Part 12 (1/2)

The captain's description of the fighter aircraft as an ”honour guard” was therefore believed by no one, nor was his additional announcement that there would be a stopover of a full day at Parila to allow the pa.s.sengers to stretch their legs a little and take in the sights. In reality, all knew that Senzan officials would be going through the s.h.i.+p's every nook and cranny in search of possible military supplies intended for Katamenia. On this particular occasion, it would mean searching the tons of food supplies intended for disaster relief, which could only prolong the search process. There are only so many bags of potatoes that can be bayoneted in a working day.

The final approach to the mooring cradle was slow but sure, the tone of the manoeuvre being ”no sudden moves” writ large. The fighter aircraft had stacked into a formation high and astern of the Hortense, all the better to stoop down and strafe her into wreckage if she did anything the squadron leader considered suspicious or threatening. Captain Schten intended to provide no such excuse, and was clearly signalling every turn and alteration in speed, right down into the cradle itself. It was not just the relief of completing the difficult landing that caused the pa.s.sengers and, it was reasonable to a.s.sume, the crew to sigh but also the lifting of the threat of machine-gun bullets and rocket explosions.

Cabal stood at one of the long salon windows. He had watched the approach with a lively interest, specifically the arrangement of the aeroport itself. Around the field stood a high-wire fence, and without that a ditch or possibly an overgrown ha-ha. Alongside the wire ran a long strip of carefully maintained tarmacadam, near the end of which were two hangars. One seemed to be for civilian aircraft, but the other was part.i.tioned off by another fence and gates, and was presumably the hangar from which the military ran its aerial patrols. Between the runway and the two aeros.h.i.+p cradles (the other standing empty) was a clear green swathe of short cut gra.s.s perhaps three hundred metres wide. The cradles stood much closer to the aeroport buildings than the hangars, and it was clear that entomopters were the lesser part of the facility's traffic, in status if not quant.i.ty. It all seemed very efficient. Rather too efficient for Cabal's liking. To be sure, he had a Plan A to get him out of the aeroport, away and clear before anybody was any the wiser about the truth of ”Herr Meissner.” He didn't like the plan much, though. It involved close dealings with the Senzan authorities, and if they failed to react the way that he'd predicted they need only reach out to arrest him. He had hoped for a less complex Plan B to present itself-something along the lines of sneaking through the aeroport's perimeter under cover of darkness-but the high fences and the military presence had snuffed out that hope. There was no choice, then; Plan A, with all its attendant opportunities for unwanted complication, was his only option. Filled with conflicting emotions, none of them pleasant, he retired to his cabin to prepare.

Even after the s.h.i.+p had settled onto the cradle, the etheric line guides had disengaged, the gyroscopic levitators had been allowed to wind down to a halt, and the pa.s.senger ramp had been lowered, n.o.body was allowed to disembark. Instead, there was a long and humiliating wait while Senzan customs made ready. The pa.s.sengers hung around in the salon, impatient but speaking little. Only Leonie Barrow was actually scheduled to leave the journey here, but everybody wanted to stretch their legs and see a little of Parila, a city noted for its history, art, and architecture throughout the civilised world. Even the most fervent Mirkarvian patriot would not like to be regarded as a barbarian-though most were-and so they were prepared to wander the streets, guidebook in hand, and pretend that they appreciated what they saw.

It was necessary for Herr Meissner to lead the crowd, however, and he couldn't do that via the salon. Instead, he took advantage of the crew hatch down through the dining room and found himself on the top of a steel spiral staircase leading down one of the support stanchions, the very cousin of the one by which he had first boarded the Princess Hortense at Emperor Boniface VIII Aeroport in Krenz. He was thankful that they all seemed to be built to a standard pattern; the alternative might have involved him dangling from the aeros.h.i.+p's underside by his fingertips, and he'd done quite enough of that for one voyage.

