“Just listening, sir,” she answered. The older officers said the hum of the membrane could tell you everything about an airship. The Leviathan’s skin vibrated with the thrumming of the engines, the shufflings of ballast lizards inside, even the voices of the crew around her.
“Dawdling, you mean,” the bosun shouted. “This is a combat drill! Get climbing, Mr. Sharp!”
“Yes, sir!” she replied, though there wasn’t much point in rushing. The other five middies were still behind her. They were the ones dawdling, pausing to clip their safety harnesses to the ratlines every few feet. Deryn climbed free, like the older riggers, except when she was swinging from the airbeast’s underside—
Ventral side, she corrected herself—the opposite of dorsal. The Air Service hated regular English. Walls were “bulkheads,” the dining room was a “mess,” and climbing ropes were “ratlines.” The Service even had different words for “left” and “right,” which seemed to be going a bit far.
Deryn hooked the heel of her boot into the ratlines and pushed herself up again, the feed bag heavy across her shoulder, sweat running down her back. Her arms weren’t as strong as the other middies’, but she’d learned to climb with her legs. And maybe she had been resting, just a squick.
A message lizard scampered past her, its sucker-feet tugging at the membrane like fingers caught in taffy. It didn’t stop to squawk orders at the lowly midshipmen, but flitted past on its way up to the spine. The whole ship was on combat alert, the ratlines swaying with scuttling crew, the night air full of fabricated birds.
In the distance Deryn could make out lights against the dark sea. The H.M.S. Gorgon was a Royal Navy ship, a kraken tender that had tonight’s practice target in tow.
Mr. Rigby must have seen it too, because he shouted, “Keep moving, you sods! The bats are waiting for their breakfast!”
Deryn gritted her teeth, reached for the next rope—that’s a ratline, you sod!—and pulled as hard as she could.
The middy’s test, of course, had been easy.
Service regulations said the test was supposed to be taken on the ground, but Deryn had begged shamelessly, in order to become a temporary middy on the ship. Her third day aboard the Leviathan, the ship’s officers had relented. With the towers of Paris drifting past the windows, she’d blazed through a few sextant readings, a dozen strings of signal flags to decode, and map reading exercises that Da had taught her ages ago. Even the sour-faced bosun, Mr. Rigby, had shown a glimmer of admiration.
Since the test, though, Deryn’s smugness had faded a bit. It turned out she didn’t know everything about airships. Not yet, anyway.
Every day the bosun called the Leviathan’s young middies to the ship’s wardroom for a lecture. Mostly it was airmanship: navigation, fuel consumption, weather predicting, and endless knots and command whistle tunes to learn. They’d sketched the airship’s anatomy so often that Deryn knew its innards as well as she knew the streets of Glasgow. On lucky days it was military history: the battles of Nelson, the theories of Fisher, the tactics of airbeast against surface ships and land forces. Some days they played out tabletop battles against the lifeless zeppelins and aeroplanes of the kaiser.
But Deryn’s favorite lectures were when the boffins explained natural philosophy. How old Darwin had figured out how to weave new species from the old, pulling out the tiny threads of life and tangling them together under a microscope. How evolution had squeezed a copy of Deryn’s own life chain into every cell of her body. How umpteen different beasties made up the Leviathan—from the microscopic hydrogen-farting bacteria in its belly to the great harnessed whale. How the airship’s creatures, like the rest of Nature, were always struggling among themselves in messy, snarling equilibrium.
The bosun’s lectures were merely a fraction of what she had to cram into her attic. Every time another airship flew past, the middies scrambled to the signals deck to read the messages strung on distant fluttering flags. Six words a minute without error, or you were in for long hours of duty in the gastric regions. Every hour they ran drills to check the Leviathan’s altitude, firing an air gun and timing the echo from the sea, or dropping a glowing bottle of phosphorescent algae and timing how long till it shattered. Deryn had learned to reckon in a squick how many seconds an object took to plummet any distance from a hundred feet to two miles.
But the strangest thing was doing it all as a boy.
