“Sir, you angered him when you told him he didn’t have a choice in the matter of going with the army to Temecula. I think it’s unreasonable to expect them never to have emotional reactions. There’s no weird alien moon logic. You offended him, and he reacted like any person would.”

“I think ‘person’ is debatable.”

Cora gasped softly, and she looked at Sol. She hadn’t even considered that anyone who worked here might be on the Third Option side of the fence. “No, it’s not.”

Sol shot her a hard look, but Cora countered him with steel. She was done kowtowing to these people.

“Yes, it very much is,” said Porter, now not bothering to hide his condescension. “That’s why it’s being debated. The charade with the broken glass is one of many reasons why we should question the wisdom of extending full human rights to them. Look at what just one of them is capable of.”

“But don’t you see how that logic could be extended to anyone of exceptional, or limited, ability?” She looked around the table for a sympathetic face, but found none. Just a wall of people not taking her seriously, and one Sol who was glaring at her to shut up.

“If we ignore that they’re not human, what makes them different?” Cora continued, doubling down. “Their social structure, their intelligence, their bodies? Those wouldn’t determine personhood if they were human. If ultimately the reasoning for denying them full human rights is discriminatory, then there’s absolutely no reason this law couldn’t eventually be retrofitted to apply to humans as well.”

“You’re out of line, Sabino,” warned Porter, eyes still on his notes.

“Sir, you aren’t respecting them as people, when I’m telling you that’s the problem. That’s why Scio isn’t talking to us. And the Third Option could set a really dangerous precedent, not just for ETIs but for human populations, too.”

“There are some populations who would benefit from that sort of thing,” Porter stated calmly, as though the idea brought him warmth like a cozy fire in winter. Like the potential to oppress human populations was a feature, not a bug.

Cora stood up so fast she nearly knocked her chair over. She looked at them all in turn. The unimpressed brigadier general, a bunch of DOD people she didn’t know, Dr. Sev unreadable as always, and Sol, who was less glaring venom at her now so much as confusion. She thought of the wire surveillance in her apartment, the threats against her privacy, the detainment of her family, the threat of going to jail for the rest of her life if she so much as talked to the press. And again it begged the question: Why the fuck am I helping these people?

“I quit.”

Then she turned on her heels and exited the conference room.