“Ohana.” Syfax wiped his hand on his coat. “You almost killed my prisoner.”
Taziri turned to stare up at him. “That’s unfortunate, sir.”
She’s still in revenge mode. That’s the last thing I need. “You mean it’s unfortunate that he almost died, or that he didn’t quite die?” Syfax knelt down and cuffed Hamuy’s hands behind his back. “Get back in the cockpit, lieutenant.”
She went back to her seat in silence. Syfax made sure Kenan still had his head on straight and left him to guard the unconscious prisoner. With Evander lying across the upholstered bench at the back of the cabin and snoring violently, Syfax found a shortage of seats so he went back up to sit in the engineer’s chair.
Hours passed. The ship shuddered, the engines droned, and the clouds parted to reveal a sea of stars ahead, as much as could be seen around the edge of the gas envelope. The landscape below offered only dim and ragged shapes that might be trees and snaking lines that might be roads. The ghostly outlines of Zili and Lixus came and went, along with other smaller fishing villages. And from time to time, they would pass over the tiny blue light of a marker tower leading the way south along the coast.
“What’s that?”
Syfax looked back and saw a sleepy-eyed Evander kneeling on the padded bench and pressing his face to the window. “That right there. That light. What is that?”
Syfax leaned across the cockpit to peer at the dull orange glow on the ground. It flickered once, twice. “A fire. A big one.”
Chapter 3
Ever so gently, Taziri eased the Halcyon to port to pass over the wavering firelight blazing half a mile from the coast line. As they came closer, Syfax stuck his large shaven head into the cockpit beside her and said, “Take us down. I wanna check that out.”
She frowned behind her scarf. With each passing second, the shadowy shapes on the ground became more distinct and suddenly she recognized the broken lines of an airship gondola on the hillside. “Major, I’d rather not get too close. I can’t see the ground clearly and there could be trees.” Taziri began easing back the throttles. “Maybe we should come back in the morning.”
He looked sharply at her. “Not a chance. If that’s the Crake, then the ambassador can’t be far away. Land the ship, Ohana.”
Taziri nodded. “Yes, sir.” She worked the pedals and the throttle, and after a quarter hour of gently sinking down over the rocky slope, she flipped the propellers over and pinned the airship to the ground. There weren’t any trees nearby but she did see several jagged stones poking up from the earth, large enough to pierce a gondola deck by several feet. She stared at one particularly sharp rock a few yards to her left. “If the wind picks up, we’re going to slide around on this gravel, sir, and that would be a very bad thing.”
“I’ll be quick.” Syfax unlocked the door and stepped out onto the earth.
“Watch out for the bats!” Taziri watched him through the open doorway. He swayed and grabbed the side of the gondola and the aviator smiled. He’s landsick.
“What bats?” Evander asked.
“Oh, she means the flying foxes,” Kenan said. “They can be a little nasty, but the fire should keep them away from us here.”
“Flying foxes?” The Hellan stared. “Am I misunderstanding you? Foxes?”
“No, they’re just big reddish bats that look like foxes. They eat birds, mostly.” Kenan held out his hands a meter apart. “About that big.”
The doctor shuddered.
Taziri smiled as she watched Syfax jog up the slope into the wreckage where the flames were already burning low and dim. She slid over to her seat at the engineer’s console and busied herself with routine system checks. Her hands glided across the dials and lights. Everything was fine. Everything was just the way it should be, except for the empty seat beside her. She scratched at the tip of her little finger, but felt almost nothing. I can’t remember if that’s good or bad. Hopefully the major will turn me loose soon so I can get the Halcyon home and under lock and key, and then get to a doctor. She glanced back at Evander. My doctor.
Taziri climbed back into the pilot’s chair and fiddled with the throttles and fans to hold the airship steady against the stiffening night breezes coming in off the ocean. Behind her, Evander snorted in his sleep and Kenan chuckled softly at the old man. “I wish I could fall asleep that fast.”
Syfax shouted from the darkness, “Doc!”
