorite. Everyone’s favorite.
Our chance at finding extrasolar life.
He shrugged, as though the answer were obvious. “It was the last assigned, it was the least developed. It made the most sense in a spreadsheet. I wasn’t trying to be malicious, Vanhi. It’s a casualty of advancement. As soon as you tap into those new subdimensions I’m sure TRAPPIST-One will be the first place we visit. And it’ll be a snap—” He clicked his fingers. “There and back again.”
I can’t do this, Vanhi realized. I can’t go out there and make a grand speech and answer all those questions—unscripted questions. I can’t. I just—
“You have to tell them,” she said.
“Like hell I do.”
“It’s over for you, don’t you get that?”
He furrowed his brow and shook his head, taken aback. “Why? Because now you know?”
“Yes. Because now I know and I refuse to be a part of your scam. I’m not going to protect you.”
“Oh, really?” He pushed himself up, and Vanhi stumbled back.
She’d never seen him be violent before. He’d never killed an ant in her presence, let alone struck someone. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t.
“There’s a slight problem with your reasoning,” he said, voice a low grumble. “This is not my scam, it’s our scam. Between the two of us, which one would you say has benefited the most? Me? A now-retired dean who gets his gob on the news once and again? Or you? How much extra cash did the emirates throw your way once they realized you were going to be the mission head on one of the twelve biggest projects in history, hmm? I hear you set up a trust for your nieces and nephews, paid off your parents’ mortgage—”
“How do you know that?”
“These aren’t exactly state secrets.”
“You’re right, they’re private secrets, which makes your prying that much worse.”
“Please, spare me the morality play. Besides, my god, Vanhi, it’s not a scam. We deserve to be here. You deserve it. Do you remember when you—very rudely—accosted me over that small sum I paid to a consortium page? Would you like to know what I was paying him for? Rankings—insider information on the new proposal rankings. That file contained the initial results, and I received another once the final interviews were completed. I had intended to find someone to fix them for us, to ensure we’d be placed at the top, but in the end there was no need. Your proposal was ultimately ranked highest, all on its own. Because Earth needs this. You have to understand, sometimes people don’t know what’s good for them until they’re given a little push. You needed a push in Dubai. The Planet United Consortium needed one to prioritize subdimensional research. So, don’t think of it as a scam, think of it—”
Ah, yes, once more with the sudden cornering. Bastard. “Of course it’s a scam. What you did to get us here is fraud. I don’t mean that colloquially. It is real, honest to goodness, slap him in irons, the government can come at you for it, fraud.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“No!” She stomped her foot. She meant it to be a firm, powerful gesture, but was sure—under his condescending gaze—that she painted the perfect picture of a petulant child. “You destroyed Dr. Chappell’s career—the careers of everyone on her convoy. You aren’t going to get away with this. They’ve given me a mic and I’m going to tell everyone, and there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop me.”
“If you do, you’ll destroy the P.U.M.s. Not just our mission, all of them.”
Her gut clenched at the melodrama. The flower inside her grew vines—long, thick, tougher than spider-silk vines, and they were twining their way through her limbs and around her bones. She shook her head, baffled. How could he defend this? How could he fight her on this? What leverage could he possibly think he held that could destroy all of the Planet United Missions?
“Not even you are that egocentric. Master narcissist or not, you can’t undo decades of global, peaceful advancement.”
“I can’t, but you can. How did you sell this mission? Do you remember your pitch? Because I do. You told the consortium that these missions needed better PR, that they could fade into the night if the public isn’t constantly reinvigorated. How invigorated do you think they’re going to be when you announce that we—we—had to take drastic measures to get here? This is scandal on top of scandal, inviting that much more scrutiny. Why shouldn’t they halt the missions in their tracks, put everything on pause until they can be sure it’s not fraud all the way down?
“Because you know they’d have to launch a full-scale, public investigation for the sake of saving face. I know the value of a power play. I know how to get done what needs doing. But god help anyone in the public eye doing what needs doing. All the public cares about are feelings, about getting along—”
“They care about ethics, you moron. Without ethics, there can be no real business, no real trade, because those things rely on equal footing. When it’s not trade anymore, it’s coercion. It’s stepping on necks and breaking backs. It crushes ideas, it stops advancements, it does the very opposite of what we—you and I specifically—are trying to accomplish here. It means merits don’t matter because whoever can be the biggest sleazeball wins.”
“What a beautiful world you must live in, all rose-colored and—”
“Don’t patronize me!”
A light knock on the door made both of them spin. It opened a crack, revealing a base guard. “Is everything all right in here?”
She almost said no. She was a hair’s breadth away from demanding Kaufman be removed from her sight.
But she wasn’t done with him.
“Fine,” they both barked.
Blanching, the guard closed the door.
“You’re going to upset the public. And they wouldn’t be wrong to be angry.”
“They should be angry,” she said.
“But does that give them the right to destroy what almost every nation in the world has contributed to? They don’t have to destroy it consciously, mind you. Their lack of attention, their turning away, will do more to dismantle everything than attacking a convoy ship to take it apart at the rivets.
“And
