Goliath

TWENTY-SEVEN

The cilia woke faster than Deryn had expected; maybe the mantas were giving the airbeast a fright. The motivator engines ran on organic batteries, of course, and hadn’t suffered from Hearst’s contaminated fuel. So the Leviathan was soon under its own power again, following the Mexican airships at a wary distance.

Deryn sent a message lizard down to the bridge, relating the news that Hearst and General Villa were on friendly terms. It came back and spoke in Captain Hobbes’s own voice, telling her to take charge of docking. That was usually a rigger’s job, but the captain wanted an officer on the bowhead. If the Leviathan’s hosts made any hostile moves, the ship would drop all ballast and shoot into the air. The mooring cables would have to be cut loose—and fast.

“I’ll be ready, sir,” Deryn said. “End message.”

“That just proves my earlier point,” Miss Rogers said as the creature scuttled away. “If you want something done right, always ask the bell captain.”

“Stop barking calling me that.”

“I assure you, young man, it’s the highest compliment a hotel-raised girl can muster.”

Deryn rolled her eyes. And she’d thought Eddie Malone was annoying.

Whoever had doctored the Leviathan’s fuel had done a precise job of it. The starboard engine had seized up only an hour away from Villa’s airfield. The tip of a mooring tower rose up from a steep-sided canyon, deep enough for the Leviathan to hide itself in. The canyon had only one narrow entrance, but a hundred rocky nooks and crannies along its sides.

“A natural fortress,” Deryn said. “I take it this General Villa is one of the revolutionaries.”

“He’s a rebel at heart.” Miss Rogers shrugged. “Though it’s complicated these days, more of a civil war than a revolution.”

“But he’s using Clanker engines. Do the Germans have a hand in all this?”

“All the powers are supplying one faction or another. The Great War has only raised the stakes.”

Deryn sighed. Alek was right about one thing: One way or another, the war had sunk its claws into every nation on Earth. Even this distant conflict had been shaped by the war machines and fighting beasts of Europe.

Another reason for Alek to feel bad, to think all the world’s troubles were his fault. Sometimes Deryn wished that she could burn the guilt out of his heart, or protect him from how awful the war was. Or at least make him forget somehow.

As the Leviathan slowed to a halt, the bottom of the canyon came into view. A few Clanker engines aside, these rebels were definitely Darwinists. Patches of fabricated corn covered the ground in bright colors, and a high stone wall penned a herd of fabricated bulls the size of streetcars. Six-legged donkeys carried packs down the steep trails leading into the canyon, and a pair of squidesque airbeasts grazed on the nearby cliff tops, their languid tentacles clearing scrub grass and cacti.

But on a high outcrop of rock a mile away was another bit of Clanker technology—a wireless tower.

“So that’s how Hearst arranged all this.”

Miss Rogers tutted. “Didn’t someone tell me that your Mr. Tesla was a radio wiz?”

“Aye, but he’s hardly arms-smuggling material. He can’t stop blethering about peace.”

“But his Goliath is a weapon, is it not?”

Deryn didn’t bother to deny that.

The Leviathan angled itself into the wind, the cilia rippling to push it down. The manta ships drifted at a polite distance, but Deryn wondered if they had any hidden firepower. If the Mexicans were importing Clanker engines, maybe they’d got a few rockets in the bargain. The Leviathan’s strafing hawks were still in the air, of course, ready to strike in all directions.

Soon the sides of the canyon were rising up around Deryn, making her feel trapped. It was strange to be up on the spine and yet have stone walls to either side. If there was any treachery, the only way out would be straight up.

The airbeast’s nose eased toward the tower, a team of riggers standing ready at the mooring crossbow. A grappling hook was set in the crossbow.

“Ready…,” Deryn called as the tower drew near. “Fire!”

The crossbow snapped, sending the grappling hook soaring. With a rattle of metal and chain, its prongs tangled in the struts of the tower.

“Draw her in!” Deryn cried, and the riggers wound the cable fast, tightening the hook’s grip. “Now tie her off!”

Soon the ship was secure, and from the canyon walls echoed the slither of cables dropping from the gondola below. The captain would be winching the ship down rather than venting hydrogen. That would keep the Leviathan buoyant, sitting in the canyon like a cork at the bottom of a bathtub, ready to pop up and out in case of danger.

Deryn’s eyes swept the rocky ground below. The men gathering up the Leviathan’s ropes had rifles slung across their backs, but there was no sign of heavy arms, except for a half dozen cannon guarding the mouth of the canyon. They were pointed away from the airship, and looked like leftovers from a bygone war.

“Little wonder your boss wants to lend General Villa a hand,” Deryn said, lowering her field glasses. “The general has got plenty of beasties, but no proper guns.”

“I’ve heard the chief say exactly that.” Miss Rogers sighed. “I just wish he’d told me what he was up to.”

“Aye, he might have told us, too!”

The ground men below were pulling the ropes out in all directions. Deryn spotted Newkirk drifting down on gliding wings to help them. The boy was soon waving his arms as he tried to organize Villa’s men.

“Do you know any Spanish, Miss Rogers?”

“As much as any girl from southern California. Which means more than a little but less than I’d like.”

Deryn nodded. “You might be the only one on the ship who does. Stand ready.”

“Much as I’d love to review my reflexive verbs, Mr. Sharp, it won’t be necessary. I’m certain all of General Villa’s motion picture contracts are in English.”

