Goliath (15 page)

“No, Alek. I did all that because I’m your friend and ally!”

Alek shook his head. “But how can I
know
that? All you’ve done is lie to me.”

For a long moment Deryn didn’t answer, staring at
him across the desk. Fresh tears rolled steadily down her cheeks, but she seemed frozen in place.

Alek began to pace about the stateroom. “That’s why Volger never told me, so that he could hold it over you. Everything you’ve done was to protect yourself!”

“Alek, you’re being daft,” she said softly. “Volger might have tried to blackmail me, but I was your friend long before he knew.”

“How can I believe you?”

“Volger wasn’t with us in Istanbul, was he? Do you think I jumped ship and joined your barking revolution for
him
?”

Alek clenched his fists, still pacing the room. “I don’t know.”

“I didn’t go to Istanbul because of Volger, or because of any mission. I was never meant to reach the city, just The Straits. You know that, right?”

Alek shook his head, trying to order his thoughts. “Your men were caught, and you were cut off from the
Leviathan
. So you had no choice but to join me.”

“No, you daft prince! That’s just what I told the officers. There were a hundred British ships at harbor in Istanbul. I could’ve taken one into the Mediterranean anytime I wanted. But Volger said you were in danger, that you’d stay in the city and fight instead of hiding. And I couldn’t let you do that all alone. I had to save
you!” Her voice broke on the last word, and she steadied herself with a ragged breath. “You’re my best friend, Alek, and I couldn’t lose you. I’d do anything not to lose you. . . .”

He stared at her, frozen midstride. Her voice sounded so different now, like another person’s altogether. He wondered if she’d been putting on a voice before, or whether he somehow
heard
her words differently, now that he knew she was a girl.

“What do you mean, lose me? I’d already run away.”

She swore, then stood and walked to the door. “That’s all you need to know, you daft prince, that I’m your friend. I have to go collect the beastie, before it starts looking for us. It might wake somebody up.”

She left without another word.

Alek watched the door close. Why was it so important that she’d joined him in Istanbul? She’d taken the fight to the enemy, helped the revolution, and saved the
Leviathan
in the process. That was simply the kind of soldier she was.

But then it came back to him, that first moment when he’d seen her in the hotel in Istanbul. The way Deryn had looked at Lilit with such suspicion. Even jealousy.

And then, without a perspicacious loris whispering the truth into his ear, he finally understood. She hadn’t
come to Istanbul as a soldier at all. And she never would have revealed her secret to Alek, for the simplest reason in the world.

Deryn Sharp was in love with him.

The crooked fingers of inlets stretched from the sea
into the city of Vladivostok, slicing it into winding peninsulas toothed with piers. Hills rose up from the water’s edge, crisscrossed by avenues where mammothines trudged, bearing cargo from the ships scattered across the harbor.

As the
Leviathan
’s shadow rippled along the rooftops, traffic slowed, with people looking up and pointing. Clearly they had never seen an airship so huge. The airfield looked paltry to Alek, barely half a kilometer across.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “Exiled.”

“Vladivostok,” Bovril answered from the windowsill, and Alek wondered where the beast had heard the city’s name.

Bovril rubbed its paw against the window glass, which was always fogging up here in the officers’ baths. The plumbing was integrated into the airbeast’s circulatory system, the air as warm and moist as a steam bath in Istanbul, an unpleasant reminder that the ship was a living thing. But at least the room was empty during the day. The officers were on duty, the crewmen not allowed to enter.

“A SHOWER TO CLEAR THE HEAD.”

Since finding out Deryn’s secret, Alek had steered clear of her and Newkirk. The rest of the crew had little time for him, so he’d taken to wandering the ship alone. It had been an education, seeing places where the middies’ duties rarely took them—the ship’s electrikal engines, the darkest reaches of the gut. But after two days of skimpy rations, Alek no longer had the energy to explore. Loneliness and hunger were natural allies, together carving an emptiness inside him.

“Middle of nowhere,” said the perspicacious loris.

Alek frowned. The beast had sounded almost sad.

“Do you miss her?” he asked.

Bovril was silent for a moment, staring down at the airship’s shadow slipping across the ground. Finally it said, “Exiled.”

Alek couldn’t argue. He was truly on the outside now, hiding from the crew, his own men, and especially Deryn. He had only Bovril for company.

But a fabricated beast was better than nothing, he
supposed. And its company was much simpler than trying to untangle Deryn’s feelings for him. She of all people knew that he could never love a commoner.

The
Leviathan
was coming about, turning its nose into the wind, slowly descending. The tiny figures on the airfield resolved into view. Half a dozen cargo bears waited with supplies, and two mammothine-drawn omnibuses stood ready to carry the Russians away. A lone Siberian tigeresque stood sentinel, its fangs as long and curved as scimitars.

Alek dimly recalled that the fangs of a tigeresque came from the life threads of some extinct creature. But surely no dinosaur had been armed with such teeth. Were they from some ancient great cat? For the hundredth time while wandering the ship alone, Alek wished that Deryn were here to provide the answer.

The door opened behind him, and he turned, half expecting to find her there, ready to deliver a biology lesson. But it was Count Volger.

“I am sorry to disturb you, Your Highness, but I need you.”

