Leviathan - By Scott Westerfeld Page 0,4

tried not to breathe, struggling against the larger men.

Then his fingers found the distress cord and pulled -

But Master Klopp's hands were already at the controls, spilling the Stormwalker's pneumatic pressure. The whistle let out only a miserable descending wail, like a teakettle pulled from the fire.

Alek still struggled, holding his breath for what felt like minutes, but finally his lungs rebelled. He scooped in a ragged breath, the sharp scent of chemicals filling his head ...

A cascade of bright spots fell across the instruments, and a weight seemed to lift from Alek's shoulders. He felt as though he were floating free of the men's grasp, free of the seat straps - free of gravity, even.

"My father will have your heads," he managed to croak.

"Alas not, Your Highness," Count Volger said. "Your parents are both dead, murdered this night in Sarajevo."

Alek tried to laugh at this absurd statement, but the world twisted sideways under him, darkness and silence crashing down.

THREE

"Wake up, you ninny!"

Deryn Sharp opened one eye ... and found herself staring at etched lines streaming past an airbeast's body, like a river's course around an island - an airflow diagram. Lifting her head from the aeronautics manual, she discovered that the open page was stuck to her face.

"You stayed up all night!" The voice of her brother, Jaspert, battered her ears again. "I told you to get some sleep!"

Deryn gently peeled the page from her cheek and frowned - a smudge of drool had disfigured the diagram. She wondered if sleeping with her head in the manual had stuffed still more aeronautics into her brain.

"Obviously I did get some sleep, Jaspert, seeing as you found me snoring."

"Aye, but not properly in bed." He was moving around the small rented room in the darkness, piecing together a clean airman's uniform. "One more hour of studying, you said, and you've burnt our last candle down to a squick!"

Deryn rubbed at her eyes, looking around the small, depressing room. It was always damp and smelled of horse clart from the stables below. Hopefully last night would be the last time she slept here, in bed or not. "Doesn't matter. The Service has its own candles."

"Aye, if you pass the test."

Deryn snorted. She'd studied only because she hadn't been able to sleep, half excited about finally taking the airman middy's test, half terrified that someone would see through her disguise. "No need to worry about that, Jaspert. I'll pass."

Her brother nodded slowly, a mischievous expression crossing his face. "Aye, maybe you're a crack hand with sextants and aerology. And maybe you can draw any airbeast in the fleet. But there's one test I haven't mentioned. It's not about book learning - more what they call 'air sense.'"

"Air sense?" Deryn said. "Are you winding me up?"

"It's a dark secret of the Service." Jaspert leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I've risked expulsion for daring to mention it to a civilian."

"You are full of clart, Jaspert Sharp!"

"I can say no more." He pulled his still-buttoned shirt over his head, and when his face emerged, it had broken into a smile.

Deryn scowled, still not sure if he was kidding. As if she weren't nervous enough.

Jaspert tied his airman's neckerchief. "Get your slops on and we'll see what you look like. All that studying's going to waste if your tailoring don't persuade them."

Deryn stared sullenly down at the pile of borrowed clothes. After all her studying and everything she'd learned when her father was alive, the middy's test would be easy. But what was in her head wouldn't matter unless she could fool the Air Service boffins into believing her name was Dylan, not Deryn.

She'd resewn Jaspert's old clothes to alter their shape, and she was plenty tall - taller than most boys of midshipman's age. But height and shape weren't everything. A month of practicing on the streets of London and in front of the mirror had convinced her of that.

Boys had something else ... a sort of swagger about them.

When she was dressed, Deryn gazed at her reflection in a darkened window. Her usual self stared back: female and fifteen. The careful tailoring only made her look queerly skinny, not so much a boy as some tattie bogle set out in old clothes to scare the crows.

"Well?" she said finally. "Do I pass as a Dylan?"

Jaspert's eyes drifted up and down, but he said nothing.

"I'm plenty tall for sixteen, right?" she pleaded.

Finally he nodded. "Aye, I suppose you'll pass. It's just lucky you've