Behemoth

Another wave hit the airbeast, snapping the line tight, and Newkirk skidded down till he was almost on top of her. If the Leviathan dropped any lower, the beastie’s carcass would be dragging in the water. If the membrane filled up, it would pull on the rope like a barrel full of stones.

Enough to break any cable … She had to cut the Huxley loose.

“Higher!” she yelled, and started climbing madly.

About twenty feet above the Huxley, Deryn halted, hanging just above a badly frayed spot. She pulled out her rigging knife, reached down, and started hacking at the line. Huxley cable was barking thick, but when the next tall wave struck the airbeast, the fibers unraveled in a blur and snapped.

Without the beastie’s dead weight anchoring them, suddenly they were swinging across the black sea, cast about by the wind. Newkirk cried out with surprise overhead.

“Sorry!” Deryn yelled up. “Should have warned you.”

But with the Huxley’s weight gone, the rope wouldn’t snap … probably.

She started climbing again, wishing for the hundredth time that she had the arm strength of a boy. But soon the waves no longer threatened her dangling boots.

Halfway up, Deryn took a long breather, searching the dark horizon for the two German ironclads. They were nowhere to be seen.

Maybe the Royal Navy was close by, and had kept the ships running. But Deryn couldn’t see any sign of surface ships. The only shape on the water was the Huxley’s carcass, a lonely black smear on the waves.

“Poor beastie,” she said, shivering. The whole airship and its crew might have wound up like that—burnt black, as lonely as driftwood on the dark sea. If the hydrogen sniffers had missed a single leak, or if the airbeast hadn’t spun itself around just in time, they’d all have been done for.

“Barking Clankers,” Deryn murmured. “Making their own lightning now.”

She closed her eyes to shut her dark memories away, the roar of skin-prickling heat and the smell of burnt flesh. This time she’d won. The fire hadn’t taken anyone she loved.

Deryn shuddered once more, then started to climb again.

FIVE

“This is entirely unacceptable!” Dr. Barlow cried.

“I’m s-sorry, ma’am,” the guard sputtered. “But the captain said the Clanker boy wasn’t to have visitors.”

Deryn shook her head—the man’s resistance was already faltering. He was backed up against Alek’s stateroom door, sweat breaking out on his forehead.

“I am not a visitor, you imbecile,” Dr. Barlow said. “I’m a doctor here to see an injured patient!”

Tazza’s ears perked up at the lady boffin’s sharp tone, and he let out a low growl. Deryn held his leash a squick tighter. “Shush now, Tazza. No biting.”

“But the surgeon was already here,” the guard squeaked, staring wide eyed at the thylacine. “Said the boy only bruised a rib.”

“On top of suffering from shock, no doubt,” Dr. Barlow said. “Or did you fail to notice our recent encounter with a prodigious amount of electricity?”

“Of course not, ma’am.” The guard swallowed, still eyeing Tazza nervously. “But the captain was quite specific—”

“Did he specifically forbid doctors from seeing the patient?”

“Er, no.”

Just give up, thought Deryn. It didn’t matter that Dr. Barlow was a boffin—a fabricator of beasties—and not a pulse-taking stick-out-your-tongue doctor. She’d be seeing this particular patient one way or another.

Deryn hoped that Alek really was all right. The Clanker lightning had danced across the whole ship, but it must have been worst in the engine pods, with all that metal about … Well, second to worst, anyway. Newkirk’s hair was half burnt off, and he had a knot on his head the size of a cricket ball.

But how had Alek bruised a rib? That didn’t sound like something an electric shock would do.

Finally the guard surrendered his post, slinking off to check with the watch officer and trusting Dr. Barlow to wait till he got back. She didn’t, of course, just pushed the door straight open.

Alek lay in bed, his ribs wrapped in bandages. His skin was ashen, his dark green eyes glistening in the dawn light streaming through the portholes.

“Barking spiders!” Deryn said. “You’re as pale as a mealyworm.”

A wan smile spread across the boy’s face. “It’s good to see you, too, Dylan. And you, Dr. Barlow.”

“Good morning, Alek,” the lady boffin said. “You are pale, aren’t you? As if you’ve lost some blood. An odd symptom for electrocution.”

Alek grimaced as he struggled to sit up higher. “I’m afraid you’re right, ma’am. Mr. Hirst shot me.”

“Shot you?” Deryn cried.

Alek nodded. “Luckily it was one of your feeble compressed air guns. Dr. Busk said the bullet hit a rib and bounced off, but nothing’s broken, thanks partly to my fencing armor. I should be walking about soon enough.”

Deryn stared at the bandages. “But what in blazes did he shoot you for?”

“He was aiming for Klopp. They had a … disagreement. Klopp realized what was about to happen—what the Tesla cannon was—and decided to turn us around.”

“A Tesla cannon?” Dr. Barlow repeated. “As in that awful Mr. Tesla?”

“That’s what Klopp says,” Alek said.

“But you Clankers didn’t turn us around,” Deryn said. “Everyone says that the beastie itself turned, because it got scared.”

Alek shook his head. “Klopp reversed the port engine first, then the airbeast followed suit. It seems the Leviathan has more sense than its own officers.”

“You said they had a disagreement?” Dr. Barlow asked. “You mean you changed course without orders?”

“There wasn’t time to wait for orders,” he said.

Deryn let out a low groan. No wonder Alek was under guard.

“That’s barking mutiny,” she said softly.

“But we saved the ship.”

“Aye, but you can’t disobey orders just because the officers are being daft. Especially not in battle—that’s a hanging offense!”

Alek’s eyes widened, and the room was silent for a moment.

Dr. Barlow cleared her throat. “Please don’t say alarming things to my patient, Mr. Sharp. He’s no more a member of this crew than I am, and is therefore not subject to your brutish military authority.”

Deryn bit down a reply. She doubted Captain Hobbes would see it that way. This had probably been his worry since the Clankers had come aboard, that they’d ignore the bridge and pilot the ship whichever way they wanted.

Changing course wasn’t like skylarking or learning to fence on duty. It was mutiny, pure and simple.

The lady boffin sat primly on the stateroom’s only chair, snapping her fingers for Tazza to come to her.

“Now, Alek,” she said, stroking the thylacine’s striped flank. “You say that Klopp was operating the engine. So this ‘mutiny’ wasn’t your idea?”

The boy thought for a moment. “I suppose not.”

“Then, pray tell, why are you under guard?”

“When Mr. Hirst pulled the pistol, I tried to take it from him.”