Alek turned to Mr. Hirst. “I leave you to it, sir.”
The man nodded a bit stiffly. He’d never apologized for shooting Alek, and none of the officers had ever admitted that Klopp had saved the ship. But as they’d started work that morning, Hirst had quietly turned out his pockets, showing that he wasn’t carrying a pistol anymore.
That was something, at least.
Alek found Volger waiting for him on the gondola’s main staircase.
It was strange to see the wildcount’s riding clothes spotted with oil, his hair tangled by propeller wash. In fact, Alek hadn’t seen Volger since the battle. They’d both been working on the engines every waking moment since Alek’s release.
“Ah, Your Highness,” the wildcount said, offering a halfhearted bow. “I was wondering if you’d been summoned too.”
“I go where the lizards tell me.”
Volger didn’t smile, just turned and started down the stairs. “Beastly creatures. The captain must have important news, to let us see the bridge at last.”
“Perhaps he wants to thank us.”
“I suspect it’s something less agreeable,” Volger said. “Something he didn’t want us to know until after we got his engines working again.”
Alek frowned. As usual the wildcount was making sense, if only in a suspicious way. Living among the godless creatures of the Leviathan hadn’t improved his disposition.
“You don’t trust the Darwinists much, do you?” Alek said.
“Nor should you.” Volger came to a halt, looking up and down the corridors. He waited until a pair of crewmen had passed, then pulled Alek farther down the stairway. A moment later they were on the lowest deck of the gondola, in a dark corridor lit only by the ship’s glowworms.
“The ship’s storerooms are almost empty,” Volger said quietly. “They don’t even guard them anymore.”
Alek smiled. “You’ve been sneaking about, haven’t you?”
“When I’m not adjusting gears like a common mechanik. But we must speak quickly. They’ve caught me here once already.”
“So, what did you think of my message?” Alek asked. “Those ironclads are headed for Constantinople, aren’t they?”
“You told them who you were,” Count Volger said.
Alek froze for a moment as the words sank in. Then he blinked and turned away, his eyes stinging with shame and frustration. It felt like being a boy again, when Volger had landed hits with his saber at will.
He cleared his throat, reminding himself that the wildcount was no longer his tutor. “Dr. Barlow told you, didn’t she? To show that she has something over us.”
“Not a bad guess. But it was simpler than that—Dylan let it slip.”
“Dylan?” Alek shook his head.
“He didn’t realize you kept secrets from me.”
“I don’t keep any …,” Alek began, but it was pointless arguing.
“Have you gone mad?” Volger whispered. “You’re the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. Why would you tell our enemies that?”
“Dylan and Dr. Barlow aren’t enemies,” Alek said firmly, looking Count Volger full in the eye. “And they don’t know I’m the legal heir to the throne. Nobody knows about the pope’s letter but you and me.”
“Well, thank heaven for that.”
“And I didn’t tell them, not really. Dr. Barlow guessed who my parents were, quite on her own.” Alek looked away again. “But I’m sorry. I should have told you they knew.”
“No. You should have never admitted anything, whatever they’d guessed! That boy Dylan is completely guileless—incapable of keeping a secret. You may think he’s your friend, but he’s just a peasant. And you’ve put your future in his hands!”
Alek shook his head. Dylan might be a commoner, but he was a friend. He’d already risked his life to keep Alek’s identity a secret.
“Think for a moment, Volger. Dylan let it slip to you, not to one of the ship’s officers. We can trust him.”
The man stepped closer in the darkness, his voice hardly above a whisper. “I hope you’re right, Alek. Otherwise the captain is about to tell us that his new engines will be taking us back to Britain, where they’ll have a cage waiting for you. Do you think being the Darwinists’ pet monarch will be agreeable?”
Alek didn’t answer for a moment, replaying all of Dylan’s earnest promises in his mind. Then he turned away and started up the stairs.
“He hasn’t betrayed us. You’ll see.”
The bridge was much larger than Alek had imagined.
It took up the entire width of the gondola, curving with the gentle half circle of the airship’s prow. The afternoon sun streamed through windows that stretched almost to the ceiling. Alek stepped closer to one—the glass leaned gently outward, allowing him to peer straight down at the dazzling water slipping past.
Reflected in the window, a dozen message lizard tubes coiled along the ceiling; others sprouted from the floor like shiny brass mushrooms. Levers and control panels lined the walls, and carrier birds fluttered in the cages hanging in one corner. Alek closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the buzz and chatter of men and animals.
Volger gently pulled his arm. “We’re here to parley, not to gawk.”
Setting a serious expression on his face, Alek followed Volger. But still he watched and listened to everything around him. No matter what the captain’s news turned out to be, he wanted to soak in every detail of this place.
At the front of the bridge was the master wheel, like an old sailing ship’s, carved in the Darwinists’ sinuous style. Captain Hobbes turned from it to greet them, a smile on his face.
“Ah, gentlemen. Thank you for coming.”
Alek followed Volger’s lead and offered the captain a shallow bow, one suited for a minor nobleman of uncertain importance.
“To what do we owe the pleasure?” Volger asked.
