Halcyon est-1

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  “No, sir.”

  “Fine.” The major glanced around at the empty street. “This warehouse was probably just a meeting place, not a center of operations.”

  “What kind of operations?” Kenan asked. “Did the ambassador say what she’s doing?”

  “She spouted some nationalistic gibberish. Nothing concrete. Either of you ever hear the word shifrah? Any idea what that means?”

  “No.” Ghanima said, “So where does that leave us?”

  “Nowhere, that’s where.” Syfax started walking. “I think Chaou electrocuted me with her hand. How the hell did she do that?”

  Kenan cleared his throat. “Actually, we might know the answer to that one.”

  “What do you mean?” Syfax kept his eyes on the road, scanning for recent hoof marks.

  “Back at the airship, Hamuy got a little out of hand and Taziri shot him, but it didn’t kill him,” Ghanima said. “Hamuy’s got a metal plate under his skin. Armor, surgically inserted. And he said that Chaou had something done to her as well. This must be what he meant.”

  Syfax squinted. Armor and electricity under the skin? That’s new. I hate new. “I assume Lieutenant Ohana had a good reason for shooting my prisoner.”

  Ghanima nodded. “To save me, sir.”

  “Fair enough,” Syfax said. “So, what did you do with him? Toss him in a jail cell? I mean, Hamuy’s not still on the airship with Ohana now, right? You didn’t leave them alone together?” The young officers were very quiet. Syfax glared at them. “Right?”

  Chapter 11. Taziri

  She kept one eye on her gauges and needles and the sweeping views of the city slowly turning beneath the Halcyon. Taziri kept the other eye on the mirror’s image of Medur Hamuy lying on the floor behind her. “Doctor? How are you doing back there?”

  “Hm? What?” Evander sat up and scratched his beard. “What’s going on?”

  “I said-oh, never mind.” For the third time that hour, the view of the city below rotated to show her Port Chellah’s harbor. The waves sparkled like diamonds, bright and piercing.

  The doctor grumbled something in Hellan before saying, “Have you come up with a plan yet? Some place to go? Someone to talk to?”

  Hamuy grunted. “Of course she hasn’t. The idiot is just floating around up here, waiting for someone to come along and tell her what to do.”

  Taziri gripped the throttles a little tighter. Her eyes flicked over to the wrench lying on the engineer’s console.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” Hamuy chuckled. “Pathetic.”

  Ignore him. “Doctor.” Taziri beckoned Evander to come up to the cockpit with a flick of her fingers. The older man crept around Hamuy and poked over the engineer’s shoulder. “Doctor, we may be up here for a while.”

  “How long is a while?”

  “I don’t know. The rest of the day?” Taziri shrugged.

  “What happens then? We fall out of the sky?” Evander’s eyes opened wide. “We’re going to die, aren’t we? We’re going to fall into the sea!”

  Taziri clamped her hand to her eyes and began rubbing them vigorously. “No, we’re not going to fall into the sea. We’re going to find Ghanima and the major.”

  “How? From up here, people look like…I can’t even see people from up here.”

  “Neither can I. But they can see us and that’s good enough,” Taziri said.

  “Oh.” The doctor’s wiry eyebrows rose. “Oh, I see.”

  Hamuy snorted. “Yeah, I see, you’re going to wait around until someone comes and finds you. Bravo, little girl. Good plan. Big stones on you. Your husband must be so pr-”

  Taziri knelt on the floor, crushing her wrench into the burned man’s throat. She had no memory of leaving her seat or grabbing the tool, and she had no idea what she was doing now, but her blood was screaming, her belly was screaming, her heart was screaming at her to kill the killer lying shackled on the floor. Her hands trembled.

  Why did he mention my husband? Does he know where he is? Do his friends know? Are they going to kill Yuba and Menna because I got involved? What do I do? Am I putting them in danger right now?

  A breathless gurgle escaped Hamuy’s throat.

  “Well?” Evander asked. “Are you going to kill him this time or not? Because frankly, I don’t think you have it in you.”

  “I’m one of only six flight officers in the Northern Air Corps. It will take his friends all of an hour to find out who I am and where I live, and less than a day to show up at my home!” Taziri leapt to her feet and threw her wrench aside. “What am I supposed to do? I have a family. He’s a killer! He kills innocent people for money!”

