Behemoth
Page 28

But it wasn't any of those reasons that had set her on this course, Deryn knew. Alek was here in this city, and needed help. Perhaps it was daft to risk everything for some barking prince, a boy who didn't even know she was a girl. But it was no more daft than Alek walking across a glacier to assist a wounded enemy airship, was it?
When the water had turned into a black expanse, an upside-down sky shimmering with the city's radiance, Deryn left her hiding place. She stuffed the stolen uniform inside her diving suit and crept to the bow. After slipping over the gunwales, she descended the anchor chain hand over hand, then slid into the water without a splash.
She crawled ashore in the shadows beneath a long pier. Even at night, men and walkers worked the bustling docks, scurrying about beneath huge mechanical arms that chuffed smoke as they pulled cargo from half a dozen ships. Floodlights cast hard black shadows that jittered and swung.
Deryn stole into a maze of off-loaded crates and metal parts, and quickly found a dark spot where she could strip off the Spottiswoode suit. Pulling on her borrowed German sailor's slops, she felt a squick of vexation - demoted from an officer in the Air Service to a common seaman! And if the Ottomans caught her like this, out of uniform, they'd hang her as a spy for sure.
The diving suit had to disappear, so Deryn stuffed all but the boots and her rigging knife into a towering coil of copper wire. She reckoned most dock workers would hardly know what to make of the tangle of turtle shell and salamander skin, except to wonder if a mermaid had come ashore.
It was easy, staying hidden among the endless piles of crates - enough mechanical parts to rebuild Istanbul from scratch, she reckoned. They were all labeled in German.
Deryn crept inland, heading toward the city lights and the promise of food and water. At the edge of the warren, however, she found herself facing a chain-link fence. It was sixteen feet tall, with three coils of barbed wire glittering along its top side. The only gate in sight was wound shut with a massive chain.
"Just my luck," Deryn muttered. She'd come ashore at a top secret section of the waterfront.
It would've been simple enough to swim out and come in elsewhere, but Deryn was weak with hunger. The thought of plunging back into the cold, dark water made her shiver. What was so barking important about all this cargo, anyway? As she skulked along the fence, looking for an unlocked gate, she took a closer look.
It wasn't just mechanical parts, but electricals as well. There were giant rolls of rubber insulation, and a row of glass jar batteries, the same kind of voltaic cells that the Leviathan's searchlights used. But these were the size of outhouses! Deryn remembered the turbine blades aboard the cargo ship. Were the Germans building a power station somewhere here in Istanbul?
She heard voices, and ducked lower into the shadows. It was a dozen men or so, one with a ring of keys jingling in his hand. Perfect - they were headed out.
Deryn crept behind them to a wide gate in the fence, with tracks leading through and out into the darkness. As their leader unlocked it, the men spread out across its length. They pulled it open, metal scraping over cobblestones.
Something huge and restless waited beyond the fence, huffing and steaming in the cool night air. Then it began to move, a colossal machine rolling slowly into view. The engine at its front took the form of a dragon's head, and the cargo arms were folded on its back like black metal wings. White clouds of steam roiled from its grinning jaws.
"Barking spiders," Deryn said softly, realizing that she'd seen pictures of this contraption in the penny newspapers....
It was the Orient-Express.
The great train eased forward, forcing Deryn farther back into the piles of cargo. But she was unable to take her eyes from it.
The Express seemed to be a strange crossbreed of Ottoman and German design. The engine suggested a dragon's face, with a great lolling tongue spilling from its jaws. But the mechanical arms that unfolded from its cargo cars were unadorned, and moved as smoothly as the wings of a soaring hawk.
The arms reached out into the piles of cargo, lifting metal parts, coils of wire, and glass insulators shaped like huge translucent bells. The train began to load itself, like some greedy monster ravaging a treasure trove.
Suddenly the dragon's single eye burst to life, a blinding headlight. As brilliance spilled across the darkness, Deryn stumbled blindly back, the shadows of her hiding place ripped away.
A cry sounded above the huffing engines of the Express - "Wer ist das?" - and Deryn understood enough Clanker to know what it meant.
Someone had spotted her.
She turned and ran, half blinded, stumbling on a bundle of plastic tubing. The tubes skittered underfoot, and Deryn hit the ground hard. She rose painfully to her feet and staggered into the darkness, where she curled up behind a large spool of wire.
Her knee was throbbing, her hands cut and bleeding from breaking her fall. Dizziness swept across her, twenty-four hours without proper food taking its toll. The pounding in her chest felt thin and weak, like a bird's heart instead of her own.
There was no way to outrun the men - she had to outsmart them.
Deryn ignored the pain, crawling back toward the Express on hands and knees, keeping low in the cargo stacks, squeezing through the narrowest gaps she could find. She hoped they hadn't got a good look at her, and wouldn't realize they were chasing a skinny wee slip of a girl.
Their voices surrounded her, echoing through the piles of crates and metal. Deryn kept crawling, pushing back toward the bright lights of the train. The shouting men flowed past her, thinking she was still running away....
Then a shadow spilled across Deryn - a huge mechanical claw reaching down for her. She dropped flat, and the claw's three rubber-tipped fingers closed around a coil of wire as big as a hippoesque.
The machine paused a moment, its grip settling around the coil, and Deryn saw her chance. She scampered up and climbed inside the cylinder of wire.
With a lurch the claw hauled it - and her - up into the air.
She looked down to see the ground sliding past, the electric torches of her pursuers spreading out across the maze of crates. But no one thought to look up at the cargo passing overhead.
