Goliath (16 page)

“No need, Prince,” Tesla said, then his eyes narrowed at Bovril. “So you really have become a Darwinist.”

“Oh, this beast? It’s . . . a perspicacious loris. ‘Perspicacious’ meaning ‘wise or canny.’”

“Get stuffed,” Bovril said, then giggled.

“And it insults people,” Tesla said. “How peculiar.”

Alek gave the creature a sharp look. “Bovril is usually more polite, as am I. It was an oversight not to join you last night. We have much to discuss.”

The man turned back to his walking stick, his long fingers twisting a coil of wire round and round. “Meals are a dismal affair on this ship, at any rate.”

“The food isn’t so bad when the galley has supplies.” Alek wondered why he was defending the
Leviathan
, but he went on. “The vegetables are grown fresh in the gut, and sometimes the strafing hawks bring their prey back for us.”

“Ah, that would explain the braised hare. The highlight of the evening.”

Alek raised an eyebrow. This man had eaten fresh meat while Alek had been chewing on old biscuits? Of course, if the Darwinists believed that Goliath worked, they’d happily feed Tesla caviar three times a day.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here to share it with you. But now that the ship is resupplied, perhaps dinner tonight?”

Mr. Tesla’s face darkened. “I must return to New York as quickly as possible. At last I have the data to complete my work.”

“I see.” Alek took a slow breath, then looked at the Russian, who was folding a pair of trousers. “Might we have a moment alone, Mr. Tesla?”

Tesla waved a hand. “I have no secrets from Lieutenant Gareev.”

Alek frowned. Tesla had a Russian officer as his valet? No doubt one of the czar’s confidants, sent to keep an eye on the inventor.

Then Alek realized that he recognized Lieutenant Gareev. He was the man who’d interrupted Deryn’s burglary
two nights before. And it was possible that he’d spotted the two of them carrying the metal detector in the cargo bay that night.

Alek switched from English to German. “Mr. Tesla, can this weapon of yours really stop the war?”

“Of course it can. I have always been able to see with absolute clarity how my inventions will operate, how every piece fits into another, even before I put the designs onto paper. Since this war began I have worked to extend this ability into the realm of politics. I am certain the Clanker Powers will yield to me, if only because they have no other choice.”

Alek nodded silently, struck again by the peculiar effect of listening to Tesla. Half of Alek rebelled at the wild claims; the other half was swept along by the man’s certainty. What if Count Volger had got it backward? If Goliath really worked, then Tesla could end the war in a few weeks. It would be
mad
to plot against him.

But then Alek recalled the forest of fallen trees and scattered bones, a nightmare landscape stretching in all directions. What if it took the destruction of a whole city to convince the Clanker Powers to surrender?

All Alek knew for certain was that he couldn’t see the future, and he didn’t want blood on his men’s hands today.

“Stop the war,” Bovril said quietly.

Tesla leaned in to inspect the loris. “What an odd beast.”

“Sir, if there’s any way you could stay aboard, I might be able to help you. I want peace too.”

The man shook his head. “My steamship leaves for Tokyo this afternoon, and I’m catching a Japanese airbeast for San Francisco in two days, then straight to New York by train. Missing a connection could cost me a week, and every day this war goes on, thousands die.”

“But you can’t leave yet!” Alek clenched his fists. “You need my help, sir. This is politics, not science. And my granduncle is the emperor of Austria-Hungary.”

“The same granduncle you just accused of murder in the newspapers? My dear prince, you and your family are hardly on the best of terms.” Tesla smiled gently as he said this, but Alek could hardly argue.

There was no other way, then. He reached for his command whistle and blew the notes to call a lizard. One popped from a message tube in seconds, but as Alek started to speak, his stomach twisted. He couldn’t betray his own men, and he could hardly ask for an armed escort without explanation.

Mr. Tesla glanced up at the lizard, raising an eyebrow.

“Straight to New York,” Bovril said.

Alek finally found the right words. “Captain Hobbes,
Mr. Tesla and I need to see you at once. We have an important request. End message.”

