“Protection from what?”
“The engine.”
The doctor slowly turned to look at the silent bulk of the machinery behind him. The maze of chambers and shafts slept in the shadows, visible only as faint metallic glimmers and reflections of the distant streetlamps and starlight. “Why do you need protection from the engine? And more importantly, why don’t I have any protection from it?”
Taziri shrugged. “A steam engine is a lot of moving metal parts, under pressure, very hot. There’s always a small danger of something popping loose, or bursting, or exploding.”
“Exploding?!” Evander sat up straight, his eyes wide beneath his bushy brows. “You never said anything about it exploding! And I was sitting right here, right next to it, all the way from Carthage!”
“Shhh.” Taziri waved wearily at him and nodded at the young pilot sleeping on the bench. “There’s no need to worry. There hasn’t been an accident on a Mazigh airship in over six years. That’s thousands of hours of flight time. We’re very good at what we do. And frankly, the jackets are just to keep the safety inspectors happy. Regulations and all. I doubt they would do much good in a real emergency anyway.”
“Oh, really? What happened six years ago?”
Taziri winced. The two accounts of the disaster played simultaneously through her mind, the official story in the press release versus the contents of the inspector’s report. Duty demanded the official story: “Faulty assembly. The main line valve sealed shut so the pressure in the boiler kept increasing until it burst. The explosion shredded the cabin with all sorts of debris. Shrapnel killed the engineer instantly and injured the pilot, but not badly. No one else was on board.”
The doctor massaged his temples. “You’re all mad.”
Taziri stared blankly at the shackled man on the floor. “Some of us more than others.” She gestured at Ghanima. “How is she doing?” Taziri massaged her eyes again. They were screaming at her for sleep, for darkness, for relief from the cold dry air and the invisible traces of smoke that clung to her jacket.
The doctor knelt down beside the young pilot to examine her. “Sleeping just fine.” Evander shoved himself up on a creaking knee and returned to his seat. “Do you know her?”
“Not really. About as well as anyone else in the Northern Air Corps.” Taziri glanced at the pilot for the hundredth time. She looked so young, her cheeks and nose still ever so slightly plump, her dark brown hair sprinkled with glimmers of gold and crimson, her full lips parted, and a small puddle of drool on the seat cushion under her head. Someone’s wife, or mother, or daughter. “I’m just glad she wasn’t hurt.”
“I’m sure you are.” Medur Hamuy rolled over onto his back and grinned up at them.
“Oh good,” Taziri muttered. “You’re awake.” She showed the gun to the bandaged man on the floor. “Let’s behave, shall we?”
Hamuy contorted the raw flesh around his mouth into a grin. “Where’s the Redcoat?”
“Lonely already?” Taziri kept her eyes on the dark window on the opposite side of the cabin. “Maybe you’d rather have a few more women to cut up.” Her words seized in her throat and her eyes burned and brimmed. A dull heat washed through her skin, yet she shivered.
“Huh. So, flygirl, are you having fun tonight?” Hamuy grunted as he tried to sit up. After several seconds of trying, he gave up and thumped his head on the floor.
Taziri swallowed and blinked, keeping her eyes on the night-shrouded airfield outside. “I’ve had better days,” she said evenly.
“Huh? Oh, right, all the burning and the killing. No, I guess a clever girl like you doesn’t see much of that, do you?” Hamuy shivered. “You should get out more. See the world. The real world. I highly recommend Persia, if you ever have the chance. A man can go far in Persia. In fact, a man can go wherever he wants in Persia. Taverns. Whorehouses.”
“Can a man in Persia go to work without being set on fire or being stabbed to death?” Taziri slowly let her gaze slip down the far wall to the ruined flesh beneath the gauze wrapped around the prisoner’s head. The words falling out of her mouth were dry, lifeless things. Half of her wanted to explode with rage, but the other half didn’t have the energy to move, so she stayed very still and tried not to feel or think too much. “Because lately that’s become something a concern of mine. Dying.”
Hamuy chuckled and then shuddered. “Dying?” He clucked his tongue. “Don’t see much dying either, do you? I guess you’re more of a talker, eh? Just like the queen, all words and no fight. You like words, don’t you?”
“Not right now, I don’t.” Taziri let her finger slip a little closer to the trigger.
“Mm. You’re still angry about your little friends back in that hangar, aren’t you? Well, if it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t personal. Just a job.” He shivered.
Taziri blinked hard again. “Doctor? Why is he shaking like that?”
The older man roused himself slightly and muttered, “The burns. Nerve damage. Burns can get progressively worse if not properly treated. As the minor burns spread, the pain will get worse. As the major burns spread, the pain will fade away as the nerves die.”
“Oh.” The engineer wiggled her numb finger. “Hey. Hey you.” She kicked Hamuy’s boot and the man looked up. “You can talk all you want but I’m not going to shoot you. I’m going to sit here and watch you twitch. You’re probably going to die soon, one way or another. And whether the marshals throw you in prison, or you just shiver and bleed to death on the floor there in a puddle of your own filth, is fine with me.”
“You know, it must be really nice for you,” Hamuy said. “Nice to have all these other people to take care of things for you. Redcoats, police, soldiers. People in uniforms all over the place, all to tell you what to do. To make the hard calls. To get their hands dirty. For you.”
Taziri looked down at the weapon she was petting. A steel barrel, steel cylinder, hammer, trigger, shells, handle, little scratches and dings here and there, a clear fingerprint where her thumb had been a moment earlier. Cold steel. Only three moving parts, because bullets don’t count. It was all wrong. No warm brass, no clicking gears, no buzzing wires. She wanted copper, shades of sunfire and sand. She wanted power and motion, useful things puttering and whirring, gauge needles turning and signals whistling. The gun offered none of those things, none of the images or sounds or smells she loved about machines. It was too simple. It was a cold, dead thing. Closing her eyes, Taziri tore the gun apart in her mind. It was easy, just like her days in school. All machines are nothing more than their parts, arranged in sequence. Before her mind’s eye, the gun came undone. The screws spiraled backward, plates separated, shells slid out, powder spilled upwards. Then the bits hovered in her mind, lonely and harmless. But she couldn’t hold the image of the pieces apart, she had nothing else to do with them and years of training and habits die hard, and so the pieces slid back together and before she could stop it the image of the gun was complete and it was spewing bullets. At people. At Menna.
Her eyes snapped open and she shoved the revolver off her lap onto the seat beside her with a shaking hand. The old Hellan was snoring again. Taziri slowly let her gaze wander to the bench where Ghanima lay on her side, and then to Hamuy, who was lifting his legs up and preparing to kick the sleeping girl in the head.
Taziri’s hand snatched up the revolver, thumbed the hammer, and leveled the barrel at the prisoner’s chest. “Get away from her!”
Hamuy only grinned and in the darkness Taziri thought she saw his boot move.
The bark of the gun snapped Evander and Ghanima up to sit and stare at each other, their hands clutching the edge of the bench cushions. Hamuy fell on his back, a tiny wisp of smoke rising from his chest. Then he groaned and slowly sat back up.