“What are you doing?” Hamuy shouted over the wail of the wind.
“Asking questions.” Taziri shoved the heavy man across the floor to the hatch. “I want to know why there’s a plate in your chest. I want to know why Chaou stole an airship. I want to know where the major is.”
“Go to hell!”
Taziri planted her boot against Hamuy’s back and stared out the open hatch at the sparkling waves of the harbor below. She turned to look the doctor in the eye. “I…I’m only doing this to help the others.”
Evander shrugged.
Taziri swallowed and kicked the prisoner over the hatch threshold. The winch cable snapped taut, dangling the man just below the gondola. Taziri laid her hand on the winch switch, and began flicking the release off and on, and off, and on. She watched as Hamuy fell a few feet and stopped short, fell a few more and stopped again. Each time his head and legs flopped violently, until he was hanging far below the ship, flying just above the water, his body folded in half with his shackled hands and rear end in the air and his face and feet in the briny spray.
“I’m waiting!” Taziri hollered out the open hatch.
A babble of noises answered her, any one of which might have been a man’s voice or the crash of a wave. Taziri locked the winch and paced back to the cockpit where she took the controls and began reviewing the needles on her gauges and meters. A moment later, she felt a tap on her shoulder. “Hm?”
“Aren’t you going to pull him up and see what he says?” Evander asked. “You know. Lower him, raise him, threaten him. I’ve seen such things before. Up and down.”
“No, I think down is best for now.” Taziri watched the corridor of steamers and yachts crisscrossing the bay. She tried to focus on guiding the airship gently around the harbor traffic below, and she tried not to think about Isoke clutching her face with blood-soaked hands. Her mind danced from one person to another. Yuba and Menna. Syfax and Ghanima. All in danger, from fire and knives and guns, and psychopaths.
“You know, miss.” Evander eased down into the engineer’s seat beside her. “All that salty water is going to aggravate his burns. Terribly. The painkiller I gave him last night probably wore off quite a while ago.”
“Oh.” Taziri glanced down at the narrow window by her feet, usually consulted during takeoffs and landings. Now it showed her the man dangling just above the water. A white-tipped wave reached up and slapped the man’s head, leaving him spinning wildly on the slender cable. Hamuy screamed. That should bother me. But it doesn’t. Taziri nodded. “I see.”
Ahead, the golden line of a beach grew larger and dark specks of driftwood took shape on it. Taziri throttled up and throttled back, her fingers playing restlessly on the handles. Finally, the last sailboat fell behind them and the water’s blue grew paler and brighter. Taziri kicked the pedals and the Halcyon nosed up. As the drone of the propellers faded to a whisper, the airship came to float high above a sandy strip of beach speckled with rocks and flotsam and gulls.
Taziri sat and absently rubbed the two numb fingers of her left hand as she stared out over the railways and grassy fields to the south. To the east, the hills rippled up beneath forests into the rocky ridges around the canal. Looking down, she flexed her hand and found her wrist didn’t quite bend all the way forward or back. It felt a bit cold and hollow. Taziri gently shifted her burnt sleeve, but felt no particular pains in her arm. It can’t be that bad. As soon as this is over, I’ll take a look. As soon as Halcyon is safe back at home.
The engineer stood, straightened her jacket, and shuffled back to the open hatch. She flicked the winch switch and listened to the tiny motor winding up the steel cable until a dull thump signaled the arrival of Medur Hamuy against the gondola’s hull. Taziri locked the winch again and squatted down by the hatch where she could see her prisoner’s soaked back pressed up against the hatchway. “So. Whenever you’re ready.”
At first, there was nothing. Then she heard some coughing and spitting. Eventually, Hamuy stuttered, “Th-they’ll…k-k-kill…m-me.”
Taziri squinted out across the bay. “We can do it again. We can do it all day, actually. I’ve got nothing else to do right now.”
Silence. The engineer and doctor exchanged a dull look. Taziri felt her insides quivering like a frightened bird. What the hell am I doing? Dragging a man through the bay?
He killed all those people! He could kill more. And he knows who I am, where I’m from. Yuba and Menna…
Taziri swallowed the lump in her throat and exhaled slowly.
Yuba and Menna.
The whirlwind in her head subsided.
Yuba and Menna.
They could die. She could come home and find them dead, murdered by a monster just like Hamuy.
They have to be stopped. All the monsters have to be stopped.
A cold steeliness calmed her hands and steadied her voice. “How’s that salt feel?”
“There’s…l-lots…of th-them.” Hamuy’s voice shook. “Rich. P-Powerful.”
“And?”
“I don’t know! Th-th-they hate foreigners, b-but they h-hate the queen more.” Hamuy wheezed for a moment. “I just, I just work for Chaou.”
“All right. So where are they?”
“I don’t know!” Hamuy whined. “I–I just w-w-work for Chaou.”
Taziri rubbed her eyes, trying to decide what to ask. “Well, where does Chaou go when she visits Port Chellah? Any special friends?”
Silence.
“Where does she go?”
“N-nowhere!” Hamuy’s voice was almost lost to the wind. “We don’t c-come here. She’s the ambassador to Espana. We’re either up north or down at the capital.”
Taziri frowned. You’re an engineer, so be an engineer. Pick the problem apart to find the solution. We need more information. “Tell me about the metal plate in your chest. I assume you were there when they put it in.”
Silence.
The doctor leaned forward to look at the prisoner’s back. “He may be unconscious.”
“Medur?” Taziri reach down to slap his wet shoulder. “Who put the plate in your chest? A doctor? A friend of Chaou’s? Give me the name.”
After a bit of retching, Hamuy said, “An Espani called Medina. Elena Medina.”
“Where?”
“Arafez.”
Taziri stood and hit the winch switch. The little motor whined as it hauled its load up over the hatch’s lip and into the cabin. Hamuy howled as his raw arm and shoulder dragged over the threshold. The winch clicked off, leaving the prisoner to huff and wheeze and shudder on the floor.
“That’s a start.” Taziri rubbed her eyes, then leaned out and pulled the hatch shut. The cabin suddenly plunged into a warm silence as the cool sea breezes vanished. She avoided looking at the shivering mound of cloth and flesh on the cabin floor. “We’re missing something. I doubt Chaou murdered her way out of Tingis just to visit Port Chellah. Crashing the Crake was a mistake or an accident. She must be going somewhere else, somewhere in the south, and without an airship she’ll need a train or a boat. Maybe a private yacht to Acra or the ferry going up the canal to Nahiz.”
“If Nahiz is on the way to Orossa, then I endorse that theory.” Evander twisted about to peer out the window at the harbor below. “But I see a lot of boats down there. Your ambassador might be on any of them. Or none of them.”
“I know.” Taziri slipped back into the cockpit and gripped the throttles. “And we can’t check them all, or even find them all. But there’s only one ferry and it leaves at noon. So we have a little time.”
“To do what?” Evander asked. “We’re alone up here.”
“I know that too. That’s why we’re going down there.” The engines hummed a little louder and the shadows inside the cabin began shifting and sliding as Taziri turned the airship back toward the city. “The ferry lands at the pier next to the harbor master’s office. That office has a lighthouse tower with a flagpole on top. I’ve always thought that flagpole would make an excellent airship mooring mast. Let’s go find out. We’ll watch the pier. If we spot Chaou, maybe we can find the marshals, too.”