Behemoth

FOURTEEN

“There you are!” Count Volger called softly from the support strut of the engine pod. “We’d almost given up on you.”

Alek made his way along the ratlines, feeling the creature move inside his jacket. It was flexing its claws again, like tiny needles piercing his flesh.

“I had a small … problem.”

“Did someone see you?”

Alek shrugged. “A few crewmen on the way. But they didn’t ask where I was headed. You play a very convincing broken engine, Maestro Klopp.”

From down in the pod the master of mechaniks saluted, a broad smile on his face. Beside him was a very angry-looking Mr. Hirst, gagged and bound fast to the control panel.

“Then it’s time to get moving,” Volger said. “I trust you’re all ready for a fight, if it comes to that.”

Bauer and Hoffman brandished tools in their hands, and Volger was wearing his saber. But Alek could hardly wield a knife with the creature hiding under his coat. The time to tell them was now, not in the middle of the escape.

“There’s still my small problem.”

Volger frowned. “What are you talking about? What happened?”

“Just as I was leaving, one of Dr. Barlow’s eggs hatched. Some sort of beast came out. Quite a loud one. When I tried to leave, it began to howl, like a newborn baby crying, I suppose. I thought it would wake the whole ship up!”

Volger nodded. “So you had to strangle it. Most unpleasant, I’m sure. But they won’t find its body till morning, and by then we’ll be long gone.”

Alek blinked.

“You did get rid of it, didn’t you, Alek?”

“In fact, that strategy didn’t cross my mind.” Inside his jacket the creature moved, and Alek winced.

Volger put a hand on his sword hilt and hissed, “What in blazes is under your coat?”

“I assure you, I have no idea.” Alek cleared his throat. “But it’s perfectly well behaved, as long as one doesn’t try to abandon it.”

“You brought it with you?” Volger leaned closer. “In case it has escaped your notice, Your Highness, we are currently trying to escape the Darwinists. If you have one of their abominations with you, kindly fling it over the side!”

Alek tightened his grip on the ratlines. “I certainly will not, Count. For one thing, the beast would make considerable noise on the way down.”

Volger groaned softly, his fists unclenching. “Very well, then. I suppose if it comes to a fight, we could use it as a hostage.”

Alek nodded, unbuttoning his jacket. The creature poked its head out.

Volger turned away with a shudder. “Just keep it quiet, or I shall silence it myself. After you, Your Highness.”

Alek began to make his way toward the bow, the others following in silence. They climbed along the ratlines just above the airship’s waist, the ropes sagging under the weight of the five men and their heavy bags. It was slow going, and poor old Klopp wore a look of terror on his face, but at least no one on the spine could see them.

When the newborn beast began to squirm, Alek opened his jacket the rest of the way. It crawled out and climbed onto his shoulder, its huge eyes narrowing in the breeze.

“Just be careful,” he whispered. “And stay quiet.”

The creature turned to him with a bored expression, as if Alek were saying something terribly obvious.

Soon the awful fléchette bats were everywhere.

The bow of the airship was covered with them, a seething mass of small black shapes all softly clucking. Dylan had once explained to Alek that the clicks made echoes, which the creatures used to “see” in the dark. They had eyes as well—a thousand beady pairs were following Alek expectantly. No matter how carefully he moved, the bats fluttered about him. It was like trying to sneak through a flock of pigeons on a footpath.

“Why are they watching us so keenly?” Klopp whispered.

“They think we’re here to feed them,” Alek said. “Dylan always feeds the bats at night.”

“You mean they’re hungry?” Klopp asked, his face shiny with sweat in the moonlight.

“Not to worry. They eat figs,” Alek said, leaving out the part about metal spikes.

“I’m glad to hear—,” Klopp began, but suddenly a bat fluttered up in front of him. As it shot past his face, his boots slipped from the ratlines.

Klopp jerked to a halt a moment later, his hands white-knuckled on the ropes, but his large body swung into the side of the airship’s membrane, sending it billowing out in all directions. Around them bats launched into the air, their clicking noises changing into shrieks and calls.

Alek grabbed for Klopp’s wrist as the man struggled to get his feet back on the ropes. A moment later he was safe, but the disturbance was spreading, bats fluttering outward like ripples in a dark pond.

We’re done for now, Alek thought.

The creature on his shoulder perked up, its claws sinking painfully into Alek’s shoulder. A soft clucking noise came from its mouth—the sound the bats had been making a moment before.

“Keep that beast—,” Volger hissed, but Alek waved him silent.

