Hasa made a face. “They didn’t see anything. I found it. Me. They didn’t believe me about it even after I explained everything to them. I’m the sole discoverer, and I expect to be treated as such.”
“I’m sure you will be.” Commonwealth citizen or not, she decided, she positively did not like this man. Skilled and qualified he might be, but he was also vulgar, shallow, boastful, conceited, and self-centered. Furthermore, she did not like the way he looked at her at all. It was certainly not with the respect due the Commonwealth’s ranking representative on Fluva.
“I want a parade,” he declared brashly. “I want an official proclamation acknowledging my accomplishment. It’s not every day a new intelligent species is discovered.”
She eyed him dryly. The more she learned about the pannula’s discoverer, the less enthused she was able to be about the undeniably astonishing discovery itself. “Anything else you want?”
He leered at her so blatantly she would have slapped him except for the distance between them. Jack never noticed the voiceless exchange. He was too busy examining exposed mycelium.
There was not much she could do by way of reprisal. Jack and a totally enthralled team from his department validated the obnoxious bioprospector’s claims. The two members of the first rescue party, the Sakuntala Jemunu-jah and the Deyzara Masurathoo, did not dispute Hasa’s claim of sole finding. As much as she disliked having to do so, she was forced to affix her official endorsement to the affidavit of discovery that was forwarded a week later to Commonwealth Science Headquarters on Earth and Hivehom.