“I hope the others who wear your uniform think the same as you.”
Mulaghesh goes to the doorway and watches Gozha walk away through the forest. Then she looks up and tries to gauge the position of the sun in the sky. It’s early afternoon. She needs to be back in the city by evening. If she misses her hour with Signe tonight, she’ll probably die of old age waiting around for an opening again. She takes one last look around the shack.
She stops. Cocks her head. Then walks to the corner.
There’s a trace of something silvery on the floor in the corner of the shack. Mulaghesh touches it with her fingertips and looks at them in the light.
It looks a little like graphite, soft and powdery.
“Ah, shit,” says Mulaghesh. “It can’t be….” She looks around for the trapdoor, finds it, tears it open, and drops down to the earthen basement.
It’s close, dark, and damp down here. She lights a match, sending warm, fluttering luminescence dancing over the dark walls. Bohdan stocked this room with the bare essentials, pots of water and skins for sleeping on. She looks up, guessing where she saw the residue, and walks to the corner.
The earthen floor glimmers at her feet. She squats to examine the loose pile of light, dusty ore collected in the corner, where it must’ve trickled through the cracks in the floor. She touches it with her fingers. It falls apart like powdered sugar.
She knows what it is. She saw mounds of it yesterday, after all.
“Thinadeskite,” she whispers. “Well, I’ll be fucking damned.”
***
Nadar’s eyes dance around Biswal’s office as she thinks. “That’s…not possible.”
“I don’t know how, either,” says Mulaghesh. “I could be wrong—I’d prefer to be wrong. But I dumped out my water and put it in here so you could check to make sure.” She holds her canteen out. “How long would it take for Prathda to confirm this is actually thinadeskite?”
Nadar takes it, still stunned and blinking as she tries to process this revelation. A dove flits by the windows of Biswal’s crow’s nest, glancing at these three strange creatures having a discussion at the top of the tower. “An hour at most,” she says. “It’s easy to identify.”
“Then I suggest we start now,” says Biswal. He sits staring eastward at the Tarsils, fingers steepled and deep in thought. “The security implications are…concerning.”
“You’re absolutely right, sir,” says Nadar. There’s a gleam of sweat around her temple. “To have such a substance appear in Voortyashtani hands…”
“And at the scene of a brutal murder,” says Mulaghesh.
“And, if what you’ve said is correct,” says Biswal, “a murder that a missing Ministry intelligence operative had some knowledge of.”
“Maybe,” says Mulaghesh. “There are a lot of maybes here. We still haven’t worked out how Choudhry could have predicted the murders.”
Biswal sits back in his chair, eyes fixed on the distant Solda. “There are no other verified or known sources of thinadeskite in this region. We’re the only source. So somehow it got from here to there. Now I have to wonder what else might be getting from here to there, or vice versa—intelligence, resources, weapons….Could someone have an operative or an informant in Fort Thinadeshi? Someone who could tell insurgents how to cut through the perimeters, throw open the gates, and work around the schedules of our patrols?”
“Determining this is a priority for me, sir,” says Nadar. She looks pale. Mulaghesh isn’t surprised: having a security breach take place under your watch is something your superiors aren’t quick to forget.
“I’m glad to hear it. Have your most trusted people run the tests on what General Mulaghesh brought back,” says Biswal. “Then do a thorough probe and reevaluation of the mining and research operations. We’ll want to know what happens to the thinadeskite every step of the way, and who’s involved. See if anyone squirms under the pressure. And have General Mulaghesh here check out the mines, too.”
Mulaghesh’s heart nearly sings. She was hoping Biswal would say that. If he didn’t, she was going to have to ask for it herself, and requesting access to such a highly controlled site could be a considerable overreach of authority.
“Yes, sir,” says Nadar. “I…I would like for my own investigators to get a look first, if that’s possible.”
Biswal looks to Mulaghesh. “Sure,” she says. “I’m here to help, if I can. I’ve no talent for vacations. Make use of me if you can.”
“We appreciate your assistance in this matter,” says Biswal. “Without your attention we wouldn’t have even known about this issue.”
Mulaghesh keeps her face still as she nods, though she doesn’t want his compliments. She doesn’t need Nadar being more frustrated with her than she already is, and she knows the captain doesn’t think of this as a “we” situation: this is Mulaghesh riding into Fort Thinadeshi and making everyone look bad, especially Nadar.
“It would take about four days for reevaluation, sir,” says Nadar. “And that’s a quick turnaround time.”
“Four days…and on the fifth, we’re talking to the tribal leaders.” He rubs his brow, groaning slightly. “General Mulaghesh can take her tour that afternoon, then, I suppose. I’ve no doubt you and I will have plenty to occupy us by then, Nadar.”
“We can make it work, sir.”
Biswal nods at Nadar. “Good. Dismissed, Captain. Thank you.” Nadar nods at him, then turns and trots down the stairwell.
“Take a seat, Turyin,” says Biswal. He reaches down, pulls out two small glasses, and pours some plum wine. “You know, when I said I could give you some problems to handle, I didn’t mean you needed to go out and find some new ones we didn’t know about.”
“You’d prefer I keep silent the next time?”
“Hells no. I just never figured you’d be one of those soldiers who spend their golden years banging around military halls, trying to find problems to fix.”
“Let’s watch it on the whole ‘golden years’ shit. And also, this is coming from a man who fought to take command here.”
“Fair point.” He slides a glass over, then picks up his own and holds it to his temple. He sighs. “But you’re getting some impression of all the problems we’re having here. All the problems I’ve inherited, in other words. And, if you can believe it, this new one isn’t even the most alarming.”
“I’ve got a feeling you’re about to ask me to do something, Lalith.”