Johannes Cabal: The Detective by Jonathan L. Howard

Author:Jonathan L. Howard
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780385533232
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2010-07-12T12:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

IN WHICH CABAL BEHAVES DESPICABLY AND

INQUISITIVELY

Cabal, for his part, knew exactly what he

was going to tell the Senzan authorities.

The Princess Hortense’s entry into the skies

of Senza was marked by the appearance of

a ight of military entomopters. As the

passengers gathered in the salon to watch

the machines zoom by in a whirl of metallic

wings, Captain Schten was at pains to

announce that the aircraft were there as an

honour guard, come to escort them in style

to Parila Aeroport in the long promontory

of land that split Mirkarvia and Katamenia.

Nobody believed it for a second. They all

knew, or were told quickly enough by their

fellows, that the escort was there to keep an

eye on them. Nobody said what would

happen if the aeroship deviated on its

approach path to Parila, but nobody needed

to. The guns and rockets the entomopters

carried were not there simply for show.

Perhaps, oddly, it was the fact that the

pilots did not return the waves of the

passengers, but remained grim and cold,

that caused a greater sense of foreboding

than all the weaponry.

“Bloody Senzans,” sni ed Cacon, making

one of his occasional but always unpopular

appearances. “Wouldn’t kill them to crack a

smile now and then.” That this was the most

rank hypocrisy, coming from a man for

whom cracking a smile himself would

probably prove fatal, was silently noted by

his listeners. None, however, commented on

it; that would have meant possibly

provoking a conversation with him, and this

was too great a price to pay.

The captain’s description of the ghter

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

passengers to stretch their legs a little and

take in the sights. In reality, all knew that

Senzan o cials would be going through the

ship’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 nal approach to the mooring cradle

was slow but sure, the tone of the

manoeuvre being “no sudden moves” writ

large. The ghter 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

di cult landing that caused the passengers

and, it was reasonable to assume, 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, speci cally the

arrangement of the aeroport itself. Around

the eld 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 partitioned o by

another fence and gates, and was

presumably the hangar from which the

military ran its aerial patrols.

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