water, the afternoon sun bouncing from the waves and setting everything aglitter. After three nights shipwrecked on a glacier, it seemed the perfect afternoon to lie in the ratlines, soak up the heat, and draw.
But even with the Mediterranean Sea stretching out in all directions, the Clankers never seemed to relax. Alek and Klopp had been busy down on the pods since noon, fashioning windshields to protect the engine pilots. That's what they were calling themselves - pilots, not engine men or any proper Air Service term. They'd already forgotten that the real pilots were on the bridge.
Then again, she'd heard it rumored that the ship didn't need pilots these days, Darwinist or Clanker. The whale had developed an independent streak, a tendency to choose its own way among the thermals and updrafts. Some of the crew wondered if the wreck had rattled the beastie's attic. But Deryn reckoned it was the new engines. Who wouldn't feel feisty with all that power?
A bee was crawling across her sketch pad, and she waved it away. The hives had come out of their three-day hibernation hungry, gorging themselves on the wildflowers of Italy as the Leviathan headed south. The strafing hawks looked fat and happy this afternoon, full of wild hares and stolen piglets.
"Mr. Sharp?" came the master coxswain's voice.
Deryn almost snapped to attention. But then she saw the message lizard staring at her, its beady eyes blinking.
"Please report to the captain's quarters," the lizard continued. "Without delay."
"Aye, sir. Right away!" Deryn winced as she heard her voice squeak like a girl's. She lowered it and said, "End message."
Gathering her pad and pencils as the beastie scampered away, Deryn wondered what she'd done wrong. Nothing bad enough to earn an audience with the captain - not that she could remember. Mr. Rigby had even commended her on taking Alek hostage during the Stormwalker attack.
But her nerves were twitching nonetheless.
The captain's quarters were up near the bow, next to the navigation room. The door was half open and Captain Hobbes sat behind his desk, the wall charts rustling in the warm breeze from an open window.
Deryn saluted smartly. "Midshipman Sharp reporting, sir."
"At ease, Mr. Sharp," the man said, which only made her more nervous. "Please come in. And shut the door."
"Aye, sir," she said. The captain's door was a solid piece of natural wood, not fabricated balsa, and it thumped shut with a heavy finality.
"May I ask you, Mr. Sharp, your opinion of our guests?"
"The Clankers, sir?" Deryn frowned. "They're ... very clever. And quite determined about keeping those engines running. Good allies to have, I'd say."
"Would you? Then it's lucky they aren't officially our enemies." The captain tapped his pencil against the cage that sat on his desk. The carrier tern inside it fluttered, its tongue slipping out to taste the air. "I've just learned that England is not at war with Austria-Hungary, not yet. At the moment we need only concern ourselves with the Germans."
"Well, that's handy, sir."
"Indeed." The captain leaned back and smiled. "You're rather friendly with young Alek, aren't you?"
"Aye, sir. He's a good lad."
"So he seems. A young boy like that needs friends, especially having run away from home and country." The captain lifted an eyebrow. "Sad, isn't it?"
Deryn nodded, saying carefully, "I suppose so, sir."
"And all quite mysterious. Here we are at their mercy, mechanically speaking, and yet we don't know much about Alek and his friends. Who are they, really?"
"They are a bit cagey, sir," Deryn said, which wasn't a lie.
"THE CAPTAIN'S QUARTERS."
"Quite so." Captain Hobbes picked up the piece of paper before him. "The First Lord of the Admiralty himself has become curious about them, and requests that we keep him informed. So it might be useful, Dylan, if you kept your ears open."
Deryn let out a slow breath.
This was the moment, of course, when duty required her to tell the captain all she knew - that Alek was the son of Archduke Ferdinand, and that the Germans were behind his father's murder. Alek had said it himself: This wasn't just family business. The assassinations had started the whole barking war, after all.
And now Lord Churchill himself was asking about it!
But she'd promised Alek not to tell. Deryn owed him that much, after setting the sniffers on him the first time they'd met.
For that matter, the whole barking ship owed him a debt. Alek had revealed his hiding place to help them fight the zeppelins, giving up his Stormwalker and a castle full of stores.