Noumenon Infinity

“Oh, come now, you can’t blame him, not really.”

“I don’t,” she said, swiveling around again, looking for something to clean her holoflex-sheet with. “I blame you. It’s not the public’s fault they love you—they don’t know you.”

“Will you stop treating me like some nefarious … nefarious ne’er-do-well?”

You always did have a way with words, Kaufman. Vanhi’s eye-roll may have been internalized, but her glare was not.

“I didn’t burgle my way in,” he continued. “The front desk buzzed me through, I knocked on your door, it was open, and you ignored me. I thought you extrafocused, not near unconscious.”

Oh, yes. Because open doors are invitations. “You’re not making this any better.”

“Why Dubai?”

The non sequitur was Kaufman’s favorite. Easy to avoid an apology or admission of fault if you’re just not talking about that subject anymore.

The guest chair groaned in relief as he stood to gaze out the window. “I mean, I know why they wanted you. After the best entertainment and the best restaurants and the best of every other pleasure-fare to be found, the emirate decided it wanted the best labs as well. Being number one in science and industry sounds dirty, but science and entertainment? Especially with the whole world’s gaze focused on the stars? Why not start up another shining desert oasis topped with glass and metal? Yes, that all makes sense.

“But why are you here?” He turned back to her, hands entwined over his belly. “You didn’t leave the States because of me, did you?”

“Bah! What?” Vanhi made no attempt to contain her surprised laughter. “No. No, you narcissist. I came here for exactly the reasons you said—it’s the best. I’m funded from now until the end of Kali Yuga. I get every piece of equipment I ask for—on rush. Every physicist and engineer on the planet wants to work here.”

“Then why are all the top people going off-world?”

“What are you …?” The Planet United Missions? What did that have to do with her? “They’re not. Most of those are clones—”

“Why aren’t you in charge of a mission?”

She took a deep breath.

He was kidding, right?

Oh, no—maybe he wasn’t.

She’d always feared this day would come. When a man with power starts losing his marbles, things go downhill quickly. “Uh, because I was, what, ten when the missions were assigned?”

I was a little girl still trying to learn an American accent so those stupid white girls in Mrs. Engle’s class would leave me alone.

I didn’t know what Newton’s Laws were then, but he really thinks the Planet United Consortium should have come knocking?

“That’s the problem with a lot of these long-lived projects. Better techniques, better people, better tools come along, but we don’t dare change course. I don’t mean you should have had one then.

“I mean you should have one now.”

He inched around her to pick up the soiled holoflex-sheet by the corner. The tea stain looked like an ink-blot. “What you’ve discovered, don’t you see how big it is? Of course you do, of course. But everyone should be made to understand. If we can travel through any of these new SDs, that could put more than a few solar systems within reach. We could have Andromeda. We could have every single light in the sky.”

“I know,” she said, gingerly taking the sheet back. “But what does that have to do with the current missions? They are what they are. The money’s already spent, the resources already allocated. You’re not going to convince anyone to add on a thirteenth convoy. And besides, we can study the subdimensions right here on Earth—why would I need an off-world mission?”

“Because the chicken-shit, tiptoeing simulation crap we used to do at U of O is a farce.”

“I spent a lot of hours on that ‘farce,’” she spat. She couldn’t believe she had to deal with this right now. Now? Well, ever, really. Melodramatic, self-absorbed—“My entire career is based on the work I did on that engine.”

“But how much more would you know, how much more could you have achieved, if you’d been allowed to turn that engine on? To have it sink into the SD like it was meant to. Over and over again.”

“That would have been too dangerous. No university in their right mind would have—”

“Exactly. You don’t develop your nukes and test your nukes on the same ground. Even Oppenheimer knew that.”

“Yes, even Oppenheimer,” she scoffed. He tried to continue, but she held up a finger. She shook it when he persisted. “If we’re going to continue this I’d rather do it down in the cafeteria. It’s three in the morning and I’m starving. When did you fly in? It’s what, an eleven-hour difference between here and Oregon?”

“I could eat,” he said with a nod. “But don’t think shoveling a spoonful of whatever the local fare is down my gullet is going to shut me up.”

“Believe me,” she said, grabbing her lanyard with its ID and card key from where it hung on a hook near the window. “I gave up on that pipe dream long ago.” She opened the door before promptly shutting it again. Returning to her desk, she shuffled through various sheets and papers until she’d uncovered an out-of-date smartphone.

“Won’t your chip catch any messages?” Kaufman asked.

“Hey, C, do me a favor?” she asked the screen as it winked awake.

“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”

Vanhi smiled—she’d found the “sir” address endearing and had asked the PA to keep it after the initial download.

“Dear god.” Kaufman grimaced at the automated voice. “I thought for sure you would have gotten rid of that thing years ago.”

Thought I got rid of you years ago, she thought, while outwardly ignoring him. “C, What’s the bao bun situation downstairs?”

“Pork and veggie, fifteen minutes old.”

“Perfect, thanks.”

“Why don’t you join us in the twenty-second century and toss out that creepy thing?” Kaufman asked, holding the door open.

“It was a present,” she said, scooting by him. “You know, from that convoy lead you insulted?”

As far as cafeterias went, the International Lab for Multi-Dimensional Research had the very best. It employed two Michelin-star chefs, and you could get almost anything you liked from anywhere in the world at any time you wanted it. Normally filled to the brim with diners, it had been mostly quiet over the past few weeks for the holy month, with the chefs still cooking, but keeping the shades on the storefronts drawn and delivering lunches to closed-off offices.

Vanhi had taken her dinner at her desk out of respect for her fasting coworkers. But now that it was unquestionably after sundown, she was ready to stretch her legs and get a bite out in the wide openness of the cafeteria’s courtyard.

The aroma of sweet-spiced bao buns made her mouth water as soon as the late-night cook opened the side door to his shop. He piled a plate high for her, handed her two drinks, and wished her a reflective evening.

Kaufman settled for, of all things, a salad. Not a cold noodle salad or anything with pickled roots of any kind, of course. Nothing with spice. Nothing with a piece of greenery he didn’t recognize.

Two candied dates adorned the brim of his plate. He flicked them off.

“Here, try this.” Vanhi sat one of the drinks in front of him. It was deep purple, with a handful of somethings—pale and bead-like—floating near the top.

“What is it?”

“Jellab. In case you didn’t realize, you came in the middle of Ramadan. There are coolers full of this on every floor. Not everyone partakes, of course, but it’s available.”