Leviathan

Fisher, the tactics of airbeast against surface ships and land forces. Some days they played out tabletop battles against the lifeless zeppelins and aeroplanes of the kaiser.

But Deryn’s favorite lectures were when the boffins explained natural philosophy. How old Darwin had figured out how to weave new species from the old, pulling out the tiny threads of life and tangling them together under a microscope. How evolution had squeezed a copy of Deryn’s own life chain into every cell of her body. How umpteen different beasties made up the Leviathan—from the microscopic hydrogen-farting bacteria in its belly to the great harnessed whale. How the airship’s creatures, like the rest of Nature, were always struggling among themselves in messy, snarling equilibrium.

The bosun’s lectures were merely a fraction of what she had to cram into her attic. Every time another airship flew past, the middies scrambled to the signals deck to read the messages strung on distant fluttering flags. Six words a minute without error, or you were in for long hours of duty in the gastric regions. Every hour they ran drills to check the Leviathan’s altitude, firing an air gun and timing the echo from the sea, or dropping a glowing bottle of phosphorescent algae and timing how long till it shattered. Deryn had learned to reckon in a squick how many seconds an object took to plummet any distance from a hundred feet to two miles.

But the strangest thing was doing it all as a boy.

Jaspert had been right: Her diddies weren’t the tricky part. Water was heavy, so bathing on an airship was done quick with rags and a pail. And the toilets aboard the Leviathan (“heads” in Service-speak) were in the dark gastric channel, which carried off clart to turn it into ballast and hydrogen. So hiding her body was easy… . It was her brain she’d had to shift.

Deryn had always reckoned herself a tomboy, between Jaspert’s bullying and Da’s balloon training. But running with the other middies was more than just punch-ups and tying knots—it was like joining a pack of dogs. They jostled and banged for the best seats at the middies’ mess table. They taunted each other over signal reading and navigation scores, and whom the officers had complimented that day. They endlessly competed to see who could spit farther, drink rum faster, or belch the loudest.

It was bloody exhausting, being a boy.

Not that all of it was bad. Her airman’s uniform was miles better than any girl’s clothes. The boots clomped gloriously as she stormed to signals practice or firefighting drills, and the jacket had a dozen pockets, including special compartments for her command whistle and rigging knife. And Deryn didn’t mind the constant practice in useful skills like knife throwing, swearing, and not showing pain when punched.

But how did boys keep this up their whole barking lives?

Deryn eased the feed bag from her sore shoulders. For once she’d reached the airship’s spine ahead of the others, and could take a moment’s rest.

“Dawdling again, Mr. Sharp?” a voice called.

Deryn turned to see Midshipman Newkirk climbing into view over the curve of the Leviathan, his rubber-soled shoes squeaking. There were no waving cilia up here, just hard dorsal scales for mounting winches and guns.

She called back, “Just waiting for you to catch up, Mr. Newkirk.”

It always felt odd calling the other boys “mister.” Newkirk still had plooks on his face and hardly knew how to tie his necktie. But middies were supposed to put on airs like proper officers.

When he reached the spine, Newkirk dropped his feed bag and grinned. “Mr. Rigby’s still miles back.”

“Aye,” Deryn said. “He can’t call us dawdlers now.”

They stood there for a moment, panting and taking in the view.

The topside of the airbeast was alive with activity. The ratlines flickered with electric torches and glowworms, and Deryn felt the membrane tremble from distant footsteps. She closed her eyes, trying to feel the airship’s totality, its hundred species tangling to make one vast organism.

“Barking brilliant up here,” Newkirk murmured.

Deryn nodded. These last two weeks she’d volunteered for open-air duty whenever possible. Being dorsal was real flying—the wind in her face, and sky in all directions—as prized as her hours up in Da’s balloons.

A squad of duty riggers rushed by, two hydrogen sniffers straining on their leashes as they searched for leaks in the membrane. One snuffled Newkirk’s hand as it passed, and he let out a squeak.

The riggers laughed, and Deryn joined in.

“Shall I call a medic, Mr. Newkirk?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he snapped, staring at his hand suspiciously. Newkirk’s mum was a Monkey Luddite, and he’d inherited a nervous stomach for fabrications. Why he’d volunteered to serve on a mad bestiary like the Leviathan was a flat-out mystery. “I just don’t like those six-legged beasties.”

“They’re nothing to be scared of, Mr. Newkirk.”

“Get stuffed, Mr. Sharp,” he muttered, hoisting his feed bag. “Come on. Rigby’s right behind us now.”

Deryn groaned. Her aching muscles could’ve done with another minute’s rest. But she’d laughed at Newkirk, so the endless competition was on again. She hoisted her feed bag and followed him toward the bow.

Barking hard work, being a boy.

TWELVE

As Deryn and Newkirk neared the bow, the bats grew louder, their echolocation chirps rattling like hail on a tin roof.

The other middies were just behind, Mr. Rigby in their midst, urging them to hurry. The bats’ feeding had to be timed precisely with the flechette strike.

Suddenly a shrieking mass of havoc swept out of the darkness—an aerie of strafing hawks, aeroplane nets glimmering in the dark. Newkirk let out a startled cry, his feet tangling together. He tumbled down the slope of the air-beast’s flank, his rubber soles squeaking along the membrane. Finally he came to a halt.

Deryn dropped her bag and scuttled after him.

“Barking spiders!” Newkirk cried, his necktie more askew than usual. “Those godless birds attacked us!”

“They did no such thing,” Deryn said, offering him a hand up.

“Trouble keeping your feet, gentlemen?” Mr. Rigby called down from the spine. “Perhaps some light on the subject.”

He pulled out his command whistle and piped out a few notes, high and raw. As the sound trembled through the membrane, glowworms woke up underfoot. They snaked along just beneath the airbeast’s skin, giving off enough pale green light for the crew to see their footing, but not so much that enemy aircraft could spot the Leviathan in the sky.

Still, combat drills were supposed to be conducted in darkness. It was a bit embarrassing to need the worms just to walk.

Newkirk looked down, shuddering a little. “Don’t like those beasties either.”

“You don’t like any beasties,” Deryn said.

“Aye, but the crawly ones are the worst.”

Deryn and Newkirk climbed back up, now behind the other middies. But the bow was within sight, the bats covering it like iron filings on a magnet. The chirping came from all directions.

“They sound hungry, gentlemen,” Mr. Rigby warned. “Be sure they don’t take a bite of you!”

Newkirk made a nervous face, and Deryn elbowed him. “Don’t be daft. Flechette bats only eat insects and fruit.”

“Aye, and metal spikes,” he muttered. “That’s barking unnatural.”