  “Lots of people kill.” The doctor spoke quietly. “Lots of people are killed. Every day, out there, back home. Border wars, trade wars, blood feuds. On and on.”

  “I don’t care what other people do! I care what he did! He killed Isoke! He killed her!”

  “Your captain? From what I heard, you don’t know that she’s dead.” Evander shook his head. “I don’t care. So kill him, or don’t. Whatever gets me to Orossa as soon as possible.”

  “We’re not going anywhere.” Taziri paced the length of the cabin. “Hamuy’s already killed dozens of people. Ghanima, Kenan, and the major might be dead, too. All for what? For what?!” She spun and buried her boot in Hamuy’s belly.

  The prisoner tried to groan as he doubled up, but he had no breath.

  “I sincerely doubt that torture is the road to truth,” Evander muttered. “He’ll just lie. And I doubt they train you pilots how to interrogate prisoners.”

  “No.” Taziri ran her fingers through her hair. People are dying. People are really dying. I could die today. They could get to Yuba and Menna tomorrow. What do I do? Why isn’t there someone here to help me? She stared at the empty pilot’s seat. “No, they just train us to fly. But flying should do just fine.” She ducked down and grabbed an iron hook stowed beside the hatch. Yanking the hook, she unspooled a steel cable from a small winch, and Taziri quickly looped the line around the heavy shackles binding Hamuy’s arms behind his back.

  “What are you doing?” Evander sat up a little straighter.

  “Getting answers.”

  Hamuy grunted. “I won’t talk.”

  “Because you’re loyal to Ambassador Chaou?”

  “Hardly,” Hamuy said. “It’s bad business. If you get her, I don’t get paid.”

  Taziri slipped back into the cockpit, her face blank and eyes dull. With a few rough kicks against the pedals and shoves on the throttles, she drove the Halcyon down out of the sky below the smokestacks and towers, sweeping low over the water so that the masts of the fishing boats whisked by just beneath the airship’s belly.

  Then the engineer stalked back into the cabin and wrenched the hatch open. A blast of cold, salty air whirled through the cabin, whipping clothing and hair into wild torrents. Taziri stepped over the prisoner, bent down, and began shoving.

  “What are you doing?” Hamuy shouted over the wail of the wind.

  “Asking questions.” Taziri shoved the heavy man across the floor to the hatch. “I want to know why there’s a plate in your chest. I want to know why Chaou stole an airship. I want to know where the major is.”

  “Go to hell!”

  Taziri planted her boot against Hamuy’s back and stared out the open hatch at the sparkling waves of the harbor below. She turned to look the doctor in the eye. “I…I’m only doing this to help the others.”

  Evander shrugged.

  Taziri swallowed and kicked the prisoner over the hatch threshold. The winch cable snapped taut, dangling the man just below the gondola. Taziri laid her hand on the winch switch, and began flicking the release off and on, and off, and on. She watched as Hamuy fell a few feet and stopped short, fell a few more and stopped again. Each time his head and legs flopped violently, until he was hanging far below the ship, flying just above the water, his body folded in half with his shackled hands and rear end in the air and his fac
e and feet in the briny spray.

  “I’m waiting!” Taziri hollered out the open hatch.

  A babble of noises answered her, any one of which might have been a man’s voice or the crash of a wave. Taziri locked the winch and paced back to the cockpit where she took the controls and began reviewing the needles on her gauges and meters. A moment later, she felt a tap on her shoulder. “Hm?”

  “Aren’t you going to pull him up and see what he says?” Evander asked. “You know. Lower him, raise him, threaten him. I’ve seen such things before. Up and down.”

  “No, I think down is best for now.” Taziri watched the corridor of steamers and yachts crisscrossing the bay. She tried to focus on guiding the airship gently around the harbor traffic below, and she tried not to think about Isoke clutching her face with blood-soaked hands. Her mind danced from one person to another. Yuba and Menna. Syfax and Ghanima. All in danger, from fire and knives and guns, and psychopaths.

  “You know, miss.” Evander eased down into the engineer’s seat beside her. “All that salty water is going to aggravate his burns. Terribly. The painkiller I gave him last night probably wore off quite a while ago.”

