“Excellent,” Tan observed to Shan as the doctor hurried down the corridor. “The simplest stories are always the best.”

“Just so long as you don’t confuse it with the truth. Two people were in here. They fought, probably just with their hands. Crates were pushed about. Someone hit the back window, probably with his head, leaving a smear of blood. It wasn’t Sun. His head shows no such mark, and he wasn’t tall enough to leave a smear so high on the window.”

“Another passenger, you mean.”

“The train is essentially sealed. It’s like a spaceship for the last twelve hundred miles. Yes, another passenger, though I have no idea how the second man escaped with the inner door jammed and the train racing through the night.”

“The other passengers are all gone.”

“Your cargo is intact. It’s the Institute’s loss, not yours. Do you really want to push harder?”

“The Institute invaded my county, and my military transport. Now they’re probing your town. Yes, I want the truth.”

“Then I want to know exactly why Metok Rentzig was executed and who prosecuted his case.”

While the soldiers unloaded the cargo and Tan called his office, Shan wandered around the station. It wasn’t only passengers who used the station. Tourists would come just to see the famous sky train, and a few now stood beyond the cordons of soldiers, taking photographs of the sleek machine. Some monks, probably staged there by the travel service, rang little tingsha cymbols and greeted people with mantras at the entrance. A group of Japanese travelers took their photographs, followed closely by a crowd of Chinese senior citizens. A Western couple wandered around the kiosks of tourist merchandise, where stuffed snow lions and mugs with the Chairman’s picture were prominently displayed. Another Westerner sat at a booth that sold tea and soft drinks, snapping photographs of the monks, the trains, the policemen, and the soldiers. Shan glanced around for the Public Security patrol that should be warning him not to take images of the Chinese military or police. Too much interest in soldiers or knobs could get foreigners ejected from Tibet.

An ambulance, lights flashing, pulled up at the entrance and attendants hurried in with a stretcher. Shan lingered in the shadows, watching the brief commotion at the end of the platform before the attendants, now escorted by soldiers, carried a lumpy burden under a blanket toward the ambulance. The station patrol appeared, shouting at the Westerner and other tourists to stop photographing the events. The stretcher passed Shan, a few bluish fingers dangling out of the blanket. Public Security knobs began pushing back observers, ordering tourists onto their buses. Shan glanced at the tea stand. The Westerner had disappeared. Tan was marching toward Shan, ready to leave.