Scott Westerfeld - Goliath

Deryn groaned. She hated it when Alek said that. Because he couldn’t keep all her secrets, could he? He didn’t know the biggest of them.

All of sudden she didn’t want to lie anymore. Not this much, anyway.

“Wait,” she said. “I just told you a load of yackum. Brothers can serve together. It’s something else.”

“Yackum,” Bovril repeated. Alek just stood there, concern on his face.

“But I can’t tell you the real reason,” Deryn said.

“Why not?”

“Because…” she was a commoner, and he was a prince. Because he’d run a mile if he knew. “You’d think less of me.”

He stared at Deryn a moment, then reached out and took her shoulder. “You’re the best soldier I’ve ever met, Dylan. The boy I’d have wanted to be, if I hadn’t wound up such a useless prince. I could never think badly of you.”

She groaned, turning away and wishing an alert would sound, an attack of zeppelins or a lightning storm. Anything to extract her from this conversation.

“Listen,” Alek said, dropping his hand. “Even if your family has some deep, dark secret, who am I to judge? My granduncle conspired with the men who killed my parents, for heaven’s sake!”

Deryn had no idea what to say to that. Alek had got it all wrong, of course. It wasn’t some musty family secret; it was hers alone. He would always get it all wrong, until she told him the truth.

And that, she could never do.

“Please, Alek. I can’t. And… I’ve got a fencing lesson.”

Alek smiled, the perfect picture of a patient friend. “Anytime you want to tell me, Dylan. Until then, I won’t ask again.”

She nodded silently, and walked ahead of him the whole way back.

“Rather late with my breakfast, aren’t you?”

“Sorry about that, your countship,” Deryn said, plunking the tray down on Count Volger’s desk. A splash of coffee sloshed out of the pot and onto the toast. “But here it is.”

The wildcount raised an eyebrow.

“And your newspapers as well,” she said, pulling them from beneath her arm. “Dr. Barlow saved them especially for you. Though I don’t know why she bothers.”

Volger took the papers, then picked up the soggy piece of toast and shook it. “You seem to be in rather a lively mood this morning, Mr. Sharp.”

“Aye, well, I’ve been busy.” Deryn frowned at the man. It was lying to Alek that had put her in a huff, of course, but she felt like blaming Count Volger. “I won’t have time for a fencing lesson.”

“Pity. You’re coming along so well,” he said. “For a girl.”

Deryn scowled at the man. Guards were no longer posted outside the Clankers’ staterooms, but someone passing in the corridor might have heard. She crossed to shut the cabin door, then turned back to the wildcount.

He was the only person on the airship who knew what she really was, and he generally took care not to mention it aloud.

“What do you want?” she said quietly.

He didn’t look up at her, but instead fussed with his breakfast as if this were a friendly chat. “I’ve noticed the crew seems to be preparing for something.”

“Aye, we got a message this morning. From the czar.”

Volger looked up. “The czar? Are we changing course?”

“That’s a military secret, I’m afraid. No one knows except the officers.” Deryn frowned. “And the lady boffin, I suppose. Alek asked her, but she wouldn’t say.”

The wildcount scraped butter onto his half soggy toast, giving this a think.

During the month Deryn had been hiding in Istanbul, the wildcount and Dr. Barlow had entered into some sort of alliance. Dr. Barlow made sure he was kept up with news about the war, and Volger gave her his opinions on Clanker politics and strategy. But Deryn doubted the lady boffin would answer this question for him. Newspapers and rumors were one thing, sealed orders quite another.

“Perhaps you could find out for me.”

“No, I couldn’t,” Deryn said. “It’s a military secret.”

Volger poured coffee. “And yet secrets can be so difficult to keep sometimes. Don’t you think?”

Deryn felt a cold dizziness rising up inside, as it always did when Count Volger threatened her. There was something unthinkable about everyone finding out what she was. She wouldn’t be an airman anymore, and Alek would never speak to her again.

But this morning she was not in the mood for blackmail.

“I can’t help you, Count. Only the senior officers know.”

“But I’m sure a girl as resourceful as you, so obviously adept at subterfuge, could find out. One secret unraveled to keep another safe?”

The fear burned cold now in Deryn’s belly, and she almost gave in. But then something Alek had said popped into her head.

“You can’t let Alek find out about me.”

“And why not?” Volger asked, pouring himself tea.

“He and I were just in the rookery together, and I almost told him. That happens sometimes.”

“I’m sure it does. But you didn’t tell him, did you?” Volger tutted. “Because you know how he would react. However fond you two are of each other, you are a commoner.”

“Aye, I know that. But I’m also a soldier, a barking good one.” She took a step closer, trying to keep any quaver out of her voice. “I’m the very soldier Alek might have been, if he hadn’t been raised by a pack of fancy-boots like you. I’ve got the life he missed by being an archduke’s son.”

Volger frowned, not understanding yet, but it was all coming clear in Deryn’s mind.

“I’m the boy Alek wants to be, more than anything. And you want to tell him that I’m really a girl ? On top of losing his parents and his home, how do you think he’ll take that news, your countship?”

The man stared at her for another moment, then went back to stirring his tea. “It might be rather… unsettling for him.”

“Aye, it might. Enjoy your breakfast, Count.”

Deryn found herself smiling as she turned and left the room.

As the great jaw of the cargo door opened, a freezing whirlwind spilled inside and leapt about the cargo bay, setting the leather straps of Deryn’s flight suit snapping and fluttering. She pulled on her goggles and leaned out, peering at the terrain rushing past below.

The ground was patched with snow and dotted with pine trees. The Leviathan had passed over the Siberian city of Omsk that morning, not pausing to resupply, still veering northward toward some secret destination. But Deryn hadn’t found time to wonder where they were heading; in the thirty hours since the imperial eagle had arrived, she’d been busy training for this cargo snatch-up.

“Where’s the bear?” Newkirk asked. He leaned out past her, dangling from his safety line over thin air.

“Ahead of us, saving its strength.” Deryn pulled her gloves tighter, then tested her weight against the heavy cable on the cargo winch. It was as thick as her wrist—rated to lift a two-ton pallet of supplies. The riggers had been fiddling with the apparatus all day, but this was its first real test. This particular maneuver wasn’t even in the Manual of Aeronautics .

“Don’t like bears,” Newkirk muttered. “Some beasties are too barking huge .”

Deryn gestured at the grappling hook at the end of the cable, as big as a ballroom chandelier. “Then you’d best make sure not to stick that up the beastie’s nose by accident. It might take exception.”

Through the lenses of his goggles, Newkirk’s eyes went wide.

Deryn gave him a punch on the shoulder, envying him for his station at the business end of the cable. It wasn’t fair that Newkirk had been gaining airmanship skills while she and Alek had been plotting rebellion in Istanbul.