Joseph Lewis - Halcyon

“Yeah, I know,” Syfax said. “Chaou must have stolen the gun from one of Lady Damya’s guards to commandeer the airship, probably just before she had Hamuy start the fireworks.”

“But why? Why blow up the train station? Why kill all those people? Is she a pastoralist?” Taziri asked.

“All good questions. She might be working with the Bafours. Hell, she might even be a Bafour. God knows we’ve got plenty in country. Or maybe she was heading for the Songhai Empire when things went sideways.” Syfax thumbed his nose. “She might have even shot the captain by accident. Never forget your SCARFs, lieutenant.”

“Scarves? What’s that mean?”

“Stupid, Crazy, And Random Factors,” Kenan answered from the cabin. “Crimes that just don’t make any sense.”

Taziri digested that for a moment. It’s bad enough that people are dying on purpose. But by accident? The thought of her life being snuffed out by an evil killer was tragic, yet somehow it was a possibility she could live with. But the thought of having her whole world and future snatched away forever because of some idiot making a mistake? A hard pain formed in her chest and she thought of little Menna giggling and clapping her chubby hands. “So, major, where do we go from here?”

“Where is here?”

Taziri tapped the map pinned to the wall beside her. “Here, just past Marker Seven. Nothing but grass and sand between here and Port Chellah.”

Syfax nodded. “SCARFs aside, maybe Chaou wanted to ditch the airship here outside the city. She figured we’d be looking for it and for her. She forced the captain to land, then shot her and the balloon, and went the rest of the way on foot.”

Taziri shook her head. “No, she had an airship. She could go anywhere in the country in a matter of hours, and anywhere in North Ifrica in a matter of days. I doubt she was worried that someone in Port Chellah would point up in the sky and say, I think that’s her!” Inwardly, she winced. Damn it, this isn’t just another chat with Isoke. He’s a major.

But the major didn’t seem to notice or care. “Yeah. So there must be something in Port Chellah that she needs more than she needs an airship.”

“Maybe,” said Taziri. “It’s still a long way to walk on terrain like this. It’s pretty hilly down there. Lots of gravelly, sandy slopes. Easy to break an ankle in the dark.”

“Then get us to Port Chellah and we’ll catch her as she stumbles back into civilization.”

“Will do.” She pressed the throttles forward and the propellers droned louder.

“You still holding up all right, Ohana?”

“Professional counseling, sir?” Taziri glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and managed a wry grin. “It’s under control, really. I’m fine.”

“Of course you’re not fine,” he said. “Hell, you just watched your boss get knifed in a burning building a few hours ago. But I’m not talking about Hamuy or your friend. It’s getting late and you weren’t expecting to be flying tonight. You must be tired.”

“Hungry, mostly.” A sudden cramp in her thigh made her twist her leg and she grimaced. The pain slowly receded and she tried to relax her muscles. “I’m fine.”

“We’ll set you up in a hotel as soon as we get to town. Dinner’s on me.”

“Is that before or after we catch Chaou?”

“We? No.” Syfax shook his head. “Once we land, Kenan and I will deal with Hamuy and Chaou. Tomorrow, you can take the doc to Orossa and get back to your regular routine.”

Taziri nodded, and then frowned. “I didn’t know there was a marshal’s office in Port Chellah.”

“There isn’t, not yet anyway, but the local police answer to us in emergency situations. I’ll rally the troops to catch Chaou. Sometimes it pays to be Section Two.”

“I guess so.”

“Speaking of rallying.” Syfax stood. “I think I’d like another word with Mister Hamuy. He was almost helpful earlier. He might be again.” The major stepped back into the cabin.

Taziri focused on the dark shapes below where the shadow of the Halcyon swam in the depths of the night. She heard a soft footfall behind her and in the mirror overhead she saw Kenan peering out through the cockpit windows over her shoulder. “I thought you’d be helping your boss with his questions.”

“He doesn’t need my help.” The corporal sat down and offered a thin, squinty-eyed smile. “At least, not with that sort of thing.”

“I can believe that.”

“Hey, don’t tell the major, but thanks for your help before, with the wrench.” Kenan ran a thumb along his sharp jaw line. “Hamuy is one nasty customer. He’s got a reputation, you know. A real shady history in the army, among other things.”

“What’s so shady about being in the army?”

“It wasn’t our army.” Kenan’s eyes flicked around the cockpit. “These airships are crazy things, aren’t they?”

“You don’t like flying?”

“Are you kidding? I love it. Dreamed about it since I was a kid. It’s why I applied to the Air Corps, twice.” He shrugged. “But you know how that goes. So how did you get this job? Did you know someone who knows someone?”

Taziri blinked hard, feeling the chill of her tired eyes beneath her lids. “No, actually, I didn’t even apply. I was drafted, sort of. I had just finished school. Electrical engineering. I got a letter that same week.”

“Must have been some letter,” Kenan said.

“Yeah.” Taziri glanced at the needles shuddering in the gauges behind the corporal. “They needed an electrician, and someone read a paper I published. By the end of the month, I was working on the Halcyon. Been on board ever since. Over a year building her and almost five years flying her now.”

“Must have been some paper.” Kenan grinned. “Do you like it? The job?”

“It’s a job.” Taziri looked up and saw the earnest, hungry look in the young man’s eyes. “But it has its moments. I’ve seen a lot of the world in a way most people never will. I’ve seen the topsides of clouds, and shipwrecks at the bottom of the sea, and whole cities laid out like drawings on the ground. But it keeps me away from my family more than I’d like. And there’s always the possibility of instant retirement.”

“What’s that mean?”

Taziri raised one finger to point up at the Halcyon ’s gas envelope looming overhead.

“Oh.” Kenan leaned back in his seat. “I see.”

“Don’t look so worried. We’re perfectly safe.” She shrugged. “More or less. And besides, we’re about to have one of those moments I was just talking about.”

Kenan leaned forward to peer through the windows. “Wow. That’s really something.”

As the last ridge fell away behind them, the lights of Port Chellah emerged from the darkness, a thousand tiny flickers of warm yellows and fiery oranges cascading down the mountainside to the sea. The iron mines offered only a few scattered twinkles half-hidden by the trees, but as civilization traced its way eastward along dirt tracks and steel railways, larger and larger clusters of earthbound stars drew the ragged shapes of factories and workers’ lodges. Tiny red lights glowed on the tops of smokestacks that stood like naked trees in the night, staring at the heavens with their bloodshot eyes. The city spread out across the flatlands, up and down the shore. In the harbor, a hundred barges and yachts and fishing boats bobbed as the sea breezes rippled through a hundred tiny flags and pennants on their masts, all but invisible in the late night gloom.

Taziri stared out over the city. “Yeah, it’s something.”

A thin haze of smoke still hung in the air under the train station roof and police officers dashed from body to body calling for medics and dragging heavy debris into piles. In all the confusion, Qhora walked serenely through the wrought iron gates with Atoq at her side. The huge kirumichi, the saber-toothed cat as the Espani called them, sniffed and cast his unblinking gaze at the dead bodies but he never strayed from her side. Qhora wove a path across the long tiled platform strewn with twisted, blackened bits of metal and wood. Oil lamps flickered on either side of each iron column, throwing waves of amber light across the scene. Women and men in gray and red uniforms stood over the debris, speaking in low voices and pointing at this or that bit of burned trash. The air tasted of ash and char.