suppose I’ll be seeing you again at some point, when it’s time for me to head home to Athens.”
Taziri offered a polite smile. “I suppose so. See you then.”
The doctor left and the engineer sat alone at her table for a few moments watching Evander’s untouched tea cooling. What was there to do, really? She knew nothing more than what little the detective had told her, and she hadn’t found the doctor. That short list of failures sat uneasily in her belly. The longer she sat, the more the images and sounds of the previous night intruded on her calm with a riot of faces and shouts and adrenaline and fear.
With a shudder, she left her seat and the inn and trudged up the narrow streets toward the high walls of the Arafez airfield. She crossed the grassy field toward the Halcyon, glancing only once at the other airship moored at the opposite end of the field. It was an older courier ship, larger and more angular than the Halcyon, and visibly dotted with rust. The two ground crew men nodded at her as she passed.
Inside the Halcyon, Taziri eased into her seat and stared at the dark switches and lifeless gauges. Then she stood up and crossed to the back of the cabin, opened a wide panel in the wall, and stared at the battery. Her battery. The rectangular blocks of metal and wood squatted where the engine should have been. It stank of burnt chemicals and a greenish-white powder had formed a mound on top of one of the terminals. She could feel the charge in the air.
For as long as she could stand it, Taziri tightened screws and bolts, scrubbed and oiled gears and levers, and generally did all of the things she liked least about working around machines. But it was something to do.
“They wouldn’t take my letter!”
Taziri spun about and hit her head. She blinked at the undamaged motor housing as she sat up and then glanced over at Evander, who was leaning in through the cabin door. “What?”
“At the train. They wanted money. I showed them my letter from the queen, your queen, but they didn’t care. They demanded cash money, coins, and they turned their noses up at my drachmas!” The doctor collapsed onto the padded bench and began wiping at the sweat beaded on his forehead.
“Ah.” Taziri winced. “So you’ll be staying with me, then?”
“Obviously!” The doctor frowned. “Just as well. I left my bag under the seat here somewhere.” He ducked down and tugged his black leather case out from under the bench.
“Well, give me a few minutes to clean up here and we’ll head back to the inn to meet up with Kenan. Maybe he had better luck today than we did.”
Evander snorted. “That wouldn’t take much trying.”
Taziri quickly sealed up the open panels and compartments and flicked a few switches just to make sure she hadn’t left anything disconnected. “All right, let’s go.”
They crossed the airfield beneath a sky more yellow than blue as the sun sank lower toward the western hills, and the warmth of the day quickly faded. As they reached the main gate, the echo of angry voices caught Taziri’s ear and she scanned the field for the source. Two women were standing at the open door of the older airship, gesturing sharply and looking rather cross. One wore an orange jacket and Taziri knew her name, it was on the tip of her tongue but she couldn’t quite say it. The other woman wore a long white coat and an odd little light flashed around her eyes as her head moved. Sunglasses.
“What are you staring at?” Evander glanced at the woman in white. “She’s not that good looking. Bad skin, too.”
“What? No, it’s just that the detective said she was attacked by a woman in a white coat. It’s nothing. Just a coincidence. Caught my eye.” Taziri watched the woman conclude her argument with the airship pilot and storm away toward the gate. Toward them. “But I think that woman died in the fire. And besides, she lost an eye.”
“What detective? What are you babbling about? Hurry up, I want to get back to the inn before supper time. I want that same table again, although I could do without the mint in the tea.” Evander paced away and paused. “Well?”
Taziri, suddenly aware that the woman in white was still coming straight toward her, turned and nodded. “Sure, let’s go.”
She had barely stepped off the field onto the street when she was tapped on the shoulder and a husky voice said, “Hey, you’re a pilot, right?”
Taziri turned back and saw the woman’s skin had the olive hue of someone from the eastern regions of the Middle Sea, not unlike Evander, only she was darker and her face seemed a bit blotchy. More than a bit. The skin around her left eye looked particularly red. “Actually, I’m an elec…yes, I’m a pilot. Can I help you?”
“You can take me to Carthage tonight. I can pay whatever you want.” She crossed her arms as a slight shiver ran though her body.
“Sorry, but I don’t arrange charters. You’ll have to talk to the clerk at the office over there.” Taziri pointed to the small building just inside the airfield wall. “Have a nice day.” She started to leave.
“No, you don’t understand.” The woman grabbed her arm. “I need to leave tonight. I can pay double.” She paused. “Triple, in cash.”
Taziri frowned, her gaze drifting up to the angry red patches on the woman’s face. “Are you all right? You’re not hurt, are you?”
“I’m fine. It’s just a burn. A sunburn. I’m not from around here.”
“That’s no sunburn.” Evander snorted. “That’s a proper burn. You ought to let me look at that. Come here and take off those glasses.” He gestured roughly at her to step forward.
Her lips pulled back in a rictus of bare teeth and gums. “I said I’m fine. Now, are we leaving for Carthage or not?”
“Sorry.” Taziri pulled her arm free. “Not.”
“Then I’ll have to insist.” The woman drew a long, thin knife from inside her coat and gently prodded the pilot in the belly.
Taziri jerked away from the point in her skin, one hand thrown out to wave Evander away. A bright spike of fear split her mind and in that moment she couldn’t think or move, she could only stare at the blade. But when nothing happened, her mouth began to work again. “Madam, please, if you’re in some sort of trouble, there are better ways to handle things than with knives and threats. If you can’t wait for a flight, you can take a train or a ship. They may be slower but they run every day and they’re cheap. All right? So why don’t you put that thing away and I’ll just forget that you assaulted me.”
“You seem to be forgetting that it’s the person with the knife who gives the orders.” The woman edged closer.
Taziri battered the knife aside with the broadside of her medical brace and shoved the woman as she grabbed the doctor. “Move-move-move!”
They dashed back onto the airfield and Taziri steered the huffing, unsteady Hellan toward the equipment shed. “It’s definitely her, the one the detective fought!”
“What detective?” Evander glared over his shoulder. “What the devil is going on?”
Taziri yanked the door of the shed open, pushed the doctor inside and shut the door behind them. “Lock, need a lock, something…here!” She grabbed a pry-bar from a work bench and jammed it through the door handle. “Something else, something heavy?”
“Here!” Evander was driving his shoulder against the nearest crate and failing utterly to budge it. Taziri instead grabbed the rim of the closest barrel, tipped it over, and rolled it against the door, jamming another pry-bar under it to stop it from rolling away. Then she exhaled and glanced at her surroundings.
The door and the walls of the shed were iron, old and rusting, but thick as a man’s finger. Three large skylights in the roof illuminated the long chamber and its contents. Boxes and crates and shelves of spare parts, barrels of oil and coal, tins of grease, and canisters of all sizes.
Something crashed against the door outside. Taziri put her eye to a crack in the wall and spotted the flash of white out on the airfield. “It’s okay, she’s leaving. Walking, walking. Oh no, she’s going after that other pilot again. And the ground crew! God!” She shoved away from the wall and dashed along the work benches, spinning about, trying to inventory everything in the shed in a single instant. “Come on, think, think.”
“No thinking. Waiting.” Evander sat down on a box, his chest still heaving as sweat poured down his face. “We’re not going anywhere until the authorities come and take her away.”
“No time for that. We need to…here!” She snatched up a pair of large canisters, screwed them onto the nozzles of a fat gas tank, and opened the valves. A loud hissing filled the shed. This is stupid! These canisters are too big to throw very far, and what if the seals don’t break, and what if there isn’t enough gas, and what if-
