Goliath

Newkirk joined Deryn at the window. “It’s funny how Mr. Tesla didn’t get off in Vladivostok. When I was laundering his shirts, he wanted them folded for packing.”

Deryn frowned, wondering what had caused the change in plans. She’d spied enough to know that Alek was spending a lot of time with his new friend. According to the cooks the two of them had eaten at the captain’s table last night.

What in blazes were they all up to?

“Ah, Mr. Sharp and Mr. Newkirk. Here you are.”

As the two middies turned from the window, Tazza bounded forward through the door. Dr. Barlow was behind him, her loris sitting primly on her shoulder. The dark stripes under its eyes somehow gave the beastie a snooty expression.

Deryn knelt to give Tazza’s head a rub, glad for once to see the lady boffin, who might know something about Tesla and Alek’s plans. Sticky-beaks could come in handy sometimes.

“Good afternoon, ma’am. I hope you’re well.”

“I am annoyed, at present.” Dr. Barlow turned to Newkirk. “Would you be so kind as to give Tazza his morning walk?”

“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!”