she swore, suddenly seeing the point of his big slidey shoes. "Don't go skiting off, Alek! We need you!"
The boy came to a reluctant halt. "Listen. I'll bring you what I can, all right? But you can't tell anyone you saw me. If you come looking for my family, it won't be good. We don't like strangers, and we can be quite dangerous."
"Dangerous?" Deryn asked. They had to be outlaws - or worse. She put a hand into her pocket, feeling for her command whistle.
"Very deadly," Alek said. "So you have to promise not to tell anyone about me! All right?"
He stood there, his green eyes locked with hers. Deryn held her breath, trying to match the intensity of his gaze. Like a stare-off before a fistfight, it made her stomach flutter.
"Do you promise?" he demanded again.
"I can't let you go, Alek," she said softly.
"You ... what?"
"I have to report you to the ship's officers. They'll want to ask you a few questions."
His eyes widened. "You're going to interrogate me?"
"I'm sorry, Alek. But if there's dangerous folks about, it's my duty to tell the officers." She held up the satchels. "You're smugglers or something, aren't you?"
"Smugglers! Don't be absurd," Alek said. "We're perfectly decent people!"
"If you're so decent," Deryn said, "then why've you been telling me a load of yackum?"
"I was just trying to help! And I don't know what yackum is!" the boy sputtered, then said something unpleasant in German. He turned around on his giant shoes and headed off into the darkness.
Deryn pulled the command whistle from her pocket. The freezing metal burned her lips as she piped a quick sequence, the notes of an intruder alert ringing in the cold air.
She stuffed the whistle back into her pocket and trudged after him, ignoring the snow collecting in her boots.
"Hold up, Alek! No one's going to hurt you!"
He didn't answer, just kept sliding away. But Deryn heard shouts behind her, and the scrabble of hydrogen sniffers on the ratlines. The beasties jumped like rabbits on fire when you blew an intruder alert.
"Alek, stop! I just want to talk!"
The boy glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes went wide at the sight of the sniffers. He uttered a panicked cry and slowed to a halt, turning to face her again.
Deryn ran harder, hoping to get there before the sniffers did. No point in letting the beasties scare poor Alek to death.
"Just wait there!" she called. "There's no reason to ..."
Her voice trailed off as she saw what was in Alek's hand - a black pistol, the metal gleaming in the moonlight.
"Are you daft?" she cried, breathing in the bitter smell of hydrogen. One spark from a gunshot could ignite the air, turning the ship into a vast fireball.
"Don't come any closer!" Alek said. "And call those ... things off!"
Deryn came to a halt, glancing at the sniffers bounding toward them across the snow. "Aye, I would. But I don't think they'll listen!"
The pistol swerved from her to the sniffers, and she saw Alek's jaw tense.
"Don't!" she cried. "You'll set us all aflame!"
But he was raising his arm, aiming at the nearest beastie -
Deryn threw herself forward, smothering the gun with her body. A bullet was nothing compared to catching fire. She grabbed Alek's shoulders and dragged him down into the snow.
Her head went through the brittle ice with a crack, sending stars across her vision. Alek landed on top of her, the barrel of the gun jabbing hard into her ribs. She closed her eyes, waiting for an explosion of agony and noise.
He was struggling to free the pistol, so she pulled him harder against her. Ice cut her cheek as their struggle dug them deeper into the snow.
"STRUGGLE ON ICE."
"Let me go!" he cried.
Deryn opened her eyes, glaring straight into his. He froze for a moment - and she spoke in a slow, clear voice.
"Don't. Shoot. The air's full of hydrogen!"
"I'm not trying to shoot anyone. I'm trying to get away!"
He started struggling again, the pistol jamming harder into her ribs. Deryn let out an oof. She wrapped a hand around the gun, trying to push the barrel aside.
A low growl rolled across the snow, and a sniffer thrust its long snout right into Alek's face. He froze again, a look of horror draining the color from his skin. Suddenly the animals were all around them, their hot breath steaming.
"It's okay, beasties," Deryn said in a calm voice. "Just back off a wee bit, please? You're scaring