Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  She listened to the undercurrent of shock and dismay in their voices, occasionally punctuated by an angry curse, a loud promise to help the doctor rebuild her shop, or a vow to hunt down the people responsible. Taziri flashed back to the previous night and the dark rage of the wedding guests, and the words of the song they had shouted into the darkness. She quickly moved to the edge of the crowd.

  The firefighters dragged smoldering furniture and boxes out of the ruin to dump buckets of water on them, and then kick them back toward the remains of the building. A few stubborn, skeletal beams still stood high above the wreckage. A lone window frame clung to one beam up in the air, an empty eye socket in empty space. Taziri winced at the scene, at the thought of an entire building burning, of people stumbling about inside, of evil men with knives prowling the inferno looking for women to stab in the face. She wondered if she was developing a fear of fire. Or at least, a more irrational one than the fear of fire she had cultivated while flying on the Halcyon.

  Kenan returned from his brief talk with the fire chief. “What is that?” He pointed at her arm. “And when did you get it?”

  “It’s from the fire in Tingis. I got burned a little worse than I thought,” Taziri said. “I came down here last night and one of the medical techs fixed me up with this.”

  “You were here last night? Alone? Why didn’t you tell me? Did you see the doctor?”

  “No, everyone was gone except the tech. So what’s the word from the chief?” Taziri stared into the smoking black rubble, but she couldn’t identify anything at all. All the walls and floors and doors and tables, all the things, were gone and only dirty lumps and vague black shapes remained.

  Kenan frowned at her as though he had more to say about her arm. He said, “The fire started early this morning. Witnesses say they heard a bang, like a cannon or thunder, and the building collapsed before the fire started. They’ve got no idea how or why.” The marshal ran his thumb along his unshaven jaw. “Total loss. The building was over a hundred years old. Dry enough, fragile enough. Woof. Gone.”

  “Everything was destroyed?” Taziri glanced up at him. “If Medina was building electrical batteries and doing medical experiments here, then there should have been a lot of machines. Metal parts, at least.”

  “Oh, there were. In that back room where the fire started, they found piles of brass and aluminum rods and joints. This whole place was a prosthetics shop. Although, I guess you figured that out last night, didn’t you? They made peg-legs and glass eyes, things like that. But apparently nothing complicated. The only machines were drills and a sheet press.”

  “Can we see?”

  “No, they won’t let us inside. Not safe. Most of the building fell into the basement, and everything else is about to collapse on top of that. They need to pull down those beams up there by the end of the day and get a crane to start clearing out the foundation.” Kenan pointed up at the rickety window frame still hanging off the side of one of the beams. “Never seen anything like that before.”

  “So that’s it? The same day we come to town to find this doctor, her shop burns down?” Taziri glared at the rubble. “You don’t honestly think this was an accident?”

  “No, I don’t.” Kenan frowned. “There’s a witness. A police detective named Massi. They found her in the alley behind the shop, all cut up with a knife in her chest, right here.” Kenan tapped his chest just inside his left shoulder. “She’s at a hospital a few blocks from here. No word on whether she’s awake yet. Or if she died.”

  “She was stabbed?” For a cold instant, Taziri couldn’t remember where Medur Hamuy was and she could only remember that the killer was no longer in their custody. Then she remembered Kenan calling the police to take Hamuy away. “You don’t think Hamuy got free and did this?”

  Kenan blinked, eyebrows raised. “No. No, he couldn’t. He’d have to break out of jail and get past twenty officers, run halfway across town, and then still have the strength to fight the detective. No, it couldn’t be him. I don’t think. No.” The marshal swallowed and waved to Ghanima, who was chatting with a pair of reporters hovering near the scene. The young pilot waved and walked back over to them.

  “They didn’t know much.” She shrugged. “The fire chief gave them some canned statement about getting their investigation started. They did get some quotes from a few kids who were here early this morning who said there was a fight in the street, but that was in another neighborhood. Nothing about the doctor. No one’s seen her yet.”

  Taziri sniffed the dead air. “So, no idea whether anyone died in the fire?”

  “Nope. Not yet anyway. The chief will put out an official report in a few days, but since there hasn’t been a hospital wagon to pick up any bodies, there probably aren’t any. Yet.” Ghanima chewed her lip. “I wish we’d brought Evander. He might know something about medical buildings and equipment.”

  “He’s safer back at the inn.” Taziri leaned against a sawhorse, feeling the wet grit stuck to the wood. “And I doubt he knows more about fires than the fire chief.”

  “So what now?”

  Kenan scratched his head. “I say we find this detective Massi and see what she can tell us. Assuming she’s alive. Maybe she knows what happened to Medina. Maybe she was investigating Medina!” His eyes lit up. “What if she stumbled onto the same people we’re looking for! What if they tried to kill her because she learned what they were doing?”

  Taziri couldn’t help but grin at the marshal’s enthusiasm. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Actually,” Ghanima half raised her hand. “Taziri, can I have a word?”

  Kenan shrugged and paced away to watch the firefighters.

  “What is it?” Taziri asked.

