Goliath

Page 36

Alek sighed, adjusting his necktie in the reflection of the window glass. "You have a bad habit of listing everything that can possibly go wrong, Volger."
"I have always considered that a good habit."
Alek ignored this, staring at himself. It was refreshing to have proper clothes again. Mr. Hearst might have sabotaged the Leviathan, but at least he'd thrown a few decent dinner jackets into the bargain.
The floor shifted a bit beneath Alek's feet - the airship was turning north again. He leaned closer to the window and saw Manhattan ahead. A cluster of buildings erupted from the island's southern tip, some of them almost two hundred meters tall, as high as the steel towers of Berlin.
Alek imagined the dark sky above them bursting into flame, the buildings' glowing windows shattering, their metal frames twisting.
"Tesla will use his machine if he needs to, whether I stand with him or not."
"Exactly," Volger said. "So why not step aside? Is mass murder what you want to be remembered for, Your Serene Highness?"
"Of course not. But a chance of peace is more important to me than my reputation."
Volger let out a low hissing sigh. "Perhaps that's a good thing."
"What do you mean?"
"Dr. Barlow also mentioned Dylan to me - or rather, Deryn. It seems the doctor knows the girl's secret now."
"Deryn must have told her. The truth is coming out tomorrow at any rate, so it hardly matters now."
"Dr. Barlow seems to think it does. She says that the captain and this ship will be humiliated, the Admiralty outraged. And more important, your friend will become a point of German propaganda. The proud British Empire sending fifteen-year-old girls to fight their battles? Quite embarrassing."
"Deryn is hardly an embarrassment."
"They will make her into one. You would do well to keep your name out of the scandal. Tesla will thank you for it."
Alek set his jaw and didn't answer, watching the city draw nearer. From a thousand feet up he could see a grid of streets traced out in the glowing dots of electrikal gas lamps. The piers were thronging with people gathered to watch the great airship's approach.
Would everyone really turn on Deryn, once they knew? Perhaps the officers of the Leviathan, and of course the Admiralty. But surely lots of women would understand why she'd done it.
Of course, women couldn't vote.
The Klaxon rang in a long-short pattern, the signal for high-altitude docking. Volger pulled on his cavalry jacket, then held out an overcoat for Alek, gleaming dark sable from among Mr. Hearst's many gifts.
Alek didn't move, staring into Bovril's large eyes.
"Are you worried about Deryn?" Volger asked.
"Of course. And also . . ." He couldn't finish.
"This won't be pleasant for her. But if you insist on helping Tesla, it's best your reputation intact for a bit longer."
Alek nodded, not saying the rest of what he'd realized. He and Volger were headed off into a whirlwind of diplomacy and publicity, while the Leviathan would be refueled at a proper airfield in New Jersey, leaving the country in only twenty-four hours. When would he see Deryn again?
They'd never said a proper good-bye. . . .
He closed his eyes, feeling the rumble of the engines, the faint tug of deceleration as the ship approached Manhattan.
"Let's go," he murmured; then he picked up Bovril and headed for the door.
"Might I have a few words, Your Highness?"
Alek turned. Miss Adela Rogers was dressed in a dark red winter coat; the fox around her shoulders was a fabricated pink. Its fur ruffled in the wind of the open cargo bay.
"A few more, you mean?" Alek asked. He had spent two hours with the woman the day before, recounting the Leviathan's rescue of Tesla in Siberia. He'd borrowed from Deryn's version, of course, given that Alek had slept through the whole thing.
"Our interview was delightful." Miss Rogers stepped closer, her voice lowering. "But I forgot to ask you one thing. How do you feel about the danger you're in?"
Alek frowned. "Danger?"
Miss Rogers's gaze drifted over Alek's shoulder. Among the others waiting in the cargo bay were four of the ship's marines. They were armed with rifles and cutlasses, and one had a hydrogen sniffer on a leash.
"As you can see, the captain is concerned," she said. "There are German agents in New York, after all."
"There were more in Istanbul," Alek said. "Not to mention Austria. I've managed so far."
She scribbled in her notepad. "Mmm, quite brave."
"Quite," Bovril said. "He can be as mad as he likes."
"Are those critters' sentences getting longer?" Miss Rogers asked.
Alek shrugged, though it was true.
The gears of the cargo door growled into motion, and as it opened, the wind began to swirl, bringing in the salt smell of the harbor. Alek pulled his coat tighter, and Bovril shivered on his shoulder.
Through the widening door Alek saw the air jitney approaching. Four small hot-air balloons glowed beneath the passenger platform, and three vertical propellers thrust out from its sides. The jitney was big enough for no more than a dozen passengers. Alek and Miss Rogers were headed ashore tonight with Mr. Tesla, Count Volger, Eddie Malone, Dr. Busk, Captain Hobbes, and four marines. Dr. Barlow had announced that she did not wish to be photographed with Tesla, and was waiting until the Leviathan landed in New Jersey before she disembarked.
The jitney slowed to a halt ten meters away, and its gangplank to unfold. The lifting propellers swayed a bit, their angles in lazy orbits, like juggler's plates spinning on sticks.
"I shall be glad to have my feet on solid ground," Miss Rogers said.
"I've been happy in the air," Alek replied, then saw her scribbling down his words, and resolved to remain silent.
