Probity

Uprightness; incorruptibility (n.)

Captain Vasily Michnikov floated down the white hallway, spinning pensively in zero gravity. He had a choice to make.
The internationally-funded mission to improve the International Space Station had commenced: the space shuttle had taken off from Cape Canaveral in the United States carrying astronauts from ten powerful countries, the astronauts had arrived on the station, and they had already begun their scheduled repairs and upgrades.
The President of Russia, who was quickly reifying himself as a modern Czar, had ordered one of his ministers to award Michnikov four million American dollars to secretly install spying software on the computers in the space station. Since the station, orbiting gently between the moon and Earth, received many signals for emerging satellite technologies, this plan was part of a greater governmental initiative to make the Russian economy competitive at the international level. Vasily was to download information from a disk to a computer linked to the station's server and simply float away.

Vasily arrived at the main computer console, grabbing hold of the wall to steady himself. By some miracle of hierarchical deal-making he had been chosen as one of the few computer processing and software experts, so he was granted access to the station's server. He let himself hang in the hallway, the feeling of weightlessness crawling over his skin. (Despite his vast experience in training and his three missions into outer space, Vasily had never fully gotten used to the feeling of floating. To him there was something normal, something essentially better about having one's feet planted firmly on the ground.)
He was hanging upside down so his toes touched the ceiling, his face in front of the computer that he was to infect. He began to have a dialogue with himself in Russian.
"I could take the money, be rich, take Novona to Beijing like she's always takling about. We could buy a house, a new car, many things," he said.
His body hung in the air, bobbing up and down.
"But the other astronauts have been so welcoming and nice, particularly the Americans. I have no ill will toward them," he argued back.
"What does it matter? You wouldn't be hurting anyone. You would just be helping your own country, the land of your birth, the land that trained you to be a pilot, the country that sent you to space. It will take no time at all to do such a great favor for your homeland," he argued back.
He fingered the small disk in the pocket of his coveralls, rubbed it between his thumb and pinkie. He grasped it and removed it, holding it out in front of him. Then his legs began to turn back towards the ground like the end of a second hand.
"But my action would help an entire government cheat. Thousands of people would be working under the corrupt auspices of a lie. And all the money they earned and spent would be tainted with it," he theorized.
"Don't be such an activist!," he said, "lies are the currency of administration. They are the rhythm of the gears of any organization--business, economy, government--why would you make yourself such a pointless martyr? Why would you rob your family and yourself of great fortune for nothing?"
He was now fully upright, his feet resting on the floor of the hallway. He looked at the little computer drive and held out the disk with the software--but stopped.
"No, I don't care," he averred, "I am human and I live according to rules and I will not see another one broken out of short-sighted selfishness."
And he crushed the disk and let the pieces of it float gently to the ground next to his feet.