Halcyon est-1

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  Qhora yawned. “Yes. Now, we can retire.”

  Chapter 9. Taziri

  Curled up under the old tarp and her jacket, she was mostly warm enough sleeping on the hard metal floor of the Halcyon ’s cabin. Mostly.

  It’s not fair. It’s going to be roasting tomorrow. Why does it have to be freezing tonight?

  Taziri rolled over and had almost managed to get comfortable when she heard a soft scratching outside, and then the quiet clatter of a few small bits of gravel rolling over and tumbling down.

  Was that a footstep?

  She sat up and a moment later heard another soft clicking and clacking, so small and quiet that she could barely hear it and couldn’t tell at all where it was, or how far away. As silent as a shadow, she crept to the hatch and squinted through the small armored window. There was a dark rectangle that might have been the neighboring freight car, and a pale line that might have been a bit of a rail. Everything else was a dark gray muddle.

  The agonizingly soft crunch of gravel continued, as though a long snake were crawling across the rail yard, sliding its belly over the loose stones in a constant but quiet landslide.

  It’s getting closer.

  Taziri swallowed as she drew her revolver. She scanned the dark tomb of the cabin around her. There was no other way in or out of the Halcyon. But the skin of the plane wasn’t strong enough to fend off anything meaner than sleet. A bullet would punch straight through, she was sure.

  Unless I hide in the back where the wings are folded up around the cabin. The extra layers of the folded wings might protect me. For a minute or two.

  Then she heard a mournful meow. Taziri pressed her face to the window and squinted down. The shadows on the ground were rippling around the Halcyon, rolling and hunching. A tail whisked by.

  Cats? They’re cats. Taziri blinked. A lot of cats.

  She holstered her gun and quietly unlocked the hatch and swung it open. Just below her feet she saw a river of furry bodies marching past, their tails raised and flicking, their ears pricked, and their eyes flashing left and right in the starlight. A few of them looked up at the woman in the open hatch, but most did not.

  Taziri stood in silence, watching the cats parading past in a column four or five bodies wide. For three or four minutes, they sauntered by. And then the last one was gone and she listened to the cats calmly wandering across the gravel of the rail yard until she couldn’t hear them anymore.

  She shut the hatch and locked it. As she lay down on her tarp and jacket, she found herself just a bit warmer than before, and it was easier to relax on the hard cabin floor.

  Cats. A hundred homeless cats wandering through a rail yard. I didn’t expect that.

  Day Three

  Chapter 10. Taziri

  Shit.

  Taziri stared at the little girl and the little girl stared back at Taziri under the pale morning sky as a cool breeze whipped across the yard.

  Two minutes. I just needed two minutes. Just two minutes!

  Taziri half-crouched and half-leaned with her back against the side of the Halcyon and her feet spread out in front of her with her pants around her ankles. The early morning light filled the yard with a dusty yellow glare.

  The one time in my entire life that I try to go to the bathroom outside…the one time!

  The little girl must have been about eight or nine. She was short and thin, and her dark green dress hid her body in a flutter of loose cloth while a light green scarf clung to her black hair. She stood perfectly still except for her clothes, which flapped back and forth as the wind shifted around them. She had just run around the back of the Halcyon and froze there, staring.

  Why? Why are you here? Taziri thought as she pulled up her pants and got her clothes properly arranged.

  The back corner of the rail yard where she had hidden her machine and had tried to empty her bladder was a dead end, walled in on two sides by the crumbling window-less brick walls of two ancient storehouses. There was nowhere to go, no reason for anyone to be here. There were no flowers to pick, no lost toys to retrieve, no dog to chase. And yet the girl had come running into sight as though she was chasing something important enough.

  Or being chased by something scary enough.

  Taziri heard the light patter of running feet somewhere at the edge of the yard near the train station. The girl’s staring eyes grew wider and wilder. Her lip trembled.

  Damn it.

