Chapter 26
Alek swallowed again, trying to get his voice back.
"They poisoned them," he finally managed. "They tried bombs and pistols first, to make it look like Serb anarchists. But it was poison in the end. "
"And it was just a way to start this war?"
He nodded. "The Germans thought the war had to come. It was just a question of when - and the sooner the better for them. "
Deryn started to say that sounded barking crazy, then remembered all the crewmen who'd been so eager for battle. She supposed there was always some sod spoiling for a fight.
But it still didn't make sense. "Your family are in charge of Austria, aren't they?"
"For the last five hundred years or so, yes. "
"So if the Germans killed your da, why is Austria helping them instead of giving the kaiser a good kicking? Doesn't your family know what really happened?"
"They know - or at least suspect. But my father wasn't very popular with the rest of the family. "
"What in blisters did he do wrong?"
"He married my mother. "
Deryn raised an eyebrow. She'd seen family squabbles over who the children married, but they usually stopped short of bomb-throwing.
"Are your relations completely barking mad?"
"No, we're rulers of an empire. "
Deryn reckoned that amounted to pretty much the same thing, but didn't say so. Talking about it seemed to be helping Alek get control, though, so she asked, "What was so wrong with her?"
"My mother wasn't from a ruling house. She wasn't exactly common, mind you - she had a princess among her ancestors. But to marry into the Hapsburgs you have to be proper royalty. "
"Well, of course," Deryn said. Alek's superior manner suddenly made a lot more sense. She supposed that with his father dead the boy was a duke on his own - or an arch-duke, which sounded even loftier.
"So when they fell in love," he said softly, "they had to keep it secret. "
"Well, that's dead romantic," Deryn exclaimed. When Alek gave her a funny look, she lowered her voice a bit and added, "You know, sneaking about. "
Something like a smile appeared on his face. "Yes, I suppose it was, especially the way my mother told it. She was a lady-in-waiting for Princess Isabella of Croÿ. When my father began to visit, Isabella thought he must be courting one of her daughters. But she could never figure out which one he liked. Then one day he left his watch behind on the tennis courts. "
Deryn snorted. "Aye. Back home I'm always leaving my watch on the tennis courts. "
Alek rolled his eyes at her, but kept talking. "So Isabella opened the watch, hoping to find a picture of one of her daughters inside. "
Deryn's eyes widened. "And there was a picture of your mother instead!"
Alek nodded. "Isabella was very cross. She dismissed my mother from service. "
"That's a bit rough," Deryn said. "Losing your job just because some duke fellow likes you!"
"Losing her 'job' was the least of it. My granduncle, the emperor, refused to permit the marriage. He wouldn't even talk to my father for a year. It rattled the whole empire. The kaiser, the czar, even the Holy Father tried to patch things up. "
Deryn raised an eyebrow, wondering again if Alek was mad, or simply full of blether. Had he just said that the pope had meddled in his family business?
"But finally they came to a compromise - a left-handed marriage. "
"What in blazes does that mean?" she said.
Alek wiped the tears from his face. "They could marry, but the children could inherit nothing. As far as my granduncle is concerned, I don't exist. "
"So you're not an archduke or anything?"
He shook his head. "Just a prince. "
"Only a prince? Blisters, that's rough!"
Alek turned to her and narrowed his eyes. "I don't expect you to understand, Dylan. "
"Sorry," she muttered. She hadn't really meant to make fun of him. The family split had cost Alek his parents, after all. "It just all sounds a bit odd. "
"I suppose it is," he sighed. "You won't tell anyone, will you?"
"Of course not. " She stuck out her hand. "Like I said, your family's no business of ours. "
Alek smiled sadly as they shook. "I wish that were true. But I'm afraid we've become the whole world's business. "
Deryn swallowed, wondering what that must be like - to have your family squabble turn into a barking massive war. No wonder the poor boy looked so stricken all the time. Even if none of it was Alek's doing, tragedies always scattered seeds of guilt in bucketfuls.
Deryn still replayed Da's accident in her mind a dozen times a night, imagining what more she could have done to save him, wondering if somehow the fire had been her fault.
