Behemoth

NINE

Dylan went first through the hatchway, climbing down a few rungs mounted on the slanted wall.

Alek passed the wormlamp down, spilling light into the small spherical chamber. He’d seen this place from outside the airship: a round bulge in the gondola’s underbelly. The space was crowded by what looked like a mismatched pair of telescopes pointed down at the sea.

“Is that a weapon?” he asked.

“No. The fat one is a reconnaissance camera,” Dylan said. “And the wee one’s a sight for aerial bombs and navigation. But they’re useless at night, so it’ll be private enough.”

“If not luxurious,” Alek said. He climbed down and wedged himself onto a corner, half squatting on a giant gear attached to the camera’s side. “But aren’t we right below the bridge?”

Dylan glanced up. “That’s the navigation room over us, and the bridge is above that. But it’s safer here than in the lizard room. You’re lucky you didn’t send out an alert to the whole barking ship!”

“That might have been awkward,” Alek said, imagining an army of lizards scampering through the airship’s message tubes, shouting in his voice to the sleeping crew. “I’m a pretty useless spy, I suppose.”

“At least you were clever enough to be caught by me,” Dylan said. “And not someone who might have objected to you skulking about.”

“Not so much skulking as bumbling,” Alek said. “But thank you for not reporting me.”

The boy shrugged. “I reckon it’s a prisoner’s duty to escape. After all, you Clankers keep saving the ship—that’s three times now—and the captain’s treating you like enemies! And just because Britain declared war on your granduncle. I think it’s dead rotten.”

Alek found himself smiling. On the subject of Dylan’s loyalty, at least, Volger’s suspicions were completely wrong.

“So that’s why you were looking for me,” Alek said. “To talk about how we can escape.”

“Well, I’m not keen to help you. That might be a squick too treasonous, even for me. It was only …” Dylan’s voice faded.

“What?”

“We’ll be in Constantinople by noon tomorrow, so I reckoned you might be slipping away soon, and this might be our last chance to talk.” The boy wrapped his arms around himself. “And I’ve hardly slept anyway.”

Alek squinted through the darkness. Dylan’s fine features looked drawn, even in the soft light of the glowworms. His usual smile was missing.

“What’s wrong?”

“It was what happened to Newkirk. It’s left me dead shattered.”

“Shattered?” Alek frowned. Dylan’s strange way with the English language was playing tricks again. “Newkirk is the midshipman whose Huxley burned, right?”

“Aye, it was so much like … what happened when my da died. It’s given me nightmares.”

Alek nodded. The boy had never said much about his father’s death. Only that he’d been lost in an accident, and that Dylan hadn’t spoken for a whole month afterward.

“You’ve never told anyone about it, have you?”

The boy shook his head, then fell still.

Alek waited, remembering how hard it had been to tell Dylan about his own parents. In the silence he could hear the wind sweeping around the prow of the airship, testing its joints and seams. A draft swirled up from where the camera thrust out into the night sky, snatches of cold air coiling around their feet.

“I mean, since you’re leaving the ship anyway,” Dylan said, “I reckoned it wouldn’t burden you too much to hear it.”

“Of course you can tell me, Dylan. You know plenty of my secrets, after all.”

The boy nodded, but fell silent again, his arms still wrapped tight around himself. Alek took a slow breath. He’d never seen Dylan afraid to speak his mind. The boy had never seemed afraid of anything before, much less a memory.

Perhaps he didn’t want anyone to see him this way, looking weak and … shattered.

Alek slipped off his jacket and laid it over the wormlamp. Darkness wrapped around them both.

“Tell me,” he said gently.

A moment later Dylan began to speak.

“Da flew hot-air balloons, you see, even after the hydrogen breathers got so big. I always went up with him, so I was there when it happened. We were still on the ground, the burners firing to warm up the air in the envelope. Then suddenly there was this great blast of heat, like opening a boiler door. One of the kerosene tanks …”

Dylan’s voice had gradually gone softer, almost like a girl’s, and now it faded away altogether. Alek slid closer, putting his arm around the boy until he spoke again.

“It was just like with Newkirk. The fire shot straight up until the whole balloon was burning overhead, the heat pulling us skyward. The tethers held, even though they must have been on fire too. And my da pushed me out of the basket.”

“So he saved you.”

“Aye, but that’s what killed him. With my weight gone, the ropes broke, all at once, like knuckles cracking. And Da’s balloon went roaring away.”

Alek’s breath caught. He remembered again the German zeppelin in the Alps, falling right in front of him, its hydrogen ignited by machine-gun fire. He could still hear the snow beneath the wreck hissing as it turned to steam, and the thin screams from inside the gondola.

“Everyone saw how he’d saved me,” Dylan said, reaching into his pocket. “They gave him a medal for it.”

He pulled out a small decoration, a rounded silver cross that dangled from a sky blue ribbon. In the darkness Alek could just make out the face of Charles Darwin engraved upon its center.