  “Look, one of the reporters mentioned that the trains to Tingis are running again. There’s a nine o’clock leaving the North Station. I’m going to hoof it over there and head on home. Okay?”

  “You’re leaving?” Taziri blinked, unsure of what to say. “You know, I could really use your help here. And not just with this Medina business. You’re leaving me to fly Halcyon alone. You’re a good pilot and I could really use you right now.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry. But my sister needs me more. And with the Crake out of commission, it means I have an excuse to spend more time home with her.”

  “I’m sure your sister can manage without you,” Taziri said, letting her frustration show in her face and voice.

  “Actually, she can’t,” Ghanima said curtly. “She was in the White Jacana fire.”

  Taziri felt a cold flutter in her belly. The White Jacana had just been one more steamer cruising up and down the coast with one cargo or another, a ship of no particular importance until it arrived in Tingis last month late at night during a storm, with five thousand barrels of Songhai oil on board. No one was sure how the fire started, but it spread through half the harbor, consuming tiny fishing boats and heavy trawlers, destroying piers and warehouses along Water Street. They’d pulled bodies from the sea for days and days. Burned bodies, drowned bodies, and bodies half eaten by the fish.

  “She was a harbor pilot. She was in her bunk when it happened.” Ghanima swallowed. “She only has a few days left now, they think.”

  “I’m sorry,” Taziri said hoarsely, suddenly desperate for the conversation to end before Ghanima explained her sister’s condition in any detail. “I didn’t know. I didn’t think. I’m sorry. Of course you should go home to her.”

  Ghanima nodded, shoved her hands in her pockets, and walked away.

  Kenan came back over. “Where’s she going?”

  “Home.”

  “What? Home? Now? Are you kidding me?”

  “Let it go, Kenan. Just let her go.” Taziri locked eyes with the marshal for a moment. “Now let’s go see this detective of yours.”

  One of the firefighters gave them directions to the hospital and they found the gleaming new medical facility just a few blocks from the remains of the prosthetics shop. The man at the f
ront desk directed them to the second floor where they found a dozen police officers wearing gray coats and grim faces outside Detective Massi’s room. No one was speaking or even moving. Those in chairs stared at their hands while those standing up stared down the halls at nothing in particular. Every now and again, someone cleared their throat.

  Taziri caught a nurse’s attention and the young man confirmed that this was the detective’s room and that the patient was still unconscious. Three hours of surgery had closed up the cuts and stitched together the hole in her shoulder, but the blood loss had been considerable. Taziri let the nurse go and felt her legs turning to cold tin and her chest constricting.

  Isoke had been cut. Maybe badly, maybe not. Near a fire. Taken to a hospital.

  But she knew there weren’t a dozen figures in orange jackets clustered outside her door. There was no one left to worry over her. There was only her husband and their two little boys who liked to hide behind their mother’s legs when Taziri came to visit.

  Kenan found a bench just down the hall and they sat on it, staring silently at their hands and at the wall and the doctors and nurses quietly going about their work. None of the police officers asked them who they were or why they were there, but all of them took turns casting cold stares at the intruders wearing orange and red.

  After half an hour, Taziri leaned forward. “You know, we could be waiting here all day, all week, and this detective might never wake up. Even if she does wake up, she might not be able to tell us anything. I think we need another plan.”

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking.” Kenan sniffed. “I mean, I still want to try to talk to Massi here, but there’s got to be something else we could be doing to find Medina, or Chaou, or the major.”

  Taziri shrugged. “Any ideas?”

  Kenan stood. “I’m going back to the marshal’s office. I reported the major as missing and the ambassador as a fugitive last night, but who knows what they’re doing about it. I’ll get the whole force moving on this. At least, I’ll try to.”

  “What about the whole conspiracy problem?” Taziri asked. “Remember, they’ve got people everywhere. They had a police captain in Chellah. They might have someone in the marshals. You can’t trust anyone to help. In fact, if you talk to the wrong person you could end up like this detective by the end of the day.”

  “Well, what do you suggest?” Kenan massaged his injured shoulder. “We don’t know enough. Hell, we don’t know anything! All we know is that an ambassador went crazy and stole an airship and killed some people, and she’s got friends all over the place, and there’s some doctor putting metal plates and electrical devices in people. What does that add up to? What? Tell me what it means, tell me what to do!”

  “Calm down.” She stood beside him and placed her hand against his arm to make the young man stand still. She glanced at the police officers, but they seemed to have closed ranks and were ignoring everyone else. “We can figure this out, one thing at a time. Now, there’s no obvious way to find the major. We don’t even know for sure if he was on the ferry, and even if he was, he could be anywhere by now. Same goes for Chaou. The only lead we have right now is Medina. So I’ll stay here a little while and see if I can learn anything from the detective if she wakes up. Meanwhile, you can try to track down the doctor. She’s obviously popular, judging from the crowd this morning. I’m sure someone can tell you where she lives. Maybe even someone in this hospital. If you can find her, maybe you can sort out if she’s a part of Chaou’s little circle of mayhem or not.”

  “What if she’s not?” Kenan looked puzzled.

  “I don’t know. We’ll figure it out when we get there. Plan to meet back at the B-and-B tonight around six, okay?”