The gangplank connected with the cargo bay with a clunk, and the riggers set to work binding it fast. Then, without ceremony or good-byes, the shore party hustled across to the jitney.
A moment later Alek was watching the Leviathan slip away.
The others crowded onto the far side of the platform, gawking at the Woolworth Building, the world's tallest, and the rest of Manhattan. But Alek stared back at the airship.
"Happy in the air," Bovril said.
Alek stroked its chin. "Sometimes you should be called the obvious loris."
As the beast had a chuckle at this, Alek felt the jitney lifting a bit beneath his feet, unbalanced by the scrum of passengers on the far side. The crew politely asked everyone to disperse their weight across the platform, and a moment later Alek found Eddie Malone at his side.
"Evening, Your Majesty. Nice and warm, thanks to these hot-air balloons, isn't it?"
Alek looked down. The burner of the balloon beneath him sent a ripple of heat up into the dark sky. Bovril was holding its hands out, like a soldier beside a campfire.
"Warm enough, Mr. Malone. But 'Your Majesty' is incorrect. 'Your Serene Highness' is proper. And if you're going to write about me, please remember that my last name isn't Ferdinand."
"It isn't?" The notebook was produced, its pages fluttering in the cold wind. "What is your last name, then?"
"Nobles don't have last names. Our titles define us."
"Well, that's one way to put it." A moment of scribbling later, the man spoke up again. "Perhaps you want to comment on Deryn Sharp?"
Alek hesitated. This was his chance to explain who Deryn really was. He could tell Malone, and the world, about her bravery and skill, about why she'd taken to the air. But he saw Volger eyeing him from across the platform.
"ARRIVING IN MANHATTAN."
Deryn's scandal could only distract from Tesla's mission here in New York. And if he spoke on the matter, the headlines about her would only loom larger.
"I have no comment," Alek said.
"That seems a bit odd, considering how closely you two worked together in Istanbul."
Alek turned away from the reporter. He hated this, not helping tell her story, but no one's reputation was more important than peace. Or was that just a convenient excuse? A way to escape being caught up in an embarrassing revelation? At first he'd been so ashamed for not knowing who and what she really was. But there was no shame at all in being a friend of Deryn Sharp. Maybe he should forget Volger's warnings, and explain to Malone how he really felt about Deryn.
Alek swallowed. And how did he feel about her, exactly?
Up in the sky the Leviathan was moving away, now only a silhouette against the starry blackness. When would he see his best friend again?
Alek heard the growl of an engine, and dropped his gaze to the harbor. The jitney was descending quickly, heading toward the aero-piers at Manhattan's southern tip. Some sort of motorboat was skimming across the dark water, darting among the other bobbing lights.
"And from what I heard back in Pancho Villa's canyon," Malone went on, "you sounded like you already knew what she was. How long ago did you guess?"
Alek frowned. The motorboat below had turned hard, and was skimming directly toward the jitney now. A sudden flash sparked on its deck, and a cloud of smoke billowed out, hiding the boat for a moment.
"I think that's some sort of . . . ," Alek began, his voice fading as something climbed from the smoke, spilling flame behind it.
"Rocket," Bovril said, and crawled inside Alek's coat.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Alek spun about, but no one else was looking. Even Malone was staring into his notebook.
"There's a rocket," he said, not nearly loud enough. Then he found his voice and shouted, "We're under attack!"
Heads turned toward him, as slow as tortoises', but finally a crewman spotted the rocket climbing toward them. Shouts carried across the platform, and one of the lifting engines roared to life. The craft slewed to one side, Alek's boots skidding beneath him.
The rocket was almost upon them, hissing like a steam train. Alek threw himself down onto the platform deck, sheltering Bovril beneath his body, as the missile roared past.
An explosion cracked the air above him and flung tendrils of flame down upon the jitney. An ember the size of a pumpkin bounced across the deck, hissing and spilling smoke. It knocked down a crewman, then rolled off the platform and hit one of the hot-air balloons. The thin envelope full of superheated air burst into flame.
Alek's eyes were forced shut by the heat rolling up from below. He covered his face and peered out between gloved fingers. As the crew and passengers fled from the fire, the jitney rolled with their weight, dropping to one side. But a moment later the envelope was consumed, the fire having burnt itself into a ghost in seconds.
With only three balloons left, the jitney began to tip again, but now in the opposite direction - toward the corner with no lift. The passengers staggered back that way, then one fell and slid, and Alek saw in a flash how this would end. As their weight gathered on the damaged corner of the jitney, the tilt would increase until the craft flipped over.
Tesla had realized it too. "Grab on to something!" the man cried, taking hold of the platform rail. "Stay in this side!"
Lying beside Alek, Eddie Malone began to slide away, but Alek seized the man's hand. Around them other passengers were slipping; some managed to take hold of the rail, some spread their weight flat across the deck. Bovril mewled inside Alek's coat, and Malone's hand squeezed his hard. Captain Hobbes was shouting orders at the jitney's crew.
The craft began to gyrate, like a leaf falling through the air. Buildings spun past, alternating with empty sky. Would they fall into the freezing water? Or crash into Manhattan's steel and marble towers?
The fall seemed to take forever - the three remaining balloons were still full and functioning, and the jitney was not much heavier than the air around it. Alek saw Captain Hobbes at one of the lifting engines, trying to control the ship's descent.