"Barking Clankers," she swore. Those contraptions had made the airbeast lazy. ="0em" width="1em">To the west the Mexican airships were spreading out, taking time to surround their quarry. At this range Deryn could see their full wings and long whiplike tails, definitely based on the life threads of the manta ray. A brace of gasbags beneath the wings provided lift, with the Clanker engines slung in the middle. She recalled something like them from the Manual of Aeronautics, an experimental Italian craft, perhaps.
The manta ships weren't large; they didn't even carry a gondola. The crews rode in the ratlines on their backs, rifles in hand. The ships' only heavy armament was a pair of Gatling guns for each ship, mounted fore and aft.
A line of strafing hawks was streaming out from the Leviathan, but not in attack formation yet. The birds encircled their airship home with a glittering ring of talons.
The starboard engine had stopped belching smoke, and Deryn saw a familiar spiked helmet down in the pod - Master Klopp's. The Clanker machinery must have been acting up already, then. Since old Klopp's injury, the engineers never called him to the pods unless things were going pear-shaped.
The message lizard scuttled back up, speaking in the master mechanic's gruff German. "There's something wrong with the fuel, Dylan. It tastes funny."
Deryn frowned. Though she'd seen Klopp dip his finger into fuel and give it a sniff, she'd never seen him taste the stuff.
"The port engine will also be damaged if it keeps running," the lizard continued. "Tell them to shut down."
"What's wrong with that critter?" came a voice from behind her. "Sounds like it's talking German."
Deryn sighed as she picked up the lizard. "Yes, Miss Rogers. One of Alek's men is working down there. That's a Clanker engine, after all."
"And you understand German?"
"Well enough. I've worked with Master Klopp for more than two months now."
"What a fine coincidence! You've got a German fellow working on your engine that just broke down!"
"Master Klopp is Austrian!" Deryn said, pushing past the woman and heading across the hump.
Miss Rogers followed, notebook in hand. "Mr. Sharp, do you still suspect Mr. Francis of German sympathies? While ignoring the actual Clankers on your ship?"
Deryn waved at the riggers, hoping one would take the reporter away, but they were scrambling to set up an air gun. She swore, storming to the far side of the hump to set the lizard down again.
"Port engine pod," she told it. "This is Middy Sharp. Klopp says your fuel supply has something wrong with it. Don't go to speed unless absolutely necessary! End message."
As she shoved the lizard on its way, she realized the engineers would never obey herrders over the captain's. Maybe she should have sent the lizard to the bridge instead.
Miss Rogers was scribbling in her notebook. "Fuel supply, eh?"
"Exactly." Deryn stood up. "That's the fuel that Mr. Hearst gave us, and it's damaged our engines right in the middle of an ambush! Now does that sound like a coincidence to you?"
Miss Rogers scratched her nose with her pencil. "Hard to say."
Deryn looked back at the Mexican airships. One was drawing abreast of the Leviathan, no more than a mile away, a line of semaphore flags running out across its wings.
G-R-E-E-T-I-N-G-S - L-E-V-I-A-T-H-A-N, they said.
"So now you're being friendly," she muttered.
"Who is?"
Deryn pointed at the flags. "They've sent us greetings."
Another string followed, and she read them out to the reporter.
E-N-G-I-N-E - T-R-O-U-B-L-E - W-E - C-A-N - H-E-L-P.
"Well, that sounds friendly," Miss Rogers said.
Deryn frowned. "Maybe so, but this is all a bit convenient. They knew just where to find us, and this is a barking big desert."
"Young man, this is also a rather big airship."
Deryn started to retort, but another string of flags was running out. "It says these airships follow the orders of General Villa."
"Pancho Villa? Well, that's handy." The lady reporter scribbled. "The chief thinks quite highly of him."
Deryn snorted. "No doubt they're old pals. Now it says they've got an airfield nearby, with everything we need to make repairs. And they're happy to give us a tow." She squinted at the rest, then swore. "And all they want in return is one little thing."
"What's that?"
"A bit of sugar for their hungry beasts."
"Oh, dear," Miss Rogers said.
Deryn shook her head, remembering what Alek had told her - Hearst had been delighted when he'd found out the Leviathan was headed across Mexico. And somehow he'd set all this in motion - the doctored fuel, the smuggled arms, the airships stalking them - in a single night.
She looked about. Men and sniffers were streaming up the ratlines now, and a few message lizards as well. She pulled out her command whistle and blew for a lizard. The bridge needed a full report.
"You say you know this General Villa?"
The lady reporter shrugged. "Only by reputation, but I know some of his business partners well enough."
"All right, then. Stay close to me, and keep your barking eyes open."