Jaspert had been right: Her diddies weren’t the tricky part. Water was heavy, so bathing on an airship was done quick with rags and a pail. And the toilets aboard the Leviathan (“heads” in Service-speak) were in the dark gastric channel, which carried off clart to turn it into ballast and hydrogen. So hiding her body was easy…. It was her brain she’d had to shift.
Deryn had always reckoned herself a tomboy, between Jaspert’s bullying and Da’s balloon training. But running with the other middies was more than just punch-ups and tying knots—it was like joining a pack of dogs. They jostled and banged for the best seats at the middies’ mess table. They taunted each other over signal reading and navigation scores, and whom the officers had complimented that day. They endlessly competed to see who could spit farther, drink rum faster, or belch the loudest.
It was bloody exhausting, being a boy.
Not that all of it was bad. Her airman’s uniform was miles better than any girl’s clothes. The boots clomped gloriously as she stormed to signals practice or firefighting drills, and the jacket had a dozen pockets, including special compartments for her command whistle and rigging knife. And Deryn didn’t mind the constant practice in useful skills like knife throwing, swearing, and not showing pain when punched.
But how did boys keep this up their whole barking lives?
Deryn eased the feed bag from her sore shoulders. For once she’d reached the airship’s spine ahead of the others, and could take a moment’s rest.
“Dawdling again, Mr. Sharp?” a voice called.
Deryn turned to see Midshipman Newkirk climbing into view over the curve of the Leviathan, his rubber-soled shoes squeaking. There were no waving cilia up here, just hard dorsal scales for mounting winches and guns.
She called back, “Just waiting for you to catch up, Mr. Newkirk.”
It always felt odd calling the other boys “mister.” Newkirk still had plooks on his face and hardly knew how to tie his necktie. But middies were supposed to put on airs like proper officers.
When he reached the spine, Newkirk dropped his feed bag and grinned. “Mr. Rigby’s still miles back.”
“Aye,” Deryn said. “He can’t call us dawdlers now.”
They stood there for a moment, panting and taking in the view.
The topside of the airbeast was alive with activity. The ratlines flickered with electric torches and glowworms, and Deryn felt the membrane tremble from distant footsteps. She closed her eyes, trying to feel the airship’s totality, its hundred species tangling to make one vast organism.
“Barking brilliant up here,” Newkirk murmured.
Deryn nodded. These last two weeks she’d volunteered for open-air duty whenever possible. Being dorsal was real flying—the wind in her face, and sky in all directions—as prized as her hours up in Da’s balloons.
A squad of duty riggers rushed by, two hydrogen sniffers straining on their leashes as they searched for leaks in the membrane. One snuffled Newkirk’s hand as it passed, and he let out a squeak.
The riggers laughed, and Deryn joined in.
“Shall I call a medic, Mr. Newkirk?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he snapped, staring at his hand suspiciously. Newkirk’s mum was a Monkey Luddite, and he’d inherited a nervous stomach for fabrications. Why he’d volunteered to serve on a mad bestiary like the Leviathan was a flat-out mystery. “I just don’t like those six-legged beasties.”
“They’re nothing to be scared of, Mr. Newkirk.”
“Get stuffed, Mr. Sharp,” he muttered, hoisting his feed bag. “Come on. Rigby’s right behind
us now.”
Deryn groaned. Her aching muscles could’ve done with another minute’s rest. But she’d laughed at Newkirk, so the endless competition was on again. She hoisted her feed bag and followed him toward the bow.
Barking hard work, being a boy.
As Deryn and Newkirk neared the bow, the bats grew louder, their echolocation chirps rattling like hail on a tin roof.
The other middies were just behind, Mr. Rigby in their midst, urging them to hurry. The bats’ feeding had to be timed precisely with the fléchette strike.
Suddenly a shrieking mass of havoc swept out of the darkness—an aerie of strafing hawks, aeroplane nets glimmering in the dark. Newkirk let out a startled cry, his feet tangling together. He tumbled down the slope of the air-beast’s flank, his rubber soles squeaking along the membrane. Finally he came to a halt.
Deryn dropped her bag and scuttled after him.