The creature scampered away.

“A request?” Tesla asked.

The plan formed in Alek’s mind as he spoke. “Your mission is too important to waste time with steamships and trains. We should leave for New York immediately, and the
Leviathan
is the fastest way to get there.”

“Are Japanese sea beasties as big as ours?” asked
Newkirk.

“Aye, they’ve got a few krakens,” Deryn said through a mouthful of ham. “But their wee beasties are deadlier. It was kappa monsters that captured the Russian fleet ten years ago.”

“Aye, I remember that lesson.” Newkirk was pushing his potatoes across his plate, feeling a bit twitchy here in enemy territory. “Funny how the Japanese and Russians are on the same side now.”

“Anything to beat those Clanker bum-rags.” Deryn reached over to spear one of Newkirk’s potatoes, but the boy didn’t complain.

Deryn couldn’t see any point in not eating. She’d had four huge meals since the
Leviathan
had resupplied at
Vladivostok, and she still felt empty from those two awful days of no rations.

Of course, there was another void inside her, one that food couldn’t fill. She and Alek hadn’t spoken since he’d learned her secret. Whenever they bumped into each other, he only looked away, his face as pale as a mealyworm.

It was as if she’d transformed into something awful, a stain on the deck of the
Leviathan
that someone—not a prince, of course—ought to clean up. Alek had thrown their friendship straight out the window, just because she was a girl.

And, of course, he’d taken Bovril for himself. Bum-rag.

“Where’s Alek, anyway?” Newkirk asked, as if reading her thoughts.

“Clanker business, I suppose.” Deryn tried to keep the anger from her voice. “I saw him with Mr. Tesla this morning, in a meeting with the officers. All very hush-hush.”

“But we haven’t seen him in days! Did you two have a fight?”

“Get stuffed.”

“I knew it,” Newkirk said. “He’s been hiding from us, and you’re as grumpy as a bag of wet cats. What in blazes happened?”

“Nothing. It’s just that, now that everyone knows
he’s a prince, he’s too important to hang about with us middies.”

“That’s not what Dr. Barlow thinks.” Newkirk stared down at his food. “She asked me if you two’d been fighting.”

Deryn let out a groan. If the lady boffin was ordering
Newkirk
to spy for her, she had to be barking curious. And for a sticky-beak like Dr. Barlow, there wasn’t much distance between curiosity and suspicion.

“It’s none of her business.”

“Aye, nor mine. But you have to admit it’s a bit odd. After you two got back from Istanbul, you seemed as close as . . .” Newkirk frowned.

“As a prince and a commoner,” Deryn said. “And now that he has Mr. Tesla to scheme with, he’s got no more use for me.”

“That’s Clankers for you,” Newkirk said. “I suppose.”

Deryn stood and went to the window, hoping the conversation was at an end. The Sea of Japan spread out beneath the ship, glimmering with the afternoon sun, and beyond it the coastline of China. Scouting birds dotted the blue horizon, on the lookout for enemy craft.

The
Leviathan
was headed toward Tsingtao, a port city on the Chinese mainland. The Germans had a naval base there, whose warships could raid shipping across the entire Pacific. The Japanese were already besieging
the city, but it seemed they needed a hand.

Newkirk joined Deryn at the window. “It’s funny how Mr. Tesla didn’t get off in Vladivostok. When I was laundering his shirts, he wanted them folded for packing.”

Deryn frowned, wondering what had caused the change in plans. She’d spied enough to know that Alek was spending a lot of time with his new friend. According to the cooks the two of them had eaten at the captain’s table last night.

What in blazes were they all up to?

“Ah, Mr. Sharp and Mr. Newkirk. Here you are.”

As the two middies turned from the window, Tazza bounded forward through the door. Dr. Barlow was behind him, her loris sitting primly on her shoulder. The dark stripes under its eyes somehow gave the beastie a snooty expression.

Deryn knelt to give Tazza’s head a rub, glad for once to see the lady boffin, who might know something about Tesla and Alek’s plans. Sticky-beaks could come in handy sometimes.