The metal fingers squeezed tighter for a moment, and the wire pressed inward around Deryn. Had the arm's operator spotted her and decided to crush her?
But it was just the giant claw adjusting its grip. Soon she was being gently lowered, the coil of wire settling in among a dozen others.
She waited for the arm to swing away again, then climbed out into the belly of an open-topped freight car. The side walls were only a bit taller than Deryn was, and she scrambled up and peered out.
More men had arrived to join the search. Dogs, too - a pair of German shepherds was yanking their handler along, sniffing everything in sight. Luckily, traveling by mechanical arm didn't leave much of a scent trail. But she had to get out of this cargo car before the next incoming load crushed her flat.
Deryn made her way to the front end, peeking at the next car along. It had a closed top and a fancy-looking glass door at this end. She climbed over and dropped between the cars, then jimmied the door open with her rigging knife.
She slipped inside and closed it, holding the knife out in front of her.
"Hallo?" she called softly, hoping her Clanker accent was believable.
No one answered. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Deryn let out a low whistle.
It was a saloon car, as fancy as a box of peacocks. A row of small tables ran down one side. The brass handrails gleamed, and the gently arching ceiling was padded with dimpled leather. The armchairs looked absurdly heavy compared to the spindly furniture on the Leviathan. Each of these chairs had its own tiny footrest rising from the floor. A mechanical bartender wearing a fez stood motionless in the shadows.
She took a few steps forward, feeling out of place. Even empty and dark, the dining car had the smell of poshness, and Deryn half expected a man in a tuxedo to appear and smirk at her ill-fitting uniform.
She sat down at one of the tables, peeking out through the curtains at the hunt outside. The electric torches of her pursuers bobbed in the darkness, but they were fanning out in the direction of the water, still thinking she'd run away from the Express. Barks and shouts echoed around the docks, but here inside the train it felt as if a fancy supper were about to be served....
"Supper," Deryn whispered, and sprang to her feet.
She climbed behind the bar and hunted through the shelves, finding corkscrews and towels, and bottles of brandy and wine. This was just a saloon, separate from the dining car - there was no barking food here!
But then she discovered a drawer full of several fancy cakes wrapped up in thick cloth napkins. One of the crew must have set them aside and then forgotten them.
Deryn sat on the floor and began to gobble the cakes. Stale or not, they tasted better than anything she'd eaten since joining the Service. She washed them down with water from the bottom of a silver ice bucket, then had a few swigs from an open bottle of brandy.
"Not bad at all," she said, then burped.
Now that her head had stopped spinning with hunger, Deryn found herself wondering what exactly was going on here. Where were the Clankers taking all this cargo? According to the labels, it had all come from Germany. So why put it on the Express, which would be headed back to Munich?
Deryn peeked out a window again - no sign of the search remained. Her pursuers were probably at the shore, having guessed that she'd snuck in from the water.
The mechanical arms were finishing up the last few pieces of cargo - huge glass jar batteries and insulators - and the train's engines were rumbling back to life.
What if it was headed to a place close by, somewhere it could return from before dawn? No one would notice it had slipped out of the city, or suspect the luxurious Orient-Express of carrying industrial cargo.
The train jolted into motion, and Deryn reminded herself that she wasn't here to spy on the Clankers. She was here to help Alek, not uncover the secrets of the Ottoman Empire.
The barbed wire fence was already sliding past on either side - she could jump off anytime now with no one the wiser.
Deryn went back to the bar and selected the fanciest bottle of brandy she could find. It was stealing, plain and simple, but she needed something to trade for money and a proper meal. This dusty old brandy was the best thing she could find.
The Express crept slowly through Istanbul, not calling much attention to itself. The tracks traveled near the water's edge, past darkened warehouses and closed factory gates. Deryn opened the door and stood between the cars, waiting for the right moment to jump.
As the train slowed for a turn, she stepped off as smoothly as some tourist arriving on holiday. She skidded down the embankment and crouched there until the steaming dragon had passed, then made her way into the unlit streets.
Even this late, the bright lights of the city still glowed on the horizon, but Deryn reckoned she needed rest more than food now. So she picked the darkest, shabbiest alley she could find and curled up for a few hours of fitful sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
She awoke before dawn to someone prodding her with a broom.
It was a young man in coveralls, who went about the task without particular enthusiasm. When Deryn scrambled to her feet, he turned back to sweeping the alley, never saying a word. Of course, the man would hardly expect her to speak Turkish. The port of Istanbul was probably full of foreign sailors lugging about bottles of brandy.
Drums were sounding in the distance, along with a vigorous chanting. It seemed a bit early for anyone to be making such a racket. The trio of cats she'd shared the alley with hardly seemed to notice, though, and went back to sleep after the sweeping man had passed on.
Deryn walked at random until she spied the forest of minarets near the sultan's palace. Surely there were restaurants for sightseers thereabouts. The fancy cakes in her stomach had been replaced by gnawing hunger, and she needed to be thinking clearly if she was to find Alek in this giant city.
Touring Istanbul on foot wasn't like looking down from an airship or the howdah of a giant elephant. The smells were sharper down here - unfamiliar spices and walker exhaust snarled in the air, and pushcarts full of strawberries passed, leaving a sweet haze in their wake, along with a few hungry-looking dogs. A dozen languages mixed in Deryn's ears; a jumble of alphabets decorated every news kiosk. Luckily, there were also simple hand gestures among all the babel. Making herself understood would be simple enough.