“Barking spiders!” Newkirk cried, his necktie more askew than usual. “Those godless birds attacked us!”
“They did no such thing,” Deryn said, offering him a hand up.
“Trouble keeping your feet, gentlemen?” Mr. Rigby called down from the spine. “Perhaps some light on the subject.”
He pulled out his command whistle and piped out a few notes, high and raw. As the sound trembled through the membrane, glowworms woke up underfoot. They snaked along just beneath the airbeast’s skin, giving off enough pale green light for the crew to see their footing, but not so much that enemy aircraft could spot the Leviathan in the sky.
Still, combat drills were supposed to be conducted in darkness. It was a bit embarrassing to need the worms just to walk.
Newkirk looked down, shuddering a little. “Don’t like those beasties either.”
“You don’t like any beasties,” Deryn said.
“Aye, but the crawly ones are the worst.”
Deryn and Newkirk climbed back up, now behind the other middies. But the bow was within sight, the bats covering it like iron filings on a magnet. The chirping came from all directions.
“They sound hungry, gentlemen,” Mr. Rigby warned. “Be sure they don’t take a bite of you!”
Newkirk made a nervous face, and Deryn elbowed him. “Don’t be daft. Fléchette bats only eat insects and fruit.”
“Aye, and metal spikes,” he muttered. “That’s barking unnatural.”
“Only what they’re designed to do, Newkirk,” Mr. Rigby called. Though human life chains were off-limits for fabrication, the middies often conjectured that the bosun’s ears were fabricated. He could hear a discontented murmur in a Force 10 gale.
The bats grew noisier at the sight of the feed bags, jostling for position on the sloping half sphere of the bow. The middies clipped their safety lines together and spread out across the swell of the ship, feed bags at the ready.
“Let’s get started, gentlemen,” Mr. Rigby shouted. “Throw hard and spread it out!”
Deryn opened her bag and plunged a hand in. Her fingers closed on dried figs, each with a small metal fléchette driven through the center. As she threw, a wave of bats lifted, wings fluttering as fights broke out over the food.
“Don’t like these birds,” Newkirk muttered.
“They ain’t birds, you ninny,” Deryn said.
“What else would they be?”
Deryn groaned. “Bats are mammals. Like horses, or you and me.”
“Flying mammals!” Newkirk shook his head. “What’ll those boffins think of next?”
Deryn rolled her eyes and tossed another handful of food. Newkirk had a habit of sleeping through natural philosophy lectures.
Still, she had to admit it was barking strange, seeing the bats eat those cruel metal fléchettes. But it never seemed to hurt them.
“Make sure they all get some!” Mr. Rigby shouted.
“Aye, it’s just like feeding ducks when I was wee,” Deryn muttered. “Could never get any bread to the little ones.”
She threw harder, but no matter where the figs fell, the bullies always had their way. Survival of the meanest was one thing the boffins couldn’t breed out of their creations.
“That’s enough!” Mr. Rigby finally shouted. “Over-stuffed bats are no good to us!” He turned to face the midshipmen. “And now I’ve got a little surprise for you sods. Anyone object to staying dorsal?”
The middies let out a cheer. Usually they climbed back down to the gondolas for combat drills. But nothing beat seeing a fléchette strike from topside.
The H.M.S. Gorgon was within range now, pulling a target ship behind. The target was an aging schooner that carried no lights, but her sails were a white flutter against the dark sea. The Gorgon cut her loose and steamed to safety a mile away. Then sent up a signal flare to show that she was ready to start.
“Out of my way, lads,” came a voice from behind them. It was Dr. Busk, the Leviathan’s surgeon and head boffin. In his hand was a compressed air pistol, the only sidearm allowed on a hydrogen breather. He waded in among the bats, their black forms skittering away from his boots.
“Come on!” Deryn grabbed Newkirk’s arm and scuttled down the slope of the airbeast’s flank for a better view.
“Try not to fall off, gentlemen,” Mr. Rigby called.
Deryn ignored him, heading all the way down into the ratlines. It was the bosun’s job to take care of middies, but Rigby seemed to think he was their mum.