“Good afternoon, ma’am. I hope you’re well.”

“I am annoyed, at present.” Dr. Barlow turned to Newkirk. “Would you be so kind as to give Tazza his morning walk?”

“But, ma’am, Dylan already—,” the boy began, but a look from Dr. Barlow silenced him.

A moment later Newkirk was gone, having shut the door behind him without being told. The lady boffin sat down at the mess table and gestured at the remains of the middies’ lunch. Deryn set to clearing them, her brain spinning.

Was Dr. Barlow here to ask about her fight with Alek?

“If you would, Mr. Sharp, please describe the object you discovered in Mr. Tesla’s room.”

Deryn turned away with a stack of empty dishes, hiding her relief. “Oh, that. As I said, ma’am, it was round. A bit bigger than a football, but much heavier—probably solid iron.”

“Most certainly iron, Mr. Sharp, perhaps with some nickel. What of its shape?”

“Its shape? I didn’t get
that
good a look at it.” Deryn cleared away a pair of aluminum tea mugs. “I was under a bed in the dark, trying not to get caught!”

“Trying not to get caught,” the boffin’s loris said. “
Mr.
Sharp.”

Dr. Barlow waved a hand. “At which you succeeded admirably. But roughly what form did this iron football take? Was it a perfect sphere? Or a misshapen lump?”

Deryn sighed, trying to recall those long minutes of waiting while Tesla had drifted back to sleep. “It wasn’t perfect at all. It was knobbly on the surface.”

“Were these ‘knobbles’ smooth or jagged to the touch?”

“Mostly smooth, I suppose, like that bit I sawed off.” Deryn reached out a hand. “If you’ve still got it, ma’am, I’ll show you what I mean.”

“The sample is on the way to London, Mr. Sharp.”

“You sent it to the Admiralty?”

“No, to someone with intellect.”

“Oh,” Deryn said, a bit astonished that even Dr. Barlow needed help to solve this mystery.

The loris crawled down to sniff at the empty milk jug. The lady boffin’s eyes followed the beastie, her fingers drumming on the table.

“I am a species fabricator, Mr. Sharp, not a metallurgist. But what I’m asking is simple enough.” She leaned forward. “Would you say that Mr. Tesla’s find was natural or man-made?”

“You mean, was it cast iron?” Deryn remembered her hands on the object in the darkness. “Well, it was close enough to a sphere. But it was awfully banged up. Like a cannonball, I suppose,
after
it’s been shot through a cannon.”

“I see. And a cannonball is man-made.”

Dr. Barlow fell into silence, and the loris picked up the teacup in its tiny paws and studied it.

“Man-made,” it repeated softly. “
Mr.
Sharp.”

Deryn ignored the beastie. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but that doesn’t make sense. To cause all that wreckage, a cannonball would have to be as big as a barking cathedral!”

“Mr. Sharp, you are forgetting a basic formula of physics. When calculating energy, mass is only one variable. And the other?”

“Velocity,” Deryn said, recalling the bosun’s lectures on artillery. “But to knock down a whole forest, how fast would a cannonball have to fly?”

“Astronomically fast. My colleagues will know exactly.” The lady boffin leaned back in her chair and sighed. “But London is a week way, even for our swiftest courier aquilines. And in the meantime Mr. Tesla spins his tales and takes us on a wild goose chase.”

“But we’re headed to fight the Germans, aren’t we?”

Dr. Barlow waved a hand before her face, as if a fly were bothering her. “We may briefly show the flag, but Mr. Tesla and Prince Aleksandar have convinced the captain to proceed to Tokyo. From there we can contact the Admiralty by underwater fiber.”

“What in blazes for?”

“Tesla will try to convince them to order us to New York.” The lady boffin snapped for the loris, which scampered back up her arm and onto her shoulder. “Where Goliath waits to stop the war.”

“What . . . go all the way to
America
?”

“Indeed, and all for a delusion.”

Deryn’s mind was spinning at the thought of crossing the Pacific, but she managed to ask, “You think Mr. Tesla’s lying?”