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.”
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