A message lizard scrambled past Deryn and presented itself to the head boffin.
“You may begin your attack, Dr. Busk,” it said in the captain’s voice.
Busk nodded—like people always did to message lizards, though it was pointless—and raised his gun.
Deryn hooked an elbow through the ratlines. “Cover your ears, Mr. Newkirk.”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
The pistol exploded with a crack—the membrane shuddering beside Deryn—and the startled bats rose into the air like a vast black sheet rippling in the wind. They swirled madly, a storm of wings and bright eyes. Newkirk cowered beside her, pulling himself closer to the flank.
“Don’t be a ninny,” she said. “They’re not ready to loose those spikes yet.”
“Well, I’d hope not!”
A moment later a searchlight beneath the main gondola flicked on, its beam lancing out across the darkness. The bats headed straight into the light, the blended life threads of moth and mosquito guiding them as true as a compass.
The searchlight filled with their small fluttering forms, like a shaft of sun swirling with dust. Then the beam began to swing from side to side, the horde of bats faithfully tracking it across the sky. They spilled out along its length, closer and closer to the target fluttering on the waves.
The swing of the searchlight was perfectly timed, bringing the great swarm of bats directly over the schooner…
…and suddenly the light turned blood red.
Deryn heard the shrieks of the bats, the sound reaching her ears above the engines and war cries of the Leviathan’s crew. Fléchette bats were mortally afraid of the color red—it scared the deadly clart right out of them.
As the spikes fell, the horde began to scatter, exploding into a dozen smaller clouds, the bats swarming back toward their nests aboard the Leviathan. At the same time the searchlight dipped toward the target.
The fléchettes were still falling. In their thousands, they shimmered like a metal rain in the crimson spotlight, cutting the schooner’s sails to ribbons. Even at this distance Deryn could see the wood of the deck splintering, the masts leaning as their stays and shrouds were sliced through.
“Hah!” Newkirk shouted. “A few like that should teach the Germans a lesson!”
Deryn frowned, imagining for a moment that there were crewmen on that ship. Not a pretty picture. Even an ironclad would lose its deck guns and signal flags, and an army in the field would be savaged by the falling spikes.
“Is that why you signed up?” she asked. “Because you hate Germans more than fabricated beasties?”
“No,” he said. “The Service was my mum’s idea.”
“But isn’t she a Monkey Luddite?”
“Aye, she thinks fabs are all godless. But she heard somewhere that the air was the safest place in a war.” He pointed at the shredded ship. “Not as dangerous as down there.”
“That’s certain enough,” Deryn said, patting the airship’s humming skin. “Hey, look…now we’re going to get a show!”
The kraken tender was going to work.
Two spotlights stretched out from the Gorgon, flicking through signal colors as they swept across the water, calling up their beast. When the lights reached the schooner, they shifted to a dazzling white, illuminating the damage
“A KRAKEN FINISHES THE JOB.”
the Leviathan’s bats had done. Hardly anything was left of the sails, and the rigging looked like a tangle of chewed-up shoelaces. The deck was covered with splinters and glittering spikes.
“Blisters!” Newkirk cried. “Look what we…”
His voice faded as the first arm of the beast rose from the water.
The huge tentacle swept through the air, a sheet of seawater spilling like rain from its length. The Royal Navy kraken was another of Huxley’s fabrications, Deryn had read, made from the life chains of the octopus and giant squid. Its arm uncoiled like a vast, slow whip in the spotlights.
Taking its time, the tentacle curled around the schooner, its suckers clamping tight against the hull. Then it was joined by another arm, and each took one end of the ship. The vessel snapped between them, the awful sound of tearing wood bouncing across the black water to Deryn’s ears.
More tentacles uncoiled from the water, wrapping around the ship. Finally the kraken’s head rose into view, one huge eye gazing up at the Leviathan for a moment before the beastie pulled the schooner beneath the waves.
Soon nothing but flotsam remained above the waves. The guns of the Gorgon roared in salute.
“Hmph,” Newkirk said. “I suppose that’s the ocean navy having the final word. Bum-rags.”
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