Lhakpa took a long time to reply. His voice cracked when he finally spoke. “It wasn’t my idea. I argued against it, saying I could not subject another man to the suffering of imprisonment intended for me. But they said he had volunteered to switch, to take my place in that prison, that he had no family, that he had been in prison before and could endure it. He was about my age, about my build, so he could pass with those who didn’t know me well. They said I was needed on the mountain, that I understand mountains in ways no one else did.”

“Meaning the science of mountains,” Shan suggested. “Geology. Engineering. Who were they?”

“Those ones who call themselves purba, the resistance. They were here earlier but the old ones sent them away, because they began to suggest violence. Some of them went below, getting hired as workers, and stayed in touch with Jaya.” Lhakpa reached into a pocket. “Do you mind?” he asked and produced a pack of cigarettes. Shan had never seen him smoke. “The snow monk doesn’t smoke,” Lhakpa said with a sheepish tone, “but the professor often did, a habit from university days. I thought I had quit but the last few days of evading Public Security has been nerve-wracking.” He lit a cigarette with a book of matches before speaking again. “Yes. Geology and engineering. When I was seventeen, they sent me before what the school called academic commissioners. They were just young Party members who had graduated with degrees in socialist philosophy and such. They never asked me if I wanted to go to university myself, never asked me what I wanted to study. If I had stayed,” he shrugged. “If things had been as before, I would have gone to a monastery.”

“You would have made a wise lama,” Shan said.

Lhakpa gave a grunt that hinted at bitter amusement. “Geology and engineering. They said they were the sciences of progress, for so many mines had to be opened, so many mountains had to be leveled, so many fortifications and dams had to be built.