LITMIR.BIZ

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breached another one. That would make it twenty-seven.

      Twenty-seven confirmed subdimensions. Only eight had been confirmed when the first tentative plans for the deep-space Planet United Missions had been announced.

      And she was sure there were more.

      Dr. Kaufman’s original math had surmised eleven. Vanhi’s own work suggested eleven times eleven. And even then, she could easily be wrong.

      Of the original eight, only two were suitable for human travel. Four could support energy transference but not matter, which made them excellent for communications. The other two were breachable, but not usable.

      So, what of these nineteen others? And what of the subdimensions they had left to find?

      While the air-conditioning whooshed, she sniffed fully awake. The scent of overbrewed red tea hung heavy about her desk. With a labored sigh, she rubbed her eyes beneath her glasses before glancing out her small fifth-story window and across the dunes to the blinking lights of Dubai in the distance.

      “Had to have the best of everything, didn’t they?”

      If she’d jumped at the air conditioner, she vaulted at the voice. Her hand shot out for the plastic knife she’d attacked her dinner with, knocking over the tea and sending its dregs oozing over the holoflex. She spun—her chair squeaking, tilting, threatening to toss her to the floor.

      Glasses askew, she brandished the white plastic at the far corner of her cramped office.

      Before she could choose between get out, who are you, and I’ll cut your damn throat, her mind caught up to the surprise. “Kaufman?”

      He sat in the spare chair, two sizes too small for his frame. Eyes wide, but amused, he held his hands in the air. “What exactly are you going to do with that?”

      With a frustrated nonword, she flicked the plastic knife to the floor, then ran her hands over her mouth. “You stupid son of a—how did you even get in here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to Dubai?”

      “Because if I’d told you I was coming, you would have made up some excuse not to see me. And you know how I got in. Being the most recognizable living scientist has its perks.”

      “Yeah, well, those ‘perks’ are going to get the guy at reception fired.”

      “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

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