“I’ll be quick.” Syfax unlocked the door and stepped out onto the earth.
“Watch out for the bats!” Taziri watched him through the open doorway. He swayed and grabbed the side of the gondola and the aviator smiled. He’s landsick.
“What bats?” Evander asked.
“Oh, she means the flying foxes,” Kenan said. “They can be a little nasty, but the fire should keep them away from us here.”
“Flying foxes?” The Hellan stared. “Am I misunderstanding you? Foxes?”
“No, they’re just big reddish bats that look like foxes. They eat birds, mostly.” Kenan held out his hands a meter apart. “About that big.”
The doctor shuddered.
Taziri smiled as she watched Syfax jog up the slope into the wreckage where the flames were already burning low and dim. She slid over to her seat at the engineer’s console and busied herself with routine system checks. Her hands glided across the dials and lights. Everything was fine. Everything was just the way it should be, except for the empty seat beside her. She scratched at the tip of her little finger, but felt almost nothing. I can’t remember if that’s good or bad. Hopefully the major will turn me loose soon so I can get the Halcyon home and under lock and key, and then get to a doctor. She glanced back at Evander. My doctor.
Taziri climbed back into the pilot’s chair and fiddled with the throttles and fans to hold the airship steady against the stiffening night breezes coming in off the ocean. Behind her, Evander snorted in his sleep and Kenan chuckled softly at the old man. “I wish I could fall asleep that fast.”
Syfax shouted from the darkness, “Doc!”
Taziri jerked upright and twisted around in her seat. “Doctor? Doctor? The major wants you out there. Doctor?”
Without moving from his prisoner’s side, Kenan leaned over and shook the Hellan’s foot. Evander snorted and opened his eyes. “What?”
“Major Zidane needs you out there.” Taziri pointed at the burning debris outside.
The old man grabbed his bag and shuffled out the door into the night. She watched him trudge up the hill and disappear behind the bulk of the wreckage. A long minute passed in silence. Taziri glanced at Kenan but couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to say, and the sight of Hamuy sleeping peacefully on the floor just a few feet away made her stomach turn.
When she looked outside again, the doctor was leading the major down the hillside toward the Halcyon at a brisk jog. Syfax had a body lying across his arms. Both of them were glancing up at the sky and the major was shouting, “Move it, move it!”
The doctor coughed as he stepped inside and Taziri watched the marshal set a young woman in an orange jacket down on the floor just behind her. “Ghanima!” She leapt out of her seat and knelt over the unconscious girl to wipe the soot from her face. Taziri glanced at the doctor. “How is she?”
“Fine.” Evander dropped back into his seat, dabbing at the perspiration on his brow with a small cloth. “Not even a bruise, I don’t think. Just that lump on her forehead. She’ll wake up in the morning right as rain. The damn bats were only interested in her dead friend.”
Taziri looked from one man to the other. “Bats? Major?”
Syfax shrugged. “Yeah, half a dozen of the bloodsuckers were out there. Real nasty ones, too. They’d already gotten to the other pilot. We’re done here. You can lift off.” He followed her into the cockpit and sat beside her. “The extra weight won’t be an issue, will it? I know you have limits on these things.”
“No,” she said, turning the propellers over and easing the throttle forward. “We’re still well below maximum. You didn’t find the ambassador?”
“Nah, she’s gone, and no hope of tracking her without a dog.” Syfax shook his head. “Your friend here was awake when I found her. She said the ambassador shot the Crake ’s captain just before they crashed.” Syfax thumbed his nose and leaned back into his seat. “I waved off the bats long enough to get a look at the captain, too. She was shot in the back, so I’m guessing there wasn’t much of a struggle. The girl here must have dragged her body out of the wreck after the crash.”
“Ambassador Chaou shot the captain?” Taziri stared at the Copper Crake as it slowly dropped down out of sight and then she peered out over the dark landscape in search of a figure, a woman running away, a woman that she could land the Halcyon on. “Why would the ambassador steal an airship? She flies all the time. The Crake was practically her personal airship anyway.”
“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.”