  “Oh.” Taziri glanced down at the narrow window by her feet, usually consulted during takeoffs and landings. Now it showed her the man dangling just above the water. A white-tipped wave reached up and slapped the man’s head, leaving him spinning wildly on the slender cable. Hamuy screamed. That should bother me. But it doesn’t. Taziri nodded. “I see.”

  Ahead, the golden line of a beach grew larger and dark specks of driftwood took shape on it. Taziri throttled up and throttled back, her fingers playing restlessly on the handles. Finally, the last sailboat fell behind them and the water’s blue grew paler and brighter. Taziri kicked the pedals and the Halcyon nosed up. As the drone of the propellers faded to a whisper, the airship came to float high above a sandy strip of beach speckled with rocks and flotsam and gulls.

  Taziri sat and absently rubbed the two numb fingers of her left hand as she stared out over the railways and grassy fields to the south. To the east, the hills rippled up beneath forests into the rocky ridges around the canal. Looking down, she flexed her hand and found her wrist didn’t quite bend all the way forward or back. It felt a bit cold and hollow. Taziri gently shifted her burnt sleeve, but felt no particular pains in her arm. It can’t be that bad. As soon as this is over, I’ll take a look. As soon as Halcyon is safe back at home.

  The engineer stood, straightened her jacket, and shuffled back to the open hatch. She flicked the winch switch and listened to the tiny motor winding up the steel cable until a dull thump signaled the arrival of Medur Hamuy against the gondola’s hull. Taziri locked the winch again and squatted down by the hatch where she could see her prisoner’s soaked back pressed up against the hatchway. “So. Whenever you’re ready.”

  At first, there was nothing. Then she heard some coughing and spitting. Eventually, Hamuy stuttered, “Th-they’ll…k-k-kill…m-me.”

  Taziri squinted out across the bay. “We can do it again. We can do it all day, actually. I’ve got nothing else to do right now.”

  Silence. The engineer and doctor exchanged a dull look. Taziri felt her insides quivering like a frightened bird. What the hell am I doing? Dragging a man through the bay?

  He killed all those people! He could kill more. And he knows who I am, where I’m from. Yuba and Menna…

  Taziri swallowed the lump in her throat and exhaled slowly.

  Yuba and Menna.

  The whirlwind in her head subsided.

  Yuba and Menna.

  They could die. She could come home and find them dead, murdered by a monster just like Hamuy.

  They have to be stopped. All the monsters have to be stopped.

  A cold steeliness calmed her hands and steadied her voice. “How’s that salt feel?”

  “There’s…l-lots…of th-them.” Hamuy’s voice shook. “Rich. P-Powerful.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t know! Th-th-they hate foreigners, b-but they h-hate the queen more.” Hamuy wheezed for a moment. “I just, I just work for Chaou.”

  “All right. So where are they?”

  “I don’t know!” Hamuy whined. “I–I just w-w-work for Chaou.”

  Taziri rubbed her eyes, trying to decide what to ask. “Well, where does Chaou go when she visits Port Chellah? Any special friends?”

  Silence.

  “Where does she go?”

  “N-nowhere!” Hamuy’s voice was almost lost to the wind. “We don’t c-come here. She’s the ambassador to Espana. We’re either up north or down at the capital.”

  Taziri frowned. You’re an engineer, so be an engineer. Pick the problem apart to find the solution. We need more information. “Tell me about the metal plate in your chest. I assume you were there when they put it in.”

  Silence.

  The doctor leaned forward to look at the prisoner’s back. “He may be unconscious.”

  “Medur?” Taziri reach down to slap his wet shoulder. “Who put the plate in your chest? A doctor? A friend of Chaou’s? Give me the name.”

  After a bit of retching, Hamuy said, “An Espani called Medina. Elena Medina.”

  “Where?”

  “Arafez.”

  Taziri stood and hit the winch switch. The little motor whined as it hauled its load up over the hatch’s lip and into the cabin. Hamuy howled as his raw arm and shoulder dragged over the threshold. The winch clicked off, leaving the prisoner to huff and wheeze and shudder on the floor.