"You know you're not to blame, right?" she said softly. "I mean, to hear Dr. Barlow tell it, it took a hundred politicians to stuff things up this bad. "
"But I'm what split my family," Alek said. "I unsettled everything, and that gave the Germans their opening. "
"You're more than just that, though. " Deryn took his hand. "You're the one who came across the ice to save my bum from frostbite. "
Alek looked at her, wiped his eyes, and smiled. "Maybe that too. "
"Alek?" came Dr. Barlow's voice from nowhere, and the boy jumped half into the air.
Deryn smiled as she stood, pointing at the message lizard up on the ceiling.
"The captain has agreed with your proposal," the beastie continued. "Please meet me at your walking machine. We need at least two translators to coordinate our engineers with your men. "
Alek just sat there staring up at the lizard in horror. Deryn smiled and pulled him up. "It's waiting for an answer, you dafty. "
He swallowed, then said in a nervous voice, "I'll be there as soon as I can, Dr. Barlow. You should also ask Count Volger for help. He can speak perfectly good English when he wants to. Thank you. "
"End message," Deryn added, and the beastie scampered off.
A shudder went through Alek. "I'm still not used to talking animals, I'm afraid. It seems a bit ungodly, making them so much like human beings. "
Deryn laughed. "Have you never heard of parrots?"
"That's quite different," he said. "They're meant to speak that way. But I . . . want to thank you, Dylan. "
"For what?"
Alek raised his empty hands, and for a moment Deryn thought he would cry again. But he only said, "For knowing who I am. "
He put his arms around her then, a rough embrace that lasted only a moment. Then he turned and hurried from the machine room, headed for the fallen Storm-walker.
As the door swung shut, Deryn shivered, the strangest feeling creeping through her. Where Alek's arms had wrapped around her shoulders an odd kind of tingling was left behind - like the crackle along the airship's skin when distant lightning kindled the sky.
Deryn put her own arms around herself, but it didn't feel the same.
"Barking spiders," she muttered softly, and turned to check the eggs again.
THIRTY-SIX
The next afternoon's watch Deryn and Newkirk were posted on the spine.
Overnight the ship had swelled, the Leviathan's gut in full roar from the beasties' day of gorging. Down on the snow the last of the ship's stores were splayed out, swarmed with feasting birds. Deryn felt her own stomach rumbling with her breakfast of greasy biscuits and coffee. The crew were allowed to eat only what food the animals wouldn't touch.
But a few hunger pangs were worth the bounce of the membrane under Deryn's feet - taut and healthy again. The lumps along the airbeast's flanks were smoothing out. At around noon the wind had started to drag the lightened ship across the glacier, forcing the riggers to fill the ballast tanks with melted snow.
But Dr. Busk had said it would be a close thing, lifting the weight of the Clanker engines along with five extra men.
"He's moving," Newkirk
said. "He must still be alive. "
Deryn glanced up at the Huxley. Mr. Rigby had insisted on taking a watch aloft, saying he couldn't bear his last two middies getting frostbite from long hours in the icy sky, even if it meant sneaking out of the sick bay.
"We best pull him down soon," Deryn said. "Dr. Busk will skin us if he freezes up there. "
"Aye," Newkirk said, blowing on his hands. "But if he comes down, one of us will have to go back up. "
Deryn shrugged. "Beats egg duty. "
"At least egg duty's warm. "
"Well, you might still be on it, Mr. Newkirk, if you hadn't killed one of the boffin's barking eggs. "
"It's not my fault we're stuck on this iceberg!"
"It's a glacier, you ninny!"
Newkirk grumbled something unpleasant and stormed away, stomping his feet on the hard scales of the spine. He'd claimed the egg disaster had been Dr. Barlow's fault for not explaining Clanker temperatures, but a number was a number, Deryn reckoned.
She almost called him back to apologize, but only swore. Might as well see how work was going on the new engine pods.
Deryn lifted her binoculars. . . .
The forward engines were partway down the airship's flanks, thrusting out like a pair of ears. The tops of both pods had been removed, and a muddle of oversize Clanker machinery stuck out in all directions. Alek was working on the port side, along with Hoffman and Mr. Hirst, the airship's chief engineer. They were all in animated conversation, arms waving in the cold wind.
