Marek Huberath - Nest of Worlds

Gavein drank tea. Wilcox had his usual place on the sofa, legs up, in his socks, one sock blue, the other cherry red. The tea he made for himself was strong. For Myrna Patricks, the worried mother, he had prepared a sedative herbal tea. He often got up for the hot water that Gavein was boiling in a dented pot.

After midnight the company minibus brought Lorraine home. She had fallen from her chair at the moment of the explosion and hurt her arm. Having taken part in the rescue operation, she was dirty and exhausted.

When the exclamations of relief were over, the young woman sat down. Wilcox rose, introduced himself, and put a metal mug with the sedative tea in her hands. It was Gavein’s mug, and the water had just been boiled. Lorraine, starting to drink it like water, burned her mouth. She didn’t care for the taste either.

“Drink it all down,” Wilcox advised her. “Your mama had three mugs of it, watching television. I hate to think what she would have done without it.”

In anticipation of gory details, Zef hunkered down on the floor, and Laila pulled up a kitchen stool. Under the bandage on her face was a red patch of skin, blotchy, scarred. The Hougassians peered curiously from the kitchen.

“In the confusion my glasses fell off, and someone stepped on them.”

“You have your old glasses, the wire ones. I’ll bring them,” said her father, getting up.

Lorraine Patricks put the glasses on her nose and looked around her. “I finally get to see you all. Usually I’m here only at night, late.”

Edda made the introductions. She left the Hougassians for last, preserving the decorum of classification.

Lorraine squinted. She had bright red hair and large green eyes. “Dave. Of course. I remember you. I was there when your flight came in.”

He remembered her too: the living advertisement for Davabel. But before he could say anything, everyone was asking questions.

Lorraine began:

“It started on the runway. A jumbo ten-engine cruiser, transoceanic, suddenly behaved funny. I doubt it was sabotage. Not that I know anything. One of the engines caught fire, then another, then two more… It kept on taxiing. I saw it on the monitor from the control tower. The crew threw out a slide, and the passengers came down it, one by one, and ran off as far as they could. Many survived the explosion.”

Her version differed from the television account in several respects.

“The cruiser went faster then, turned, and hit the building. No one expected that. People hadn’t been evacuated from there. The explosion happened right on impact. Everything caught fire. I must have hit my head—look, there’s blood!” She ran a hand through her hair and showed it. “No one noticed it.”

Edda brought a first-aid kit, and Lorraine’s parents examined the cut. Gavein sipped his tea. It couldn’t be that serious, if she didn’t remember being cut. Wilcox also kept his seat, watching the TV—or perhaps he simply didn’t feel there was any reason to uncross his knobby legs.

After Lorraine had received the attention befitting the heroine of the evening and a quantity of bandages had been applied to her head, she resumed her story:

“The front wall of the terminal is mostly glass, and the plane came through it. Fire filled the hall. A flight had come in from Ayrrah just then, and there was a line for passports and customs: the line had to be right there! There’s plenty of firefighting equipment at the airport, and fire engines arrived from the city within ten minutes. But even working together, they couldn’t do much. Few in the building survived. I helped carry out the wounded. Hundreds must have perished.”

“They’ve released the names of only nine so far,” said Wilcox. “No one knows about the crew of the plane. Many passengers are missing. They found one man in shock; he was sitting in brushwood on the outskirts of the airport.”

Because Lorraine had emerged from the event in one piece, it ceased to hold people’s attention. Tomorrow was a workday; they had to get some sleep.

Ra Mahleiné would be returning from the hospital soon, and the results of almost all her tests were in. Gavein came home late, because Wilcox had left many things undone. Having retrieved the book from Gavein, he had stayed up all night reading and was half asleep at work.

Medved called. He needed to talk to Gavein. This time Gavein didn’t refuse. Medved suggested that they talk now.

The detective showed up in half an hour, carrying his inseparable briefcase. He opened the laptop and attached its modem to the phone. “The police will pay,” he said. “I need the help of our central computer.”

“Let me guess. I was the one who blew up the Davabel airport.”

A nervous tic played on Medved’s face.

“Lieutenant Tobiany is dead,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

“Yesterday afternoon, he stopped a man in a dark alley and was stabbed. He was after a drug dealer.”

“That has nothing to do with me. I was at work, at the bookstore.”

Medved waved a hand, as if at a fly.

“I know. I checked. Tobiany crawled from the scene of the crime and bled for half an hour before someone found him. But even if he had been taken immediately to the hospital, his chances would not have been good. The autopsy showed that the blade of the knife had been coated with some poison.”

“But—”

“Let me finish,” said Medved. “Tobiany made a report before he died. He described his murderer. It was a tall, young white with a hangdog face. That’s not the end of the story, unfortunately. Yesterday, in the late evening, people broke into the Tobiany home and killed his wife, Marina, and his sons, Cyrus and Hans. There appear to have been two or three perpetrators of this senseless butchery. Marina was stabbed twenty-eight times, Cyrus and Hans both sixteen times. You’ll hear about it on the evening news.”

“This is all dreadful, but how does it concern me? You don’t think I killed Tobiany’s entire family? Yesterday, all evening, I was watching the airport disaster on television.”

“You were watching it?”

“Yes. In the company of several people.”

“From the beginning?”

“The entire coverage on channel sixteen. We were all glued to the set, because the daughter of one of our tenants works at the airport, Lorraine Patricks.”

“She was killed? I don’t recall a victim by that name.”

“Unfortunately, Captain,” Gavein said with sarcasm, “she only sprained her wrist and is otherwise in excellent shape.”

Medved gave him a sidelong look. He had not stopped tapping the keys of his laptop.

“Let’s put our cards on the table,” said Gavein. “Edda told you about my death-dealing ability, and you are linking that to the tragedy of the Tobianys? Even to Edda her theory no longer makes sense.”

“Cards on the table, that’s a good idea. Over the last six weeks, more people have died in this area than in the rest of Davabel. Actually, in the rest of Davabel not one person has died… These data come from the Division of Hierarchy and Classification. The people there supplied them at my request, and they are as amazed as I am. An independent analysis of the situation is under way. You still don’t want to help me?”

Gavein was silent.

Medved looked at his screen. “Does the name Bryce Beddow mean anything to you?”

Gavein shook his head.

“A baker. He fell under a truck.”

“Wait, I seem to recall. He rode a bicycle?”

Medved nodded yes.

“That happened right after I arrived from Lavath. Edda mentioned the accident.”

“Did you meet the man before that?”

“I see many people on the street I don’t know.”