Goliath

The snarl of cables was near the bow of the ship, where the breeze was strongest. Overhead the topside crew had already cast a line across to the mooring tower, but they were waiting for the chaos below to settle before hitching the airship fast.

As Deryn approached, two groups of ground men were shouting at each other. Someone had pulled in the wrong direction, crossing the ropes, and now no one wanted to let go. She waded in, barking orders while making sure the men didn’t all drop their lines at once. It was sorted out soon enough, and Deryn pulled out her semaphore flags to flash a quick R-E-A-D-Y to the topside crew.

“I’m afraid that was my fault,” came a voice from behind her.

She turned to find a man in an ill-fitting uniform, a bit older than the other crewmen. Behind his mustache his face was somehow familiar.

“Are you…,” she began, but then a croak came from one of the sandbags on his belt.

“Shush, Rusty,” he hissed. “Good to see you again, Mr. Sharp. Do you suppose we might have a quick word in the privacy of your ship?”

She squinted at his face, and recognized him just as he stuck out his hand.

“Eddie Malone. Reporter for the New York World.”

TWENTY-THREE

“What in blazes are you doing here?”

Malone considered the question. “Why am I in California? Or why am I in disguise, instead of snapping photos with the other reporters?”

“Aye, both!”

“Happy to explain everything,” Malone said. “But first we need to get aboard your ship. Otherwise those fellows are about to give me a thrashing.”

Deryn turned to follow Malone’s gaze, and saw a trio of burly men in dark blue uniforms striding across the airfield.

“Who in blazes are they?”

“Pinkertons—security guards in the employ of Mr. Hearst. You see, my paper was owned by a fellow called Pulitzer, and he and Hearst weren’t exactly pals. So let’s not dawdle.” The man started to drag her toward the Leviathan’s gondola.

“Surely they won’t set upon you in broad daylight!”

“Whatever they do, it won’t be pretty.”

Deryn looked at the men again. They carried truncheons in their hands. Perhaps it was better to be safe than sorry.

The Leviathan’s gondola was still too high to jump aboard, and she and Malone would never make it past the Pinkertons to the gangplank on the other side. But where the navigator’s bubble bulged downward beneath the bridge were two steel mooring rings, just out of reach.

“Get ready to grab one of those handholds,” she ordered Malone, then turned to the ground men she’d just untangled, shouting, “Give me a good heave in one… two… three!”

The men pulled back in a mass, and the ship’s nose dipped just enough. Eddie Malone and Deryn jumped to grab the mooring rings, then hauled themselves up as the ship bobbed back to level.

“This way,” she said, scrambling toward the forward cargo bay windows. Malone followed, his shoes almost slipping from the metal rail around the bottom of the gondola.

The Pinkertons had arrived below them, and were peering up at Deryn and Malone with annoyed expressions.

^{“PINKERTONS’ PURSUIT.”}

“Come down here!” one shouted, but Deryn ignored him. She rapped on a cargo bay porthole.

The ship shifted a squick beneath her—the ground crew was bringing it slowly down. In another minute she and Malone would be within reach of the Pinkertons’ truncheons.

An airman’s face appeared at the porthole, looking a bit perplexed.

“Open up. That’s an order!” Deryn shouted, and the porthole popped open.

As she shoved Eddie Malone through, she wondered why she was helping him. Maybe he’d done them a favor back in Istanbul by not spilling the revolution’s secrets, but only for a price.

In any case he was aboard now. It was the captain’s decision whether to throw him back or not.

Deryn scrambled after him, not waiting to see if the Pinkertons would take out their frustration on her. She climbed down from the barrels of the ship’s honey stacked by the window, then gave the confused airman who’d let them inside a salute. “Carry on, lad.”

Malone was looking about the darkened cargo bay, his pencil already scribbling in his notepad.

“So this is what belowdecks looks like?”

“I’m afraid we haven’t time for a tour, Mr. Malone. Why were those men after you?”

“As I said, I work for the New York World, and Hearst owns the New York Journal. Archrivals, you might say.”

“And here in America rival newspapermen attack each other on sight?”

The man barked a laugh. “Not always. But Hearst didn’t exactly send me an engraved invitation. I had to disguise myself just to snap a few pictures. Speaking of which…”

He pulled a camera from one of his sandbags, then reached into the other for his recording frog. As he placed the beastie on his shoulder, it made a burping noise, blinking at Deryn.

“I thought you were the Istanbul bureau chief,” she said. “Again, what are you doing here? Istanbul is seven thousand miles away!”

The reporter waved his hand. “Prince Alek’s the best scoop I ever had. I’m not about to let a couple of oceans get in my way. Once I found out the Leviathan was headed east, I sailed back to New York. Been there for two weeks now, waiting to see where you popped up again.”

“But how did you get here?”

“After Mr. Tesla’s shindig in Tokyo made the papers, I jumped on a train for Los Angeles. That’s where the biggest airfield on the West Coast is. But last night I got a tip that you were coming here instead.”

Deryn shook her head. Mr. Tesla had only convinced the officers yesterday to resupply at Hearst’s. “A tip? From whom?”

“From the great inventor himself. Radio waves aren’t like carrier pigeons, Mr. Sharp. Anyone with an antenna can pick them up.” The man shrugged. “You shouldn’t be surprised that Tesla sent uncoded messages. Why let one newspaper have all the fun?”

Deryn swore, wondering who else was following the Leviathan’s movements. Clanker spies had radios too. She also wondered why she’d been so anxious to rescue Malone. Sticky-beaks like him would only cause trouble in the end.

“Well, however you got here, Mr. Malone, we’ll have to ask the officers if you can stay aboard. Follow me.”

She led the man to the central staircase, then up and forward toward the bridge. The ship’s corridors were buzzing; the cargo bay was already open to take on fuel and supplies. It was only a matter of time before Malone’s pursuers found their way aboard.

But the bridge was just as hectic as the rest of the ship, and Deryn found herself shunted from one officer to the next. The captain was busy being photographed for the newsreels, and no one else wanted to take responsibility for a wayward reporter. So when Deryn spotted the lady boffin and her loris taking tea in the officers’ mess, she pulled Malone inside and shut the door behind them.

“Afternoon, ma’am. This is Mr. Malone. He’s a reporter.”

The lady boffin nodded. “How kind of Mr. Hearst, remembering that there are more than just Clanker