That was surprisingly insightful and well informed for Hakum. "Have you been doing some research in your free time?"
Hakum smiled sheepishly. "Lord Navuh allows me access to the internet so I can research all kinds of things for him. There is so much information out there on every imaginable subject."
The mention of his father sent a spike of anger through Losham, even though Hakum hadn't done so intentionally. The assistant was under compulsion to believe that Navuh was in the harem, working from his apartment there and telling Losham what he wanted to be done.
Explaining the enclosure had been a bit of a stretch, something about codes getting lost, but with Dave's compulsion, no one seemed capable of questioning much.
Then again, perhaps Hakum was not as dumb as he appeared, and he suspected that something was off with that story despite the compulsion.
They reached the security office, where Commander Rashid waited with three human workers kneeling on the floor, hands zip-tied behind their backs. Rashid snapped to attention when Losham entered.
"Lord Losham. These three were caught leaving the laboratory building with stolen medical supplies."
Losham studied the prisoners. The men wore the gray coveralls of construction workers, and they kept their heads down.
"What's your name?" Losham asked the older man.
"Pashar, sir."
"Why were you stealing medical supplies?"
"We weren't stealing. I have diabetes, sir. I ran out of syringes, and the clinic was closed. One of the soldiers told us that we can get them at the lab. There was no one there when we walked in this morning, and a box of syringes was right there on one of the worktables. We took a few. Just what we needed."
Losham looked at the other two. "All of you have disabilities?"
The men nodded, but he knew they were lying. A quick peek into their brains revealed the truth. They were drug users, and they'd hoped to find more than syringes in the lab.
Rashid could have done the same thing instead of bothering him.
"Search their barracks for drugs," Losham told Rashid. "If you find any, bring them back for further questioning. If not, give them twenty lashes each and send them back to work."
"Twenty lashes?" Rashid sounded disappointed. "Lord Navuh would have?—"
"Lord Navuh put me in charge." The words came out sharper than Losham intended. "I'll handle discipline as I see fit."
"Yes, Lord Losham."
"Lord Navuh would have executed them," Hakum said as they left the room.
"That would have been wasteful. There is still a lot of work to be done on the island."
Losham returned to the enclosure to find Gregor setting up an elaborate framework of metal brackets around one corner of the glass wall. The diamond wire saw, which was as thin as a fishing line but capable of cutting through steel, was being threaded through the brackets with care.
"How long?" Losham asked.
"Another hour to finish the setup. Then we can start cutting." Gregor wiped sweat from his forehead. "But I should warn you, this wire is our last one. If it breaks, we'll have to wait for the next supply run."
"It won't break, and if it does, order ten times as much for the next shipment. I'm tired of having to wait." He got closer to the glass and placed his palm against the surface.
It was cool to the touch, despite the warm desert conditions maintained inside. He could see the sand, golden and undisturbed, hiding whatever secrets his father had buried.
Behind the glass, something seemed to shift in the sand. Just a slight depression, as if something beneath had settled. Losham leaned closer, trying to see if there was any pattern to the disturbance, but the sand remained still.
It had been an illusion, his mind playing tricks on him after staring at that sand for far too long.
"Sir?" Morven approached with a handheld scanner. "I've been running some tests on the glass while Gregor set up the saw. You might want to see this."
Losham took the scanner, frowning at the readout. The display showed a complex wavelength pattern, layers of different frequencies overlapping in a way that made no sense.