He descended quickly, carrying no luggage but for his case and his cane. Meissner's could stay aboard the Hortense and be divided amongst the crew by lots as far as he was concerned. He was almost done with the petty civil servant whose persona he had been forced to estimate and a.s.sume. He had met the real Meissner only briefly and had not had sufficient time on that occasion to properly foment a real dislike for the man. He had, however, by a combination of going through Meissner's luggage, personal effects, and work papers, got his measure and could not wait to shrug the lowly and loathly civil servant from him as a serpent might slough off a particularly irritating skin.

His progress was noted and acted upon by the Senzans, which was fine and predicted, and so he was unsurprised to be met, a few metres from the base of the steps, by a small cortege of serious and concerned customs officers. Their leader made as if to say something officious and obvious, but Cabal preempted him with an impatient wag of his finger. ”Not here!” he snapped at the surprised officer. ”Not now!” He moved through them with such a sense of purposeful intent that the customs men found themselves falling into twin columns as he headed for the main aeroport buildings, the cortege becoming an entourage.

Upon arrival at the customs shed, he glared significantly at the junior officers until they wilted. Taking the hint, their senior dismissed them with a wave, as if shooing off flies. Once again, the officer drew breath to demand of Cabal an explanation and, once again, Cabal preempted him. He drew a long white envelope from an inner pocket quickly enough to make a small krak, like a tiny whip. The customs man looked at it curiously, and raised his eyebrows when he saw the Mirkarvian state seal in red wax on the flap. Cabal ran his thumb under it and broke the wax before the officer had a chance to see that it was a low-priority variant of the seal, such as a docket clerk (first cla.s.s) might carry with him.

”I was given this when I embarked upon the Princess Hortense,” Cabal told the officer in a conspiratorial tone. ”You will understand that there are ... politics at play, even within my government? Factions and suchlike. One of these has taken to dabbling with certain ... procedures that are not acceptable to civilised persons, no matter what their nationality.” He took the two folded sheets of paper from the envelope that he had placed there less than an hour before and pa.s.sed them over. If the customs officer had been startled by events so far, that was as nothing to his expression when he read the first paragraph of the letter.

He looked up from the letter and stared at Cabal with wide eyes. ”A necromancer?” he said, nearly in a whisper.

”Indeed so,” confirmed Cabal. ”Read on, read on.”

The officer did so, and his discomfort increased with every line. ”This is dreadful,” he said when he had finished, this time in a definite whisper.

Cabal hoped and trusted that he was referring to the doc.u.ment's content and not to the fact that it was a forgery. ”Yes, it is. I am ashamed that I have to turn to you for help, instead of concluding this affair in Mirkarvia. The people who first employed this ... monster made that impossible. This is my last chance to prevent their plan reaching fruition.”

The customs officer was out of his depth. He kept rereading the doc.u.ment, or, at least, one part of it. Cabal suspected it was the phrases ”ma.s.s resurrection” and ”army of the dead” that had fixed his attention so admirably, which was gratifying, as that was exactly the reason he had included them. The vision they provoked was of the victims of the Katamenian famine being so ill-bred as not only to be Katamenian and dead but brain-eating Katamenian zombies stumbling over the border into Senza to suck the cerebellums of the Senzan citizenry, all under the domination of a mercenary necromancer backed by Mirkarvian money. To an officer whose usual workaday routine consisted of saying ”Anything to declare?” repeatedly, it was all a bit much to grasp.

Cabal allowed him another few seconds of grasping time, then said, ”You have to inform your superiors immediately! This plot has to be exposed and stopped, for the sake of your people and for the very soul of mine! Do you understand how important this is?”

”But who?” asked the customs officer, almost pleading. ”Who should I go to?”

This foxed Cabal for a second. He'd expected the Senzan customs to be rather more thorough in its preparedness for the ghastly plots of its neighbours. ”You're going to be overseeing the search of the Princess Hortense, are you not?”

The customs man shook his head. ”No, no. The military handles that. We always expect trouble from those Mirkarvian bast-From Mirkarvian vessels, so the military is used to discourage anything, y'know, a bit dodgy.”

