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payments.”
    Cut off funding to the UNBio preserves? Did I hear that right? Tania’s chest constricted. She looked at Tengri for guidance. He frowned and nodded imperceptibly.
    Malikov leaned inward, eyes darting from face to face as if he’d just dropped a stack of poker chips on the table. “I vood support Brazil, China, and India getting extra facility if we make Spidex manufacturing in Russia.”
    “Ummm… sorry to interrupt.” Tania ignored Malikov’s glare. “Mr. Olivera, what did you mean by ‘cut off funding to the UNBio preserves’?”
    “The disk array is staggeringly expensive,” said Olivera. “We have to build new space facilities, create disk materials, and build rockets. Taxpayers will never support it. So James Wong helped us come up with a plan to fund disk construction using the money that currently goes to the preserves.”
    “Which lets us position it as a free economic stimulus,” said van Buren. “Very popular.”
    “You’d destroy the preserve program,” gasped Tania. “Those funds pay for habitat restoration. They keep local governments from harvesting the preserves for timber, or minerals.”
    Juarez’s fingertips whitened as she clenched her omnipen. “James Wong assured us that the majority of the preserves were in good enough shape to survive a temporary funding cut,” she intoned. “Are you disagreeing with his assessment? Again? I thought you hadn’t studied the data yet?”
    Silence hung. Eleven leaders stared at her with obvious disapproval.
    “I already looked for UNBio preserve audits,” said Tania. “There aren’t any. Wong had no basis for believing the preserves are in good shape.”
    “Ergo you have no basis for thinking they aren’t,” retorted the US President.
    “Other than common sense.” Tania’s nails bit into her palms. Damn it. Stay cool.
    “Doctor Black, we have no choice,” said van Buren. “Half the Netherlands is underwater. They had to raise the retirement age to 77 to deal with the costs. Italy lost Venice. London is extending its dikes again.”
    “Direct consequences of letting up on CO2 cuts during the ten-year sulfuring grace period,” said Tania.
    “The past ees irrelevant,” snapped Malikov.
    “Not if we make the same mistakes in the present,” said Tania. “What are your plans for CO2 cuts this time? Tell me you at least have an accompanying plan to restore long-term equilibrium? Or do we keep adding disks until we blot out the sun entirely?”
    Tension filled the room like a poisonous gas. Tania glanced at Tengri. Is this what you were hoping I’d do? She detected the slightest twinkle of a smile in his eyes.
    “Don’t fight us on this,” said Lui. “We need the disk array. And UNBio’s preserve funds are the best way to pay for it. You could help a lot, by providing selective evidence to reassure taxpayers that there is a free lunch. Once construction has started, we can reveal more layers of truth.”
    “My role as UNBio Director is to provide scientific advice to the Climate Council. Not bend facts to fit your narrative,” said Tania. “Surely there are other ways to fund the disk array? What’s the point of building it if we destroy everything we’re trying to save in the process?”
    But they’d already told her the point. The Climate Council was a room full of vultures, fighting over scraps of the planet’s corpse. An orgy of spacecraft construction. Jobs and votes for Climate Council members. Paid for with the UNBio preserves, and the blood of all the species they sheltered.
     
    ***
     
    The Climate Council meeting continued the rest of the afternoon, and Tania listened, fascinated and repulsed in equal measures by the political maneuvering. Finally, they broke for dinner. Tania ducked through an open doorway into a small side room and slumped at the table, running her hands through her hair. I’m so unprepared for this.
    She pulled out her omni. “Call UNBio. Simulations Department.”
    It took a