“Two years ago, a discovery was made on the Continent: one of our installations stumbled across a curious, powdery ore along the mountainous western coastline. This material went unremarked upon until, as part of an experiment, a team in the regional governor’s office tried to pass an electric current through it.
“What they discovered is that this material conducts electricity in a manner heretofore unseen. If you are unaware, no conductor is perfect—whether it is copper or steel, some electricity is lost along the way. But with this material, none is lost. None. And…some recent reports suggest that it possesses properties far, far stranger than that….” A pause. “But I am not sure whether or not to trust these accounts. I will leave it up to you to judge when you arrive.”
Something about that unsettles Mulaghesh. It’s something in Shara’s voice, as if to repeat aloud what she’d been told would make it all a little more real, and thus a little more disturbing.
“If we use this material to its fullest potential, then it would be nothing short of revolutionary for Saypur and the Continent—which could desperately use power and heating. Powerful industrial factions are very keen to make that happen right now. However, I have not allowed it to be processed on any larger scale. My primary concern is that our scientists and engineers are unable to determine exactly how this material does what it does. Normal conductors they understand: this they most certainly do not. And I am most distrustful of what we cannot explain, as you can understand.”
Mulaghesh grimaces, because she absolutely does. If this material possesses astonishing properties, and if those properties can’t be explained, then it’s possible those properties are miraculous: the product or direct creation of one of the ancient Continental Divinities. Between the actions of Shara and her great-grandfather, the much-revered Kaj of Saypur, nearly all of the original Continental Divinities should be dead, and all their miraculous items completely dead and nonfunctional with them. So if this stuff is miraculous, thinks Mulaghesh, then maybe yet another Divinity isn’t as dead as we’d like it to be.
“You are probably now thinking, correctly, that I am concerned this material may be Divine in nature,” says Shara’s voice. “This will probably cause you to wonder why I am sending you to investigate rather than someone from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, someone whose field of study is all things Divine and miraculous.”
“That would be correct,” mutters Mulaghesh.
“The simple answer to this is that we did. Eight months ago. And after three months of studying this material, she vanished. Disappeared. Without a single trace.”
Mulaghesh cocks an eyebrow. “Hmph.”
“Her name was Sumitra Choudhry,” says Shara’s voice. “Her file is in the dossier Pitry has provided to you. As I said, she studied this material for three months, operating out of the Saypuri Military installation in the region. Her communications back became erratic, and then one day Choudhry was simply gone. Quite abruptly. Our forces in the region searched for her and found nothing. They did not suspect any…unusual foul play.” There is a clink of glass, a bloop of gushing liquid—is she pouring a glass of water?—and the sound of a sip. “And I say unusual, because this material was discovered in Voortyashtan. And this is where you are bound.”
“Ah, shit!” shouts Mulaghesh. “Shit! Are you fucking kidding me?”
Another sip.
Shara’s voice says, “I will give you a moment to compose yourself.”
***
Mulaghesh then says a lot of things to the little box. Mostly she tells it the things she’s going to do to Shara when she gets back to Ghaladesh, if she gets back to Ghaladesh, because isn’t there a one in three chance of her being murdered or drowning or dying of the plague in fucking Voortyashtan, ass-end of the universe, armpit of the world?
And this is where Shara has sent her: to the worst possible hinterlands on the globe, the military outpost you get shipped to only if you sleep with or kill the wrong person.
“…don’t even care if they throw me in prison!” Mulaghesh shouts at the box. “I don’t care if they draw and quarter me! I’ll do it to you in broad daylight, and the hells with your fancy titles!”
Another contemplative sip of water comes from the box.
“You rip me out of Javrat and stick me on a boat to Voortyashtan without even telling me?” says Mulaghesh. “That is bad form, bad form right there! Low character!”
Another sip.
Mulaghesh buries her face in her hand. “Damn it all….What am I going to do?”
“I hope you’re calming down now,” says Shara’s voice primly.
“Fuck you!” says Mulaghesh.
“And I think you may be somewhat relieved when I tell you that the military installation in question is our regional governor’s quarters, Fort Thinadeshi. So, you will be in what is, I hope, a tightly controlled region. As you know, the fortress is located just outside of Voortyashtan proper, the urban area, so it will be a little more…civilized than the rest of the region.”
“That’s not saying mu—”
“This may not be saying much,” says Shara’s voice. “We will also be providing you with a contact, someone who can help you acclimate to the situation in Voortyashtan. Pitry will have more on that.”
Mulaghesh sighs.
“I need someone on the ground that I can trust, Turyin. I must have someone ascertain whether there is any reason to believe this new material has any Divine origins, as well as what happened to Choudhry.”
“What else do you want me to do, capture the sky in a damn beer glass?”
“You may prove uniquely suited to this,” Shara’s voice says. “Because the new regional governor of the Voortyashtan polis is General Lalith Biswal.”
The name is like a hammer upside Mulaghesh’s head. She sits in shock, staring at the little box.
“No,” she whispers.
“As you both fought together in the Summer of Black Rivers,” continues Shara’s voice calmly, ignorant of Mulaghesh’s distress, “I am hoping you will have some leeway with him, where most operatives would not.”
His face flashes before Mulaghesh’s eyes: young, dark-eyed, smeared in mud, watching her from the shadow of a trench as the sky pissed rain down their necks. Though she knows he must be close to sixty-five by now, this is how she’ll always remember him.
“No, no, no,” whispers Mulaghesh.
“And Biswal being about as brass as you are, I think he may be sympathetic to your cover story. He’s a veteran of the military’s petty bureaucracy and has seen many comrades go on the touring shuffle.”
Mulaghesh just stares at the little box on the desk. What vast sin did I commit, she wonders, to be damned to a fate such as this?
“There is also the matter of the harbor,” says Shara’s voice. “As you are aware, Saypur is cooperating with Voortyashtan and the United Dreyling States to try to create a second functioning international port on the Continent. This should not, I hope, influence your mission in any significant way—but it is not an easy project, and tensions are running high in the region.”