Goliath (48 page)

Alek blinked. He took a step back, but Deryn stopped him, squeezing his hands hard.

Bovril chuckled a bit and said, “Meteoric.”

“Remember my bit of Tesla’s rock?” Deryn said. “Dr. Barlow sent it to some boffin in London, and it was from a meteor. You know what that is, right?”

“A shooting star?” Alek shrugged. “Then, it’s as I thought; it was only a scientific specimen.”

“This wasn’t just some shooting star!” Deryn tried to remember everything Dr. Barlow had said. “What Tesla found was just a wee bit of it, but the whole thing was huge, maybe miles across. And it was going so barking fast that it exploded when it hit the atmosphere. That’s what knocked down those trees, not some Clanker contraption! Tunguska was just an accident, and Tesla was a rooster taking credit for the dawn!”

Alek stared at her, his eyes glittering. “Then, why did he try to fire Goliath?”

“Because he was
mad
, Alek, out of his mind with wanting to stop the war!”

“Just like you,”
she didn’t say.

“And Dr. Barlow is certain of this.”

“Completely. So it’s
not
your fault the war’s still going! It would have gone on, year after bloody year, no matter what you did.” She flung her arms around him and squeezed hard. “But you didn’t know that!”

Alek stood there motionless in her embrace, his muscles tight. At last he pushed her gently away, his voice barely a whisper.

“I’d have done it anyway.”

She swallowed. “What do you mean?”

“I would have killed him to save the
Leviathan
. To save you.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “It was the only thing in my mind, when it came time to choose—
that I couldn’t lose you. That’s when I knew.”

“Knew what?”

He leaned forward to kiss her. His lips were soft against hers, but they kindled something sharp and hard inside her, something that had waited impatiently all the months since this boy had come aboard.

“Oh,” she said after it was over. “That.”

“Barking spiders,” Bovril added softly.

“When we were topside in the storm, is this what you . . . ,” Alek began. “I mean, have I gone mad?”

“Not yet.” She pulled him closer, and they kissed again.

Finally she took a step back and looked about, worried for a moment that they might have been seen. But the nearest riggers on the spine were five hundred feet away, huddled around a hydrogen sniffer that had found a tear in the membrane.

“It’s a bit tricky, isn’t it?” Alek said, following her gaze.

She nodded silently, afraid that one wrong word could ruin everything.

He pulled something from his pocket, and as Deryn stared at it, her heart sank. It was the leather scroll case, the one with the pope’s letter inside. She’d forgotten for a single, absurd moment that Alek was an emperor-in-waiting and she was as common as dirt.

“Tricky,” Bovril said.

“Of course.” Deryn dropped her gaze, stepping back from his embrace. “No one’s going to write
me
a letter to turn me royal, are they? And I’d hardly make a proper princess, even if the pope himself sewed me a dress. This is all ridiculous.”

Alek stared at the scroll case. “No, the answer’s quite simple.”

Deryn clenched her fists against too much hope. “You mean we could keep it all a secret? We’d have to hide ourselves for a bit anyway, given that I’m dressed in trousers. And you’re a bit better at lying these days . . .”

“That’s not what I mean.”

She stared at him—the daft look was in his eyes again. “What, then?”

“We’ll keep some secrets, for a while. And you may need your disguise until the world catches up with you.” Alek took a slow breath. “But I have no use for this.”

And with those words Prince Aleksandar of Hohenberg flung the scroll case hard to starboard, and it went spinning out across the Manhattan skyline, the shiny leather glittering in the sunlight. The ocean breeze caught it and carried it astern, but the whirling case still cleared the broadest part of the airbeast’s body by some distance, and from the bowhead Deryn could plainly see where it struck the water with a tiny, perfect splash.

“Meteoric!” Bovril said a bit madly.

“Aye, beastie.” The world had suddenly gone sharp and crackly, as if lightning were kindling the sky over Manhattan. But Deryn couldn’t lift her gaze from the dark river. “That letter was your whole future, you daft prince.”

“It was my past. I lost that world the night my parents died.” He drew close again. “But I found you, Deryn. Maybe I wasn’t meant to end the war, but I was meant to find you. I know that. You’ve saved me from not having any reason to keep going.”

“We save each other,” Deryn whispered. “That’s how it works.”

With a quick glance at the distant group of riggers, she kissed Alek again. This one was longer, better, their hands entwining at their sides, and the steady headwind made it feel as if the ship were underway, going somewhere new and wonderful with only the three of them aboard.

That thought made Deryn pull away. “But what in blazes are you going to
do
, Alek?”

“I expect I’ll have to get a proper job.” He sighed, staring down at the river. “My gold’s run out, and it’s not likely they’ll let me join the crew.”

“Emperors are vain and useless things,” Bovril said.

Alek gave the beast a hard stare, but Deryn felt another smile on her face.

“Not to worry,” she said. “I was thinking of leaving myself.”

“What . . . you, leave the
Leviathan
? But that’s absurd.”

“Not quite. It turns out the lady boffin has just the job for me. For both of us, I’d think.”