The military. Of course. ”Then take this report to the officer of the watch at the military hangar immediately! Now! Time is wasting!” The customs man took a couple of uncertain steps towards the door and then stopped, dithering. Cabal allowed a little of his impatience to boil over. It was a realistic reaction under the circ.u.mstances and, besides, it made him feel better. ”What in heaven's name is it?”

”Would you come with me?” asked the customs officer. ”Please?” The customs and the military did not always see eye to eye, and it would help his case to have an actual Mirkarvian agent with him when he tried to explain to a hard-boiled wing commander that the Katamenians and an element of the Mirkarvian elite were planning a ma.s.s illegal immigration of undead cannibals into Senza.

”Come with-? Impossible! I have to get back to the aeros.h.i.+p before I'm missed.” A happy bit of invention occurred to him, and he added, ”They've already murdered two other agents during this trip. I don't want them to make it three. You understand me?”

The officer didn't, not really, but the mention of murder raised the tide of responsibility past his chin and up to his nose. He was desperate to pa.s.s it on to somebody senior to himself who might actually know what to do with the information. Ideally, somebody in the military. Then if they messed up, and Senza was overrun by voracious zombies, he would be in the delightful position of being able to mutter, ”Typical b.l.o.o.d.y military. Can't get anything right,” shortly before ingestion.

So, after the mysterious man from Mirkarvia had gone out of the exit and was presumably sneaking back aboard the Princess Hortense, the customs officer girded his loins and set off for the military compound. A minute after he left, the mysterious man from Mirkarvia stealthily reentered the customs shed and, discovering it to be as empty as he had hoped, became nonchalant and strolled out through the arrivals hall.

Finally, after the wait had exceeded calculated rudeness and was now simply boring, the Senzans deigned to board the Princess Hortense. Captain Schten was disturbed to note that instead of its being primarily a customs operation backed up by the military, only troops boarded and took up positions with their rifles unshouldered and at the ready.

A lieutenant marched up to Schten and saluted crisply. Schten returned the salute more slowly, frowning at the unexpectedly threatening presence. ”Why do these men have their weapons ready, Lieutenant?” he asked quietly enough to avoid being overheard by the pa.s.sengers who were present.

The lieutenant drew a couple of sheets of paper from his peac.o.c.k-green jacket and held them up so that Schten could read the first. Schten saw the heading and demanded, ”Where did you get this? This is an official Mirkarvian doc.u.ment!”

The lieutenant was unimpressed. ”Read it, sir,” he said with the carefully controlled inflection of a junior officer who has authority over a senior officer on a different chain of command; a sterile sort of respect. Holding his anger in with a grimace, Schten read on. A few lines in, his anger turned to astonishment.

”That's impossible! I don't believe it! I can't believe it! I refuse to believe it!”

The lieutenant was enjoying himself, albeit inwardly. He folded the sheets and replaced them. ”Then you don't believe your own government, Captain. As you said, this is an official Mirkarvian doc.u.ment.” He turned to a soldier who was reading a copy of the s.h.i.+p's manifest. ”Sergeant, have you found the suspect yet?”

”Just about, sir.” He looked around the salon, and asked the captain, ”Are these all your pa.s.sengers, sir?”

”Yes,” snapped Schten. ”You can see yourself. Oh, actually, no. We're a couple short. I was meaning to speak to-”

”We know about the deaths, Captain,” said the lieutenant. He took the manifest and the pa.s.senger list from his sergeant and looked around, matching names to likely faces, ignoring Schten's thunderstruck expression. He walked slowly through the pa.s.sengers, who were uncertain what was going on, but certain that something was going on, and moved slightly away from the lieutenant, as if he had a contagious disease or was about to rope them into a party game. He stopped. ”You are Signor Cacon, no?”

