Taziri stood up and wrenched open the small hatch in the center of the ceiling. It popped free to reveal a pale blue sky with a lone wisp of white cloud. A bright yellow shaft of sunlight struck the floor, illuminating a column of dust in the cabin.
That’s not going to cool me off.
In the cockpit, she opened and angled the small side windows, hoping to create a cross-breeze through the narrow space, but no matter what she tried, she felt no movement of air. She reached up to push a few heavy curls of her dark hair from her face and her hand came away dripping with sweat.
I’m not going to last long at this rate.
She stood up and peered out the small window in the main hatch. All she saw was a strip of gravel and the edge of one of the old freight cars on the adjoining line. It sounded quiet enough outside. She opened the hatch and stepped down to the ground, and closed the hatch most of the way. Then she tip-toed around the front of the Halcyon and found a patch of shade beside her machine. The ground felt noticeably cooler in the shadow than in the light, so she sat down on a jagged carpet of gravel. A soft breeze ran over her sweaty skin and she shivered.
The sunlight glared off the pale gray gravel all around her, blazing into her eyes almost as brightly as the Espani snow-glare.
Espana. Snow.
She closed her eyes and thought back to the days and nights trudging up the frozen Espani highway with ice-crusted snow and frozen mud crunching beneath her boots. The wind had howled and moaned without end, hurling icy crystals and dry snow into her face every few moments where it stuck fast to her hair and eyelashes.
Shivering.
They had shivered the entire time, shaking and trembling with blue lips as they marched along behind the relentless bulk of Syfax Zidane. The major had barked orders at them every step of the way, especially at the passengers. Protect your eyes, hands tucked in your armpits, and don’t eat the snow. It would freeze them from the inside out, he’d said.
Taziri swallowed her dry throat and tried to imagine freezing from the inside out. It sounded heavenly.
Cold, cold, cold. Gooseflesh. Shivering. Wind.
A warm breeze ran through her hair, but she couldn’t muster a single goosepimple.
Crunching through the snow. Crunching…on gravel? Footsteps? Footsteps on the gravel! Someone’s here!
Taziri opened her eyes and the glare on the pale stones seared her vision. Squinting, she struggled up to her feet just as the little girl from yesterday stepped into view at the far end of the Halcyon. She had a clay pitcher in her hand. “Tishna?”
The pilot stood very still for a moment, listening. No one else was coming. She gestured for the girl to come closer, and when she offered the pitcher Taziri took it in shaking hands and gulped down the cool water as fast as she could, spilling a little down the sides of her face.
With half the pitcher’s contents in her belly, Taziri stopped drinking to wipe her face and smile at the girl, who smiled back. “Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank. You. Wait, is it mamnoon? Whatever, you get the idea.”
“Khahesh mikonam.” The girl giggled and let loose a soft babble of Aegyptian or Eranian or whatever she spoke.
Taziri heaved a contented sigh and glanced down at herself. Her shoulders, arms, and stomach were all bare, and only the stiff cotton stay around her chest covered her breasts.
And I’m still not wearing a shirt. That’s not a good idea in this country.
The girl tapped on the side of the Halcyon and said, “Basirat andarun?”
“What?” Taziri glanced at the machine. “You want to look inside again?”
She nodded.
Taziri shrugged. “Probably safer than standing around out here.” She led the girl back to the hatch and inside where she hoped the cabin might have cooled off a bit from the open windows and hatches. It hadn’t.
They sat down together on the old tarp on the floor and shared the rest of the water. The girl spent every moment staring all around her at the walls, the seats, and the controls. She even leaned down to run her fingers over the rivets in the floor.
“You like machines? Want to be an engineer one day?” Taziri said. “Well, keep up your mathematics and you too could have an exciting career in flying strange people to dangerous countries in the middle of the night.” She smiled at herself, but then her smile faded. “Do you go to school? Can you read?” She grabbed her little notebook of preflight checks and pointed at her crooked scrawl. “Can you read?”
The girl shook her head.
Damn. It’s one of those countries. She pointed to herself. “My name’s Taziri. Ta-zi-ri.”
The girl nodded. “Hasina.”
“Nice to meet you, Hasina.” Taziri waved to the cockpit. “Go ahead, take a look.”
Hasina leapt up with a beaming smile and jumped into the pilot’s seat. She gently touched and caressed and petted the dials and buttons and switches and gauges.
Taziri sat on the floor behind her, watching. Poor thing.
Soon Hasina was babbling in Eranian again, asking questions about everything as she pointed from one console to another. Taziri stood up and leaned over her shoulder, naming each object in turn. “Throttle. Altimeter. Wind speed. Compass. Fuel. Oil. Temperature.”
She has no idea what I’m saying. She’s twice Menna’s age, but Menna can already read better than this girl ever will.
Thoughts of Menna and home took her back to Yuba puttering around the house, designing parks and fountains and gardens for his clients. Yuba in the kitchen. Yuba in the yard. Yuba, alive and well.
How can Qhora just walk around, fly across the world, and stalk some stranger from city to city with her husband not even buried, not even cold? I’d be in pieces. I’d be lying in bed, crying my eyes out, squeezing Menna until the poor little thing couldn’t breathe. I’d be useless.
But not her. She dealt with the police, went around the city looking for a way to chase down the assassin, even tracked me down, even agreed to work alongside Salvator Fabris, to Carthage, to Alexandria. She’s running. She’s fighting. She left her baby two thousand miles behind in the arms of a teenage boy.
I can’t imagine what’s going through her head.
Hasina leaned back, still grinning but no longer babbling and pointing. She smiled up at Taziri, and Taziri smiled back down at her.
“Listen, Hasina, you can’t come back here again.” Taziri tried to make meaningful gestures with her hands. “It’s dangerous. Someone might follow you. Follow? And find me. They could find me. Danger?” She sighed and picked up the empty water pitcher. “Look, thank you for the water. Thank you. But no more. Understand? No more. Don’t come back again. It’s dangerous. For you and for me, I’m guessing.” She pushed the pitcher into the girl’s hands.
Hasina frowned down at the pitcher and then up at Taziri.
The Mazigh woman withered a bit at the big sad eyes in the thin, drawn face. Then she glanced up at her little tool racks and netting and overhead compartments.
Something I don’t need, something that won’t get her into too much trouble…here.
“You can have this.” She held up the tiny compass. It was a bit dented and a bit rusty and a bit dirty and a bit faded, but it worked just fine. She turned it back and forth to let the girl see how the needle always swung back to north. “North. And that’s east, sunrise. And, well, you’ll figure out. Here.”
Hasina took the compass and held it cupped in both hands as though it might break at the slightest breath of air.
“You need to hide it.” Taziri took the compass and tried to slip it inside the girl’s sleeve, and then tried to poke around the front of her robe-like dress.
Hasina nodded emphatically and took the compass and magicked it away into some hidden pocket. “Nihani?”
“Right, nihani.” Taziri nodded. Whatever that means. “Big nihani. All right, you need to go, and remember, don’t come back. Please.” She gestured emphatically as many ways as she could invent to say no. “No come back