“AN END AND A KISS.”

In a surprise announcement today, His Serene Highness Aleksandar of Hohenberg, putative heir to the empire of Austria-Hungary, renounced his claim to all the lands and titles of his father’s line, including the imperial throne itself. This extraordinary news has shaken his war-ravaged country, many of whose embattled citizens have quietly embraced the fugitive prince as a symbol of peace.

It is unclear whether Prince Aleksandar would have taken the throne in any case. His claim is based on a papal bull that has not been verified by the Vatican, and which is contested by the current emperor, Franz Joseph. Indeed, as Russian victories mount on the eastern front, it is unclear whether the Austro-Hungarian Empire will exist at all once the Great War is over.

In a declaration of lesser importance, Aleksandar also renounced his ties to the Tesla Foundation,
which is raising money to repair the late inventor’s facility in Shoreham, New York. The prince’s relationship with the organization had been under strain since the announcement that it was he who shut down the weapon after Nikola Tesla’s death, fearing for the safety of nearby aircraft and the city of Berlin. According to his spokesman, Wildcount Ernst Volger, Aleksandar has taken a position with the Zoological Society of London, a scientific organization of royal patronage, best known for its upkeep of the London Zoo.

Rumors are flying as to why an heir to one of the great houses of Europe would trade his throne, lands, and titles for the post of zookeeper. But reached by this reporter while on his way to England via His Majesty’s Airship
Leviathan
, Aleksandar had only this for comment: “
Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria, nube
.”

The phrase is the Latin motto of the Hapsburgs and refers to the house’s tradition of gaining influence by alliance rather than conflict. It translates, “Let others wage war. You, lucky Austria, shall marry.” What it might mean in this context is unclear, though it suggests to this reporter that the young prince has found the comfort of new and powerful allies.

Eddie Malone
New York World
December 20, 1914

Goliath
is a novel of alternate history, so most of its characters, creatures, and machines are my own inventions. But the historical locations and events are modeled closely on the realities of the First World War, and some of the characters are real people. Here’s a quick review of what’s true and what’s fictional in the novel.

At roughly 7:14 a.m. on June 30, 1908, a huge fireball exploded in the wilds of Siberia. Hundreds of kilometers away, people were knocked from their feet and windows were shattered by the blast. Due to its remote location, the Tunguska event wasn’t studied by scientists for many years, and only recently has it been determined that a meteorite impact caused the destruction. (Or maybe it was a comet fragment. We’re not
that
certain.) Many hypotheses about the cause were proposed in the intervening decades—from aliens to black holes to antimatter, and even experiments performed by the great inventor Nikola Tesla.

Tesla was world famous in 1914. A Serb immigrant
living in New York City, he was working on countless inventions, including a “death ray” that he hoped might make war impossible. His major project since 1901 had been Wardenclyffe Tower, a huge electrical device on Long Island, with which he hoped to broadcast free electrical power to the entire world (and much more). By 1914, however, Tesla’s finances were unraveling, and he began to make wilder and wilder claims about what he could accomplish. The tower was never completed, and in 1915 the land it stood on was deeded to the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in lieu of money owed. (That’s right, a mad scientist’s lair was handed over to pay a
hotel bill
.) The tower was destroyed in 1917 by the U.S. government, who feared that Germans might use it as a transmitter or navigation landmark.

William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer were rival newspaper moguls for many decades. Both were known for their so-called yellow journalism, stories that valued sensationalism over fact. As in
Goliath
, Hearst was steadfastly against U.S. entry into the First World War. He also loved motion pictures, and created the
Perils of Pauline
serial, the first of which is described herein, and which featured the original “cliff-hanger.” (Let’s just say I owe the guy.)

Adela Rogers St. Johns was a “girl reporter” for Hearst
newspapers and other papers from age nineteen well into her sixties. She is twenty years old in
Goliath
, and though she was married by then, I have somewhat capriciously changed history to keep her single. The story of her marriage license being torn in half is true, however. Her autobiography
The
Honeycomb
(1969) is still widely available and is rather awesome.

Francisco “Pancho” Villa was a major figure in the Mexican Revolution of 1910–20. Villa really did have a Hollywood contract to film his battles, and German agents really did supply various revolutionary factions in hopes of gaining influence in Mexico. When the United States finally entered World War I in 1917, it was partly due to the discovery of the Zimmerman Telegram, an offer from the German Empire to assist Mexico if it attacked the United States. So I thought it would make sense to make the Mexican Revolution part of my story. Dr. Mariano Azuela was not really Villa’s personal physician, but he was a fine writer, and his novels and stories are among the best about the Mexican Revolution.

The two Japanese boffins mentioned by name, Sakichi Toyoda and Kokichi Mikimoto, are both real; the former founded the company we now call Toyota. Hearst’s lieutenant Philip Francis is also a historical figure, and
it was discovered after his death that he had been born Philip Diefendorf. It is unlikely that he was a German agent—he isn’t a German agent in
Goliath
, either—but many Americans with German names were persecuted during World War I, including one of my great-great-uncles.