Eversion

by Alastair Reynolds

‘That’s right!’ Cossile shook her head in a sort of amazed horror. ‘Ramos went six kinds of apeshit when he realised Topolsky had been lying to the entire team, including him. Topolsky knew, of course. The lying fucker had always known. That earlier expedition was sent out under cover of secrecy, put together in a rush by one of his zillionaire playboy rivals. No oversight, no intergovernmental approval, no ethics scrutiny, no biocontamination protocols, just old-school tech-bro bullshit, as if rules are for the little people. The only thing that mattered was to beat the pan-national space agencies to the Edifice, as if the world needed another lesson about the glorious fucking wonders of unfettered libertarian capitalism.’