“We’re under way again,” Captain Hobbes said. “I wanted to thank you personally for that.”
“We’re glad to help,” Alek said, hoping that for once Count Volger’s suspicions had proven overblown.
“But I also have bad news,” the captain continued. “I’ve just received word that Britain and Austria-Hungary are officially at war.” He cleared his throat. “Most regrettable.”
Alek drew in a slow breath, wondering how long the captain had known. Had he waited until the engines were fixed to tell them? Then Alek realized that he and Volger were smeared with grease, dressed like tradesmen, while Captain Hobbes preened in his crisp blue uniform. Suddenly he hated the man.
“This changes nothing,” Volger said. “We’re not soldiers, after all.”
“Really?” The captain frowned. “But judging by their uniforms, your men are members of the Hapsburg Guard, are they not?”
“Not since we left Austria,” Alek said. “As I told you, we had to flee for political reasons.”
The captain shrugged. “Deserters are still soldiers.”
Alek bridled. “My men are hardly—”
“Are you saying we’re prisoners of war?” Volger interrupted. “If so, we shall collect our men from the engine pods and retire to the brig.”
“Don’t be hasty, gentlemen.” Captain Hobbes raised his hands. “I merely wanted to give you the bad news, and to beg your indulgence. This puts me in an awkward situation, you must understand.”
“We find it … awkward too.”
“Of course,” the captain said, ignoring Alek’s tone. “I would prefer to reach some arrangement. But try to understand my position. You’ve never told me exactly who you are. Now that our countries are at war, that makes your status rather complicated.”
The man waited expectantly, and Alek looked at Volger.
“I suppose it does,” the wildcount said. “But we still prefer not to identify ourselves.”
Captain Hobbes sighed. “Then I shall have to turn to the Admiralty for orders.”
“Do let us know what they say,” Count Volger said
simply.
“Of course.” The captain touched his hat and turned back to the wheel. “Good day, gentlemen.”
While Volger bowed again, Alek turned stiffly about and walked away, still angry at the man’s impertinence. But as he headed back toward the hatchway, he found himself slowing a little, just to listen for a few more seconds to the thrum of the airship at its heart.
There were worse prisons in the world than this.
“You know what his orders from the Admiralty will be,” Volger muttered out in the corridor.
“To lock us up,” Alek said. “As soon as he can do without our help.”
“Exactly. It’s time to start planning our escape.”
EIGHT
That night in the machine room, Alek stared at the eggs, his mind drifting.
They were such insignificant-looking objects, but this giant, marvelous airship had fought its way across Europe to bring them here. What was inside them? What sort of godless creature could keep the Ottomans from joining the war?
The heaters packed around the eggs glimmered softly, and in the ship’s quiet, Alek felt sleep creeping up on him. He stood and shook himself awake.
It was just after three a.m., time to get started.
As he pulled off his boots, a twinge crept down his side. But the pain in his rib cage was only a dull ache. Nothing that would trouble him tonight.
It had taken an hour of arguing to make Count Volger see the logic of this plan. Klopp was still under guard, Bauer and Hoffman were busy with the engines, and Volger had already been caught skulking below. It was up to Alek to find their avenue of escape.
He pressed an ear against the machine room door, holding his breath.
Nothing.
He turned the latch and pushed it slowly open. The electrikal lamps were dark. Only the glimmer of glowworms lit the corridors, a green radiance as faint as starlight. Alek stepped into the hall, dead silent in his stocking feet, and eased the door shut behind him.
He waited for a moment to let his eyes adjust, then started for the stairs. There had to be an escape hatch somewhere, a way for the crew to abandon ship by rope or parachute. The lowest deck of the gondola was the logical place to look for it.
Though, where they would find five parachutes—or a few hundred meters of rope—was beyond Alek. They would have to escape when the ship was grounded in Constantinople, then buy their way to safety with the last bar of his father’s gold.
The stairs made no complaints beneath his weight. The Darwinists’ wood came from fabricated trees, and was lighter than natural wood and stronger than steel. The airship didn’t groan and creak like a sailing ship, but felt as still as a stone castle. The distant, rumbling engines were reduced to the barest trembling under his feet.
Alek slipped past the central deck of the gondola quickly. At night a guard stood at the door to the bridge, two more were stationed at the armory, and the ship’s cooks were always in the galley before dawn. But after the ship’s five days on the glacier, the lower cargo holds and storerooms lay empty and unguarded.
Halfway down the last flight of stairs, a sound froze Alek in his tracks.
Was it a crewman walking past on the upper deck? Or someone behind him?
He turned and looked back up the stairs—nothing.
Alek wondered if airships had rats. Even metal land dreadnoughts could be infested. Or did the six-legged sniffer dogs hunt for pests as well as leaks?
He shuddered and kept moving.
At the bottom of the stairs, the deck was chill beneath Alek’s feet. The night air was coursing past just below, thin and close to freezing at this altitude.
The corridors were wider down here, with two rails set in the floor for cargo trolleys. On either side lay open storerooms. They were shrouded in darkness, the glowworms reduced to a few green squiggles on the walls.
The sound came again—the scrape of boots on wood. There was someone behind him!
