Scott Westerfeld - Leviathan

“That’s a bit rough,” Deryn said. “Losing your job just because some duke fellow likes you!”

“Losing her ‘job’ was the least of it. My granduncle, the emperor, refused to permit the marriage. He wouldn’t even talk to my father for a year. It rattled the whole empire. The kaiser, the czar, even the Holy Father tried to patch things up.”

Deryn raised an eyebrow, wondering again if Alek was mad, or simply full of blether. Had he just said that the pope had meddled in his family business?

“But finally they came to a compromise—a left-handed marriage.”

“What in blazes does that mean?” she said.

Alek wiped the tears from his face. “They could marry, but the children could inherit nothing. As far as my granduncle is concerned, I don’t exist.”

“So you’re not an archduke or anything?”

He shook his head. “Just a prince.”

“Only a prince? Blisters, that’s rough !”

Alek turned to her and narrowed his eyes. “I don’t expect you to understand, Dylan.”

“Sorry,” she muttered. She hadn’t really meant to make fun of him. The family split had cost Alek his parents, after all. “It just all sounds a bit odd.”

“I suppose it is,” he sighed. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“Of course not.” She stuck out her hand. “Like I said, your family’s no business of ours.”

Alek smiled sadly as they shook. “I wish that were true. But I’m afraid we’ve become the whole world’s business.”

Deryn swallowed, wondering what that must be like— to have your family squabble turn into a barking massive war. No wonder the poor boy looked so stricken all the time. Even if none of it was Alek’s doing, tragedies always scattered seeds of guilt in bucketfuls.

Deryn still replayed Da’s accident in her mind a dozen times a night, imagining what more she could have done to save him, wondering if somehow the fire had been her fault.

“You know you’re not to blame, right?” she said softly. “I mean, to hear Dr. Barlow tell it, it took a hundred politicians to stuff things up this bad.”

“But I’m what split my family,” Alek said. “I unsettled everything, and that gave the Germans their opening.”

“You’re more than just that, though.” Deryn took his hand. “You’re the one who came across the ice to save my bum from frostbite.”

Alek looked at her, wiped his eyes, and smiled. “Maybe that too.”

“Alek?” came Dr. Barlow’s voice from nowhere, and the boy jumped half into the air.

Deryn smiled as she stood, pointing at the message lizard up on the ceiling.

“The captain has agreed with your proposal,” the beastie continued. “Please meet me at your walking machine. We need at least two translators to coordinate our engineers with your men.”

Alek just sat there staring up at the lizard in horror. Deryn smiled and pulled him up. “It’s waiting for an answer, you dafty.”

He swallowed, then said in a nervous voice, “I’ll be there as soon as I can, Dr. Barlow. You should also ask Count Volger for help. He can speak perfectly good English when he wants to. Thank you.”

“End message,” Deryn added, and the beastie scampered off.

A shudder went through Alek. “I’m still not used to talking animals, I’m afraid. It seems a bit ungodly, making them so much like human beings.”

Deryn laughed. “Have you never heard of parrots?”

“That’s quite different,” he said. “They’re meant to speak that way. But I … want to thank you, Dylan.”

“For what?”

Alek raised his empty hands, and for a moment Deryn thought he would cry again. But he only said, “For knowing who I am.”

He put his arms around her then, a rough embrace that lasted only a moment. Then he turned and hurried from the machine room, headed for the fallen Storm-walker.

As the door swung shut, Deryn shivered, the strangest feeling creeping through her. Where Alek’s arms had wrapped around her shoulders an odd kind of tingling was left behind—like the crackle along the airship’s skin when distant lightning kindled the sky.

Deryn put her own arms around herself, but it didn’t feel the same.

“Barking spiders,” she muttered softly, and turned to check the eggs again.

The next afternoon’s watch Deryn and Newkirk were posted on the spine.

Overnight the ship had swelled, the Leviathan ’s gut in full roar from the beasties’ day of gorging. Down on the snow the last of the ship’s stores were splayed out, swarmed with feasting birds. Deryn felt her own stomach rumbling with her breakfast of greasy biscuits and coffee. The crew were allowed to eat only what food the animals wouldn’t touch.

But a few hunger pangs were worth the bounce of the membrane under Deryn’s feet—taut and healthy again. The lumps along the airbeast’s flanks were smoothing out. At around noon the wind had started to drag the lightened ship across the glacier, forcing the riggers to fill the ballast tanks with melted snow.

But Dr. Busk had said it would be a close thing, lifting the weight of the Clanker engines along with five extra men.

“He’s moving,” Newkirk said. “He must still be alive.”

Deryn glanced up at the Huxley. Mr. Rigby had insisted on taking a watch aloft, saying he couldn’t bear his last two middies getting frostbite from long hours in the icy sky, even if it meant sneaking out of the sick bay.

“We best pull him down soon,” Deryn said. “Dr. Busk will skin us if he freezes up there.”

“Aye,” Newkirk said, blowing on his hands. “But if he comes down, one of us will have to go back up.”

Deryn shrugged. “Beats egg duty.”

“At least egg duty’s warm .”

“Well, you might still be on it, Mr. Newkirk, if you hadn’t killed one of the boffin’s barking eggs.”

“It’s not my fault we’re stuck on this iceberg!”

“It’s a glacier, you ninny!”

Newkirk grumbled something unpleasant and stormed away, stomping his feet on the hard scales of the spine. He’d claimed the egg disaster had been Dr. Barlow’s fault for not explaining Clanker temperatures, but a number was a number, Deryn reckoned.

She almost called him back to apologize, but only swore. Might as well see how work was going on the new engine pods.

Deryn lifted her binoculars… .

The forward engines were partway down the airship’s flanks, thrusting out like a pair of ears. The tops of both pods had been removed, and a muddle of oversize Clanker machinery stuck out in all directions. Alek was working on the port side, along with Hoffman and Mr. Hirst, the airship’s chief engineer. They were all in animated conversation, arms waving in the cold wind.

The whole business seemed to be going slowly. At about noon the starboard engine—where Klopp and Bauer were working—had sputtered to life for a few noisy seconds, the membrane rumbling under Deryn’s feet. But something must have cracked. The engine had shut down with a shriek, and the Clankers had spent the next hour tossing bits of burnt metal down onto the snow.

Deryn turned to scan the horizon. It had been more than a day since the Kondor attack. The Germans wouldn’t give them much longer. A few recon aeroplanes had already peeked over the mountains, just making sure the wounded airship hadn’t gone anywhere. Everyone said the Germans were taking their time, assembling an overwhelming force. The assault could come at any minute.

And yet Deryn’s eyes drifted back to Alek. He was translating for Hoffman now, pointing at the front end of the engine pods. He spun his hands about like props, and Deryn smiled, imagining his voice for a moment.