The whole business seemed to be going slowly. At about noon the starboard engine - where Klopp and Bauer were working - had sputtered to life for a few noisy seconds, the membrane rumbling under Deryn's feet. But something must have cracked. The engine had shut down with a shriek, and the Clankers had spent the next hour tossing bits of burnt metal down onto the snow.
Deryn turned to scan the horizon. It had been more than a day since the Kondor attack. The Germans wouldn't give them much longer. A few recon aeroplanes had already peeked over the mountains, just making sure the wounded airship hadn't gone anywhere. Everyone said the Germans were taking their time, assembling an overwhelming force. The assault could come at any minute.
And yet Deryn's eyes drifted back to Alek. He was translating for Hoffman now, pointing at the front end of the engine pods. He spun his hands about like props, and Deryn smiled, imagining his voice for a moment.
Then she lowered the field glasses and swore, emptying her mind of blether. She was a soldier, not some girl twisting her skirts at a village dance.
"Mr. Sharp!" came Newkirk's shout. "Rigby's in trouble!"
She looked up. Newkirk was at the winch already, cranking madly. A yellow distress ribbon fluttered from the Huxley, and Mr. Rigby's semaphore flags were moving. Deryn raised her field glasses.
The letters whipped past at double speed, and she'd missed the beginning, mooning dafty that she was. But the sense of the message soon became clear.
. . . D-U-E - E-A-S-T - E-I-G-H-T - L-E-G-S - A-N-D - S-C-O-U-T-S
Deryn frowned, wondering if she'd misread the signals. "Legs" meant a walking machine, of course, but there weren't any eight-legged walkers listed in the Manual. Even the biggest Clanker dreadnoughts needed only six to move about.
And this was Switzerland, still neutral territory. Would the Germans dare attack by land?
But as Rigby repeated the signals, the words flashed past again, clear as day. Along with another bit of news:
E-S-T-I-M-A-T-E - T-E-N - M-I-L-E-S - C-L-O-S-I-N-G - F-A-S-T
Suddenly Deryn's brain was fully back into soldiering.
"Can you get him down without me, Newkirk?" she called.
"Aye, but what if he's hurt?"
"He's not. It's barking Clankers . . . and they're coming by land! I've got to raise an alert. "
Deryn pulled out her command whistle and piped the signal for an approaching enemy. A nearby hydrogen sniffer perked up its ears, then began an alert howl.
The wailing spread down the ship, sniffer to sniffer, like a living air-raid siren. In moments men were scrambling everywhere. Deryn looked about for the officer of the watch - there he was, Mr. Roland, running toward her across the spine.
"Report, Mr. Sharp. "
She pointed up at the Huxley. "It's the bosun, sir. He's spotted another walker coming!"
"Mr. Rigby? What in blazes is he doing aloft?"
"He insisted, sir," Deryn said. "The walker's got eight legs, he says - I checked that part twice. "
"Eight?" Mr. Roland said. "Must be a cruiser at least. "
"Aye, it's big, sir. He's spotted it from ten miles away. "
"Well, that's lucky. The big ones aren't so quick. We'll have an hour at least before it's here. " He turned, snapping at a message lizard scuttling past.
"Begging your pardon, sir," Deryn said, "but Mr. Rigby said 'closing fast. ' Maybe this is a nippy one. "
The master rigger frowned. "Sounds unlikely, lad. But check with the Clankers. See if they know anything about this eight-legged business. Then bring word to the bridge. "
Deryn saluted, spun about, and headed down.
Drop lines were hanging all along the spine, so she clipped a carabiner onto one and rappelled, bouncing down the flank. The rope hissed through her gloves, the metal carabiner turning hot as she slid.
Deryn's blood began to race, the rush of coming battle erasing everything else. The ship was still defenseless, unless the Clankers could get their engines going.
When her boots clanged against the metal support struts of the pod, Mr. Hirst looked up from the jumble of gears. He was hanging off the edge of the engine, no safety line in sight.
"Mr. Sharp! What's all this howling about?"