  Taziri lunged forward to grab the girl’s wrist and yanked her back to the open hatch. She lifted and shoved and threw the girl inside and leapt in behind her, and closed the hatch as quietly as she could. The girl lay on the floor, still staring. Taziri crouched by the hatch, her revolver in hand, waiting.

  Five young boys about the same age as the girl ran into view, glanced around the corner of the rail yard, and ran off again. Taziri exhaled and holstered her gun.

  She looked at the girl. “Bullies, huh?”

  The girl said nothing.

  “Do you speak Mazigh? Mah-zee?” She tried speaking slower. It didn’t seem to help. “No, I guess you wouldn’t.” She sat back and straightened out her legs.

  The girl scrambled forward, babbling loudly, gesturing wildly, and then she reached for the gun. Taziri grabbed the revolver with one hand to pin it in place and shoved the girl away sharply with her other hand, her left hand. The brace on her left arm jarred against the girl’s chin, and the girl fell to the floor with a gasp and a sob.

  Taziri stared. Her sudden terror at the thought of a child playing with a gun became the shock and self-loathing of a parent who had let a child come to harm. Who had harmed a child. It didn’t matter that the girl wasn’t hers. She was someone’s.

  “I’m sorry.” Taziri shuffled over to her and touched her arm. “Sorry.”

  The girl looked up, once again frozen and frightened.

  “Here. Look.” Taziri shrugged off her faded orange flight jacket and rolled up her left sleeve to display the brace. She tapped it with her fingernail. “Metal. You see?”

  The tube of the brace completely covered her forearm from elbow to wrist, and steel rods on the brace connected to the padded and fingerless glove on her left hand to help hold her hand in place, since her wrist could no longer do that for her. “I was hurt.” Taziri frowned as she tried to mime a chopping motion on her arm. “Hurt. Fire.” She wiggled her fingers for flames.

  The girl tilted her head, more confused now than afraid.

  “Fire?” Taziri wiggled her fingers again and pointed to the brace. “Fire on my arm.”

  The girl said something, probably in Eranian. It was so quick that Taziri couldn’t tell how many words, or even how many syllables it had been. But then the girl leaned closer, gingerly touching and poking the brace.

  “Here. Look.” Taziri laid her arm across her lap and released the little clasps on the side and the brace swung open on its tiny hinges. The top half swung up to reveal the hidden gun compartment and the bottom half swung down to reveal the hidden toolbox. And in between, they saw the shriveled and bandaged remains of Taziri’s arm.

  The girl gasped and pulled back.

  “Fire.” Taziri wiggled her fingers for flames. “Burn. Arm.”

  The girl nodded.

  Carefully, Taziri closed the brace and snapped the clasps shut.

  The girl wrapped her arms around her knees and stared at the metal walls around her with large dark eyes.

  “First time in a train?” Taziri smiled. “Yeah, I know, they’re not much to look at from in here, but out there, when she’s running, well, that’s something to see. And when the whole world is sailing by five thousand feet below you, well, that’s something to see, too.”

  The girl pointed at the hatch.

  “You want to go? Okay. I guess that’s all right.” Taziri peeked out to make sure there were no lurking boys outside, and then she unlocked the door and swung it open. “Go ahead. And be careful out there, you hear me?”

  The girl scampered to the
hatch, smiled, and jumped out onto the sun-soaked gravel. Taziri watched her run off. “Be careful,” she said softly.

  Taziri sighed and slumped back into her seat and stared around the cabin. “So, just you and me, again.” She reached into her jacket and pulled out one of her smaller wrenches. “Let’s tighten some bolts.”

  Chapter 11. Shifrah

  “Can we go now?” She stared at Aker, hands on her hips. “The day’s half over.”

  “It’s barely midmorning,” he said.

  “It’s time better spent finding Omar, or whatever’s left of him.”

  Kenan sighed.

  They were standing in the corner of the workers’ bunkhouse just next door to one of the new Eranian factories. Aker had slipped something to the fat man at the door last night and they’d been allowed to sleep on company property, safe among the exhausted factory workers who kept each other awake all night with their constant hacking coughs and phlegm-choked snores.

