Kira ignored him. “How can the League expect to keep any of this a secret? People are going to notice that a whole system has been marked off-limits.”

Seppo hopped up to sit cross-legged on one of the tables. With his slight stature, he looked almost childlike. “Easy. They announced the travel ban a week ago. The story is we discovered a contagious pathogen in the biosphere. Something like the Scourge. Until containment is assured—”

“Sigma Draconis stays quarantined,” said Ivanova.

Kira shook her head. “Shit. I don’t suppose they let us keep any of our data.”

“Nope,” said Neghar.

“Nada,” said Jenan.

“Nothing,” said Seppo.

“Zip,” said Ivanova.

Alan rubbed her shoulder. “Mendoza said he’d talk with corporate when we get back to Vyyborg. They might be able to convince the League to release everything unrelated to the ruins.”

“Small chance of that,” said Fizel. He blew on his nails and then continued cleaning them. “Not with the League. They’ll keep your little discovery a secret for as long as they can. The only reason they ever told anyone about Talos Seven is because there’s no way to hide the damn thing.” He wagged his butter knife at Kira. “You cost the company a whole planet. Pleased with yourself?”

“I was doing my job,” she said. “If anything, it’s good I found the ruins now, before anyone settled on Adra. It would cost a hell of a lot more to ship a whole colony back off-world.”

Seppo and Neghar nodded.

Fizel sneered. “Yeah, well, that still doesn’t make up for screwing us out of our bonuses.”

“They canceled our bonuses,” Kira said flatly.

Alan made an apologetic face. “Corporate said it was on account of project failure.”

“Sucks too,” said Jenan. “I’ve got kids to feed, you know? It would have made a big difference.”

“Me too—”

“Same. Two ex-husbands and a cat ain’t—”

“If you’d only—”

“Don’t know how I’m going to—”

Kira’s cheeks burned as she listened. It wasn’t her fault, and yet it was. The whole team had lost out because of her. What a disaster. At the time she’d thought finding the alien structure was going to be good for the company, good for the team, but it had just ended up hurting them. She glanced at the logo printed on the wall of the mess hall: Lapsang printed in the familiar angular font with a leaf over the second a. The company was always running ads and promotional campaigns touting their loyalty to customers, colonists, and employee-citizens. “Forging the future together.” That had been the slogan she’d grown up hearing. She snorted. Yeah, right. When it mattered, they were just like any other interstellar corporation: bits before people.

“Dammit,” she said. “We did the work. We fulfilled our contract. They shouldn’t punish us for it.”

Fizel rolled his eyes. “And if starships farted rainbows, wouldn’t that be lovely? My God. Oh you feel bad, so sorry. Who cares? That’s not going to get us our bonuses back.” He glared at her. “You know, it would have been better if you tripped and broke your neck as soon as you stepped out of the shuttle.”