"Another walker's been spotted, sir," she said, then turned to Alek. His face was streaked with grease, like stripes of black war paint. "We're not sure what kind. But it's got eight legs, so we reckon it's big. "
"Sounds like the Herkules," he said. "We passed her at the Swiss border. She's a thousand-ton frigate, new and experimental. "
"But is she fast?"
Alek nodded. "Almost as quick as our walker. You say she's here in Switzerland? Have the Germans gone mad?"
"WARNING THE NEW ENGINE TEAM. "
"Mad enough - she's ten miles east, and has scouts with her. How long do you think we've got?"
Alek spoke to Hoffman a moment, translating into German and metric. Deryn felt her foot tapping as she waited, her stinging palms wrapped tightly around the rope. One jump and she'd be sliding toward the bridge.
"Maybe twenty minutes?" Alek finally said.
"Blisters!" she swore. "I'm heading down to tell the officers. Is there anything else they should know?"
Hoffman reached out and took Alek's arm, muttering in hurried Clanker. Alek's eyes widened as he listened.
"That's right," he said. "Those scout craft you mentioned - we saw them too. They're armed with spotting flares, full of some sort of sticky phosphorous!"
Everyone was silent for a moment. Phosphorous . . . the perfect stuff to roast a hydrogen breather.
Maybe the Germans didn't plan on capturing them after all.
"Well, get going, lad!" Mr. Hirst shouted at Deryn. "I'll send a lizard to the other engine. And you two, let's get this contraption started up!"
Deryn took one last glance at Alek, then stepped from the strut. She dropped toward the bridge, the rope sizzling hot between her gloved hands.
THIRTY-SEVEN
"But the engine's not warmed up yet!" Alek cried. "We could crack a piston in this cold!"
"It'll work or it won't," Hirst shouted back at him. "The ship's going up either way!"
The Leviathan's master engineer had a point. Below them ballast sparkled in the sunlight as it spilled from the forward tanks. The metal deck rose beneath Alek's feet, like an ocean vessel lifted by a wave. Men were streaming back towa
rd the airship across the snow, the howls and whistles of godless animals echoing like a jungle around them.
The airship shifted again, ice snapping from the ground ropes as they stretched and tightened. Mr. Hirst was darting about outside the pod, cutting the pulley lines they'd used to haul the engine parts up. In a few moments all connections with the earth would be severed.
But the engine wasn't fully oiled yet. Half the glow plugs were still untested, and Klopp had forbidden starting up before he'd personally inspected the pistons.
"Will it run?" Alek asked Hoffman.
"Worth a try, sir. Just start it slow. "
Alek turned to the controls. It was still strange, seeing the Stormwalker's needles and gauges out of their usual place in the pilot's cabin, and the gears and pistons that belonged in the walker's belly splayed in the open air.
When he primed the glow plugs, sparks flew around his head.
"Slowly now," Hoffman said, putting his goggles on.
Alek took hold of the single saunter - the other was over on the starboard engine with Klopp - and pushed it gently forward. Gears caught and turned, faster and faster, until the rumble of the engine set the whole pod shivering. He glanced over his shoulder to see the plundered guts of the Stormwalker spinning before his eyes, black smoke rising from the exhaust tubes.
"Wait for the order!" Mr. Hirst called above the roar. He pointed at the signal patch on the airship's membrane. It was made of cuttlefish skin, the master engineer had explained, connected by fabricated nervous tissue to receptors down on the bridge. When the ship's officers placed colored paper on the sensors, the signal patch would mimic the hue exactly, like a camouflaged creature in the wild. Brilliant red meant full speed ahead, purple meant half power, and blue meant quarter speed, with other shades in between.
But with these untried engines, Alek doubted that his notion of "half speed" would be the same as Klopp's. It might take days to get the balance right, and the Germans would be here in minutes.
The ground ropes were flailing as riggers cut them loose, and Alek felt another lurch beneath his feet. The cold wind was tugging at the ship now, the great beast skidding sideways along the glacier.
"Quarter speed!" Hirst yelled. The signal patch had turned dark blue.