It was not. It was Signor Harlmann, who was visibly relieved that he wasn't. He pointed out Cacon, who, in turn, shrivelled up a little beneath the lieutenant's cold stare. The lieutenant slowly walked towards him, but paused halfway there to check his list again. He turned to his right and looked at Lady Ninuka. ”You are ... Signorina Barrow?”

Ninuka didn't get a chance to answer, as an outraged Miss Ambersleigh fluttered in front of her like a combative chicken. ”She most certainly is not, young man!” her ladys.h.i.+p's attendant said in her severest tone. ”This is the Lady Orfilia Ninuka, and I shall thank you to show her the proper respect! That”-she nodded at Leonie Barrow-”is Miss Barrow.”

The lieutenant looked over at her with mild interest.

For her part, Miss Barrow was wondering what all this head counting was in aid of. She was wondering how the Senzans had learned of the deaths aboard, especially as it was evident that the captain clearly hadn't been the one to tell them. Perhaps Cabal had been right in his belief that there were agents aboard, just not Mirkarvian ones. And, speaking of Cabal, where was he? It struck her that she hadn't seen him since the approach to the aeroport.

”Signorina Barrow?” asked the lieutenant.

”Hmm?” she said, thinking hard. Perhaps this wasn't about the mysterious happenings aboard at all. Perhaps this was all about Cabal. ”Yes. Yes, I'm Leonie Barrow.”

”Splendido!” said the lieutenant, as he snapped his fingers and lazily pointed at her. At the sound, his soldiers snapped to attention. At the gesture, Miss Barrow found herself ringed by six rifles.

”What?” She fought an impulse to jump with surprise, as the rational part of her feared, with reasonable grounds, that the soldiers might regard that as an excuse to fire. This left her up on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet, from which she slowly descended back on to her heels in an effort to appear unthreatening.

”I still don't believe it!” rumbled Captain Schten.

”What ... what is the meaning of this?” Miss Ambersleigh was even more aflutter now than she had been a few moments ago. ”You can't point your horrid guns at her! She's ... she's Englis.h.!.+”

The lieutenant ignored her. He marched up to Miss Barrow and took a moment to curl his lip and sneer at her properly, so that she was in no doubt at all that she was being sneered at. ”Signorina ... Leonie ... Barrow ...” He said the latter words as though they were patent and obvious lies. ”Or should I say-” He let the seconds linger, taking pleasure in the tension, knowing his civilian onlookers-poor ignorant fools that they were-were craning forward, hanging on his words. He let them squirm for a moment longer, and then delivered the denouement. ”Johanna Cabal ... Necromancer!”

There was a collective gasp, including one from the freshly unmasked necromancatrix.

”You have got this so wrong,” she managed to say eventually.

He was aware that he could not push the sneer any further without its looking plain silly, so he waggled his head a little for emphasis instead. ”Oh, have I indeed? We shall see. You are under arrest for crimes against humanity, nature, and G.o.d. Specifically, the proscribed practise of necromancy. You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say will be taken down in evidence and may be used at trial. You have the right to legal counsel during questioning, and during any subsequent trial. Do you understand these rights?”

Miss Barrow's throat was very dry. The initial disbelief had gone now, and been replaced with the certain knowledge that she was in deep trouble. Johanna Cabal? It seemed evident that they were after Johannes Cabal and somehow lines of communication had become tangled and they thought their man was actually a woman. But, why her? She wasn't the only woman aboard. And where was Cabal, anyway? She was having trouble thinking, and being badgered by some c.o.xcomb in army uniform wasn't helping. Did she understand these rights? he kept asking. Did she understand? She started to stumble through what might have been an agreement when suddenly Miss Ambersleigh was between them.

”She's ENGLIs.h.!.+” the tiny Miss Ambersleigh screamed in the lieutenant's face. ”How dare you suggest such a foul calumny upon an English lady, you ... you ... foreigner!”

The lieutenant looked down at the incandescent woman and raised an unbearably superior eyebrow. ”Ah, signora. Here, you are the foreigner.”