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He gazed at her blankly.
“All of my Muslim colleagues are fasting during daylight hours. This is a favorite for keeping up strength. Go on, it’s sweet.”
“What’s floating in it?”
“Pine nuts.”
“I’ll pass.”
“Oh, no you don’t.” She pushed it closer to him. “You don’t get to preach at me about boldly going and all that if you won’t even try a harmless little drink.”
The cafeteria sat on the ground floor of the seven-story building, right at the base of the main escalators. Its long communal tables were easily visible from the balconies lining the inside of all floors, and during the day sunbeams streamed through the angled skylights to nurture the half-dozen inground trees dotting the public space.
The cafeteria was largely empty. The early hour meant the sundown feasts were long over, though many people would be getting up soon to prepare a hearty meal before sunrise.
Still, three women occupied a nearby table, two in hijab and one with her hair in a bun, all dressed in lab coats. They eyed Kaufman with suppressed smirks as he lifted the glass of jellab to his lips, a preemptive expression of distaste furrowing his brow.
He took a dainty sip, smacking his lips loudly. “It is sweet,” he agreed, taking a gulp. “What is that? Grapes and—?”
“Rose water.”
He took another long gulp. “Could do without the nuts, though.”
“Couldn’t we all,” Vanhi said under her breath, slicing into the doughy, steamed deliciousness before her. “All right, so you were auspiciously comparing SD drives to warheads …”
“Only in that we don’t test them where we make them. Because it’s too dangerous. How many certifications did the drives need in space before anyone agreed to put them in ships?”
“A lot. Still looking for your point here.”
“Your research could be accelerated by orders of magnitude if you were allowed to take it off-planet. But the only player in the big-budget space game is the consortium. It’s the P.U.M.s or nothing.” He pushed his jellab to the side, leaning over his salad conspiratorially. “What if I could get you a mission?”
“There are twelve missions,” she said pointedly between bites. “That’s it. They take up the entire world’s budget for deep-space travel. Where are they going to scrape up another, what, forty-five trillion for a thirteenth trip? Besides, let’s say you’re right, and that moving SD research into space for the sake of safety means we advance our understanding of the subdimensions by decades. We don’t need to leave the solar system to do it. And that’s the point of the P.U.M.s.”
“Your research could render the Planet United Missions obsolete,” he insisted. “Imagine this—which convoy is it—nine, I think?—that’s on its way to study Sagittarius A-Star. Imagine they arrive there to find a future convoy, built a hundred years from now, has gotten there first, thanks to your work. Imagine how much more knowledge we could amass about our universe because we can simply travel faster. Study sooner. We’re talking the difference between a wagon train and a bullet train. If you have enough resources, I bet within your lifetime we’ll find—and be able to use—SDs that sweep us along at n-to-the-second or n-to-the-tenth or n-to-the-nth-power faster than our current travel SD.”
The thought should have excited her, invigorated her. But for some reason it made her stomach turn. She wanted to advance, to help mankind, to push the limits of known science, but the idea of sending all those people into space only to make them obsolete …
She dropped her fork, wiping her hands against her thighs. “Is this your pitch to the consortium? Give her a convoy and watch how fast she proves your resources wasted on these other missions?”
“Of course not.”
“Good. For a second there it really sounded like you thought the consortium would thank you for the slap in the face and ask for another.”
Kaufman stabbed ruthlessly at his iceberg lettuce. “Definitely not. Especially since I wouldn’t be asking them to add on a thirteenth mission.”
“Oh?”
“I’d be asking them to cancel one of the current missions.”
Vanhi took a cleansing breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them and did not wake up at her desk, she drank half her jellab in one go, barely blinking an eye as the pine nuts went down whole. When she had finally composed herself, she said, “I can’t believe you flew halfway around the world—unannounced—to bother me with this nonsense. They aren’t going to cancel a current mission—not for anything. Do you understand what that would mean? How many dollars would be wasted? The outrage in the scientific community alone is enough to keep all the cogs turning, nevermind the flapping lips of all those politicians who keep crunching the numbers, talking about how much food one mission could buy or how many jet planes.”
Dr. Kaufman was clearly unimpressed by her protest. “Are you done?”
Glaring, she took another bite of her bun.
“I have it on good authority that one of the missions—yes, beloved as it is—isn’t stacking up.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a possibility the original research that earned it a convoy not only wasn’t so original, it wasn’t so sound.”
She understood where he was going with this, but she wanted to hear him say it.
“The results were tampered with, Kapoor. The research was padded.”
“I thought all of the proposals were independently vetted.”
“You thought—you and every other sucker who’s never considered bribing anyone. Hush money exchanged hands.”
Academic dishonesty was not an arena any scientist worth their salt wanted to tread into, from any angle. “Now I for sure don’t want to touch this idea of yours with a ten-foot pole.”