Alek slowly pushed the foot pedal down. The propeller engaged. It spun lazily for a moment, and then gears meshed and caught, the blades disappearing into a blur.
Soon the propeller was drawing an icy wind across the uncovered pod. He ducked lower, pulling his coat tight. What would full speed feel like?
"Down a notch," Hirst cried.
Alek looked at the signal patch, which had turned paler. He eased the saunter back a bit, careful not to stall the engine.
"Hear that?" Hoffman said in the relative quiet. "Klopp's engine. "
Alek listened hard - and made out a distant roar. While his own engine idled, Klopp's was going strong, pushing them into a gradual left turn.
"It's working!" he cried, amazed that the Stormwalker's engines could move something so vast through the sky.
"But why are we turning east?" Hoffman asked. "Isn't the frigate coming from that way?"
Alek translated the question for Mr. Hirst.
"It might be that the captain wants to build up speed down the valley. We're a bit heavy, thanks to your engines, and forward motion gives the ship lift. " Hirst hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "Or it might be that he's spotted those blighters back there. . . . "
Alek turned, peering through the blur of propeller blades. Behind them a fleet of airships was rising over the mountains - Kondors, Predator interceptors, and a giant Albatross assault ship dangling gliders from its gondola. A vast aerial attack, timed to descend just as the Herkules and its scouts arrived from Austria.
The master engineer leaned back on the struts, lazily resting a foot on the main joint. He slipped his goggles on and said, "I hope these noisy contraptions of yours are ready. "
"I hope so too. " Alek adjusted his own goggles and turned back to the controls. The Leviathan's nose swung slowly eastward, till finally the airship was aimed down the length of the valley.
"FULL THROTTLE. "
The signal patch turned bright red.
Alek didn't wait for Hirst's command. He pushed the saunter forward hard. A sputter erupted for a moment in the tangle of gears and pistons. But then the engine roared back to life, the propeller spinning into a shimmer of sunlight.
"Check your bearings!" Hirst yelled over the noise.
Alek saw what the man meant - the airship was veering to starboard, his engine pushing harder than Klopp's. The black teeth of the mountains loomed ahead.
He pulled the saunter back a bit, but a moment later the ship was swinging too far the other way. Klopp must have also seen the turn and pushed his own engine to compensate.
Alek growled with frustration. It was like two men trying to pilot a walker, each with control of one leg.
Mr. Hirst laughed and shouted, "Don't worry, lad. The airbeast has the idea now. "
Alek squinted against the icy headwind. Stretched out beside him the creature's flank had come alive. Waves traveled down its length, like a field of grass rippling in a strong wind.
"What's happening?"
"They're called cilia. Like tiny oars stirring the air. The beast will steady us, even if your Clanker engines can't. "
Alek swallowed, unable to take his gaze from the undulating surface of the airbeast. Working on the engines, he'd tried to think of the airship as a vast machine. Now it had become a living creature again.
Somehow the tiny cilia were guiding them down the valley. It was like riding a horse, Alek supposed. You could tell it where to go, but it chose where its own footsteps fell.
Hoffman nudged his shoulder. "Say farewell to our happy home, young master. "
Alek looked to his left. The castle was shooting past beside them. Provisions for ten years, and he'd spent all of two nights there. . . .
But it was much too close - the castle walls were almost level with the engine. Below Alek the dangling drop lines were still dragging along the snow. And they were headed straight toward the frigate and its scouts.
"We're not climbing!"
"Looks like we're carrying an extra half ton or so," Hirst shouted. "The boffins can't have been this wrong! Are you certain these engines aren't heavier than you told us?"
"Impossible! Master Klopp knows the exact weight of every piece of the Stormwalker. "
"Well, something's holding us down!" Hirst yelled.
Alek saw flickers of light before them - more ballast spilling from the forward tanks. Then something solid spun past below.
"God's wounds!" Hoffman swore. "That was a chair!"
"What's going on?" Alek yelled at Hirst.
The master engineer watched another chair flutter toward the ground. "They've sounded a ballast alert. Everything we can spare, over the side. " He pointed ahead. "And there's why!"
Alek squinted against the icy wind. A white haze was rising in the distance. Metal limbs flashed in the sunlight, churning up a cloud of snow.
