Goliath

TEN

Tazza’s ears perked up. The beastie strained at his leash, pulling Deryn forward in the darkness of the gut. Just ahead of them a strange two-headed silhouette was emerging from gloom.

“Mr. Sharp,” came a familiar voice, and Deryn smiled. It was only Bovril, riding on Alek’s shoulder.

Tazza leaned back onto his haunches and bounced with excitement as the two approached. Bovril chuckled a bit at the sight, but Alek didn’t look happy. He was staring at Deryn, his eyes hollow.

“Did you not get any sleep?” she asked.

“Not much.” He knelt to pet the thylacine. “I looked in your cabin. Newkirk said you’d be here.”

“Aye, this is Tazza’s favorite place for a walk,” Deryn said. The great airbeast’s gut was where all the organic matter of the ship came together to be processed and separated into energy-making sugars, hydrogen, and waste. “I think he likes the smells.”

“Mr. Newkirk seemed quite at home there,” Alek said.

Deryn sighed. “It’s his cabin too now. We’re short of bunks for the next few days. Still, it’s better than back when there were three of us middies to a cabin.”

Alek frowned, his gaze lingering on her again. Even in the faint wormlight of the great airbeast’s gut, his face looked pale.

“Are you all right, Alek? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“My head’s been spinning, I suppose.”

“It’s not just you. Since meeting with that Clanker boffin, the officers have been as twitchy as a box of crickets. What in blazes did Tesla say in there?”

Alek paused a moment, still giving her the strange look. “He claims that he destroyed that forest himself. He has a weapon of some kind in America, called Goliath. It’s much bigger than the one we tore down in Istanbul, and he wants to end the war with it.”

“He said he… w-with a what?” Deryn sputtered.

“It’s like a Tesla cannon, which he says can set the air on fire anywhere in the world. Now that he’s seen firsthand what it can do, he wants to use it to force the Clankers to surrender.”

Deryn blinked. The boy had said the words so simply, as if repeating a duty roster, but they hardly made sense.

“Surrender,” Bovril said. “Mr. Sharp.”

“A barking weapon did all that?” She could recall with perfect clarity the night of the battle with the Goeben, when the Tesla cannon’s lightning had spread across the Leviathan’s skin, threatening to set the whole ship aflame. An astonishing sight, but a fly’s fart compared to the destruction here in Siberia.

Deryn felt dizzy. The news was staggering, and it didn’t much help that supper hadn’t been served that night. Tazza nuzzled her hand, whining hungrily.

“No wonder you couldn’t sleep,” Deryn said.

“That was part of it.” The boy looked her in the eye again. “It could all be a lie, of course. You can never tell when people are lying.”

“Aye, or mad. No wonder the lady boffin wanted us to do a little skulking tonight.” Deryn stood, pulling on the thylacine’s leash. “Come on, beastie. It’s back to the cabin with you.”

“We should take the loris with us,” Alek said as he stood up. “It’s been quite perspicacious lately.”

“Mr. Sharp,” Bovril added, and Deryn gave it a hard look.

“Well, all right,” she said. “But I hope it knows when to shush.”

“Shushhh,” the loris said.

The belowdecks were full of snoring men.

The Leviathan might not have had enough bunks for its guests, but the ship’s empty storerooms had plenty of space. Except for their captain the Russians were all down here, packed together like a box of cigars. But Deryn reckoned they were happy enough, getting their first night of sleep in weeks without the lullabies of hungry fighting bears.

It was drafty in the belowdecks, and the men were still wrapped in their furs. Deryn saw no glimmer of watching eyes as she slunk past. Sitting on Alek’s shoulder, Bovril softly imitated the sounds of snoring, breathing, and the wind of the airship’s passage.

Near the rear of the ship, she and Alek reached a locked door, its wooden frame bound with metal. She pulled out the ring of keys that Dr. Barlow had given her that afternoon.

The door swung open on silent hinges, and Deryn and Alek slipped inside. “Some light, your princeliness?” she whispered.

While Alek was fiddling for his command whistle, she relocked the door behind them. His shaky tune came through the dark; then Bovril joined in, and the green light of glowworms sprang up around them.

It was the airship’s smallest storeroom, the only one with a solid door. The officers’ wine and spirits were kept here, along with any other cargo of special value. At the moment it was empty except for the captain’s lockbox and the strange magnetic device.

“The crew saved this machine?” Alek asked. “Even when they threw all our food away?”

“Aye. The lady boffin had to yell a bit to make it happen. She’s a clever-boots, thinking ahead like that.”

“Clever-boots,” said Bovril with a chuckle.

Alek’s eyes opened wider. “Of course. This device was meant to find whatever Tesla was looking for.”

“Aye. But he’s already found it! Captain Yegorov said that Tesla’s men dug something out of the earth a few days ago. So whatever they discovered must be aboard the Leviathan right now!” She looked down at the device. “And he’s supplied us with a way to find out exactly where.”

Alek’s smile grew as his hands took the machine’s controls.

