Joseph Lewis - Halcyon

“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.