The Herkules was hurtling up the valley toward them. At this altitude the Leviathan's bridge would crash straight into its gun deck.
Alek's instinct was to pull back on the saunter. But the signal patch was still red. Losing speed meant losing lift, which would only make things worse. And turning about would take them into the guns of the pursuing zeppelins.
Hoffman grasped his arm, leaning in close and muttering in fast German, "This may be the wildcount's fault. "
"What do you mean?" Alek asked. He'd hardly seen Volger since their argument the day before. The count had sourly agreed to the plan, but hadn't helped at all with the engines. He'd spent the day hiking to and fro from the wrecked Stormwalker, transferring the wireless set and spare parts to their new cabins in the Leviathan.
"We w
ere moving things to your cabin, sir. Twice he had me wrap up a gold bar in your clothes. And heavy they were too. "
Alek closed his eyes. What had Volger been thinking? Every bar of gold weighed twenty kilograms. A dozen hidden bars would be like having three stowaways aboard!
"Take the controls!" he cried.
THIRTY-EIGHT
The struts leading to the airship were vibrating like piano strings, pulsing in time with the engine. The metal shivered in his hands, and Alek held tight against the icy winds, climbing quickly past the startled master engineer.
"Where are you going?" the man shouted.
Alek didn't answer, his gaze fixed on the ground slipping past below. He couldn't see how Dylan scrambled about on those ropes so casually. The leather safety harnesses the Darwinists wore hardly seemed thick enough to hold a man's weight. Of course, they were probably made of fabricated leather, but that was only more unnerving.
The cilia rippled wildly on the creature's flank, an ocean of shimmering grass, the ratlines fluttering in the wind. At least he wouldn't have to dare the ropes. The struts led straight to an access hatch, which sat between the two ribs supporting the engine's weight. Alek crawled through and headed down.
After the freezing wind outside, the warmth of the creature's innards was welcoming, even with its odd and bitter smells. The ribs had a set of cross-ties between them, so Alek could imagine he was simply climbing down a ladder instead of crawling beneath the skin of a huge beast.
He'd been a fool not to realize that Volger would smuggle everything he could aboard the airship. The man never stopped scheming, never left the next step unplanned. Volger's preparations for this war had taken fifteen years, after all. He wasn't going to leave a quarter ton of gold behind without a fight.
Alek reached the bottom of the ladder, then dropped through another hatch into the main gondola. But then he paused, looking up and down the swaying corridors of the ship. . . .
Where was Volger's cabin? Working all night on the engines, Alek hadn't even slept in his. It didn't help his sense of direction that crewmen were running everywhere, carrying furniture and spare uniforms to be tossed overboard.
Then he noticed that the gondola floor was tipping slightly to the left. Of course. The cabins they'd been given were all on the port side. And toward the bow - so the gold was dragging down the airship's nose!
He ran forward until he spotted the familiar corridor. He threw open the door of Volger's cabin. It was empty, except for a bed, a storage locker, and the Stormwalker's wireless receiver on the desk.
Volger hadn't left the gold in plain view, of course. Alek pulled out the desk drawers, but found nothing. The locker held only clothes and weapons from the castle stores.
Dropping to the floor, he spotted a map case under the bed. Alek reached underneath and tried to drag it out, but it wouldn't budge - as heavy as a solid block of iron. He braced his feet on the bed and pulled at the case with both hands, but it still wouldn't move.
Then Alek realized that the bed had to be far lighter than the gold, and flung it aside. But the latches of the map case were locked. He'd have to throw the whole thing out. Alek stood and pushed open the window, then tried to pick up the case.
It wouldn't lift a centimeter off the ground. It was far too heavy.
"God's wounds!" he swore, kicking at the lock.
"Looking for this?"
Alek looked up. Count Volger stood in the doorway, holding a key.
"Give me that, or we're all dead!"
"Well, obviously. Why do you think I'm here?" Volger shut the door and crossed the room. "Beastly business, getting down from those engine pods. "
"But why?"
Volger knelt by the map case. "Klopp needed some translating. "
"No!" Alek groaned. "Why did you do this?"