Europa Read Online Free PDF Page B

a bit angrier as the bodies pile up year after year.”
    Omar nodded as he took another bite of his peppery fish. “Any idea what that argument was about back there? The one with the woman?”
    “I don’t know. Wages, probably.” The man stretched. “Times are tough, and getting tougher. But that’s always been true, hasn’t it? Hm. Well, have a good day.” The little fellow limped away with a high, squeaking sound on every other step. Omar saw that the man’s right leg was gone just below the hip, replaced with a padded wooden cup mounted on a brass peg with a thick spring joint where his knee used to be. The stiff coil rocked and squealed with each step the man took.
    It was still early in the afternoon, but Omar headed back to his hotel to shed his extra woolly layers and sit with his old Rus map. With a bit of hotel stationery and a cheap blue pen, he began his translation. After supper in the bar downstairs he considered another smoke in the alley behind the hotel, but then he thought better of it and returned to his room for an early night.
    After all, tomorrow is a big day.

 
Chapter 4. White squall
    Omar arrived in the hangar entrance just as the morning sun was about to break above the eastern ridges of the Atlas Mountains. Dressed in all of his heavy new clothes and his blue-tinted glasses, he strode toward the Frost Finch prepared to offer whatever assistance the crew required. But Captain Ngozi merely waved him into the cabin, directed him to sit in the back, and told him not to touch anything. And so he sat and waited.
    From his seat, he could see the outline of the steam engine housed behind him and the shape of the flight controls in the cockpit in front of him. Along the walls to either side and lashed to the bars and shelves overhead he saw countless packages wrapped in leather and canvas, bound in twine, or covered in wooden panels. The equipment and provisions crowded in the space in teetering piles and bulbous lumps, making it more like a wildman’s cave than a civilized room.
    Over the next half hour, the engineer Morayo and the two southern scholars arrived, inspected the trunks and sacks carefully stowed inside the Finch ’s cabin, and the two men sat down beside Omar with only the briefest of greetings between yawns. The cartographer Kosoko regarded him with an unpleasant frown, but kept whatever he was thinking to himself.
    Morayo came back and held out a folded brown paper in her hand, on which rested a small pile of gnarled brown and white roots. She grinned at Omar. “All right landlubber, time for your medicine.”
    Garai grabbed a root and popped it into his mouth. Kosoko selected one carefully and sat back with the morsel still in his hand. Omar peered at the offering. “What is it?”
    “Ginger. It helps with motion sickness.”
    “Oh. Thank you.” He took one of the roots and glanced at Garai, who nodded confidently between chews, so Omar put the ginger in his mouth and began chewing.
    Suddenly there was a flurry of activity outside as the ground crew cranked the huge doors of the hangar open. Riuza settled into the pilot’s seat and the engine rumbled to life. Morayo sealed the cabin hatch and took her seat beside the captain. Through the small armored windows, Omar could see the Finch ’s propellers whirling just outside the gondola, their monotonous droning echoing inside the hangar.
    The airship shuddered and glided forward, slowly moving out into the morning light. Omar sat patiently with his hands on his lap. He turned to Kosoko and said, “So how many times exactly have you done this?”
    The cartographer pressed his lips tightly together, narrowed his eyes in a pained expression, and shook his head.
    Garai, the naturalist, leaned forward and raised his voice above the noise of the engine to say, “You’ll have to excuse him. He gets more than a little motion sick, every time. It’s so bad he won’t even be able to put the ginger in his mouth for a while. But