“You don’t even want to know which convoy it is?”
“Nope.”
He pushed his now-empty plate—a feat, considering how much gabbing he’d done—aside and put his hands on the table, making chopping motions every other word. “I have no plans to make the bribes public. No one outside of the consortium members I plan on approaching—along with you and me and the devil who did it—will need to know why that mission got dropped and yours became the new poster child. The one thing these P.U.M.s are riding on is public approval. As soon as we start revealing even a hint of corruption, people’s opinions go down, the usefulness of space travel comes into question, and those number-crunching politicians gain a little extra traction.
“And what would you prefer, really? A mission based on lies, on the barest of research going out into the stars to waste life upon life for next to no scientific gain? Or, would you rather humans do their thing. That we try to one-up ourselves. That we make it our goal to ensure these deep-space missions grow. That we make the travel faster, cheaper, safer. A space race against ourselves is something to root for. You know it is.”
Two words rattled through Vanhi’s mind. Two words she absolutely hated whenever they cropped up. Two words that meant she was sliding down someone else’s rabbit hole with no visible daylight on the other side.
He’s right.
“Okay,” she said after a long pause. “I don’t want to see a mission go to waste. Not if it doesn’t have to. I’m in.”
He raised his jellab. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
SEPTEMBER 12, 2116
“You appear nervous. I think it would be more effective if you appeared not nervous,” C said.
The third-floor public bathroom in the consortium office was freaking freezing, and the sink refused to give hot water. In addition, the battle between paper towels and hand dryers still raged on, and seeing how this particular model of Strongblow (no, really) had an “Out-of-Order, sorry :( ” sign taped to it, Vanhi was firmly on Team Paper.
She settled for flicking her hands over the sink basin instead of wiping them on her business jacket. On the counter, C peeked out of her open purse like one of those pocket dogs rich girls carried. The light near its camera flashed green.
“I hadn’t considered that,” she said sarcastically. “Don’t look nervous, got it. Anything else?”
“Your shoe is untied.”
She glanced down, a skeptical eyebrow raised. “I’m wearing pumps. Oh, was that a joke?”
“Humor eases tension and is often used to suppress anxieties. If that witticism was not sufficiently alleviating I can find another one.”
She pushed the phone back into its pocket and slung the strap over her shoulder. “I’m good, thank you. Sleep now, C.”
Shoving through the swinging door, she stopped dead and was nearly smacked in the face by the springback. In the hall, outside the presentation room, sat Dr. Kaufman. But he wasn’t alone. A young man in an overly baggy suit—an aide, maybe, or an intern—stood nearby, stopped by Kaufman’s grip on the bottom of the boy’s jacket. The kid looked nervous, stack of files in hand, body taut like he wanted to run away. Kaufman’s hold wasn’t restrictive, just … intrusive.
Calmly, Kaufman spoke in low tones, nodding regularly while the young man listened.
After a moment, Kaufman pulled a wad of bills out of his breast pocket. The aide glanced furtively over his shoulder, this way and that, before snapping up the cash and handing Dr. Kaufman a folder from his stack.
With a flourished lick of the thumb, Kaufman began flipping through the contents, taking mostly cursory glances at the pages. He hadn’t had the file for sixty seconds before he handed it back. Looking around once more, the boy slipped it into the center of his pile, exchanged a few quick words with the doctor, then shuffled off around a corner.
It was blatant, it was careless, and though Vanhi was decently scandalized, she wasn’t surprised in the least.
“What was that?” she demanded, stomping up next to her former advisor.
He glanced up, lips pursed. “What was what?”
“I saw you pay that kid for something.”
“We shared a cab this morning. He insisted on paying then, and I insisted I compensate him now.”
Most people would have bought that explanation outright. But Vanhi knew better. She dropped heavily into the chair next to him. “Try again.”
He threw up his hands, melodramatic as ever. “I can’t convince you of the truth if you’re not having it.”
This was the brilliance of Dr. Kaufman’s schemes. He played innocent so well; seemed so put upon. He was the sort of person to play the fiddle with one hand and throw a dime with the other. And people who picked up on his braggadocious nature always found a way to dismiss it as well earned. After all, “He’s done a lot for SD research.”
Only those actually in SD research knew how overblown his claims were. His contributions had been important, but he made it sound like he’d discovered SD travel all on his own. He hadn’t. No single person could have.
But the general public didn’t know that.
People tended to like the “single genius” answer, no matter how inaccurate.
Grad students who’d complained he’d put his name on research he’d had no involvement in were labeled “ungrateful.” Academic partners he didn’t get along with often had their dirty laundry publicly aired by anonymous tipsters. Projects he found no value in were sometimes abruptly unfunded.
But no one could ever trace lines of fault back to Kaufman. Things just always seemed to go his way.
Vanhi saw through the bullshit. She called him on the bullshit. It was the only way she’d held on long enough to come away with her Ph.D.