Taziri jerked upright and twisted around in her seat. “Doctor? Doctor? The major wants you out there. Doctor?”
Without moving from his prisoner’s side, Kenan leaned over and shook the Hellan’s foot. Evander snorted and opened his eyes. “What?”
“Major Zidane needs you out there.” Taziri pointed at the burning debris outside.
The old man grabbed his bag and shuffled out the door into the night. She watched him trudge up the hill and disappear behind the bulk of the wreckage. A long minute passed in silence. Taziri glanced at Kenan but couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to say, and the sight of Hamuy sleeping peacefully on the floor just a few feet away made her stomach turn.
When she looked outside again, the doctor was leading the major down the hillside toward the Halcyon at a brisk jog. Syfax had a body lying across his arms. Both of them were glancing up at the sky and the major was shouting, “Move it, move it!”
The doctor coughed as he stepped inside and Taziri watched the marshal set a young woman in an orange jacket down on the floor just behind her. “Ghanima!” She leapt out of her seat and knelt over the unconscious girl to wipe the soot from her face. Taziri glanced at the doctor. “How is she?”
“Fine.” Evander dropped back into his seat, dabbing at the perspiration on his brow with a small cloth. “Not even a bruise, I don’t think. Just that lump on her forehead. She’ll wake up in the morning right as rain. The damn bats were only interested in her dead friend.”
Taziri looked from one man to the other. “Bats? Major?”
Syfax shrugged. “Yeah, half a dozen of the bloodsuckers were out there. Real nasty ones, too. They’d already gotten to the other pilot. We’re done here. You can lift off.” He followed her into the cockpit and sat beside her. “The extra weight won’t be an issue, will it? I know you have limits on these things.”
“No,” she said, turning the propellers over and easing the throttle forward. “We’re still well below maximum. You didn’t find the ambassador?”
“Nah, she’s gone, and no hope of tracking her without a dog.” Syfax shook his head. “Your friend here was awake when I found her. She said the ambassador shot the Crake’s captain just before they crashed.” Syfax thumbed his nose and leaned back into his seat. “I waved off the bats long enough to get a look at the captain, too. She was shot in the back, so I’m guessing there wasn’t much of a struggle. The girl here must have dragged her body out of the wreck after the crash.”
“Ambassador Chaou shot the captain?” Taziri stared at the Copper Crake as it slowly dropped down out of sight and then she peered out over the dark landscape in search of a figure, a woman running away, a woman that she could land the Halcyon on. “Why would the ambassador steal an airship? She flies all the time. The Crake was practically her personal airship anyway.”
“Yeah, I know,” Syfax said. “Chaou must have stolen the gun from one of Lady Damya’s guards to commandeer the airship, probably just before she had Hamuy start the fireworks.”
“But why? Why blow up the train station? Why kill all those people? Is she a pastoralist?” Taziri asked.
“All good questions. She might be working with the Bafours. Hell, she might even be a Bafour. God knows we’ve got plenty in country. Or maybe she was heading for the Songhai Empire when things went sideways.” Syfax thumbed his nose. “She might have even shot the captain by accident. Never forget your SCARFs, lieutenant.”
“Scarves? What’s that mean?”
“Stupid, Crazy, And Random Factors,” Kenan answered from the cabin. “Crimes that jus
t don’t make any sense.”
Taziri digested that for a moment. It’s bad enough that people are dying on purpose. But by accident? The thought of her life being snuffed out by an evil killer was tragic, yet somehow it was a possibility she could live with. But the thought of having her whole world and future snatched away forever because of some idiot making a mistake? A hard pain formed in her chest and she thought of little Menna giggling and clapping her chubby hands. “So, major, where do we go from here?”
“Where is here?”
Taziri tapped the map pinned to the wall beside her. “Here, just past Marker Seven. Nothing but grass and sand between here and Port Chellah.”
Syfax nodded. “SCARFs aside, maybe Chaou wanted to ditch the airship here outside the city. She figured we’d be looking for it and for her. She forced the captain to land, then shot her and the balloon, and went the rest of the way on foot.”
