Pike gestured toward the students. “Must be a challenge to maintain a team in such a remote place. I don’t see any sleeping quarters.”

“Oh, no, not here,” the professor replied. “There’s a crossroads ten miles south of here with an old inn. We stay there.”

“Where my daughter stayed?” the American asked.

Their guide did not look at Pike, just bobbed his head up and down in an affirming nod.

“Did the professor have an office of some kind?” Shan inquired.

“A desk in our shared office,” the acting director said, nodding toward a small modular building near the road.

The building held only one large chamber, serving as a kitchen and meeting area on one side, and on the other an office consisting of three desks, one of which was separated by folding screens. Shan gestured toward the desk behind the screens. “Gangfen’s?”

Their guide hesitated. “I am quite sure there’s nothing related to the accident.”

“Of course not,” Shan said, and lowered his voice. “This is mostly a courtesy call for Natalie’s grieving father. Who happens to be an important official in America,” he added in a whisper. “We thought there might be a memento, something about his daughter’s work here that Mr. Pike might take home. Perhaps a glowing evaluation of her work here. It might bring some solace to grieving relatives back home.”

The acting director gave a reluctant nod, and Shan sat at the desk as Pike leaned over it. Papers were strewn haphazardly, all seeming to be reports and files on Dzungar artifacts, camp structures, and the Green Standard Army. Shan opened drawers with careful disinterest and lifted another file from the bottom drawer.

He read the caption with a question in his voice. “Religious Affairs?”

The balding professor sighed. “One of Gangfen’s many projects. Ever vigilant for opportunities to help the motherland. More than a scholar. A patriot hero, really. He will be sorely missed.”

Shan opened the file and read the subject matter of the report inside, not bothering to conceal his surprise. “Weather Magic Folklore?”

“What the professor called a subthread of a new Religious Affairs campaign. They are assembling proof of the many pagan practices that were poisoning the Tibetan working class before we intervened.”

“The motherland benefits all it touches,” Shan replied, choosing the safety of a popular Party slogan.

“Exactly. These people were practically living in the Bronze Age.”

“No cars, no trains, no flushing toilets, no factories, no compulsory boarding schools, no prisons,” Shan observed.

His host nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, yes, exactly, comrade!”