“Are you serious?”
“Yes,” says Signe, with a very slight pout of vanity. “We’re told the Solda has already stopped flooding downstream—something your old station of Bulikov will be glad of. And one day, very soon, parts of the Continent that were once completely isolated and cut off will now be linked. Pretty soon the rejuvenation of the Continent will truly begin.”
“Whose brilliant idea was all this?”
“Oh, why, the credit belongs to a variety of teams, as each component and each step in the process required incredible oversight and planning, and—”
“It was you, wasn’t it.”
Signe pauses just long enough to satisfy modesty. “I had the idea on a…somewhat grand, abstract scale. I did formulate the modular process and oversee its sourcing and detailing, yes. And portions of the arm design are mine. Though there were countless other SDC teams that played their part.”
“I guess you don’t get to be chief technology officer for nothing.”
“Who can say? My position is the first in the company’s history. We’ve never had a CTO before me.”
“So…how exactly does a member of the Dreyling royal family come to have a hand in all this?”
Signe blinks, confused. “Dreyling royal family?”
“Your daddy is, unless I’m forgetting, the heir to the Dreyling throne?”
Signe exhales slowly through her nostrils and taps her cigarette ash into the ashtray in the armrest. “The United Dreyling States are a free democracy now. We no longer cater to a monarchy, or to the pirate kings like we did back during the Republic days.”
“Even if that monarchy was originally yours?”
Her eyes glitter. “It is not mine, General. It was never mine. And that has nothing to do with the harbor.”
“So you’re saying your father has nothing to do with your position here?”
Signe pinches out the end of her cigarette with her thumb and forefinger, her skin hissing as it touches the ash, though her face registers no pain. Those calluses run deep, thinks Mulaghesh. “My father, General,” Signe says slowly, “has terribly little to do with anything significant happening these days, as far as I can tell. And if you want his opinion on the matter, I suggest you find someone who would know more than I do. Or, moreover, someone who would care to know.”
Signe looks up as the train comes to a halt. The white shaft of the lighthouse hovers above them. Signe’s composure immediately returns, the clever smile blooming back on her pretty face. “Ah! We’re here. Allow me to take you to dinner. I know it’s late, but I’m sure you’re starving.” Without another word, she strides off the passenger car, leaving Mulaghesh to struggle with her bags.
***
Mulaghesh and Signe dine in the private dining room just below the control rooms for the lighthouse. It’s clear this is reserved for the upper echelons of the company: Signe had to use multiple keys just to get to this part of the building. Their server—a Dreyling boy with a wispy half-beard—enters and exits through a secret panel door beside the bookcase in the corner. Everything about the room is designed for privacy, a place to hold conversations and do the real work once the formal meetings are done, though it feels like an extremely upscale whalers’ inn: everything is dark, ornate wood, and most of the walls are covered in the bones of unsettling sea creatures, some with harpoon barbs still lodged in them.
“One way to keep a skilled workforce,” Signe explained to her when they entered, “is to give them every creature comfort. These men have come out to the end of the world to risk their lives—so even if they are hard laborers and seamen, we give them the best chefs, the best entertainment, and the best accommodations money can buy.”
But Mulaghesh also notes that the accommodations are quite permanent. One wouldn’t build such a site if you weren’t intent on staying here for a while. And if they truly expect to get the harbor ready in a matter of months, then what comes after?
From this angle she can see Fort Thinadeshi: a dark, squatting, massive installation on the cliffs just north of the lighthouse. Its most immense cannons are pointed at the city, threatening to rain death down on them at any second. She wonders how the Voortyashtanis must feel with those cannons pointed at them day and night.
“You’re briefed on the situation?” asks Mulaghesh quietly.
Signe picks up her napkin and delicately dabs at the corner of her mouth. “Sumitra Choudhry. Yes.”
“So,” says Mulaghesh. “What can you tell me about her?”
“She came here a half a year ago. Sent to investigate some discovery made just on the outskirts of the fort.”
“Do you know what discovery that was?”
“No. When I volunteered to be your contact here they made it very clear that, for me, this was a need-to-know situation, and I did not need to know that.” She sniffs. “Anyway. At first Choudhry stayed up at the fortress, but then she started coming down and asking questions of my employees. I chose to handle it for the company. She seemed quite…disturbed.”
“Disturbed?”
“Yes. I wondered if she was slightly mad. Bit loopy in the head, if I may say so. At some point in time she had suffered a head injury,” says Signe, gesturing to her left brow, “a white bandage here, so I wondered if that was it, but I wasn’t sure.”
“How’d she get injured?”
“I’m afraid she didn’t say, General. She asked us a lot about geomorphology—the way land is formed. I suppose that because we were doing all this work on the bay, she thought we would know something. But we’re just fixing damages done a few decades ago, not millions of years.” She points out the window to an area just west of the fortress. “People would see her wandering the cliffs with a lantern at night, looking out to sea. I’m told she looked like a painting—the maiden awaiting the return of her beloved, or whatever. Like I said, we thought she was mad.”
“Then what happened?”
“Well, then one day we got word she was just…gone. I heard rumors it took the fort some time to even realize she was AWOL—that’s how odd her movements were. They conducted searches out as far as they could, but found nothing. And that, quite seriously, is all I know.”
“Would any of your employees know anything more?”
“Possibly. Why? Would you like to talk to each and every one of them? How much time do you have, General?”
“I was thinking you might have an alert you can send out. A notice to all SDC employees to come forward if they ever had any contact with Choudhry.”
“Well…we do have a system somewhat like that, but it’s usually reserved for emergencies, an—”
“If you can put that alert through I’ll be quite grateful, CTO Harkvaldsson.” Mulaghesh studiously ignores Signe’s irritation. “But what I find most curious right now is—why you?”
“Why me what?”