Johannes Cabal the Detective by Jonathan L Howard

Author:Jonathan L Howard
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Voyages And Travels, Magic, Action & Adventure, Mystery & Detective, Humorous, SteamPunk, General, Fiction - General, Fantasy, Popular English Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, Crime, Fiction
ISBN: 9780385528092
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2010-08-15T04:00:00+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 flight 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,” sniffed 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 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 passengers to stretch their legs a little and take in the sights. In reality, all knew that Senzan officials 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 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 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.

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