Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  “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 face 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 pr
isoner’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 España. 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

  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 beside 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.

  Kenan nodded back at the crowd, but Syfax shook his head. “Leave it.”

  As the threesome approached the harbor master’s office, the drab world of industry shifted abruptly into a bright tableau of signs and flags, banners and lights, all welcoming new arrivals to Port Chellah and beckoning them toward inns, restaurants, teahouses, and a hundred shops peddling silly baubles to remind the buyer of their visit. The mise
rable grunts and shouts of work became happy calls to enter, to buy, to enjoy, and the soft sighs of string instruments escaped from countless doorways. And under the joyful noise was the almost rhythmic entreaties of the panhandlers begging and blessing the passersby.

  Syfax frowned at the press of tourists and the colorful snares erected to catch their money. The bureaucratic block of the harbor master’s office squatted between two piers crowded with old fishermen. At the center of the southern pier, little children ran about the carousel that slowly spun and tooted an old song in time with its old huffing engine. A slender white tower rose from one end of the harbormaster’s office to support a glassy sphere where a pale blue light slowly rotated, almost invisible beneath the glare of the sun. And above the lighthouse, lashed to a flagpole, the Halcyon floated serenely as though suspended from the heavens with invisible strings. Then Syfax’s gaze slipped down to the long red and white paddle ship moored just beside the office. A young man in a white uniform stood at the ship’s gangway, smiling very widely and asking people if they were planning to take the noon ferry, which would be departing shortly, as he reminded them.

  “Kenan, you and Ghanima go check the airship. If that’s Ohana up there, find out why she left the airfield. And if it’s not Ohana, arrest the piece of shit who stole our airship.”

  “Yes, sir.” Kenan started to leave, then paused. “You’ll be waiting here, sir?”

  “I think I’ll take a look around and check a few of these boats.” A steady trickle of women and men broke away from the crowded street to display their tickets, trudge up the ramp, and vanish into the ferry. “Don’t do anything stupid, Kenan.”

  “Will do.” He blinked. “I mean, I won’t. I mean, yes, sir.”

  Syfax watched the corporal lead the young pilot across the street and into the harbor master’s office. When they were gone, Syfax began moving slowly across the stream of pedestrians. At the base of the ferry’s gangway, he muttered a few discrete words to the suddenly anxious attendant, who stepped aside and let him board without a ticket. The cabin was a single chamber that ran almost the entire length of the ship, lined wall to wall with wooden seats half-filled with families, groups of students, lone business travelers, and more bags and cases than he could count. He slipped aside and allowed the travelers to continue streaming in past him.