Alek turned back to the window. The man had betrayed him far worse than Deryn had. She, at least, had her reasons to lie.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“I doubt that very much, but we haven’t time in
any case. We must deal with Mr. Tesla before we land.”

“Deal with him?” Alek shook his head. “What do you mean?”

“He’s dangerous. Have you forgotten our discussion?”

Alek’s mind processed the words, and a chill cut through the warm air of the officers’ baths. In the last two days he’d forgotten to worry about Tesla and his city-destroying weapon, or Volger’s plan to stop him. The possibility of murdering the inventor had never seemed quite real, but the look on the wildcount’s face was deadly serious.

Bovril shifted nervously on the windowsill.

“So you’re on your way to kill a man, and thought you’d stop by and ask for help?”

“I didn’t want to involve you in this, Alek. But we have to know if Tesla is leaving the ship today. He has refused to meet with me, but he’ll talk to you.” Volger’s face showed a hint of a smile. “You
are
all in the newspapers.”

Alek only glared, though the man was right. In the navigation room Tesla had been excited to meet him—the famous prince. And an invitation to dinner had been slipped under Alek’s stateroom door yesterday morning. He had ignored it, of course.

“You want me to find out if he’s staying on board.”

“If you please, Prince.”

“And what if he’s about to leave? Will you and Klopp gut him on the gangplank?”

“Neither Klopp nor I will be anywhere near the spot. Nor shall you.”

“Gut him on the gangplank,” Bovril said gravely.

Alek swore. “Have you gone mad? If Bauer and Hoffman murder someone on this ship, the Darwinists will know who ordered it!”

“I may not have to order anything.” The wildcount gestured toward the door. “But it’s up to you to find out.”

“And you waited until
now
to tell me?” Alek spat, but Volger’s cold smile didn’t shift. The man had picked this moment on purpose, when Alek wouldn’t have time to argue. “What if I just stand here?”

“Then Hoffman and Bauer will follow their orders. They’re already in place.”

Alek lifted Bovril from the windowsill and put the beast on his shoulder. He took a step toward the door, ready to find his men and tell them to stand down. But where were they lying in wait? And worse, what if they ignored his commands? Now that they were all back aboard the
Leviathan
, Volger was in charge again.

Alek’s two days of sulking had made certain of that.

“Damn you, Volger. You shouldn’t concoct plans without me. And you shouldn’t keep secrets from me either!”

“Ah.” For a moment the man looked genuinely sorrowful. “That was regrettable. But I did warn you not to make friends with a commoner.”

“Yes, but you left out something rather
important
. Did you really think I was too fragile to know what Deryn was?”

“Fragile?” Volger looked about. “I hadn’t thought so, but now I find you brooding in a bathroom. This doesn’t speak well of your sturdiness.”

“I haven’t been brooding! I’ve been exploring the ship.”

“Exploring? And what have you discovered, Your Serene Highness?”

Alek turned back to the window, feeling a fresh wave of emptiness in his gut.

“That I can’t trust anyone, and that no one has any faith in me. That my best friend was . . . a fiction.”

“Brooding,” Bovril said.

Count Volger was silent. Alek almost added that his suspicion was that Deryn Sharp was in love with him, but he didn’t want to see the scorn on Volger’s face.

“I’ve been a fool,” he finally said.

Volger shook his head. “But hardly a singular fool. That girl has tricked her officers and crewmates for months, and has been decorated in the line of duty. She even fooled me for some time. In her way, she’s quite impressive.”

“You admire her, Count?”

“As one does a bear riding a bicycle. One sees it so rarely.”

Alek shook his head. “And along with your admiration, you decided to blackmail her.”

“I needed her help to get off this ship. I thought I could prevent you from joining in that pointless revolution and getting yourself killed.” The annoyance in Volger’s voice faded a bit. “Of course, who knows? We may have need of her help again.”

“Are you saying I should stay friends with her?”

“Of course not. I’m saying that we can still blackmail her.”

“Get stuffed,” Alek said, and suddenly he had to get out of the steam and heat. He strode toward the door, halting with one hand tight around the knob. “I’m going to Tesla’s cabin. If he intends to disembark today, I shall call the ship’s marines to escort him off in safety.”

“It’s your right to betray us, of course.” Volger bowed. “We are at your disposal.”

“I won’t betray you aloud, Volger, but the captain might draw unfortunate conclusions. Unless you promise me right now that—”

“I can’t, Alek. Tesla’s claims may be madness, but it isn’t worth the risk. Two million of your people live in Vienna, and that’s probably only the first city on his list. You saw what his machine can do.”

Alek pulled the door open. He didn’t have time for this argument, and he couldn’t let a man be killed over some imaginary threat. He had to stop this now. But he found himself pausing to say one more thing.

“If you threaten Deryn Sharp again, Volger—in any way at all—I’m done with you.”

The man only bowed again, and Alek left, slamming the door behind him.

Mr. Tesla was still in his stateroom, but a leather suitcase lay on the bed. One of the Russians was packing while Tesla worked at the laboratory bench. The electrikal walking stick lay before him, partly disassembled.

Alek knocked on the open door. “Excuse me, Mr. Tesla?”

The man looked up with irritation on his face, then brightened. “Prince Aleksandar. You appear at last!”

Alek returned the bow. “I apologize for not answering your note. I’ve been indisposed.”