handed a slender document case to the general. Demsiri snapped the case open, perused its contents, and promptly snapped it shut again. “Doctor, your papers have been verified. I apologize for any inconvenience to you, but I’m sure you can appreciate our need for security here in the nation’s capital.”
The doctor’s hands were cut free and he was helped to his feet. “Actually no, I don’t give a damn about your security, especially since I’ve seen nothing but barbarism and madness since I entered this country. Now let these two go!” He pointed at the aviators. “They’ve been saving my life for more than two days now. They’re better patriots than that damned diplomat of yours, Chaou. And I heard Hamuy confess, too. They’re the ones you want, like the young lady here said. So let these two go!”
“I was about to.” The general nodded to her soldiers to free Taziri and Ghanima. “I’ve just read the Royal Guards’ incident report from Tingis and I know these two are not responsible for those crimes. Again, I apologize for the misunderstanding.”
Taziri stood up, gently massaging her wrists. All of her cold fears of dying a lonely traitor’s death transformed into a burning self-righteous fury. The desire to scream at the general filled her head with self-aggrandizing fantasies complete with exotic expletives she had learned in Carthage, but instead she only shivered and shook her head. “It’s fine. Can we go?”
“Of course. Doctor, my people will escort you to the Dawn’s Inn at the base of the carriage road. A room is waiting for you and you’ll be taken to the Upper City first thing in the morning.”
“Ah.” Evander nodded and began patting his pockets. “Yes, well then, ah, my bag, thank you. Yes.” He turned and took Taziri’s hand. “It seems you managed to get me here in one piece after all, young lady. Thank you for that. Good night.” And he shuffled away with his escort into the freezing rain.
General Demsiri cleared her throat.
Taziri rubbed her eyes. “Is there something else, general?”
“Yes, there is. We still have the small matter of Medur Hamuy to resolve.” She tapped her toe while staring out into the darkness beyond the open hangar doors. “He’s here in the Lower City somewhere. My people will pick him up tonight or tomorrow. I’ll need you two to stay long enough to confirm his identity and sign a statement regarding the events in Tingis. For the record.”
“Not a problem, ma’am.” Taziri nodded. “I think we’re done flying for tonight.”
Thunder roared overhead. Ghanima jumped slightly. “Yeah, I think we’re done.”
“Good. You can stay with my people. There’s a building we’re not using, so you’ll have some privacy and some quiet.” The general indicated the opposite end of the hangar and they all began walking. Behind them, the soldiers collapsed and gathered the tables and chairs and the small office vanished into bundles under their arms as they fell in behind their commander.
“Quiet?” Taziri shivered. “I think we’ll be listening to this storm for the rest of the night.”
“Hm? Oh, no, I meant quiet from my people. This is a perfect night for spot inspections and surprise drills. Maybe a nice long run in the mud, up a mountainside, far from the lights of the city. I do love the rain.”
Taziri nodded in answer, feeling at once intensely grateful she was not a soldier and intensely sympathetic for the young women and men who would be awake, wet, cold, and miserable for the rest of the night.
Their walk through the rain was a short one following a straight gravel road from the airfield past a group of warehouses to a series of long, low buildings with narrow windows and blank brick walls. One of the general’s aides led them to the third building and lit the lamp by the door, and then excused herself without offering a tour of the facility. But as Taziri glanced around, she saw that no tour was needed. The bunkhouse was little more than a long prison cell with dozens of beds.
She shrugged off her heavy jacket and dropped it on the first bed. “So, do you want the twenty beds on the right, or the twenty on the left?”
Ghanima rolled her eyes, kicked off her boots, dropped her jacket over the foot of the next bed, and collapsed in an undignified sprawl atop the green blanket. She groaned. “It’s scratchy.”
Taziri sat down to unlace her boots. “What’s scratchy?”
Ghanima flopped over, then flopped over again. “Everything.”
But when Taziri’s head touched the pillow, she wasn’t awake long enough to notice how scratchy the blankets were. The noise of the propellers was gone, the roar of the thunder and crash of the lightning were gone, and even the drumming rain was muted by the thick brick walls of the bunkhouse. She closed her eyes and plunged gratefully into a warm, dark silence.
Taziri awoke with a cold shock, an instant of physical pain and freezing panic. The room was unfamiliar, a long bizarre vista of identical beds repeating into infinity, barely visible in the pale light filtering through the strange little windows near the ceiling. She heard clapping and rumbling. But all of this she perceived only dimly because there were two enormous hands around her throat and she couldn’t breathe and her vision was dimming and the sounds of her own moaning seemed to be coming from far away.
Then she was rolling and spinning, and the pressure on her throat was gone. Taziri lay on the floor, gasping and massaging her neck, her ears roaring with muddled noise as though she was deep underwater or inside a drum.
“Taziri!”
Suddenly half of her senses snapped into focus and her mind clicked into gear.
Orossa. Barracks. Ghanima.
She scrambled to her feet, still dizzy and woolly-brained, but she could see the two figures struggling on the floor between two beds just a few yards away.
Ghanima. And a very large man.
Taziri lurched forward and promptly crashed sideways into the wall as her feet and inner ear completely failed to establish how to walk and balance. Her chest was still screaming for air from her bruised throat as her fingers clawed at the floor and she hurled herself upright again. Taziri paused to stare dumbly at her boot lying on the floor. Then she blinked and her body came to life. She snatched up the boot, wielding the steel toe-cover like a hammer, and smashed it across the back of the man’s head.
The man leapt up and turned to reveal the blackened features of Medur Hamuy. Bits of flesh hung from his face in tatters and open wounds oozed all manners of wetness and slime. His whole frame was bent and leaning, shuddering and trembling as he stuttered: “You s-s-sorry little shit, that’s th-th-three times in the head! I’m gonna kill you!” He buried his heavy fist in the engineer’s stomach.
Taziri felt her body being hollowed out as the air left her lungs and she lost the feeling in her hands. She fell back against the wall, again gasping for air, but her lungs only fluttered back in code that they wouldn’t be working for quite a few seconds. She leaned against the wall, trembling slightly between asphyxiation and vomiting, watching Hamuy charge toward her.
Then she heard a strange metallic clank and a scream that was neither male nor female, and suddenly Hamuy was lying on the floor with Ghanima standing over him with a bloody wrench in her hand.
For a long time, the two of them stayed very still, just breathing or trying to breathe. They stared dully at each other, glancing down occasionally at the corpse on the floor between them. Hamuy’s head now displayed a small crater on one side, and Taziri was grateful for the darkness that concealed the dark things sliding out of that crater.
Ghanima dropped the wrench and sat down on the bed behind her. Taziri pushed away from the wall, circled the body, and sat down beside her. Her chest still ached but she was breathing normally and her head was clear, her senses working. She sniffed. “You saved my life. Thanks.”
“Yeah,” Ghanima whispered. “Any time.”
“How did he get here?” She blinked. “Where’d you get the wrench?”
Ghanima shrugged. “I always keep one in my jacket. You know, just in case.”
“Oh. Good.” Taziri frowned at the body. “So, uhm, I should go tell someone…about this.” She leaned forward to stand up, but Ghanima gripped her hand and she sat back again, and they sat together, very still, listening to the rain and staring at the floor.
Day Four
