spun drunkenly to the left. He swallowed hard and blinked hard, trying to force his body into working properly.
“Major? Are you all right?”
“Mmm.” He nodded. Better not to use words, not yet. He gestured upward and Kenan helped him to his feet. He blinked a few more times and let the world resolve back into the shadowy shapes of warehouses and streetlights and horse dung.
“Major, what happened?” Kenan’s voice was loud, too loud.
Syfax rubbed his ear. “It felt like being stung by a thousand bees, on fire, on the inside. Where is she? Where’s Chaou?” He led the corporal into the street.
“I didn’t see her.” Kenan fell into step behind him. “We came in through the other end of the warehouse.”
“We? You brought Ohana?” Syfax stared down the road in the direction Chaou had ridden. “Where is she?”
“No, she’s back on the airship. I brought Ghanima, the pilot you found in the wreck.” Kenan indicated the figure just jogging out of the warehouse behind them. “I think it was the right choice.”
“Do you?” It wasn’t a question. The kid’s had half the night to come up with a plan and find me, and this is the best he could do?
“She’s really something.”
He glanced at his aide and saw the corporal’s grin. “Kid, we don’t drag civilians into an investigation unless they have something to contribute.”
“Well, technically she’s not a civilian.” He massaged his head and kept grinning. “I mean, she’s in the Air Corps. Security Section Four. Transportation.”
Syfax snapped his fingers in front of the corporal’s face. “Hey. This is not a debate.”
Kenan stopped grinning. “Yes, sir. Won’t happen again, sir.”
“See that it doesn’t.” Syfax studied the young woman in the orange jacket. The girl had her arms crossed and was absently tapping her foot as she glanced around the deserted road. Young, impatient, cocky. All I need right now. “Ghanima, right?”
“Yes, major. We saw two people leaving the warehouse on the other side.” She pointed back over her shoulder. “Kenan wanted to follow them, but I thought where they’d been might be more interesting than where they were going.”
“Good thinking.” Syfax forced a smile.
“That’s when I started calling your name.”
“Not good thinking.” Syfax stopped smiling. “Did you see which way Chaou went?”
“No, sir.”
“Fine.” The major glanced around at the empty street. “This warehouse was probably just a meeting place, not a center of operations.”
“What kind of operations?” Kenan asked. “Did the ambassador say what she’s doing?”
“She spouted some nationalistic gibberish. Nothing concrete. Either of you ever hear the word shifrah? Any idea what that means?”
“No.” Ghanima said, “So where does that leave us?”
“Nowhere, that’s where.” Syfax started walking. “I think Chaou electrocuted me with her hand. How the hell did she do that?”
Kenan cleared his throat. “Actually, we might know the answer to that one.”
“What do you mean?” Syfax kept his eyes on the road, scanning for recent hoof marks.
“Back at the airship, Hamuy got a little out of hand and Taziri shot him, but it didn’t kill him,” Ghanima said. “Hamuy’s got a metal plate under his skin. Armor, surgically inserted. And he said that Chaou had something done to her as well. This must be what he meant.”
Syfax squinted. Armor and electricity under the skin? That’s new. I hate new. “I assume Lieutenant Ohana had a good reason for shooting my prisoner.”
Ghanima nodded. “To save me, sir.”
“Fair enough,” Syfax said. “So, what did you do with him? Toss him in a jail cell? I mean, Hamuy’s not still on the airship with Ohana now, right? You didn’t leave them alone together?” The young officers were very quiet. Syfax glared at them. “Right?”
Chapter 11. Taziri
She kept one eye on her gauges and needles and the sweeping views of the city slowly turning beneath the Halcyon. Taziri kept the other eye on the mirror’s image of Medur Hamuy lying on the floor behind her. “Doctor? How are you doing back there?”
“Hm? What?” Evander sat up and scratched his beard. “What’s going on?”
“I said-oh, never mind.” For the third time that hour, the view of the city below rotated to show her Port Chellah’s harbor. The waves sparkled like diamonds, bright and piercing.
The doctor grumbled something in Hellan before saying, “Have you come up with a plan yet? Some place to go? Someone to talk to?”
Hamuy grunted. “Of course she hasn’t. The idiot is just floating around up here, waiting for someone to come along and tell her what to do.”
Taziri gripped the throttles a little tighter. Her eyes flicked over to the wrench lying on the engineer’s console.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Hamuy chuckled. “Pathetic.”
Ignore him. “Doctor.” Taziri beckoned Evander to come up to the cockpit with a flick of her fingers. The older man crept around Hamuy and poked over the engineer’s shoulder. “Doctor, we may be up here for a while.”
“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