Taziri shook her head. “No, she had an airship. She could go anywhere in the country in a matter of hours, and anywhere in North Ifrica in a matter of days. I doubt she was worried that someone in Port Chellah would point up in the sky and say, I think that’s her!” Inwardly, she winced. Damn it, this isn’t just another chat with Isoke. He’s a major.
But the major didn’t seem to notice or care. “Yeah. So there must be something in Port Chellah that she needs more than she needs an airship.”
“Maybe,” said Taziri. “It’s still a long way to walk on terrain like this. It’s pretty hilly down there. Lots of gravelly, sandy slopes. Easy to break an ankle in the dark.”
“Then get us to Port Chellah and we’ll catch her as she stumbles back into civilization.”
“Will do.” She pressed the throttles forward and the propellers droned louder.
“You still holding up all right, Ohana?”
“Professional counseling, sir?” Taziri glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and managed a wry grin. “It’s under control, really. I’m fine.”
“Of course you’re not fine,” he said. “Hell, you just watched your boss get knifed in a burning building a few hours ago. But I’m not talking about Hamuy or your friend. It’s getting late and you weren’t expecting to be flying tonight. You must be tired.”
“Hungry, mostly.” A sudden cramp in her thigh made her twist her leg and she grimaced. The pain slowly receded and she tried to relax her muscles. “I’m fine.”
“We’ll set you up in a hotel as soon as we get to town. Dinner’s on me.”
“Is that before or after we catch Chaou?”
“We? No.” Syfax shook his head. “Once we land, Kenan and I will deal with Hamuy and Chaou. Tomorrow, you can take the doc to Orossa and get back to your regular routine.”
Taziri nodded, and then frowned. “I didn’t know there was a marshal’s office in Port Chellah.”
“There isn’t, not yet anyway, but the local police answer to us in emergency situations. I’ll rally the troops to catch Chaou. Sometimes it pays to be Section Two.”
“I guess so.”
“Speaking of rallying.” Syfax stood. “I think I’d like another word with Mister Hamuy. He was almost helpful earlier. He might be again.” The major stepped back into the cabin.
Taziri focused on the dark shapes below where the shadow of the Halcyon swam in the depths of the night. She heard a soft footfall behind her and in the mirror overhead she saw Kenan peering out through the cockpit windows over her shoulder. “I thought you’d be helping your boss with his questions.”
“He doesn’t need my help.” The corporal sat down and offered a thin, squinty-eyed smile. “At least, not with that sort of thing.”
“I can believe that.”
“Hey, don’t tell the major, but thanks for your help before, with the wrench.” Kenan ran a thumb along his sharp jaw line. “Hamuy is one nasty customer. He’s got a reputation, you know. A real shady history in the army, among other things.”
“What’s so shady about being in the army?”
“It wasn’t our army.” Kenan’s eyes flicked around the cockpit. “These airships are crazy things, aren’t they?”
“You don’t like flying?”
“Are you kidding? I love it. Dreamed about it since I was a kid. It’s why I applied to the Air Corps, twice.” He shrugged. “But you know how that goes. So how did you get this job? Did you know someone who knows someone?”
Taziri blinked hard, feeling the chill of her tired eyes beneath her lids. “No, actually, I didn’t even apply. I was drafted, sort of. I had just finished school. Electrical engineering. I got a letter that same week.”
“Must have been some letter,” Kenan said.
“Yeah.” Taziri glanced at the needles shuddering in the gauges behind the corporal. “They needed an electrician, and someone read a paper I published. By the end of the month, I was working on the Halcyon. Been on board ever since. Over a year building her and almost five years flying her now.”
“Must have been some paper.” Kenan grinned. “Do you like it? The job?”
“It’s a job.” Taziri looked up and saw the earnest, hungry look in the young man’s eyes. “But it has its moments. I’ve seen a lot of the world in a way most people never will. I’ve seen the topsides of clouds, and shipwrecks at the bottom of the sea, and whole cities laid out like drawings on the ground. But it keeps me away from my family more than I’d like. And there’s always the possibility of instant retirement.”
