“What is it?”
“It’s a tribal tattoo. All the tribes have them. Once you’ve passed all the tests and are sworn into the tribe, they give you this mark, a ring around the neck. The symbolism implies that the only way to leave the tribe—”
“Is to lose your head,” says Mulaghesh.
“Right. All the tribes have different colors, patterns. This one is the Orskova tribe, a river clan. So this will piss off some important people, probably.”
Mulaghesh looks up at the farmhouse, whose back side is smoldering, and suddenly this is all too familiar: the smoking farmhouse; the wet, cold grass; the whine of the flies; and the smell of corpses….
Mulaghesh shakes herself. She stands and walks over, examining the crude wooden structure. Part of the back door has collapsed, like someone drove a truck into it. This must have broken open the hearth, which started the fire. “Lucky it’s wet,” she says aloud. “Otherwise we’d have a forest fire.” She looks back at Nadar. “You know what this is, don’t you?”
“I do?” says Nadar.
“Shorn of limbs, with the torsos vivisected and placed on stakes…”
Nadar thinks about it. Then her eyes spring wide. “Oh, by the seas…”
“Yeah. This is what Voortyashtani sentinels used to do to Saypuri slaves who rebelled or tried to escape. Breaking them down into components, I think is what they called it. Proving that we weren’t really humans in their eyes: just devices, instruments, easily taken apart. Then they put the bodies on display for everyone to see. You’re unlikely to resist slavery with something like that out your bedroom window.” She shakes her head. “I’ve read accounts of it happening, but…I’ve never seen someone try to duplicate it.”
Nadar and Mulaghesh lead their horses back around to the front of the farmhouse. “So you think it’s a message?” asks Nadar.
“This is your region, your backyard,” says Mulaghesh. “You tell me.”
“I do. He’s Orskova, and this is disputed territory among the tribes. Maybe this is an insult, or warning—betray us, and we’ll treat you like Saypuris.”
“Seems likely.” Mulaghesh brushes a fly off of her face. “This is going to fuck up your negotiations something fierce, isn’t it.”
Nadar groans and rubs her eyes. “Oh, definitely. Biswal and Rada will have a merry time trying to get the damned tribes to stop trying to murder one another after this abomination.”
“Rada?”
“Rada Smolisk. She’s the polis governor here.”
“Rada Smo…” Mulaghesh’s mouth opens as she realizes what Nadar’s suggesting. “That name…You mean the polis governor is a damned Continental?”
“Oh, yes,” says Nadar. “It’s one of the Ministry programs, trying to get more Continentals involved in governing themselves. Unlike other programs, though, this one turned out quite well. Rada’s a good sort. She’s a bit of a shrinking violet, but she’s a highly accomplished doctor. Goes all over the place fixing people up, even comes up to the fort to work on the wounded. She’s well liked.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing in my life! A Continental, as a polis governor!”
Nadar smirks. “I thought you were part of the minister’s cadre, General. Isn’t she quite the progressive?”
“There’s progressive and then there’s stark fucking barmy.” She shakes herself and tries to focus. “You said this had happened before?”
“What? Oh. Right. Yes, once, seven months ago. It was a couple, though, not a family, and the murder wasn’t nearly as…ornate as this.”
“No body parts on stakes?”
“No. From the patrol’s reading of the scene, a man killed his wife, removed her head and limbs. He didn’t get to vivisecting the torso, though. We found him dead in the same room in their little hut. The wolves had been at him.”
They begin walking back to the front yard. “No sign of foul play in his death?”
“Like I said, the wolves had been at him. But no. We thought he’d been drunk when he did it, maybe died of alcohol poisoning. Or had a heart attack. That scene wasn’t nearly as fresh as this one is—they’d been there for a while. We thought it was an isolated event. All kinds of horrible things happen here. But this…”
“Yeah,” says Mulaghesh. “It’s a trend now. Maybe the first one was a warning, too; they just didn’t complete the job the way they wanted to. They got sloppy. But now they’ve learned. They know how to do it right.”
