“It’s one hell of a place,” offers Mulaghesh. The words seem to die miserably in the air.
“No doubt you’re familiar with more modern installations, General,” says Nadar, with a touch of wounded pride. “But here, we’re forced to make do with what we have.”
“Some of it looks damned modern, though.” Mulaghesh walks to the west side of the spire, which looks toward the ocean and the cliffs. But before the cliffs is the bland little structure she saw on the way up here, lined with miles of razor wire. “What in all the hells is that?”
“A halted attempt at expansion, General,” says Nadar smoothly.
“Expansion?”
“Yes, General.”
Mulaghesh looks at her. “No, it isn’t.”
Nadar’s confident expression wilts. Biswal glances back and forth between the two of them, his face inscrutable.
“I’ve seen expansions before, Captain,” says Mulaghesh. “Lots of them. And that’s not one. More to the point, I spent a lot of time reviewing requests and proposals to try to expand Fort Thinadeshi. None of them broke ground. Which that out there obviously has.”
Nadar looks to Biswal, who looks back at her as if to say, I told you so. Nadar frowns, nettled, and says, “With all due respect, General—and I think this is something you expected—this is an intelligence compartment that I don’t believe you’re read into.”
“Maybe, Captain.” Then, casually, “Is this that thing about the metal?”
Nadar looks like she’s been slapped. “The…The metal?”
“Yeah. The metal you found around here.”
“How…You…” Nadar struggles to control her reactions. “How was it that you came to be, ah, informed about this, General?”
“I’d seen reports on something about it back when I was on the council.” This is a lie, but since very few ever know what powerful people see and do, it’s an easy one to believe. “I suppose that was before it got formally compartmentalized, though. I thought it was just some curiosity. But if it’s big enough for compartmentalization, and for you all to build that out there for it…it must be pretty damn curious indeed.”
There’s a long silence.
Biswal leans back in his chair and chuckles. “The years have been kind to your mind, Turyin. You’re a sight cleverer than I remember.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, sir,” says Mulaghesh.
“General Biswal,” says Nadar, now quite flushed, “I…I do not consider the intelligence orders we have regarding our affairs here to be anything to laugh at. If there has been a breach of this compartment we need t—”
“I recall once hearing a young captain very tactfully tell me,” says Biswal, “that one can both respect and obey Ghaladesh while remembering that it is over a thousand miles away.”
Nadar’s flush deepens. “This is still an alarming revelation. Even if it is General Mulaghesh who’s aware of the situation here. My concern is that, if she knows, someone else could. That poses a serious security breach.”
“You’re right to be worried,” says Biswal. “But this breach didn’t happen on our end—something I’ll happily tell Ghaladesh. Perhaps we ought to be grateful to General Mulaghesh for making us aware of the breach in the first place.”
“I’m just here on the touring shuffle,” Mulaghesh says. “I don’t wish to be an intrusion.”
“You aren’t,” says Biswal. “This project is an intrusion. It’s wise to seek your discretion, though—and the best way to be discreet is to know exactly what it is we need to be discreet about. Captain Nadar, will you please read General Mulaghesh into this compartment and give her the full briefing on Operation Arc Lightning?”
Nadar makes a face as if she’s just been asked to swallow a spoonful of some very foul medicine.
“I don’t wish to waste any more time discussing this absurd diversion,” says Biswal quietly, holding up his hands. “Please, Nadar. Show her the most recent eccentricity our nation has chosen to spend money on, rather than more walls, more soldiers, and more support.”
“With all due respect, General,” says Nadar, “this flies in the face of proce—”
She stops talking as a round of small pops echoes across the battlements. Mulaghesh looks up, alarmed. “Is that gunfire?”
Neither Biswal nor Nadar seem surprised. Biswal checks his watch. “Ah. I’d forgotten what time it is.”
“What the hells is that? It sounded like a volley.”
“Well, it was, in a way.” Biswal takes out a spyglass and walks to the walls. He glasses a yard to the east, behind walls and walls of wire fencing. “Just another daily duty of Fort Thinadeshi.”
He hands Mulaghesh the spyglass. It takes her only a moment to find it, and though it’s hazy with gunsmoke the scene is quite clear.
Nine Saypuri soldiers with riflings stand at one end of the yard; at the other is a tall, earthen berm with dark, stained soil at its bottom. There’s something lying there in the dirt, limp and crumpled, and two Saypuri soldiers run forward and drag it away, leaving behind a streak of red mud.
“They surprised a checkpoint,” says Biswal beside her. “Shot two of the guards there. We only captured them by pure coincidence—a returning patrol happened upon them.”
The two soldiers drag in a filthy, cowering Continental man, his face almost completely obscured with bruises. They put a blindfold on him and stand him up before the berm. The crotch of his pants blooms dark with urine.
“You’re executing them?” says Mulaghesh.
“Yes,” says Biswal. “This is not Bulikov, Turyin. There is no order of law here, beyond tribal law. The only courts here are military courts. And the fortress’s prison is tiny and old. We can’t keep people there indefinitely.”
She watches as the supervisor of the rifling squad shouts orders. The nine soldiers lift their riflings.
“In Voortyashtan,” says Biswal, “we make do with what we can.”
The yard fills with gunsmoke. The Continental man topples over. It takes a little bit longer for the sound of the gunshots to drift up to them.
She lowers the spyglass and slowly hands it back to Biswal.
“Perhaps you can now understand,” says Biswal, “that I have much more important things to care about than any secret science experiments. Captain Nadar—please show General Mulaghesh the laboratories. Perhaps before she retires she can inform the council what a ridiculous burden this all is. And once you’ve done so, report back to me on the status of the eastern perimeter. We still have real work to do.”
***
Nadar is still composing herself at the foot of the stairs when Mulaghesh gets there. Nadar coughs. “I apologize for that, General. That must have been uncomfortable.”
“I’ll say,” says Mulaghesh darkly. She oversaw executions of her own in Bulikov, of course, but they were far more ceremonial affairs, attended and supervised by civilian officials. What she just witnessed felt as mundane as taking out the day’s trash.
“The thing is, I agree with him,” says Nadar. She begins walking down the hall, and Mulaghesh follows. “Operation Arc Lightning places a great burden on us when we need it least.”