His heart racing, Alek walked faster toward the bow. A few half-empty feed sacks sat in the shadows, but there was no good place to hide.
The corridor ended at a closed doorway. Alek turned and saw a silhouette moving behind him. For a split second he considered giving himself up and pretending he’d gotten lost. But Volger had already been caught down here …
Alek pushed his way through the door and shut it behind himself.
The room was pitch-black, and a heavy smell hung in the air, like old straw. He stood there in the darkness, breathing hard. It felt small and crowded in here, but the click of the closing door seemed to echo for a moment.
Alek thought he heard mutterings. Was this a bunk room full of sleeping airmen?
He waited for his eyes to adjust to the blackness, willing his heart to stop pounding in his ears.…
Someone, or something, was breathing in here.
For an awful moment Alek wondered if there were creatures aboard the Leviathan that Dylan hadn’t told him about. Monsters, perhaps. He remembered his military toys, and the Darwinist fighting creatures fabricated from the life threads of extinct and giant reptiles.
“Um, hello?” he whispered.
“Hello?” someone answered.
Alek swallowed. “Oh, I seem to have gotten lost. I’m sorry.”
“Gotten lost?” came the reply. The words sounded hesitant, and there was something eerily familiar about the voice.
“Yes. I’ll just be going.” Alek turned back to the doorway and felt blindly for the knob. The metal squeaked a little as he turned it, and he froze.
Suddenly the room was full of tiny screeches and complaints.
“I’m sorry,” a voice said. Then another whispered, “Hello?”
The murmurs increased, building in intensity. The room felt no bigger than a closet, but it sounded as though a dozen men were waking up around him. They muttered half-formed words, in a nervous and agitated babble.
Was this the airship’s madhouse?
Yanking open the door, Alek banged it into his bare foot. He yelped with pain, and a symphony of angry voices answered. More cries filled the darkness, as though a brawl were breaking out!
Through the half-open door a green face stared back at him.
“Barking spiders! What are you doing?” the intruder said.
“Spiders! Barking spiders!” came a dozen cries from every direction.
Alek opened his mouth to scream, but then a low whistling sound floated through the room. The cacophony instantly went silent.
A glowworm lantern lifted in front of Alek’s face. In its green light he made out Dylan squinting back at him, a command whistle in one hand.
“I reckoned it was you,” the boy whispered.
“But … but who are these—”
“Shush, you ninny. Don’t get the beasties started again.” Dylan pushed him backward and slipped into the room, closing the door behind them. “We’ll be lucky if the navigators haven’t heard this ruckus already.”
Alek blinked, and in the light of the wormlamp finally saw the stacks of cages climbing the walls. They were full of message lizards, crowded together like puppies in a pet store.
“What is this place?” he breathed.
“It’s the barking lizard room, isn’t it?” Dylan whispered. “It’s where Dr. Erasmus takes care of the beasties.”
Alek swallowed, his eyes falling on a table where a dissected lizard lay pinned. Then he saw that the ceiling was covered with the gaping mouths of message tubes, tangled like railroad tracks at a station. “And it’s a sort of junction, too, isn’t it?”
“Aye. Dr. Erasmus is in charge of all that palaver—origin and destination tags, emergency alerts, clearing up traffic jams.”
Alek stared at the dozens of tiny eyes peering at him, all glowing with wormlight. “I had no idea it was so … complicated.”
“How did you think the beasties always found you? By magic?” Dylan snorted. “It’s a tricky job, even for a boffin, especially with half the lizards still dizzy from
that Clanker lightning. Look at the poor things, and here’s you riling them up!”
A few of the lizards started to murmur, repeating Dylan’s words. But when he blew another soft, low note on his command whistle, they settled again.
Alek looked at Dylan. “You didn’t just happen along, did you?”
“No. I couldn’t sleep. And you know how Dr. Barlow doesn’t want us bothering each other on egg duty? Well, I thought if I dropped by now, she wouldn’t be about.”
“But I wasn’t there,” Alek said.
Dylan nodded. “And that was a wee bit odd. So I thought I’d sniff around and see what you were up to.”
“Didn’t take you long to find me, did it?”
“The beasties’ ruckus helped, but I reckoned you’d be down here in the storerooms.” Dylan leaned closer. “You’re looking for a way to escape, aren’t you?”
Alek felt his jaw clench. “Am I that obvious?”
“No. I’m just dead clever,” the boy said. “Have you not noticed?”
Alek took a moment to think about this, then smiled. “I have.”
“Good.” Dylan took a step past him and knelt at a small hatch on the opposite side of the room. “Come through here, then, before we start the beasties yammering again.”
NINE
Dylan went first through the hatchway, climbing down a few rungs mounted on the slanted wall.
Alek passed the wormlamp down, spilling light into the small spherical chamber. He’d seen this place from outside the airship: a round bulge in the gondola’s underbelly. The space was crowded by what looked like a mismatched pair of telescopes pointed down at the sea.
“Is that a weapon?” he asked.
“No. The fat one is a reconnaissance camera,” Dylan said. “And the wee one’s a sight for aerial bombs and navigation. But they’re useless at night, so it’ll be private enough.”
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