Noumenon Infinity

“The one I told you never to use?”

“Yes.”

“I need you to use it now.”

“All right.” Thank the heavens for small favors. “What kind of information should I remit?”

“I’m going to upload some holoflex files. I probably shouldn’t have these, and he definitely shouldn’t have these, so make sure he knows they’re classified, but, like classified classified.”

“I’m not sure that’s a recognized—”

“Just do it. He’ll know what I mean. Ask him to dig in and look for the dates the files were created. The real dates. He’s going to have to go deep—there’s no way it’s in the typical metadata.” She rubbed her chin and mumbled, “He’s too smart for that.”

“Who is?”

Vanhi gritted her teeth. “Kaufman.”

The setup for the press conference took advantage of Earthrise in the conservatorium. Vanhi would give her speech and answer questions under the glass dome—its decahedron panes glittering in the full sunlight. With the Earth swelling slowly behind her in all its blue glory, her monologue would hit emotional beat after emotional beat, and at its climax, the Littlest Convoy’s three ships would clear the horizon. It would make for fantastic schoolroom viewing.

Because of the libration cycle, Earthrise was a slow event, nothing as dramatic as a sunrise or even moonrise, but it would have the desired effect on those who loved space.

Concealed beneath the stage in the conservatorium was the greenroom. Here Vanhi sat, chewing her thumbnail, arms crossed, legs crossed; a knot outside and inside. She hadn’t slept a wink.

As soon as the door opened and Kaufman entered from the anteroom, Vanhi was on her feet. “You lied to me.”

“About what?” he asked—not as though he were tired of her accusations, but as though she could be referring to a number of lies.

She held up one holoflex sheet, its corner dog-eared. “Doctor Chappell didn’t fabricate results, you did.”

C had gotten through to Jamal straightaway. The programmer treated a sudden ping from one of his surviving C series like the emergency it was. And he’d confirmed her worst fears.

The contradictory data in those files was first created a full month after Kaufman had fed her the story back in Dubai.

Kaufman took up a chair—the kind that passed for plush on a moon base, with hard armrests and a deep bucket seat—and shrugged. Shrugged! “I’d hoped you wouldn’t have to find out.”

“I can’t believe you. I can’t—why? Why would you do that?”

“Look at where you are, then ask me again.”

She wasn’t going to take that. She was done playing. Two strides brought her before him. She leaned down, grabbing the armrests, caging him in. “No. I never asked for this. This was never even a twinkle in my eye until you came to me. Why?”

His expression remained stoic, unimpressed. “You and I both know this mission needed to be born. It had to be. Had to.”

“No. That’s another lie.”

“You never would have agreed to do this unless you thought it had to be done. That’s the kind of person you are. You do what needs doing. You pursue a straight course to the answers. That’s why I picked you.”

“You 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.”