Goliath

She looked out the window at the boiling clouds. “Perhaps he fears you’ll change your mind.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because someone might convince you that Mr. Tesla is a fraud.”

“Ah.” Alek remembered Deryn’s words in Tokyo. “And might that someone be you?”

“We shall see.” Dr. Barlow reached down and snapped her fingers again, and finally her beast emerged. She lifted it onto her shoulder. “I am a scientist, Alek. I do not deal in surmise. But when I have proof, I’ll let you know.”

“It was awful, being at war with you,” said the loris on her shoulder.

Alek stared at it, recalling when he’d said the words to Deryn in Japan. Had Bovril recounted that entire conversation to the other loris? The thought of all their secrets being traded between the creatures was most unsettling.

Dr. Barlow shook her head. “Pay no attention. These two beasts were clearly damaged in their eggs. Years wasted, all thanks to one bumpy landing in the Alps.” She reached out to straighten Alek’s bandages. “And speaking of bumps, do get some sleep, or you shall wind up as simpleminded as they.”

After she left, Bovril emerged from beneath the bed. It crawled up onto Alek’s stomach, chuckling to itself.

“What’s got you amused?” he asked.

t when It='0em' width='1em'>The creature turned to Alek, suddenly wearing a serious look.

“Fell from the sky,” it said.

It took five days for the sky to clear again.

The storm had pushed the Leviathan across the Pacific swiftly, carrying the airship well to the south. The coast of California stretched across the windows of the middies’ mess. A few white cliffs caught the sun, and behind them were rolling hills, grassy and patched with brown.

“America,” Bovril said softly from Alek’s shoulder.

“Aye, that’s right.” Deryn reached up to stroke the beastie’s fur, wondering if it was only repeating the word, or if it had a real sense that this was a new place with its own name.

Alek lowered his field glasses. “Looks rather wild, doesn’t it?”

“Here, maybe. But we’re halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Put together, those two cities have got almost a million people!”

“Most impressive. Then, why is it so empty between them?”

Deryn gestured at the maps on the mess table. “Because America’s barking huge. One country, as big as all of Europe!”

Bovril leaned forward on Alek’s shoulder, pressing its nose against the glass. “Big.”

“And growing stronger,” Alek said. “If they enter the war, they’ll tip the balance.”

“Aye, but which way?”

Alek turned, revealing the fresh scar on his forehead. His color had returned since the accident, and he no longer complained of headaches. But sometimes he got that daft look in his eye again, as if he didn’t quite believe the world around him was real.

At least he hadn’t forgotten again that Deryn was a girl. Kissing him had made certain of that.

She still wasn’t quite sure why she’d done it. Maybe the energies of the storm had brought on an unsoldierly madness in her. Or maybe that’s what oaths were all about, keeping your word even when it made everything go pear-shaped. No more secrets between them, no matter what. . . . That had a scary ring to it.

Neither of them had spoken of that moment again, of course. There was no future in kissing Alek. He was a prince and she was a commoner, and she’d made her peace with that back in Istanbul. The pope didn’t write letters turning Scottish girls dressed as boys into royalty. Not in a million years.

But at least she’d done it once.

“They’d never take up arms against Britain,” Alek was saying. “Even if they are half Clanker.”

Deryn shook her head. “But Americans aren’t just a mix of Clanker and Darwinist; they’re a mix of nations. Plenty of German immigrants fresh off the b oaths werd still loyal to the kaiser. And plenty of spies among them, I’ll bet.”

“Mr. Tesla will end the war before any of that matters.” Alek handed the field glasses to Deryn and pointed. “On those cliffs.”

It took her a moment to spot the mooring tower, rising up from an odd cluster of buildings on the seaside hills. They were a mishmash of styles—medieval castles, ramshackle houses, modern Clanker towers, all half finished. Massive building machines moved among them, huffing steam into the clear sky, and cargo ships swarmed the long pier jutting into the sea below.

“Blisters, that’s this fellow’s house?”

“William Randolph Hearst is a very rich man,” Alek said. “And a bit odd as well, according to Mr. Tesla.”

“Which is saying something, coming from him.”

“But he’s the right man for the job. Hearst owns half a dozen newspapers, a newsreel company, and a few politicians as well.” Alek said this firmly, then let out a sigh. “It was a lucky storm that blew us this far south, I suppose.”

“News,” Bovril said softly.

Deryn handed back the field glasses and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Back in Istanbul, Alek had spilled his secrets to Eddie Malone to keep the reporter from sniffing out the revolution, about fleeing his home after his parents’ murder and joining the Leviathan’s crew. Everything except the pope’s letter that promised Alek the throne, his last secret. He had hated every minute of being in the limelight. And now Tesla wanted to exhibit Alek’s story on a much larger stage.

“Doesn’t seem fair, making you go through all that palaver again.”

Alek shrugged. “It can’t be any worse a second time, can it?”

They watched in silence as the sprawling mansion drew nearer. The Leviathan came about and turned its nose into the steady breeze coming off the sea, approaching the mooring tower from the landward side.

A lizard popped its head out of a message tube overhead.

“Mr. Sharp, report to the topside,” it said in Mr. Rigby’s voice.

“Right away, sir. End message.” She looked at Alek. “I’ll be down helping with the landing. Maybe I’ll get to see your big entrance from the ground.”

He gave her a smile. “I shall try to look dashing.”

“Aye, I’m sure you will.” Deryn turned to the window, pretending to make a quick survey of the landing field, the obstacles of machines and men, the wind’s patterns in the ruffling grass. “They’re just reporters, Alek. They can’t hurt you.”

“I’ll try to remember that, Deryn,” he said.

“Deryn Sharp,” said Bovril with a chuckle as she headed toward the door. “Quite dashing.”

She hit the airfield softly, her gliding wings stiff with ocean air. A dozen ground men waited to steady her, and a young man in civilian clothes presented himself.

“Philip Francis, at your service.”

“Midshipman Sharp, of His Majesty’s Airship Leviathan,” Deryn said, giving him a salute. “How many ground men do you have?”

“Two hundred or so. Is that enough?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Aye, that’s loads. But are any of them trained?”

“All trained, and they’ve got lots of practice. Mr. Hearst has his own airship, you know. It’s in Chicago at the moment, undergoing repairs.”

“He has his own barking airship?”

“He dislikes train travel,” the man said simply.

“Aye, of course,” Deryn managed, turning to take stock of the airfield. The swarm of ground men was already in position, arranged in a perfect oval beneath the Leviathan’s gondola. They looked sharp