Nadar looks off into the dark trees. “So it’ll happen again.”
“Probably, yeah. Unless you can find the person or, more likely, people who did this.”
“You think there’s more than one?”
“It’s tough, killing a whole family. Kids run. Someone comes at you with a knife, maybe. Best to bring some helping hands. Though I wouldn’t rule out poison or suffocation. Start a fire, choke them in their sleep. That’s one way they could do it alone, I suppose.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I just know.” She clucks her tongue and shakes her head. “They don’t mutilate the men, though. The rest are fair game. It’s damn odd.”
There’s a shout from the lane outside. Nadar and Mulaghesh remount and ride over to find Pandey and three other soldiers grouped at where the trees run along the road. “What is it?” asks Nadar.
“We found something, ma’am,” says Pandey. He points at the trees. “It’s like a deer blind, in a way.”
Nadar and Mulaghesh dismount again—Mulaghesh’s thighs are already complaining—and squat to see. There between two trees are dozens of fir cuttings, carefully arranged to make a crude wall.
Nadar parts the wall a bit with one hand and peers inside. “Needles have been cleared away,” she says softly. “Like someone sat here for a long time. Good eye, soldier.”
Mulaghesh stands and lines herself up with the blind. Its line of sight peers right through the fence to the side of the farmhouse, giving a clear view of anything that might be happening in the front or the back.
“They watched,” she says quietly. “Watched and waited until the time was right.”
***
It’s late evening by the time they return to the city proper. Mulaghesh is exhausted, and the muscles in her lower back feel like they can hardly keep her upright. “I’ll send a messenger to notify the Orskovas,” says Nadar as the gates to Fort Thinadeshi open, “as they’ll probably want to be the ones who’ll dispose of the bodies.”
“What’s the next step for you, Captain?” asks Mulaghesh.
“Send a patrol to start canvassing the area in the morning,” says Nadar. “Ask questions, see what looks suspicious. That’s as good a place to start as any. Will you be staying here tonight, General?”
“No, I think it’d be wiser to stay in the city,” says Mulaghesh. “Two generals under one roof…I don’t want to step on any toes.”
“And I assume that SDC’s goosedown beds, ample fireplaces, and top-line chefs have nothing to do with your decision,” says Nadar. Her voice is surprisingly cold.
“It’s been a long day, Captain,” says Mulaghesh sharply, “and you’ve seen some disturbing shit. So I’m willing to give you a pass this one time, Nadar. But just the one.”
“I apologize, General. You have been most helpful in your assessment of the scene back there. Pandey can drive you back down, if you’d like. I’m afraid the rest of us have a busy night ahead.” She salutes, Mulaghesh returns it, and she trots inside Thinadeshi headquarters. Mulaghesh watches her go, reading her subtext loud and clear: You make motions like you want to help, but at the end of the day, you’re still on vacation.
“Whatever,” mutters Mulaghesh, walking to the auto. “I’ve got work to do, too.”
Pandey salutes. “Back to the lighthouse, General?”
“No, not tonight,” she says, climbing in. “Let’s go to the harbor works instead.” She flips through her portfolio, staring at the copies of Choudhry’s strange, disturbing drawing
s. “I’ve got someone I need to talk to.”
***
The first place Mulaghesh goes to find Signe is the SDC front desk, where she’s met by a thickset man who glances at a schedule, says “Dock D4,” and points in a somewhat northeasterly direction. Mulaghesh treks to Dock D4, only to be informed upon arrival that Signe has moved on to Prep Station 3, a fenced-off portion of the SDC construction yards. But when she arrives there the foremen tell Mulaghesh she’s missed Signe by twenty minutes; and while they don’t know her schedule, they think she was headed for the Tower Test Assembly Yard—whatever the hells that is.
Mulaghesh, huffing and puffing, trots back in the direction of the SDC headquarters, thinking that Signe must be under the impression that there are actually seventy-two hours in a day: there’s no other explanation why a sane human being would ever schedule their work in such a manner.