  “All right.” Aker nodded at the door. “I suppose you want to see all the old haunts. Omar’s house, the office, the cafe, the lounge.”

  “No. I want to talk to whoever is in charge these days,” Shifrah said. “Omar ran a whole network of freelancers. Someone must have taken over his business when he disappeared. And I’m betting you know who.”

  Aker smiled. “I know who took over my business from him, at least. We can go there, but you’re not going to like it.”

  “Why? Who is it?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Half an hour later they stood in the sun-baked street between two streams of Songhai pilgrims, Kanemi migrants, Puntish merchants, Eranian soldiers, and Bantu mercenaries. Above the crowd they could see a hand-painted sign above a bright red door.

  “You’re right,” Shifrah said. “I don’t like it.”

  “What’s it say?” Kenan nodded at the sign.

  “The Cat’s Eye.” Shifrah adjusted her eye patch to flick some dust and grime away from her cheek. “It’s a dive.”

  “It was a dive,” Aker corrected. “It’s a decent restaurant now. Almost up to Mazigh standards, I’m sure.”

  Kenan didn’t respond.

  “And it’s really her?” Shifrah asked, moving toward the red door.

  “Oh yes. She’s moved up in the world. But don’t worry.” Aker grinned. “The success hasn’t improved her temper.”

  “I’m just going to stop asking you to clarify these cryptic little chats of yours,” Kenan said. “You just let me know when I need to know something.”

  “Zahra. Her name is Zahra El Ayat,” Shifrah said. “She was just starting to run little operations when I left Alexandria. Mostly local. Gambling, prostitution. Strictly small time.”

  “And now?” Kenan pulled the red door open for her.

  “Now?” Shifrah shrugged. “Keep your hand on your gun.” She led the way into The Cat’s Eye, and as she threaded through the crowded atrium she muttered over her shoulder, “Busy for this hour.”

  Aker shrugged. “It’s not like they came for the food.”

  Shifrah wondered what he meant as she approached the host. The man wore an immaculate white suit and an exhausted frown. “How many?”

  “I’m looking for the owner,” she said. “I’d like to discuss a little business proposal with her.”

  “Yes, I imagine so.” The host sighed. “How many in your party?”

  Shifrah blinked. “Three.”

  “Hm. Well, I can seat you near the piano, if you don’t mind the noise.”

  Shifrah shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

  “Very good.” The host led them into the dining room where she saw a maze of round tables under red cloths and brass candlesticks. There must have been a hundred patrons all huddled and nestled and leaning over their tables and talking in low voices. Little pieces of paper and coins were passed from hand to hand, and the occasional head rose to cast a wary eye around the room before sinking back down into the conversation.

  The host seated them at a small round table like all the others. No plates, silverware, or napkins cluttered the table. Only the single brass candles stick and its flickering white candle stood between them. Behind them, an elderly man was struggling to play the gleaming new piano, which had not been tuned recently, if ever.

  “You said this was a restaurant,” Kenan said. “What is it really?”

  “A quiet place where people come to talk. It’s not very private, obviously, hence all the notes and hand signals,” Aker said. “But they’re not really here to talk to each other. They’re all here to see her.”

  “Zahra?”

  Aker nodded. “See the girls?” He nodded at one of the waitresses on the far side of the room. She was leaning over a table, listening to the seated men. “Zahra sends them down to scout out the proposals and contracts and whatever else people want to show her.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then you hope she picks you.” Aker leaned back in his chair.

  “So how do I make sure I get picked?” Shifrah asked.

  Aker shrugged. “You say something that gets her attention.”

  “So this is just a big waiting room?” Kenan smirked and leaned back as well.

  They sat and waited, and waited. Shifrah dragged her fingers lightly across the tablecloth. She barely remembered Zahra. Young, short, and pretty in the usual fashion. Willing to sleep with almost anyone for almost anything. She’d seemed rather common, back in the old days, but then, most people had looked common to Shifrah.

  Weak. Vulnerable. Corrupt.