“His what?”

“Didn’t I tell you? That’s how Mr. Hearst knows him. They’re both in the movie business!” Miss Rogers swept her hand across the encampment. “That’s how Villa finances all this. He takes moving pictures of his battles and sends them to Los Angeles. He’s practically a motion picture star!”

“So Hearst has a movie deal with him?”

The reporter shook her head. “Villa’s contract is with Mutual Films. But I suppose the chief wants to horn in. Crafty, isn’t he?”

“A bit too crafty for my liking,” Deryn muttered. If Hearst was such a peace lover, why was he sending weapons into Mexico? Or did he only care about making newsreels?

“There’s something above us, sir,” one of the riggers called. “Up on the cliffs!”

Deryn looked up. A column of smoke was rising from the edge of the canyon. She closed her eyes to listen over the shouts of the men below, and heard it—the rumble of a Clanker engine.

Did the rebels have a walking machine up there? She’d seen nothing from the air, though any number of walkers might have hidden in the rocky terrain.

“And that way, sir!” called another man. Deryn turned and saw a second cloud of engine smoke rising from the far side of the canyon. There was dust rising as well, a sure sign of legs in motion. The tiny manta airships might have only Gatling guns, but walkers could carry heavy cannon.

Deryn pulled out her command whistle and blew for a message lizard. “We’re being surrounded, and the officers down on the bridge can’t see it!”

“But why would General Villa betray us?” Miss Rogers asked. “He wants those guns we’re bringing him.”

“He might also want the Leviathan!” Deryn cried. “It’s one of the biggest airships in all of Europe. Think how powerful it would make him here in Mexico!”

Miss Rogers waved a hand. “But Mr. Hearst just wants a dramatic story. If the rebels destroy us, he’ll get no story at all!”

“Aye, but has anyone explained that to the barking rebels?”

“These are civilized rebels, young man. They have movie deals!”

“That’s no guarantee of sanity!” Deryn felt the tug of a message lizard pulling on her trouser leg. She knelt and said, “Bridge, this is Middy Sharp. Walkers on the cliffs above us, at least two. Could be an ambush! End message.”

The beastie scampered away, but it would take at least a minute to reach the bridge. By then the vast topside of the Leviathan would be in the sights of the walkers’ guns, as easy to hit as a cricket field.

She spun around, checking on the manta ships. They didn’t seem to be closing in. Not yet, anyway.

“If only I could send up a scout,” Deryn muttered. But all the Huxleys were stowed in the ship’s gut to protect them from the winds of high speed.

“Sir,” said the rigger beside her. “Mr. Rigby sent up a pair of gliding wings, in case the captain wanted you on the ground. You could use those.”

“Aye, but I need to go up to—,” Deryn began, but then she saw the dust rising from the ground crew’s feet. It was climbing the sides of the canyon, carried by an updraft….

“Get me those wings!” she shouted. “Now!”

As the man ran off, she watched the airflow in the canyon. The wind was rushing into the entrance, straight into the Leviathan’s nose. If Deryn took off dead ahead, she might gain enough altitude to rise above the cliff walls.

“I still say you’re being entirely too suspicious,” Miss Rogers said.

Deryn ignored her, turning to the crossbow crew. “If we blow even a squick of ballast, cut this cable. Don’t wait for orders!”

“Aye, sir.”

Two men arrived, gliding wings in hand, and Deryn struggled into the rig. She borrowed a pair of semaphore flags, then paced off ten yards from the bow, ready to take a running start. There was only one problem.

The mooring tower was in the way.

“Oh, sod it.” She spread her arms and ran toward the edge. “Watch out!”

The riggers and Miss Rogers ducked beneath the wings, and Deryn sped past them and leapt from the edge of the bow, straight into the wind. The tower reared up before her, but she wrenched herself to starboard, barely clearing the metal struts.

Veering right had pulled her out of the headwind, and she went circling downward. But with another hard jerk the air filled the gliding wings again. She rose a little, climbing just above the canyon walls.

One of the walkers was in sight now—a two-legged machine the size of Alek’s old Cyklop Stormwalker. It had the boxy look of a German contraption, and was rumbling straight toward the cliff edge.

Deryn pulled her wings hard toward it, but she slipped beneath the cliff tops again. She was flying straight into a wall of stone….

At the last moment she swung her weight back, and the wings climbed hard, almost stalling in midair. Her momentum carried her the last few yards, and Deryn alighted on the edge of the rocky cliff. Her boots slipped on loose stone, but somehow she kept her feet.

The walking machine towered over her, its head bending down as if to take a closer look. The huge maw of a gun pointed straight at her.

“Barking spiders!” she said.

It wasn’t a gun at all—it was a moving-picture camera. She heard the whir and snap of it capturing her image a dozen times a second.

The wind shifted, pulling her back toward the cliff’s edge. Deryn spun about and took a look across the canyon. The other walker was just the same, a two-legged camera platform.

The rebels wanted to film the Leviathan, not destroy it.

Her message lizard would be at the bridge any moment now, and if the captain grew alarmed and dropped ballast, the landing ropes would rip through the hands of a hundred untrained men below. Worse, a few would hang on to be carried up into the sky, then fall back upon their fellows from a thousand feet. If General Villa didn’t want to destroy the Leviathan now, he certainly would after that.

Deryn spun the gliding wings about and threw herself back off the cliff.