  “That’s a start.” Taziri rubbed her eyes, then leaned out and pulled the hatch shut. The cabin suddenly plunged into a warm silence as the cool sea breezes vanished. She avoided looking at the shivering mound of cloth and flesh on the cabin floor. “We’re missing something. I doubt Chaou murdered her way out of Tingis just to visit Port Chellah. Crashing the Crake was a mistake or an accident. She must be going somewhere else, somewhere in the south, and without an airship she’ll need a train or a boat. Maybe a private yacht to Acra or the ferry going up the canal to Nahiz.”

  “If Nahiz is on the way to Orossa, then I endorse that theory.” Evander twisted about to peer out the window at the harbor below. “But I see a lot of boats down there. Your ambassador might be on any of them. Or none of them.”

  “I know.” Taziri slipped back into the cockpit and gripped the throttles. “And we can’t check them all, or even find them all. But there’s only one ferry and it leaves at noon. So we have a little time.”

  “To do what?” Evander asked. “We’re alone up here.”

  “I know that too. That’s why we’re going down there.” The engines hummed a little louder and the shadows inside the cabin began shifting and sliding as Taziri turned the airship back toward the city. “The ferry lands at the pier next to the harbor master’s office. That office has a lighthouse tower with a flagpole on top. I’ve always thought that flagpole would make an excellent airship mooring mast. Let’s go find out. We’ll watch the pier. If we spot Chaou, maybe we can find the marshals, too.”

  The doctor said, “What if Hamuy’s friends from the airfield find us? This flying monstrosity is hardly subtle or discreet. And what if they have guns? What if they shoot at the balloon?”

  Taziri glanced over her shoulder at the Hellan. “Early retirement.”

  “Unacceptable!”

  “I agree,” Taziri muttered. She remembered the soft touch of her daughter’s fat cheeks and the strength of Yuba’s arms around her. “But we’ll just have to take whatever God gives us.”

  Chapter 12. Syfax

  Striding down the harbor-side road, the major glared up at the sky. He didn’t know whether to be more concerned or angry.

  What is that woman doing? Why did she leave the airfield? Why is she racing around the bay? Or did someone kill Ohana and steal the ship?

  Anger or concern? He chose to be optimistic. “What the hell is she doing?”

  Ghanima sped up to walk besid
e him. “She might be looking for us.”

  “Why? She can’t possibly think she can spot three people from a thousand feet overhead.”

  Kenan squinted into the midmorning sun. “We’ve been gone for a while. She probably started to worry about us. All of us.”

  “That I believe,” Syfax said. “I shouldn’t have brought her. She was too emotional in Tingis, moody and distracted all night. Probably thinking about her family the whole time.”

  “Major, look!” Ghanima pointed up. “She’s coming down over the harbor. Over there!”

  Syfax watched the long silvery airship and its dark gondola sweeping in low over the inner harbor, the distant drone of its propellers just barely reaching his ears. “What’s she doing now?”

  “Maybe she crossed the bay to get our attention and now she’s going to wait for us.” Kenan glanced around them at the carts and merchants and dockworkers and freight trolleys bustling up and down the lane. The high sun and the rippling waters conspired to flood the city with light, and the smell of salt hung heavy in the air, tinged with hints of factory waste and gull droppings.

  “Maybe.” Syfax scanned back and forth across the endless surge of faces around them, hungry for a glimpse of a small woman in a gold coat. None appeared. “Maybe not. Either way, we have to go check it out.”

  They continued past warehouses with doors flung open to reveal mounds of ore, piles of crude beams, refined metal sheets, palettes of bricks and ingots, and barrels of powder. Filthy, sweaty men from every nation on the continent groaned beneath or behind some load that gleamed of dull gray, burnt orange, or silvery white. Armored trolleys dark with rust rolled down their tracks along the waterfront behind puffing steam engines. The high-pitched whistles and squeals of brakes punctuated the low murmurs of labor and the chaos of the ships creeping in and out of the quays with engines rumbling and sails luffing in the shifting winds.

  On their left they passed a strange calm in the storm of industry. Through the open doorways of one warehouse they saw dozens of men standing in a tight knot. A woman in a green suit was speaking to them, and suddenly they burst into angry shouts, shaking their fists. As the marshals moved on, they heard the crash of a trolley overturned. Syfax glanced back and saw the woman in green running from the warehouse as the men spilled out into the street, hollering at her about hours, wages, and children.