Goliath

“If you please,” her loris added imperiously, which made Bovril giggle.

Alek took a slow breath, his hand pausing over the power switch. For a moment he wondered if Dylan might be right. They had no idea what this machine was.

But they’d spent all night putting the device together. There was no point in letting it sit here. He turned the power switch….

For a moment nothing happened, but then a flickering glow appeared in each of the three glass spheres on the machine’s top. In the drafty cargo bay Alek felt heat emanating from the machine, and a soft whine built in his ears.

The two lorises began to imitate the sound, and then Tazza joined in, until the cargo bay was humming. A sliver of light came into being inside each of the glass spheres, an electrikal disturbance, like a tiny, trapped bolt of lightning.

“Most intriguing,” Dr. Barlow said.

“Aye, but what is it?” Dylan asked.

“As a biologist, I’m sure I don’t know.” The lady boffin lifted Bovril from Klopp’s shoulder. “But our perspicacious friend has been watching and listening all night.”

She placed the loris on the floor. It immediately clambered onto the machine, sniffing the batteries, the control panel, and finally the three glass spheres. While it moved, it kept up a steady nonsense conversation with Dr. Barlow’s loris, the two beasts repeating the names of electrikal parts and concepts to each other.

Alek watched with bemusement. He’d always wondered how Dr. Barlow had expected these creatures to keep the Ottomans out of the war. They were charming enough but hardly likely to sway an entire empire toward Darwinism. He half suspected they had been only a ruse, an excuse to take the Leviathan to Istanbul, and that the real plan had always been to force the strait with the behemoth.

But was there more to these lorises than met the eye?

Finally Bovril reached out a hand toward Dr. Barlow, who only frowned. But the beast on her shoulder seemed to understand. It slipped its tiny hands behind the woman’s head and unclasped her necklace.

Dr. Barlow raised an eyebrow as the creature handed her jewelry over to Bovril.

“What in blazes—,” Dylan began, but the lady boffin waved him silent.

Bovril held the necklace close to one of the glass spheres, and a trickle of lightning leapt out, creating a shivering connection between the pendant and the glass sphere.

“Magnetic,” Bovril said.

The creature swung the pendant, and the tiny finger of light followed it back and forth. When Bovril pulled the necklace away, the lightning seemed to lose interest, retreating back into its glass sphere.

“God’s wounds,” Alek said softly. “That’s quite odd.”

“What’s that necklace made of, madam?” asked Klopp.

“The pendant is steel.” Dr. Barlow nodded. “Quite ferrous, I should think.”

“So it’s for detecting metal.” Klopp pushed himself to his feet, then brought his cane up. As its steel tip drew close to one of the spheres, another trickle of lightning leapt out to meet it.

“Why would you need such a thing?” Dylan asked.

Klopp fell back into his chair. “You might use it to discover land mines. Though it’s quite sensitive, so perhaps you could find a buried telegraph line. Or a buried treasure! Who knows?”

“Treasure!” Bovril declared.

“Telegraph lines? Pirate treasure?” Dylan shook his head. “Those hardly sound like things you’d find in Siberia.”

Alek took a cautious step closer, squinting at the machine. The three glass spheres had settled into a jittering pattern, each tiny finger of lightning pointing in a different direction. “What’s it detecting now?”

“One’s aimed straight back at the stern,” Dylan said. “And the other two are pointed up and toward the bow.”

The two lorises made a rumbling sound.

“Of course,” Hoffman said. “Most of the Leviathan is wood and flesh. But the engines are full of metal.”

Dylan whistled. “They must be two hundred yards away.”

“Yes, it’s a clever machine,” Klopp said. “Even if it was designed by a madman.”

“I just wonder what he’s looking for.” The lady boffin stroked Tazza’s fur as she contemplated the device, then turned and walked toward the door. “Well, I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. Mr. Sharp, see that all this is hidden away in a locked storeroom. And please don’t mention it to the crew, any of you.”

Alek frowned. “But won’t this… boffin fellow be wondering where it is?”

“Indeed.” Dr. Barlow gave him a smile as she slipped through the door. “And watching him squirm with curiosity should prove most interesting.”

Alek headed back toward his stateroom soon after, wanting to get an hour’s sleep before they arrived at their destination. He should have gone straight to Count Volger, he supposed, but he was too exhausted to endure a barrage of questions from the man. So instead Alek whistled for a message lizard when he reached his room.

When the creature appeared, Alek said, “Count Volger, we shall arrive at our destination within the hour. But I still have no idea where that is. The cargo contained a Clanker machine of some kind. More later, when I’ve had some sleep. End message.”

Alek smiled as the creature scuttled away into its tube. He’d never sent Volger a message lizard before, but it was high time the man accepted that the beasts were part of life here aboard the Leviathan.

Not bothering to remove his boots, Alek stretched out on his bunk. His eyes closed, but he could still see the glass tubes and shining metal parts of the mysterious device. His exhausted mind began to play a game of putting together its pieces, counting screws and measuring with calipers.

He groaned, wishing the thoughts would let him sleep. But mechanikal puzzles had taken over his brain. Perhaps this proved he was a Clanker at heart and there would never be a place for him aboard a Darwinist ship.

Alek sat up to pull off his jacket. There was something large in the pocket. Of course. The newspaper he’d borrowed from Volger.

He pulled it out; it was folded open to the photograph of Dylan. In all the excitement about the strange device, he’d forgotten to show it to the boy. Alek lay back down, his bleary eyes skimming across the text.

It really was the most atrocious writing, as breathless and overblown as the articles Malone had written about Alek. But it was a relief to see someone else’s virtues extolled in the reporter’s purple prose.

Who knows what rampant destruction might have been visited upon the crowd had the valiant midshipman not acted so quickly? He surely has bravery running in his veins, being the nephew of an intrepid airman, one Artemis Sharp, who perished in a calamitous ballooning fire only a few years ago.

A little shudder went through Alek at the words—Dylan’s father again. It was strange how the man kept coming up. Was there some clue about the family secret here?

Alek shook his head, dropping the newspaper to the floor. Dylan would tell him the family secret when he was ready.

More important, Alek hadn’t slept a wink all night. He lay back down, forcing his eyes closed again. The airship would reach its destination soon.

But as Alek lay there, his mind would not stop spinning.

So many times Dylan would come close to telling him something momentous. But each time he pulled away. No matter what promises Alek made, however many secrets of his own he told Dylan, the boy didn’t trust him completely.

Perhaps he never would, because he simply couldn’t bring himself to confide in a prince, an imperial heir, a waste of hydrogen like Alek. No doubt that was it.

It was a long, restless time before he finally fell asleep.