As she runs she looks to the edges, the shadows, searching the workers. Dreylings are commonly thought of as pirates and savage seamen by most of the civilized world—and Mulaghesh knows that this reputation is not unearned—but industrialization seems to suit those working here for SDC. Their sealskin coats are all color-coded and smartly arranged, their construction helmets festooned with badges and stickers signaling which areas they’re approved to enter. These people are here to do work, and they mean to do it well.
But some are…different. She spies some of the workers lurking in the shadows, watchful creatures with what are obviously riflings and scatter guns hidden in their coats. She even spots something downright disturbing on the top of a watchtower above the train tracks: a PK-512, a stationary, fully automatic, six-barreled turret capable of spitting out an incredible amount of destruction per second. She takes careful note of the hulking pile of machinery and its massive barrel set: it’s like a scaled-up version of the carousel currently holstered at her side. She remembers seeing one of those during a demonstration just a few years ago and recalls how it shredded a quarter-inch-thick steel plate like it was paper.
Biswal was right, thinks Mulaghesh. They’ve got a private army here.
She finally catches up to Signe, who is being pursued by a flock of anxious Dreylings like a mother duck pursued by her ducklings. As she nears she hears Signe rattling off instructions, and at the conclusion of each order a man peels himself away from her entourage and goes sprinting off through the construction yards. “…Dock G7 is currently undergoing maintenance, so we’ll need to reroute all shipments to H3 until 1200 next Thursday. Repeat, next Thursday. Tower 5 is being assembled, but when it’s finished, it should be able to provide stabilization for Tower 34, which is having trouble finding purchase. Tower 34 needs to be fully operational by 1000 hours Sunday in order for us to do the lift—we have to get that obstruction cleared if we want to get started on the western delta. How are we on diesel?”
“Tanker’s due in tomorrow.”
“What time?”
“Oh-nine-hundred hours.”
“Not good enough. Escalate.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
On and on and on. Signe winnows down her entourage until only three men are left. One of them is obviously her bodyguard, though from his uniform he’s somewhat high-ranking. He spots Mulaghesh coming, glances at the carousel holstered at her hip, and twitches slightly—almost certainly undoing a clasp on some hidden holster.
Signe glances at her. “Oh. Ah! Hello, General. How was the fortress? Illuminating, I trust?”
“Something like that,” says Mulaghesh. She watches the bodyguard closely—he’s a lean, lupine sort of Dreyling. His hair is so short it’s hard to tell what’s hair and what’s stubble.
“Allow me to introduce you both,” says Signe. “This is my chief of security, Lem.”
Mulaghesh smiles thinly. “Evening, Lem.”
Lem just nods. His glower doesn’t change one bit.
“I have some matters to discuss with you,” says Mulaghesh.
“Absolutely,” says Signe, checking off something on a clipboard with a surprising amount of vindication. “I would be more than happy to chat with you. However, I’m reviewing a new tower assembly process that might significantly accelerate a crucial stage in our process.”
“Okay…So?”
“So…” Signe points ahead to a line of thick iron walls, nearly twenty feet tall, riddled with riveted seams. The only visible entrance is a very threatening door with a multistep locking system. It looks like something built to withstand an armed assault, though its roof is a series of canvas tarps, stretched out to give it shelter from the rain. “So, you will not be able to accompany me, I’m afraid. That’s the tower test assembly yard. There are quite a few very, very valuable patents hidden behind those walls, and it wouldn’t do to keep the door open too wide, if you understand me.”
“You’re worried about me being an industrial spy?”
“I wouldn’t normally, but…A Saypuri general, eager for retirement, looking for a way to carve out a nest egg…Maybe I’m paranoid, but paranoia has, in my experience, rarely harmed, and usually helped.”
“Thanks for the kind assessment. So when the hells can I talk to you?”
“Mm…After this, I’ll be headed back over to Dock G7, so…tomorrow?”
“You can’t talk until tomorrow?”
“It is a busy evening,” says Signe. One of her aides hands her a clipboard, which she casts an eye over. “I believe I can give you an hour tomorrow evening. Say, 1900, in the board club.”
