Bruce Sterling - Distraction

“So you deliberately targeted her for elimination.”

“It’s attrition. It’s distraction. It looks perfectly natural. Those four are influential people, they’re local opinion leaders. They’re smart enough to create real trouble for us — if they had a mind to try it. But since they are, in fact, very smart people, we don’t have to beat them over the head with the obvious. We just point out the reality of their situation, and we offer them a golden parachute. Then they see sense. And they leave.”

“This is truly monstrous. You’re ripping the heart and soul out of my facility, and nobody will know — nobody will even see it.”

“No, sir, it’s not monstrous. It’s very humane. It’s good poli-tics. ”

“I can understand that you have the ability to do this. I don’t understand why you think you have the right.”

“Dr. Felzian … it’s not a question of rights. I’m a professional political operative. That’s my job. Nobody ever elected people like me. We’re not mentioned in the Constitution. We’re not accountable to the public. But nobody can get elected without a campaign profes-sional. I admit it: we’re an odd class of people. I agree with you, it’s very peculiar that we somehow have so much power. But I didn’t invent that situation. It’s a modern fact of life.”

“I see.”

“I’m doing what this situation requires, that’s all. I’m a Federal Democrat from the Reform Party Bloc, and this place needs serious reform. This lab requires a new broom. It’s full of cobwebs, like, let me think… well, like that casino yacht in Lake Charles that was purchased out of the irrigation funds.”

“I had nothing to do with that matter.”

“I know you didn’t, not personally. But you turned a blind eye to it, because Senator Dougal went to Congress every session, and he brought you back your bacon. I respect the effort that it takes to run this facility. But Senator Dougal was chair of the Senate Science Committee for sixteen years. You never dared to cross him. You’re probably lucky you didn’t — he’d have crushed you. But the guy didn’t steal just a little bit — he ended up stealing truckloads, and the country just can’t afford that anymore.”

Felzian leaned back in his chair. Oscar could see that he was beyond mere horror now — he was finding a peculiar gratification in all this. “Why are you telling me these things?”

“Because I know you’re a decent man, Mr. Director. I know that this lab has been your life’s work. You’ve been involved in some contretemps, but they were meant to protect your position, to protect this facility, under very trying conditions. I respect the efforts you’ve undertaken. I have no personal malice against you. But the fact of the matter is that you’re no longer politically expedient. The time has come for you to do the decent thing.”

“And what would that be, exactly?”

“Well, I have useful contacts in the University of Texas system. Let’s say, a post in the Galveston Health Science Center. That’s a nice town, Galveston — there’s not a lot left to the island since the seas have risen, but they’ve rebuilt their famous Seawall and there’s some lovely old housing there. I could show you some very nice brochures.”

Felzian laughed. “You can’t outplace every last one of us.”

“No, but I don’t have to. I only have to remove key opinion leaders, and the opposition will collapse. And if I can win your coop-eration, we can get this all over with in short order. With dignity, maintaining all the proprieties. That’s in the best interests of the sci-ence community.”

Felzian crossed his arms triumphantly. “You’re sweet-talking me like this because you don’t really have anything on me.”

“Why should I resort to threats? You’re a reasonable man.”

“You’ve got nothing! And I’m supposed to collaborate with you, resign my Directorship, and quietly fall on my sword? You’ve got a lot of nerve.”

“But I’m telling you the truth.”

“The only problem I see here is you. And your problem is that you can’t do me any harm.”

Oscar sighed. “Yes, I can, actually. I’ve read your lab reports.”

“What are you talking about? I’m in administration! I haven’t published a paper in ten years.”

“Well, I’ve read your papers, Mr. Director. Of course, I’m not a trained geneticist, so, sad to say, I didn’t understand them. But I did audit them. They all received full-scale, nitpicking scans from an op-positional research team. You published seventy-five papers in your scientific career, everyone of them jam-packed with numerical tables. Your numbers add up beautifully. Too beautifully, because six of them have the same sets of data.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that someone got lazy at the lab bench, and skipped the boring gruntwork.”

Felzian turned red. “What? You can’t prove that.”

“Unfortunately for you, yes, I can prove it. Because it’s all there in black and white. Back in your publish-or-perish days, you were in a big hurry, you had to cut some corners. And that’s bad. It’s very bad. For a scientist, it’s professionally fatal. Once we out you as a scientific fraud, you won’t have a friend left to your name. Your colleagues will break your sword and tear off your epaulets.”

Felzian said nothing.

Oscar shrugged. “As I said before, I’m not a scientist. I don’t take scientific fraud with the lethal seriousness that you scientists do. Personally, I don’t see how your fraud did any great harm, since no one was paying attention to those papers anyway. You were just a fair-to-middling talent in a very competitive field, trying to pad out your rйsumй.”

“I was completely unaware of this so-called problem. It must have been my grad students.”

Oscar chuckled. “Look, we both know that can’t get you off the hook. Sure, you can hide behind buck-passing when it comes to mere financial fraud. But this isn’t mere money. These are your lab results, your contribution to science. You cooked the books. If I out you on that, we both know you’re through. So why discuss this any further? Let’s get to the real agenda.”

“What is it you want from me?”

“I want you to resign, and I need your help in establishing the new Director.”

“Greta Penninger.”

“No,” Oscar said at once, “we both know that’s just not doable. Greta Penninger has been tactically useful to me, but I have another candidate that will be much more to your liking. In fact, he’s an old colleague of yours — Professor John Feduccia, the former president of Boston University.”

Felzian was astonished. “John Feduccia? How did he get onto the A-list?”

“Feduccia’s the ideal candidate! He’s very seasoned in adminis-tration, and he had an early career at the University of Texas, so that gives him the necessary local appeal. Plus, Feduccia is a personal friend of Senator Bambakias. Best of all, Feduccia is politically sound. He’s a Federal Democrat.”

Felzian stared at him in amazement. “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve been leading on poor Greta Penninger, while all this time you’ve been planning to bring in some Yankee who’s a personal crony of your boss?”

Oscar frowned. “Look, don’t be uncharitable. Of course I ad-mire Greta Penninger. She was perfectly suited for the role that she’s already played here. She’s created a groundswell for change, but she can’t possibly run this facility. She doesn’t understand Washington. We need a responsible adult for that job, a seasoned hand from out-side, someone who understands political reality. Feduccia’s a pro. Greta’s naive, she’s too easily swayed. She’d be a disaster.”