Goliath

“It’s headed for the bridge, right?” Alek asked.

“Aye.” Newkirk lowered his field glasses. “Important messages go straight to the captain.”

A bit of hope pried its way into Alek’s dark mood. The Russians were allies of the British, fellow Darwinists who fabricated mammothines and giant fighting bears. What if the czar needed help against the Clanker armies and this was a summons to turn the ship around? Even fighting on the icy Russian front would be better than wasting time in this wilderness.

“I need to know what that message says.”

Newkirk snorted. “Why don’t you go and ask the captain, then?”

“Aye,” Dylan said. “And while you’re at it, ask him to give me a warmer cabin.”

“What can it hurt?” Alek said. “He hasn’t thrown me into the brig yet.”

When Alek had returned to the Leviathan two weeks ago, he’d half expected to be put in chains for escaping from the ship. But the ship’s officers had treated him with respect.

Perhaps it wasn’t so bad, everyone finally knowing he was the son of the late Archduke Ferdinand, and not just some Austrian noble trying to escape the war.

“What’s a good excuse to pay the bridge a visit?” he asked.

“No need for excuses,” Newkirk said. “That bird’s flown all the way from Saint Petersburg. They’ll call us to come and fetch it for a rest and a feeding.”

“And you’ve never seen the rookery, your princeliness,” Dylan added. “Might as well tag along.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sharp,” Alek said, smiling. “I would like that.”

Dylan returned to the table and his precious potatoes, perhaps grateful that the talk of his father had been interrupted. Alek decided he would apologize before the day was out.

Ten minutes later a message lizard popped its head from a tube on the ceiling in the middies’ mess. It said in the master coxswain’s voice, “Mr. Sharp, please come to the bridge. Mr. Newkirk, report to the cargo deck.”

The three of them scrambled for the door.

“Cargo deck?” Newkirk said. “What in blazes is that about?”

“Maybe they want you to inventory the stocks again,” Dylan said. “This trip might have just got longer.”

Alek frowned. Would “longer” mean turning back toward Europe, or heading still farther away?

As the three made their way toward the bridge, he sensed the ship stirring around them. No alert had sounded, but the crew was bustling. When Newkirk peeled off to descend the central stairway, a squad of riggers in flight suits went storming past, also headed down.

“Where in blazes are they going?” Alek asked. Riggers always worked topside, in the ropes that held the ship’s huge hydrogen membrane.

“A dead good question,” Dylan said. “The czar’s message seems to have turned us upside down.”

The bridge had a guard posted at the door, and a dozen message lizards clung to the ceiling, waiting for orders to be dispatched. There was a sharp edge to the usual thrum of men and creatures and machines. Bovril shifted on Alek’s shoulder, and he felt the engines change pitch through the soles of his boots—the ship was coming to full-ahead.

Up at the ship’s master wheel, the officers were huddled around the captain, who held an ornate scroll. Dr. Barlow was among the group, her own loris on her shoulder, her pet thylacine, Tazza, sitting at her side.

A squawk came from Alek’s right, and he turned to find himself face-to-face with the most astonishing creature….

The imperial eagle was too large to fit into the bridge’s messenger cage, and it perched instead on the signals table. It shifted from one taloned claw to the other, glossy black wings fluttering.

And what Dylan had said was true. The creature had two heads, and two necks, of course, coiled around each other like a pair of black feathered snakes. As Alek watched in horror, one head snapped at the other, a bright red tongue slithering from its mouth.

“God’s wounds,” he breathed.

“Like we told you,” Dylan said. “It’s an imperial eagle.”

“It’s an abomination, you mean.” Sometimes the Darwinists’ creatures seemed to have been fabricated not for their usefulness, but simply to be horrific.

Dylan shrugged. “It’s just a two-headed bird, like on the czar’s crest.”

“Yes, of course,” Alek sputtered. “But that’s meant to be symbolic.”

“Aye, this beastie’s symbolic. It’s just breathing as well.”

“Prince Aleksandar, good morning.” Dr. Barlow had left the group of officers and crossed the bridge, the czar’s scroll in her hand. “I see you’ve met our visitor. Quite a fine example of Russian fabrication, is it not?”

“Good morning, madam.” Alek bowed. “I’m not sure what this creature is a fine example of, only that I find it a bit…” He swallowed, watching Dylan slip on a pair of thick falconer’s gloves.

^{“TWO-HEADED MESSENGER.”}

“Literal-minded?” Dr. Barlow chuckled softly. “I suppose, but Czar Nicholas does enjoy his pets.”

“Pets, fah!” her loris repeated from its new perch on the messenger tern cages, and Bovril giggled. The two creatures began to whisper nonsense to each other, as they always did when they met.

Alek pulled his gaze from the eagle. “In fact, I’m more interested in the message it was carrying.”

“Ah…” Her hands began to roll up the scroll. “I’m afraid that is a military secret, for the moment.”

Alek scowled. His allies in Istanbul had never kept secrets from him.

If only he could have stayed there somehow. According to the newspapers, the rebels had control of the capital now, and the rest of the Ottoman Empire was falling under their sway. He would have been respected there—useful, instead of a waste of hydrogen. Indeed, helping the rebels overthrow the sultan had been the most useful thing he’d ever done. It had robbed the Germans of a Clanker ally and had proven that he, Prince Aleksandar of Hohenburg, could make a difference in this war.

Why had he listened to Dylan and come back to this abomination of an airship?

“Are you quite all right, Prince?” Dr. Barlow asked.

“I just wish I knew what you Darwinists were up to,” Alek said, a sudden quiver of anger in his voice. “At least if you were taking me and my men to London in chains, it would make sense. What’s the point of lugging us halfway around the world?”

Dr. Barlow spoke soothingly. “We all go where the war takes us, Prince Aleksandar. You haven’t had such bad luck on this ship, have you?”

Alek scowled but couldn’t argue. The Leviathan had saved him from spending the war hiding out in a freezing castle in the Alps, after all. And it had taken him to Istanbul, where he’d struck his first blow against the Germans.

He gathered himself. “Perhaps not, Dr. Barlow. But I prefer to choose my own course.”

“That time may come sooner than you think.”

Alek raised an eyebrow, wondering what she meant.

“Come on, your princeliness,” Dylan said. The eagle was now hooded and perching quietly on his arm. “It’s useless arguing with boffins. And we’ve got a bird to feed.”

TWO

The eagle turned out to be quite peaceable, once Deryn had stuffed a pair of hoods over its cantankerous heads.

It sat heavy on her gloved arm, a good ten pounds of muscle and guts. As she and Alek walked aft, Deryn soon found herself thankful that birds had hollow bones.

The rookery was separate from the main gondola, halfway back to the ventral fin. The walkway leading