Typical, Deryn thought, that it took a clever scheme and a Clanker device to lift Alek’s spirits. But it was good to see the boy happy at last, instead of moping about as if the world had ended.

“These walls are solid,” she said. “The Russians won’t hear if you turn it on.”

Alek tapped at one of the dials, then gave the power switch a flick.

The low whine of the machine built, filling the tiny room. The three glass spheres began to shimmer, a wee sliver of lightning sparkling to life in each one. The electricity flickered aimlessly for a moment, then steadied.

Deryn swore, leaning closer. “That’s exactly the same as this morning—two pointed upward and one astern. It’s detecting the engines again.”

“One moment,” Alek said.

Deryn watched as he fiddled with the elegant controls. The machine’s parts looked handmade, more like the Leviathan’s equipment than a Clanker device. She remembered Klopp complaining about its fanciness as they’d put it together.

“It almost looks like it belongs here,” she murmured.

Alek nodded. “Mr. Tesla has lived in America for some time. It must be difficult to escape the Darwinist influence there.”

“Aye, poor man. I’m sure he wished he’d made it barking ugly.”

“There!” Alek said. “It’s got hold of something!”

The slivers of lightning had faded for a moment, but now they were flickering back to life. All three of them pointed in the same direction—up and toward the bow.

Deryn frowned. “That’s the officers’ staterooms, or maybe the bridge. Could it be detecting the metal in the ship’s instruments?”

“Perhaps. We’ll have to triangulate to be sure.”

“What, you mean move it?”

Alek shrugged. “It’s designed to be carried, after all.”

“Aye, and we’re supposed to be skulking, not waltzing about with this noisy contraption sparkling in the dark.”

“Sparkling!” Bovril announced, then began to imitate the sounds of the machine.

“Well, I can turn the current down,” Alek said, and fiddled with the controls a bit. The glass spheres dimmed. “How’s that?”

“It’s still barking noisy,” Deryn muttered, but there was no way around it. With only a single direction to go on, they’d have to search a quarter of the ship. “You shush, beastie!”

“Shush,” Bovril whispered, and a moment later the sound in the room began to change. The whining grew flatter and dimmer, as if the machine were being carried away down a long corridor. But it was still there, right in front of Deryn.

“Did you do that?” she asked Alek.

The boy shook his head, holding a hand up for silence. He turned to stare at the perspicacious loris on his shoulder.

Deryn squinted in the green-tinged darkness, and soon she saw it. Every time Bovril paused for breath, the whine of the device grew in volume for a moment, then faded again.

“Is Bovril doing that?” she asked.

Alek placed a hand over his ear on one side, closing his eyes. “The creature’s whine is making the machine’s quieter somehow, as if the two sounds were fighting each other.”

“But how?”

Alek opened his eyes. “I have no idea.”

“Well, I suppose that’s a question for the lady boffin.” Deryn reached for the machine’s handles. “We’ve got skulking to do.”

The device was easy enough for the two of them to carry, but once out in the cargo bay, Deryn realized how tricky this would be. Only a narrow sliver of floor was visible among the sleeping bodies, like a path of paving stones through a carpet of brambles.

Alek led the way, taking slow deliberate steps. Deryn followed, her palms growing sweaty on the machine’s metal handles. She was certain of one thing—if the device slipped from her grasp, whoever it landed on was going to make a ruckus.

The whine of the machine seemed even quieter out here, stifled by the packed bodies and Bovril’s mysterious vocal trick. What sound remained was lost in the rush of wind slipping past the airship’s gondola.

As she and Alek made their way toward the bow, the slivers of lightning in the glass spheres gradually shifted, until they pointed directly up. Deryn stared at the ceiling, recalling the deck plans she’d copied a hundred times from the Manual of Aeronautics.

One deck up was the officer’s baths, and above that…

“Of course,” she hissed. Over the baths was Dr. Busk’s laboratory, which the head boffin was letting Mr. Tesla use as a stateroom.

The realization froze her midstride, just as Alek took a long step over a sleeping Russian. Too late Deryn felt cool metal slipping from the fingers of her right hand….

She stuck out a boot just in time—the right rear corner of the device landed on it, sending a jolt of pain through her foot. She choked back a shriek, grabbing for the bars to steady the contraption before it toppled onto a sleeping Russian.

Alek turned back to give her a questioning look.

Deryn jerked her chin back at the storeroom, afraid that if she opened her mouth, the stifled cry of pain would leap out. Alek looked at the glass spheres, then up at the ceiling, and nodded. He steadied the machine, then reached out and turned it off.

The way back was even trickier. Deryn led this time, her foot throbbing, her steps slow and painful across the sleeping bodies. But finally the machine was inside the storeroom again. She and Alek slipped back out into the cargo bay, then locked the door behind them.

As they made their way toward the central stairs, Deryn scanned the sleeping men. None stirred, and a squick of relief competed with the drumbeat of pain in her foot.

But as she climbed the stairs, Bovril shifted on Alek’s shoulder and made a soft sound, like whispers in the dark.