All around them the bats were growing quieter. The screeches faded out, the carpet of black shapes settling back onto the airship’s skin.

The creature went silent and turned its big-eyed gaze upon Alek again.

He stared back at it. Had the thing, whatever it was, just silenced the fléchette bats?

Perhaps … by accident. It was some kind of mimic, like the message lizards. And yet the creature had required no training, no mothering at all. Perhaps that was the way with all newborn Darwinist beasts.

“Keep moving,” Volger whispered, and Alek did.

The mooring tower stretched into the air before them, but Alek found himself staring downward. In the foggy darkness the ground seemed to be a thousand kilometers below.

“Does that rope look strong enough?” he asked Hoffman.

The man knelt to feel the slender cable that stretched across to the tower, perhaps thirty meters away. It seemed too thin to hold a man’s weight, though the Darwinist’s fabricated materials were always stronger than they looked.

“From what I’ve seen, sir, the heavy cables are all attached to the gondola below. But this must be here for some reason. Pretty useless, if it can’t hold a man’s weight.”

“I suppose,” Alek said. He could think of other creatures that could use the cable. It might be for message lizards to dart across, or for strafing hawks to roost on.

Hoffman shrugged a loop of rope from his shoulder. “This line will hold any two of us, along with our gear. We should send someone over carrying one end of it.”

“I’ll go,” Alek said.

“Not with your injury, young master,” Klopp said.

“I’m the lightest of us.” Alek held out his hand. “Give me the rope.”

Klopp looked at Volger, who nodded and said, “Tie that around his waist, so he doesn’t kill himself.”

Alek raised an eyebrow, a little surprised that Volger was letting him go first.

The wildcount read his expression and smiled. “If that cable breaks, we’ll all be stuck here, so it hardly matters who goes first. And you are the lightest, after all.”

“So my foolhardiness has produced the correct strategy, Count?”

“Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”

Alek didn’t answer, but the creature bristled on his shoulder, as if sensing his annoyance.

Klopp let out a chuckle as he knelt and tied the heavier rope around Alek’s waist. Soon it was secure, the other end gripped by Bauer, Hoffman, and Klopp in a tug-of-war line.

“Quickly now,” Volger said.

Alek nodded and turned away, walking down the slope of the airbeast’s head. The others let the rope out slowly, a gentle pull at his waist. It reminded Alek of when he was ten and his father would let him lean out from castle parapets, keeping a firm hand on his belt. Of course, back then he’d felt much safer.

The slender cable stretched out ahead, disappearing among the dark struts of the mooring tower. Alek grasped the cable in both hands.

“I hope you’re not afraid of heights, beastie.”

The newborn creature just looked at him and blinked.

“Right, then,” Alek said, and stepped off into the void. He dangled for a moment from his hands, then swung his legs up to wrap them around the cable. Though its claws sank deep into his shoulder, the beastie didn’t make a sound.

There was one good thing about hanging faceup like this—Alek couldn’t see the dark ground below, only his own hands clenching the rope and the stars above. He pulled himself away from the airship hand over hand, the cable cutting into the backs of his knees as he inched along.

Halfway across, Alek was breathing hard. His injured rib had begun to throb, and his hands were losing feeling. The night air turned the sweat on his forehead cold. As he inched away from the airship, the rope hanging from his waist grew longer and heavier.

He imagined the cable snapping, or his fingers slipping. He would fall for an awful moment, but the rope around his waist would swing him back toward the airship, smashing him into its nose—maybe hard enough for the whale itself to awaken and protest.…

The mooring tower grew closer, but the cable in his aching hands sloped gently upward now, and was harder than ever to climb. The creature began to moan softly, mimicking the wind in the struts of the tower.

Alek gritted his teeth and pulled himself the last few meters, ignoring his burning muscles. For once he was thankful for the years of Volger’s cruel fencing lessons.

Finally a metal strut came within reach, and Alek wrapped an arm around it. He hung there for a moment, panting, then hauled himself up onto the cold steel of the tower.

With shaking fingers he untied the thick rope from around his waist and knotted it to the strut. Now that it stretched all the way back to the airship’s head, the rope seemed to weigh a ton. How had he carried it so far?

Alek lay on his back and watched as the others prepared to cross, dividing up the satchels of tools and weapons. It was odd to see the Leviathan from this head-on perspective. It made Alek feel insignificant, like some minuscule creature about to be swallowed by a whale.

But the darkness beyond the airship was vaster still. It was dotted with the fires of the protesters at the airfield gate, and past those, the lights of the city.

“Constantinople,” he said softly.

“Mmm, Constantinople,” the creature said.