“All right then, let’s go listen to your captain’s speech,” Omar said. He followed Morayo back across the field to the hangar and let his mind wander to his imminent need to purchase some warmer clothing, and the mundane concern of whether the Mazigh shops would take his Eranian darics. And so he lapsed into thinking in Old Persian and almost walked into Morayo when she stopped short at a sudden burst of shouting in Mazigh at the far end of the field.
The young engineer started to jog toward the ground crew, but Omar took in the scene in a glance and set off at a dead sprint, his long legs devouring the distance as the men shouted more and more frantically.
As the Halcyon had descended, the four men on the ground had taken its ropes to guide the airship to the mooring masts, but one of the men had gotten his foot snared in the lines and the airship was now dragging swiftly him across the ground. The Halcyon ’s propellers had been turned over to blast their fan-wash downward to control the airship’s descent, but now the starboard propeller was descending directly toward the dragged man’s chest and the roar of the prop drowned out his screams completely, leaving his face a silent mask of terror.
With a prayer in his heart and his heart in his throat, Omar ran with all his strength. He could imagine all too well what would happen when the whirling steel blades touched the man’s flesh. The other three men in orange were hollering and hurling their goggles and gloves and even their shoes at the airship windows to try to get the pilot’s attention, but still the Halcyon glided swiftly forward, sinking ever closer to the dragged man.
And then the propellers all snapped to a halt, freezing in place, and in that same instant the roar of the motors fell silent and the screams of the men filled the air.
Omar felt a tiny wave of relief wash through his chest, only to recede again into that same naked fear. Without its propellers turning, the Halcyon had no way to control its descent and now it was sinking even faster toward the ground. The dragged man was safe from the propeller, but the gondola would crush him into the cold earth when it touched down.
Omar was only a few paces from the airship now as its bow plowed toward him, and he could clearly see the rope running from the gondola’s railing down to the dragged man’s leg. Omar grasped the hilt of his seireiken tightly and whispered, “Little brother? I’m going to need your help now. I need to sever that line without anyone on this field seeing my blade. Can you do it?”
The dead samurai answered, I can.
A series of images flashed through Omar’s mind, the motions that Daisuke wanted him to execute. He blinked. “There must be an easier way than that!”
There isn’t, the ghost replied.
Omar grimaced. There wasn’t time to argue. The rope was right in front of him and the gondola’s hull was a mere hand span above the crewman’s chest. Omar exhaled and drew his sword. The sun-steel blade flashed bright white as it slashed through the rope, dropping the crewman’s leg and leaving him motionless on the grass as the Halcyon ’s belly smashed down into the earth just beyond his feet. The gondola gouged a deep brown gash in the dirt, scraping the grass away.
But Omar had no time to see any of that. At the same moment that he drew his sword in his right hand, he drew his scabbard from his belt with his left hand. As the blade severed the rope, spinning his body to the right, he chased the bright sun-steel with the clay-lined scabbard, and as the rope fell slack Omar gracefully slid the scabbard up over the exposed blade. His whole body continued to spin in midair until he fell face-down on the cool grass with his sheathed sword lying flat beneath his chest.
Omar blinked into the crushed grass. I did it. The blade was only visible for half a second. I did it! Thank you, little brother. That was truly inspired. I’ve never been so graceful before in all my life.
The dead samurai appeared for a moment on the field beside him to bow his head, and then he vanished again into the netherworld of the seireiken.
As he pushed himself up, Omar saw one of the crew men kneeling beside his dazed comrade and the other two were wrestling the Halcyon to a full stop and lashing it to a pair of iron rings buried in the earth.
“You all right, old timer?” Morayo jogged up beside him. “That was a hell of a thing you did. The captain never mentioned you were a fighter, too. If I’d known that, it would have been even easier to convince the others to let you come along on the Finch.”
Omar brushed the grass from his clothes as he turned to her. “Ah, so you were my advocate in there? But we’ve never even met. Did you think the expedition really needed a translator or a doctor that badly?”
“Not really.” The young engineer grinned. “But we sure as hell could use a good cook.”
The two of them headed back to the hangar once again and passed close by the Halcyon ’s cabin. Morayo slapped her hand on the window, startling a young woman inside. “Hey Taziri!” Morayo yelled. “Have you figured out where everything goes yet?” And she laughed as they walked on, leaving the other woman glaring out through the glass.
“Who was that?” Omar asked.
“That’s Isoke’s flight engineer. She’s not even a real engineer, she’s an electrician. Can you believe that?”
“Ah. And she’s having trouble finding her way around the Halcyon?”
“No. I just like giving her a hard time that she hasn’t had a baby yet. They’re waiting, she says.”
Omar frowned. “Why give her a hard time about that?”
“I don’t know. Why not?”
Back inside the hangar they found Captain Ngozi and two men standing beside a long wooden table and speaking in low voices. When Omar and Morayo walked up, the captain asked, “What was all that noise out there?”
“Just Isoke and Taziri trying to crash that new boat of theirs and kill all the ground crew at the same time,” Morayo said dully. “But our new cook saved the day.”
“Our new cook?” Riuza asked. “You told him?”
“It may have slipped out,” Morayo said. “But I promised him you would do the whole lecture about protocol and command and everything anyway.”
The captain sighed. “Never mind.” She shook Omar’s hand. “We’ve all discussed the matter and decided that we’re willing to trade you a seat on the Finch for a copy of your map. Welcome aboard, Mister Bakhoum. You have one day to buy a very warm coat and to notify your next of kin that you’re probably not coming back. You’re going to Europa.”
Chapter 3. Civil war
Captain Ngozi motioned for the tall man beside her to step forward. “Mister Bakhoum, I’d like you to meet Mister Kosoko Abassi, our resident cartographer and geologist from Timbuktu. He’s been with the team for three years now.”
The men shook hands briefly. Omar guessed from the traces of gray in the taller man’s hair and the deep lines around his eyes that they were of the same age. Or, more precisely, that Abassi was the same age that Omar had been when he stopped aging.
“And this is Professor Garai Dumaka of Gao University, our naturalist and anthropologist. Technically he’s been on the team for five years, since before the Finch was rigged for northern flying,” Riuza said. “He helped get the entire exploration program off the ground, so to speak.”
The professor was shorter and younger than the cartographer, and he wore a pair of circular spectacles on his small nose. The rest of him wore an over-tailored green suit of many pockets full of pens and small tools. Omar shook his hand politely.
“All right, well, that’s all the time we have for standing around,” Riuza said. She handed Omar a slip of paper. “Here’s a list of everything you’ll need. Clothes, mostly. We’re adding extra food for you. The weight shouldn’t be a problem, but there’s absolutely no room for any personal gear. No trunks full of special equipment or a secret companion you conveniently forgot to mention.”