“Nah,” Kit shook his head, angling over to grab one of the empty chairs at Robert’s table, “didn’t lose a dogfight. Just missing an Imp.”
“Ah,” Robert nodded sagely, trying to look his inscrutable best. A maternal Scandinavian heritage had given the antiquarian his fair-skinned coloring, but a paternal Hong Kong Chinese grandfather had bequeathed Li his name, the slight almond shape of his eyes, and the self-ascribed duty to go inscrutable on command. “The nest empties and the father bird chirps woefully.”
Kit smiled, despite himself. “Robert?”
“Yeah?”
“Save it for the tourists, huh?”
The antiquarian grinned, unrepentant, and introduced him to the foreman.
“Kit, meet Ammar Kalil Ben Mahir Riyad, foreman of the Arabian Nights construction team. We’ve just been discussing pre-Islamic Arabian artwork. He’s worried about the Arabian Nights tourists, because they’re going to try smuggling antiquities out through the gate and he wanted to know if I could help spot the thefts.”
“Of course,” Kit nodded, shaking hands across the table and greeting him in Arabic, of which he knew only a few words. The foreman smiled and returned the greeting, then his eyes turned serious. “I will stay only a moment longer, Mr. Carson, our work shift begins again soon.” He hesitated, then said, “I wish to apologize for the problems some of my workers have caused. I was not given any choice in the men I brought into TT-86. Others did the hiring. Most of us are Suni, we have no quarrel with anyone, and even most up-time Shi’ia do not agree with this terrible Brotherhood. I did not know some of the men were members, or I would have refused to take them. If I could afford to send away those who started the fighting, I would. But it is not in my power to fire them and we are already behind schedule. I have docked their wages and written letters of protest to my superiors, which I will send through Primary when it opens. I have asked for them to be replaced with reliable workers who will not start riots. Perhaps,” he hesitated again, looking very worried, “you could speak with your station manager? If the station deports them, I cannot be held responsible and my superiors will have to send reliable men to replace them, men who are not in the Ansar Majlis.”