  He nodded and retreated down the hall toward the stairs. When he was gone, Taziri stood up and shuffled through the police officers until she was standing by the open doorway to the detective’s room and she stared at the woman on the bed. All she saw were brown arms on white sheets. It wasn’t a person, not to Taziri, not yet. She couldn’t find the energy to care about this detective. She was full. Full of fires and knives and blood, full of worried families and frightened strangers, full of fear and anxiety for too many people already. There was no room in her for another victim. Not yet.

  “How do you know the detective?”

  Taziri was about to turn away when she realized the question was directed at her. She looked into the weary face of a young man in a gray coat sitting just beside the open door. He was staring quite sternly at her.

  “I don’t. Sorry. I don’t know her at all.”

  “Then…why?”

  “Why am I here?” Taziri absorbed the question for a moment. “I wanted to ask her what happened. What she saw. Who was there.”

  “You’re, what, in the Air Corps?” The officer leaned forward to peer around the corner into the room as though hoping the detective would open her eyes at just that moment. “So why do you want to know what happened? What’s it to you?”

  “The people who did this may be the same people who burned the airfield in Tingis and killed a lot of people up north. People I know. Knew.” She swallowed. “I’m helping the marshals with the investigation and they left me here.” She stopped talking. It felt rude somehow. But suddenly she was aware that the eyes and ears of every officer in the hall were fixed on her. She tried to not look at them, but she could feel them staring, waiting, hungry for answers about their comrade lying in the next room. The silence was unnerving. “But if any of you know what the detective was doing at that building last night, it might help the investigation.”

  “Actually, that’s what we all want to know,” the young man said. “Last night was pretty crazy. Massi came into the station saying that there were professional assassins in the streets. A lot of officers went out to sweep the district, but Massi never came back.”

  “Did she say anything about the killers? Who were they?”

  “She didn’t say.” The officer crossed his arms tightly across his chest, as though to keep himself warm. “A short while later, we got a report about a fight in the street outside a bakery. The officers who got there first bumped into Massi as she was leaving. She was out of uniform. The officers found a dead detective in the street and a body in the basement, butchered with a knife. The knife was still at the scene and it looked like Massi’s knife. A big folding one.”

  “You think Massi killed those people?”

  “Not a chance. Massi’s a hardliner. Old school. She’s been on the force for twenty-five years and never broken a single regulation. It’s a setup. We all know it. Some bastards from the second district came down here a few hours ago to put irons on Massi. We told them what they could do with their irons.” The small crowd of officers shook their heads and muttered under their breath.

  “So after the fight at the bakery,” the man continued, “we heard about the fire. The fire brigade got Massi straight here. The doctors say she was cut up real bad. Arms, stomach, chest. And a stiletto in her shoulder. Good money says that the person who sliced up the detective also sliced up Usem and the girl at the bakery.”

  Taziri turned the story over in her mind, wondering what any of it had to do with Tingis, Chaou, or her battery. The only connection she could see was Medina, and it was a connection so thin it vanished if she thought about it too hard. “Does the name Medina mean anything to you? A doctor called Medina?”

  “The Espani? Sure.” The officer nodded. “She runs the shop that burned down. We send accident victims there all the time. I’ve never met her, but everyone always says she’s wonderful. She helps anyone who comes in, even if they can’t pay. It’s all thanks to Lady Sade, she’s paying the bills. But it’s a damn shame that folks around here have to go to a foreigner for help. The companies should take care of the men who get hurt, and if not them, then the queen should do something about it. But I guess Medina is better than nothing. Why do you ask? Was she hurt in the fire?”

  “I don’t know. I don�
�t think so. Any idea where I can find her?”

  The man shrugged. “Nope. Maybe later we can go by the station and I can look up her address for you.”

  Taziri nodded. “Okay. Thanks. Thank you.”

  The other police officers still hovered around her, still watched her closely, but they said nothing and allowed Taziri to saunter back down the hall to her bench. She sat down and tried to imagine why anyone would ever want to put a battery inside a human being.

  Why would that even cross someone’s mind, except in a nightmare? And what are the odds that an Espani doctor invented a battery like mine all on her own?

  She shook her head.

  There are coincidences and then there are ridiculous coincidences. No one cares about batteries. Medina had to read about my battery and then do a lot of work to build her own. She wanted to do these things. And what does that make her? A scientist or a psychopath?

  Medina had read a paper about metal plates and acid baths and electrochemical properties. She had learned how to store an electrical charge in a box and read the suggested applications: running trolleys throughout the night, providing light in homes so people could read in the evenings, and enhancing the efficiency of large engines, steam engines, trains, airships…

  Medina had read all that, pieced together all of those thoughts and ideas, and dreamed up an electrocution device buried in the arm of a killer. And she read about medical coatings and put armor plates in another killer’s chest. God only knows what else she read about in the journals and decided to put inside someone. Taziri felt her skin crawling and a faint taste of bile wafted up into the back of her throat.

  They are insane. All of them. How else could they not just imagine such things, but talk about them, agree that they are clever and sound notions, and then cut open their own bodies to make these things real? How could any sane person do this?