“It’s called the Air Gallantry Cross, the highest honor they can give a civilian for deeds in the air.”

“You must be proud,” Alek said.

“Back in that first year, when I couldn’t sleep, I used to stare at it at night. But I thought the nightmares were over and done with, until what happened to Newkirk.” Dylan looked at him. “Maybe you understand a wee bit, how it comes back? Because of your ma and da?”

Alek nodded, staring at the medal and wondering what to say. He still had dreams, of course, but his own parents’ death had happened in far-off Sarajevo, not in front of his eyes. Even his nightmares couldn’t compare with what Dylan had described.

But then he remembered the moment when the Tesla cannon had fired, his horror that the Leviathan would be engulfed in flame.

“I think you’re very brave, serving on this ship.”

“Aye, or mad.” The boy’s eyes glistened in the glimmers of wormlight from beneath Alek’s jacket. “Don’t you think it’s daft? Like I’m trying to burn to death, same as he did?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Alek said. “You’re honoring your father. Of course you’d want to be on this ship. If I weren’t …” He paused. “I mean, if things were different, I’d want to stay here too.”

“You would?”

“Well, maybe it’s silly. But the last few days, it’s like something’s changing inside me. Everything I ever knew is upside down. Sometimes it’s almost as if I’m … in love …”

Dylan’s body tightened beside Alek.

“I know it sounds silly,” Alek said quickly. “It’s quite obviously ridiculous.”

“But are you saying that … ? I mean, what if things were different than you thought? If I were … or have you guessed already?” Dylan let out a groan. “Just what are you saying?”

Alek shook his head. “Perhaps I’m putting this stupidly. But it’s almost as though … I’m in love with your ship.”

“You’re in love,” Dylan said slowly, “with the Leviathan?”

“It feels right here.” Alek shrugged. “As if this is where I’m meant to be.”

Dylan let out a strange, choked laugh as he put the medal back into his pocket.

“You Clankers,” he muttered. “You’re all cracked in the head.”

Alek pulled his arm from the boy’s shoulders, frowning. Dylan was always explaining how the airship’s interwoven species sustained one another, how every beast was part of the whole. Surely he could understand.

“Dylan, you know I’ve always been alone. I never had schoolmates, just tutors.”

“Aye, because you’re a barking prince.”

“But I’m hardly even that, because of my mother’s blood. I never mixed with commoners, and the rest of my family has always wanted me to disappear. But here on this ship …” Alek laced his fingers together, searching for the right words.

“This is one place where you fit,” Dylan said flatly. “Where you feel real.”

Alek smiled. “Yes. I knew you’d understand.”

“Aye, of course.” Dylan shrugged. “I just thought you might be saying something else, that’s all. I feel the same way as you … about the ship.”

“But you’re not an enemy here, or hiding what you are,” Alek said, sighing. “It’s much simpler for you.”

The boy gave a sad laugh. “Not quite as simple as you’d think.”

“I didn’t say you were simple, Dylan. It’s just that you’ve got no secrets hanging over you. No one’s trying to throw you off this ship and put you in chains!”

Dylan shook his head. “Tell that to my ma.”

“Oh, right.” Alek recalled that Dylan’s mother hadn’t wanted him to join the military. “Women can be quite mad sometimes.”

“In my family they’re a squick madder than most.” Dylan pulled Alek’s jacket from the wormlamp. “Full of stupid ideas. Mad like you wouldn’t believe.”

In the sudden wash of green light, Dylan’s face was no longer sad. His eyes had their usual spark, but there was an angry gleam in them. He tossed the jacket to Alek.

“We both know you can’t stay aboard this ship,” Dylan said quietly.

Alek held his gaze a moment, then nodded. He would never be allowed to serve on the Leviathan, not once the Darwinists understood their new engines. They would take him and the others back to Britain for safekeeping, whether or not they learned exactly who he was.

He had to escape.

“I should get back to my skulking, I suppose.”

“Aye, you should,” Dylan said. “I’ll go up and watch the eggs for you. Come back before dawn, though, or the lady boffin will have both our heads.”

“Thank you,” Alek said.

“We can only stay in Constantinople twenty-four hours. You’ll have to find whatever you’re looking for tonight.”

Alek nodded, his heart beating a little faster. He reached out a hand. “In case we don’t talk again, I hope we’ll stay friends, whatever happens. Wars don’t last forever.”

Dylan stared at the offered hand, then nodded.

“Aye, friends.” He stood up. “Keep that lamp. I can find my way in the dark.”

He turned and climbed up into the blackness without another word.

Alek looked down at his hand, wondering for a moment what had happened, why Dylan had turned suddenly cold. Perhaps the boy had let more of his feelings show than he’d meant to. Or maybe Alek had said the wrong thing somehow.

He sighed. There wasn’t time to think about it—he had skulking to do. Once the Leviathan started back for Britain, there wouldn’t be another chance to escape. He had to be off this ship in less than two days.

Alek picked up the wormlamp and started for the hatch.