Goliath

“Cliff-hanger,” Bovril said with a chortle.

“Most ingenious,” Alek said, though in fact it seemed rather an underhanded scheme to him, making an audience wait for a conclusion that would never come.

“One of my better ideas!” Hearst said. “A whole new way to tell stories!”

“Only as old as The Thousand and One Nights,” Volger muttered.

Alek smirked at this, but he had to admit that the moving picture had possessed a mesmerizing quality, like a tale written in firelight. Or perhaps it was only his mind still wavering—since he’d cracked his head, the boundaries between reality and fancy had been uncertain.

“Bet you two can’t wait till you see yourselves up on the screen!” Hearst said, reaching out to take Alek and Mr. Tesla by their shoulders.

“Like a glimpse into the future,” Tesla said with a smile. “One day we shall be able to transmit moving pictures wirelessly, just as we do sound.”

“What an intriguing notion,” Alek said, though the idea sounded dreadful.

“Don’t worry, Your Majesty,” Mr. Francis said quietly. “I’ll make sure you look good. It’s my job.”

“Most reassuring.” Alek remembered seeing his own photograph for the first time in the New York World. Unlike any decent painting, it had been unpleasantly true to life, even magnifying his too- large ears. He wondered how these moving pictures would rearrange his features, and if he would look as jittery and hurried on the screen as Pauline and her fellows.

The thought of the heroine made him turn to Mr. Francis again. “Do women in America really fly about in balloons?”

“Well, they must want to! The Perils of Pauline is so popular that our competitors are getting in on the act, making something called The Hazards of Helen. And we’re already planning The Exploits of Elaine.”

“How… alliterative,” Alek said. “But outside of moving pictures, do women actually do these sorts of things?”

The man shrugged. “Sure, I suppose so. Ever heard of Bird Millman?”

“The high-wire walker? But she’s a circus performer.” Alek sighed. For that matter, Lilit had known how to use a body kite. But she was a revolutionary. “What I mean is, do normal women ever fly?”

Count Volger spoke up. “I think what Prince Aleksandar wants to ask is, do American women pretend to be men? It is currently a subject of intense study with him.”

Alek gave the wildcount a hard look, but Mr. Francis only laughed.

“Well, I don’t know about flying,” he said, “but we’ve sure got a lot of women wearing trousers these days. And I just read that one in twenty walker pilots is female!” The man leaned closer. “You thinking of getting yourself an American bride, Your Majesty? One with some frontier spirit, maybe?”

“That was not in my plans, alas.” Alek saw Volger’s smug expression, and added, “Still, five percent is something, isn’t it?”

“Do you want to meet Miss White again?” Francis asked with a wink. “She’s quite a bit like her character. Does all her own stunts!”

Alek looked down the table at the actress who had played Pauline—she possessed the rather unlikely name of Pearl White, he recalled. She was deep in conversation with Dr. Barlow and her loris, and Alek wondered what the three were talking about.

“Could be newsworthy,” Mr. Francis said. “A movie starlet and a prince!”

“Starlet,” Bovril said, sliding down onto Alek’s shoulder.

“Thank you, but no,” Alek said. “Talking to her now might spoil the illusion.”

“Very wise, Your Serene Highness,” Volger said, nodding sagely. “It’s best not to mix make-believe with reality. At the moment the world is too serious for that.”

TWENTY-FIVE

The resupplied Leviathan took the air before noon the next day, hours ahead of the twenty-four-hour limit. Watching from his stateroom windows, Alek could see the strange truth behind Hearst’s estate. The buildings weren’t so much unfinished as flat and hollow, designed to be filmed from certain angles but never lived in.

They were false, in other words.

Alek kept to his cabin most of the day, avoiding the newsreel cameras roaming the ship’s corridors. One of his grandaunts believed that photographs snatched pieces of the soul, and maybe she was right. At sixteen frames a second, a moving-picture camera would chip away like a machine gun. Perhaps it was only last night’s brandy in his head, but Alek felt as empty as Mr. Hearst’s false buildings.

The airship followed the coast of California southward at three-quarter speed, angling against the cool ocean breezes that blew toward land. Los Angeles slipped past in the late afternoon, and a few hours later Alek felt the airship turn southeast. According to the map on his desk, the sprawling city below was Tijuana.

A sudden blaring of horns and drums cut through the engine noise, and Bovril scampered to the windowsill. Alek looked out—a huge stadium yawned below, packed with cheering spectators. Some sort of double-headed bull was kicking up dust in the arena’s center, facing a matador almost too small to see in the fading light.

It occurred to Alek that however swift airship travel was, one missed a great deal of scenery from the lofty height of a thousand feet.

By the time he’d dressed for dinner, the desert below was wrapped in darkness. Bovril was still on the windowsill, gazing down. No doubt its large eyes could see by starlight.

“Meteoric,” the beast said, and Alek frowned. It was the first word Bovril had said all day, and certainly not one that Alek had uttered.

But Alek was already late for dinner, so he placed the creature on his shoulder and headed out the door.

The lady boffin had commandeered the officers’ mess for the evening, no doubt the first of many tiresome dinner parties. With so many civilians aboard, the Leviathan’s journey to New York was in danger of turning into a pleasure cruise. At least tonight’s dinner was for only five, and not two dozen like Hearst’s affair.

Deryn stood waiting at the mess door, dressed in her formal serving uniform. When Bovril reached out for her, she ruffled its fur and then opened the door with a deep bow. A smirk played on her face, and Alek felt briefly silly in his formal jacket, as if the two of them were children playing dress-up.

The other guests had already arrived—Count Volger, Mr. Tesla, and the lady reporter from Hearst’s San Francisco paper. Dr. Barlow ushered the young woman forward. She was wearing a pale red dress with a frilled collar, and a pink ostrich plume curled up from her rose-colored felt hat.

“Your Serene Highness, may I present Miss Adela Rogers?”

Alek bowed. “I had the pleasure last night, but only briefly.”

Miss Rogers extended her hand to be kissed, and Alek hesitated—she was hardly of his social standing. But Americans were famous for ignoring such notions, so Alek took her hand and kissed the air.

“You missed,” she said with a baffled smile.

“Missed?” Alek asked.

“Her hand,” said Dr. Barlow. “The custom in Europe, Miss Rogers, is that only married women are kissed directly on the flesh. You young things are thought to be too easily swayed by the touch of lips.”

Alek heard Deryn snort, but managed to ignore her.

“Young? But I’m all of twenty,” Miss Rogers said. “My hand has been kissed many times without injury!”

Dr. Barlow’s loris laughed, and Alek coughed politely. “Of course.”