Unfortunately, earning her degree under his tutelage gave him claim to her future accomplishments—according to him and society at large, anyway. She could never be free of his overbearing, rights-grabbing, self-aggrandizing shadow.
So the least he could do was tell her the truth about a stupid fistfull of bills in a halogen-lit hallway.
“What did you pay him for?”
“Sexual favors.”
“What did you pay him for?”
“Burning his bad tie.”
“What did you pay him for?”
“A cab, Vanhi. I told you. A cab.”
She would keep at it until he confessed. “What did you—?”
The door to the main chambers opened, revealing a gentleman in a suit jacket and kilt. “They’re ready for you,” he said, gesturing for them to enter.
“After you,” Kaufman said, smiling at the escape it provided.
As much as she wanted to argue with him, now was not the time. She walked in.
Most of the large auditorium lay in darkness, except for the high balcony at the front of the room which seated the eight consortium members chosen for today’s evaluations. A gentle spotlight slowly dawned over two chairs at a desk midroom. The space felt more like a courtroom than anything.
It stole Vanhi’s breath away, though she couldn’t pinpoint why. She had a strange sense of déjà vu, like she’d stood below the high-seated members of the consortium before. Steely eyes waiting to be impressed, firm mouths set in straight-lined judgment.
“Please, sit,” said Madame Chair from the center of the balcony. Her voice was flat, businesslike, and it fit her image: perfectly tailored black suit, gray hair pulled back in a neat bun, nails short and perfectly manicured. Her attire, along with her German accent and dark eyes, all made for a formidable persona. “Let the record show that Doctor McKenzie Kaufman and Doctor Vanhi Kapoor have entered. Before us we have their formal statements on why subdimensional research should be the replacement study for the Planet United Mission designated to Convoy Twelve. We are here to have the consortium’s questions and concerns addressed, so that we may be fully informed when making our final decision.”
Her statement was clearly practiced and even-toned. But there was restrained passion in her voice. She cared about these missions, this wasn’t simply a prestigious assignment for her.
The other seven consortium members present constituted individuals from around the globe. Representatives from Singapore, Malta, Iran, and Cameroon flanked Madame Chair on the left, while members from Zambia, Argentina, and Tasmania presided on her right. The entirety of the consortium board represented one hundred and eighty-eight of the world’s two hundred and seven countries, including states that had only gained sovereignty in the past three decades.
The Planet United Missions were nothing if not aptly named.
And Vanhi understood her place here was special. Everyone involved in the missions was under a gag order not to talk about the cancelation until a new mission for Convoy Twelve had been chosen. Only scientists with previously considered proposals were contacted about the new vacancy, and in turn sworn to secrecy.
Vanhi’s was a singular case. She had had no previous involvement in the P.U.M.s on account of her age, and Kaufman on account of his arrogance—he’d originally called the idea of a worldwide space effort a “pipe dream” and “ludicrous.” Vanhi wasn’t part of the inner circle, shouldn’t be one of those “in the know.” And yet they’d agreed to include her, to consider her proposal.
She was grateful to them, and even to Kaufman, for the opportunity, but the insidious sense she didn’t fully belong, that they somehow resented her presence—as though they were loath to make the exception—crept up her spine.
It was a sick, familiar feeling. One that had haunted her all too often, especially in her youth.
When she and Kaufman had taken their seats, Madame Chair turned to her left and said, “Doctor Ndi of Cameroon has the first question.”
He cleared his throat and glanced at his notes, bow tie blazing red against his black skin in the harsh spotlighting. He looked young—perhaps younger than Vanhi. She wondered if he was the second individual to hold the seat for Cameroon. Many of the distinguished scientists who’d been given the honor of a consortium seat were getting on in years now, and others had already passed away.
“In your proposal,” he began, “you outline the types of vessels and crew that would constitute this new convoy. You are aware that the majority of the ships for Convoy Twelve are already nearing completion, and insist you would be able to repurpose them. While we applaud that—applaud all of the proposals that have stated such, which is the majority—we are concerned by your request for approximately two hundred shuttles in addition to the existing ships.”
Vanhi’s heart leapt, she wanted to interrupt, to swiftly correct the misreading, but forced herself to keep quiet.
“We’d like you to justify this request.”
Straightening her jacket, Vanhi stood. “Thank you, Doctor Ndi, for your question. The additional spacecraft we are requesting are not shuttles, not in the sense you mean. Like all of the convoys, ours would require specialty equipment in order to perform the mission’s research. These shuttles are actually referred to in the proposal—if I’m not mistaken—as ‘pods.’ Each pod would house dozens of individual experiments and one small SD drive designed to breach a new subdimension we’ve never attempted to crack before.”
“And why can’t these experiments be performed on the preexisting science ship designed for Convoy Twelve?” asked Dr. Ndi.
