Goliath

“But, ma’am, Dylan already—,” the boy began, but a look from Dr. Barlow silenced him.

A moment later Newkirk was gone, having shut the door behind him without being told. The lady boffin sat down at the mess table and gestured at the remains of the middies’ lunch. Deryn set to clearing them, her brain spinning.

Was Dr. Barlow here to ask about her fight with Alek?

“If you would, Mr. Sharp, please describe the object you discovered in Mr. Tesla’s room.”

Deryn turned away with a stack of empty dishes, hiding her relief. “Oh, that. As I said, ma’am, it was round. A bit bigger than a football, but much heavier—probably solid iron.”

“Most certainly iron, Mr. Sharp, perhaps with some nickel. What of its shape?”

“Its shape? I didn’t get that good a look at it.” Deryn cleared away a pair of aluminum tea mugs. “I was under a bed in the dark, trying not to get caught!”

“Trying not to get caught,” the boffin’s loris said. “Mr. Sharp.”

Dr. Barlow waved a hand. “At which you succeeded admirably. But roughly what form did this iron football take? Was it a perfect sphere? Or a misshapen lump?”

Deryn sighed, trying to recall those long minutes of waiting while Tesla had drifted back to sleep. “It wasn’t perfect at all. It was knobbly on the surface.”

“Were these ‘knobbles’ smooth or jagged to the touch?”

“Mostly smooth, I suppose, like that bit I sawed off.” Deryn reached out a hand. “If you’ve still got it, ma’am, I’ll show you what I mean.”

“The sample is on the way to London, Mr. Sharp.”

“You sent it to the Admiralty?”

“No, to someone with intellect.”

“Oh,” Deryn said, a bit astonished that even Dr. Barlow needed help to solve this mystery.

The loris crawled down to sniff at the empty milk jug. The lady boffin’s eyes followed the beastie, her fingers drumming on the table.

“I am a species fabricator, Mr. Sharp, not a metallurgist. But what I’m asking is simple enough.” She leaned forward. “Would you say that Mr. Tesla’s find was natural or man-made?”

“You mean, was it cast iron?” Deryn remembered her hands on the object in the darkness. “Well, it was close enough to a sphere. But it was awfully banged up. Like a cannonball, I suppose, after it’s been shot through a cannon.”

“I see. And a cannonball is man-made.”

Dr. Barlow fell into silence, and the loris picked up the teacup in its tiny paws and studied it.

“Man-made,” it repeated softly. “Mr. Sharp.”

Deryn ignored the beastie. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but that doesn’t make sense. To cause all that wreckage, a cannonball would have to be as big as a barking cathedral!”

“Mr. Sharp, you are forgetting a basic formula of physics. When calculating energy, mass is only one variable. And the other?”

“Velocity,” Deryn said, recalling the bosun’s lectures on artillery. “But to knock down a whole forest, how fast would a cannonball have to fly?”

“Astronomically fast. My colleagues will know exactly.” The lady boffin leaned back in her chair and sighed. “But London is a week way, even for our swiftest courier aquilines. And in the meantime Mr. Tesla spins his tales and takes us on a wild goose chase.”

“But we’re headed to fight the Germans, aren’t we?”

Dr. Barlow waved a hand before her face, as if a fly were bothering her. “We may briefly show the flag, but Mr. Tesla and Prince Aleksandar have convinced the captain to proceed to Tokyo. From there we can contact the Admiralty by underwater fiber.”

“What in blazes for?”

“Tesla will try to convince them to order us to New York.” The lady boffin snapped for the loris, which scampered back up her arm and onto her shoulder. “Where Goliath waits to stop the war.”

“What . . . go all the way to America?”

“Indeed, and all for a delusion.”

Deryn’s mind was spinning at the thought of crossing the Pacific, but she managed to ask, “You think Mr. Tesla’s lying?”

The lady boffin stood, straightening herself. “Lying, or simply mad. But at the moment I have no proof. Do keep your eyes open, Mr. Sharp.”

She turned and swept out the door, the loris on her shoulder staring back through slitted eyes.

“Mr. Sharp!” it said.

Deryn went back to the window, fretting over what the lady boffin had said. If Mr. Tesla were up to some deception, then he must have tricked Alek into helping him. And little wonder—Alek was angry and alone, feeling betrayed by everyone he’d trusted. Tesla had appeared at just the right moment to take advantage.

And it was all Deryn’s fault. . . .

But there was no point telling him that Tesla was lying. Alek would never take her word for it, especially as Dr. Barlow had admitted that there wasn’t any proof. Deryn stood there for a long minute, her fists clenched, trying to think of what to do.

It was almost a relief when the Klaxon began to sound, calling her to battle.

The ratlines were full, the ropes groaning with the weight of men and beasts. The whole crew seemed to be scrambling topside, eager to fight after a week of flying across the Russian wasteland. The sun was bright, the wind blowing across the Sea of Japan crisp and cool, nothing like the freezing gales of Siberia.

Deryn paused to scan the horizon. A dark silhouette lay ahead—two tall funnels, and turrets bristling with guns—a German warship for certain. To her relief there was no sign of a spindly Tesla cannon on its decks. The ship was making for the Chinese coast, which stretched across the horizon, the haze of a Clanker city rising from a nest of steep-sided hills.

She continued climbing, following the sound of the bosun’s voice.

“Reporting for duty, sir!” she called when she reached the spine.

“Where’s Newkirk?” Mr. Rigby asked.

“Last I saw, he was seeing to the lady boffin’s pet, sir.”

The bosun swore, then pointed down at the water. “There’s a Japanese submarine somewhere down there, in pursuit of that warship. It’s tending a school of kappa, so we can’t put any flechette bats into the air. Let the men on the forward gun know, then report back here.”

Deryn saluted and turned, running for the bow, where two crewmen were erecting an air gun. She jumped in to help when she arrived, tightening the screws and cleats, feeding a belt of darts into the weapon.

“There are kappa in the water, so the captain doesn’t want any spikes.” Deryn spun the shoulder stock into place. “Mind you don’t scare the bats when you fire!”

The men looked at each other dubiously. Then one said, “No bats, sir? But what if the Clankers have got aeroplanes?”

“Then you lads will have to shoot straight. And we’ve still got the strafing hawks.”

She returned the men’s salutes and headed aft, passing the word along. By the time she got back to Mr. Rigby, Newkirk had arrived with a pair of field glasses. Mr. Rigby was staring at the horizon through them.

“Pair of zeppelins over Tsingtao,” he said. “Never seen them this far from Germany.”

Deryn shielded her eyes. Twin squicks of blackness hovered above the city harbor, where the warship was coming to a halt. But the guns of Tsingtao would offer no protection from the kappa.

As she watched, the zeppelins seemed to lengthen against the horizon.

“Are they turning away, sir?” she asked. “Or toward us?”

“Away, I’d think. They’re tiny compared to the Leviathan. But that warship won’t be happy to see them go. Without air cover the kappa will make short work of her.”

Deryn stared down at the sea, her heart beginning to race. Except for the doomed sailors of one unlucky Russian fleet, no Europeans had ever seen kappa in action. The Manual of Aeronautics contained no photographs of the beasties, only a few paintings based on rumors and stories.