“What’s that mean?”
Taziri raised one finger to point up at the Halcyon’s gas envelope looming overhead.
“Oh.” Kenan leaned back in his seat. “I see.”
“Don’t look so worried. We’re perfectly safe.” She shrugged. “More or less. And besides, we’re about to have one of those moments I was just talking about.”
Kenan leaned forward to peer through the windows. “Wow. That’s really something.”
As the last ridge fell away behind them, the lights of Port Chellah emerged from the darkness, a thousand tiny flickers of warm yellows and fiery oranges cascading down the mountainside to the sea. The iron mines offered only a few scattered twinkles half-hidden by the trees, but as civilization traced its way eastward along dirt tracks and steel railways, larger and larger clusters of earthbound stars drew the ragged shapes of factories and workers’ lodges. Tiny red lights glowed on the tops of smokestacks that stood like naked trees in the night, staring at the heavens with their bloodshot eyes. The city spread out across the flatlands, up and down the shore. In the harbor, a hundred barges and yachts and fishing boats bobbed as the sea breezes rippled through a hundred tiny flags and pennants on their masts, all but invisible in the late night gloom.
Taziri stared out over the city. “Yeah, it’s something.”
Chapter 4
A thin haze of smoke still hung in the air under the train station roof and police officers dashed from body to body calling for medics and dragging heavy debris into piles. In all the confusion, Qhora walked serenely through the wrought iron gates with Atoq at her side. The huge kirumichi, the saber-toothed cat as the Espani called them, sniffed and cast his unblinking gaze at the dead bodies but he never strayed from her side. Qhora wove a path across the long tiled platform strewn with twisted, blackened bits of metal and wood. Oil lamps flickered on either side of each iron column, throwing waves of amber light across the scene. Women and men in gray and red uniforms stood over the debris, speaking in low voices and pointing at this or that bit of burned trash. The air tasted of ash and char.
Qhora walked along the back of the platform away from the train tracks with Atoq padding silently beside her. At the center of the platform, she stopped to study the blasted remains of the long black machine lying across the tracks. The rails themselves had been bent and snapped and the wooden ties lay tumbled on the side of the line. She knelt down to knead the back of Atoq’s neck. “Do you smell something, boy?”
“He probably smells the blood, my lady.”
Qhora looked up and saw Don Lorenzo Quesada de Gadir striding across the platform toward her. In the deep night shadows, the young hidalgo almost vanished in his long black coat and boots, and his wide-brimmed hat shadowed his pale face. It was moments like this that he was at his most dashing, his most mysterious, and his most exotic. Sometimes Qhora asked herself whether she was only attracted to the man because he was so foreign, so pale, so thin and sharp and cold. Have I merely fetishized him? Would I love the man within if he did not look so alien? Does it even matter anymore? She turned away. After all, he only loves his three-faced god now.
The Espani swordsman circled the huge cat and stood beside Qhora with his hands clasped behind his back. “The police say the explosion killed over twenty people and injured forty others. The station will be closed for several days while they clean this up and repair the rails and other machines.”
“Days?” Qhora stood up as a cold breeze played through her feathered cloak. If we had been early to the station, as I had wanted, we would be lying dead on this platform too. Perhaps there is a time and place for being late. But no. That is no way for a lady to behave. “If we wait that long, then we will arrive late, Enzo. I don’t like to be late. It’s rude.”
“Of course,” Lorenzo said. “But it can’t be helped. The trains can’t leave until the tracks are repaired and the police allow the station to open. The men at the gate say that this was not an accident.”
“This was an attack?” Qhora frowned. These easterners rely too much on their machines. They’re forever breaking down. Even when they work, they need to be pampered like babies with oil and water and coal and fire. Are they so afraid to ride a living creature? “Why would someone want to destroy a train? Or did they mean to kill someone? To kill us?”
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