  Eventually the waitress came over to their table. She was a serious-lipped and tired-eyed woman, middle aged, and dressed in a severe black dress with a high-necked collar. Shifrah noted the small Italian two-shot revolver holstered under the woman’s left arm and the small knife sheathed on the inside of her forearm.

  The waitress looked at the man in green. “Aker. You’re back. Again.”

  Aker shrugged. “Don’t sound so excited. It might go to my head.”

  The waitress turned to Shifrah. “What is your business with my lady?”

  Aker gestured to Shifrah with a grin, coaxing her to speak.

  Shifrah exhaled slowly, choosing her words carefully. She said in Eranian, “Tell Zahra that Shifrah Dumah is back from Marrakesh with information about Omar Bakhoum.”

  “What information?” the waitress asked dully.

  Shifrah was about to say something snide when she realized the woman’s tone wasn’t one of stupidity or laziness. It was the extreme calm of an experienced fighter who simply didn’t care about the business at hand, only whether it needed to end in bloodshed. Shifrah said, “His location.”

  The waitress nodded and left.

  Aker leaned forward. “That was a dangerous play. If she calls you back there and you can’t deliver what you promised, she might just kill you for wasting her time.”

  Shifrah nodded. “Then I’ll try to keep her entertained.”

  Kenan gave her a questioning look, but she shook her head. She had no intention of translating every little scrap of conversation into Mazigh for him, so there was no point starting now. He could learn Eranian if he wanted to know so badly.

  When the waitress came back only a few minutes later, Shifrah felt a cold lump in her chest.

  The first gambit worked. Time to press my luck.

  The waitress indicated Shifrah with a sharp jerk of her head. “You. Come with me.”

  “What about my friends?” Shifrah stood up. “I’m not fond of being alone in strange rooms with strange people.”

  The waitress glanced at the men. “You can bring one of them.”

  Shifrah was about to say Aker’s name when she saw the brooding look in Kenan’s eyes. It was a glimmer of the old Kenan, the angry young man she had met in Espana, the one with the crazy plans and the barely contained rage at the idiots trying to control his life.

  Better not to leave Kenan alone. And the waitress doesn’t seem to like Ake
r for some reason, so better not to bring him along.

  “Kenan. You’re with me.”

  The Mazigh narrowed his eyes a bit and paused, but then he stood and followed her.

  They wound through the dining room with its muffled voices and shuffling papers and then ducked through a curtained doorway at the back stair. They passed two thick-necked men and Shifrah wondered if they would just ask for weapons or actually search for them, but neither man moved to stop them. The waitress led them on into the next room, which was a lounge similar to the dining room, only smaller and furnished with a single long table. Several men and women sat along the far side of the table like a panel of inquisitors, and the waitress indicated that Shifrah and Kenan were to stand before them. Then the woman in black left, closing the door behind her.

  The seated people included a small elderly Puntish man with ink-stained fingers reading a letter, a fat Eranian woman picking at a plate of cheeses, a tall Songhai priest flipping through a large book lying open on the table to display a series of erotic illustrations, four youths scribbling figures madly in leather-bound ledgers, and Zahra El Ayat.

  Zahra sat in the center, a few papers, pens, inkwells, and glasses of water and wine scattered in front of her. Unlike her compatriots, who were all amusing themselves with other pastimes, Zahra was leaning back in her tall chair and staring at her two new guests.

  Shifrah stared back, unimpressed. Zahra was a little older and a little leaner, but otherwise unchanged. Long black hair tied back with a silver clasp, high cheek bones, huge hypnotic eyes, plump pouting lips, lapis lazuli necklaces from the near east, jade rings from the far east, and a dress cobbled together from the fashionable courts of both Aegyptus and Italia, Shifrah guessed. She looked wealthy. She looked confident. She did not look amused.

  “No Aker? Pity. Well, to business then. Omar Bakhoum is dead.” Zahra flashed the briefest of fake smiles. “But you know that. I was beginning to think Shifrah Dumah was dead as well, but here you are.”