“The fancy place we ate at? Fine. Just one more question. When do you sleep?”
“Lem?” says Signe.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“When is my next scheduled sleep?”
He consults a ledger-sized notepad. “Eleven hundred tomorrow, ma’am.”
Signe smiles at Mulaghesh. “Well. There you go. I do have some information for you as well, General—some that needn’t wait. I put out the alert you requested, notifying all employees to come forward if Sumitra Choudhry had approached any of them. And it turns out she did. She asked one of our medics as to whether or not Voortyashtan had an apothecary—a place where one can purchase all manner of—”
“I know what an apothecary is,” says Mulaghesh. She makes a note of this in her portfolio. “Did she say why?”
“She didn’t, I’m afraid. But our medic told me she was quite eager to buy something. What, she wouldn’t say. Look for the shop with the green door on Andrus Street.”
“Wait, the streets have names here? I didn’t even notice.”
“They’re written in the curbs at corners,” says Signe. They approach yet another checkpoint—this one at the door to the tower test assembly yard—and Mulaghesh hangs back, eyeing the Dreyling guard with the rifling slung over his back. “They use fish bones to spell them out. Anyway, here’s hoping more of my workers come forward with something about Miss Choudhry. Maybe one of them will know something more useful to you.”
Mulaghesh continues taking notes. The giant iron door in the wall swings open. Signe walks through, head buried in her clipboard and whispering notes to herself. She doesn’t even look back as the door swings shut with a tremendous clang.
***
The shop on Andrus Street is really more of a hut, featuring animal-skin walls with seams tightly stitched shut with tendon. The door is a dangling wooden slat painted dull green, its paint cracking. It offers absolutely no insulation against the chilly drafts.
Mulaghesh walks up, knocks three times. Someone inside calls, “Come in!”
She pushes the door aside and finds she is inside of a labyrinth of messy shelves, all curling around her, a cyclone rendered in wood. All the shelves are filled with bottles and jars, most holding blackened and shriveled things that might have once been organic. Others hold seeds, powders, the cores of strange fruits. It takes Mulaghesh a moment to focus on a desk at the other end of the hut, where a small man who’s just as shrunken and withered as his wares is smiling at her.
; “Hello, ma’am,” says the little man, “how are you?” His eyes widen, then narrow when he sees her Saypuri uniform. “Beautiful evening, isn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“What can I help you with?” asks the little man. He nods at her arm. “Need a pain poultice for that? I get a lot of sailors from the harbor works here missing all kinds of their bits. I know my way around a stump or two, that I do.”
Mulaghesh pauses, trying to figure out how offended she is by this statement. “No, I—”
“Having women’s issues, then?” He grins. His teeth are like pebbles laced with black lichen. “A lady your age—do you feel the heats upon you? Not an issue at all. I have a—”
“Do you have any poultices that work on a fractured eye socket?” she asks. “Because you’re going to need them if you persist in this line of salesmanship.”
He blinks. “Oh. All right.”
“I’m not here to buy. I have some questions about someone who came here a while ago.”
The little man whistles. “Well, that particular subject matter can be tricky. Very tricksome indeed, unfortunately.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, it would not be in the interest of my clients or my business if I were to go blabbing about what they buy here.” And then, as if an afterthought: “It’d also be a mite bit dishonest, too, I suppose.”
“This would have been a Saypuri,” says Mulaghesh. “A Saypuri woman, like me. Would this be a different situation, then?”
“I’m offended that you would think me being a Continental would prejudice me against a Saypuri enough to compromise my honesty,” says the little man. “It’s a hurtsome thing to think, honestly.”
Sighing, Mulaghesh slaps a twenty-drekel note down on the table.
The little man pockets it in a flash. “Right,” he says brightly. “So. This Saypuri woman.”
“She would have come in several months ago, at least.”
“That’s as I thought. You’re in luck. We very, very rarely get any Saypuri women in here, so I think I remember the one you’re talking about. Short? Bandage here?” He points to his brow. “Acted like she’d been shut up in a room all day?”
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