"Young man, you hardly need to tell me that."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The cilia woke faster than Deryn had expected; maybe the mantas were giving the airbeast a fright. The motivator engines ran on organic batteries, of course, and hadn't suffered from Hearst's contaminated fuel. So the Leviathan was soon under its own power again, following the Mexican airships at a wary distance.
Deryn sent a message lizard down to the bridge, relating the news that Hearst and General Villa were on friendly terms. It came back and spoke in Captain Hobbes's own voice, telling her to take charge of docking. That was usually a rigger's job, but the captain wanted an officer on the bowhead. If the Leviathan's hosts made any hostile moves, the ship would drop all ballast and shoot into the air. The mooring cables would have to be cut loose - and fast.
"I'll be ready, sir," Deryn said. "End message."
"That just proves my earlier point," Miss Rogers said as the creature scuttled away. "If you want something done right, always ask the bell captain."
"Stop barking calling me that."
"I assure you, young man, it's the highest compliment a hotel-raised girl can muster."
Deryn rolled her eyes. And she'd thought Eddie Malone was annoying.
Whoever had doctored the Leviathan's fuel had done a precise job of it. The starboard engine had seized up only an hour away from Villa's airfield. The tip of a mooring tower rose up from a steep-sided canyon, deep enough for the Leviathan to hide itself in. The canyon had only one narrow entrance, but a hundred rocky nooks and crannies along its sides.
"A natural fortress," Deryn said. "I take it this General Villa is one of the revolutionaries."
"He's a rebel at heart." Miss Rogers shrugged. "Though it's complicated these days, more of a civil war than a revolution."
"But he's using Clanker engines. Do the Germans have a hand in all this?"
"All the powers are supplying one faction or another. The Great War has only raised the stakes."
Deryn sighed. Alek was right about one thing: One way or another, the war had sunk its claws into every nation on Earth. Even this distant conflict had been shaped by the war machines and fighting beasts of Europe.
Another reason for Alek to feel bad, to think all the world's troubles were his fault. Sometimes Deryn wished that she could burn the guilt out of his heart, or protect him from how awful the war was. Or at least make him forget somehow.
As the Leviathan slowed to a halt, the bottom of the canyon came into view. A few Clanker engines aside, these rebels were definitely Darwinists. Patches of fabricated corn covered the ground in bright colors, and a high stone wall penned a herd of fabricated bulls the size of streetcars. Six-legged donkeys carried packs down the steep trails leading into the canyon, and a pair of squidesque airbeasts grazed on the nearby cliff tops, their languid tentacles clearing scrub grass and cacti.
But on a high outcrop of rock a mile away was another bit of Clanker technology - a wireless tower.
"So that's how Hearst arranged all this."
Miss Rogers tutted. "Didn't someone tell me that your Mr. Tesla was a radio wiz?"
"Aye, but he's hardly arms-smuggling material. He can't stop blethering about peace."
"But his Goliath is a weapon, is it not?"
Deryn didn't bother to deny that.
The Leviathan angled itself into the wind, the cilia rippling to push it down. The manta ships drifted at a polite distance, but Deryn wondered if they had any hidden firepower. If the Mexicans were importing Clanker engines, maybe they'd got a few rockets in the bargain. The Leviathan's strafing hawks were still in the air, of course, ready to strike in all directions.
Soon the sides of the canyon were rising up around Deryn, making her feel trapped. It was strange to be up on the spine and yet have stone walls to either side. If there was any treachery, the only way out would be straight up.
The airbeast's nose eased toward the tower, a team of riggers standing ready at the mooring crossbow. A grappling hook was set in the crossbow.
"Ready . . . ," Deryn called as the tower drew near. "Fire!"
The crossbow snapped, sending the grappling hook soaring. With a rattle of metal and chain, its prongs tangled in the struts of the tower.
"Draw her in!" Deryn cried, and the riggers wound the cable fast, tightening the hook's grip. "Now tie her off!"
Soon the ship was secure, and from the canyon walls echoed the slither of cables dropping from the gondola below. The captain would be winching the ship down rather than venting hydrogen. That would keep the Leviathan buoyant, sitting in the canyon like a cork at the bottom of a bathtub, ready to pop up and out in case of danger.
Deryn's eyes swept the rocky ground below. The men gathering up the Leviathan's ropes had rifles slung across their backs, but there was no sign of heavy arms, except for a half dozen cannon guarding the mouth of the canyon. They were pointed away from the airship, and looked like leftovers from a bygone war.
"Little wonder your boss wants to lend General Villa a hand," Deryn said, lowering her field glasses. "The general has got plenty of beasties, but no proper guns."
"I've heard the chief say exactly that." Miss Rogers sighed. "I just wish he'd told me what he was up to."
"Aye, he might have told us, too!"
The ground men below were pulling the ropes out in all directions. Deryn spotted Newkirk drifting down on gliding wings to help them. The boy was soon waving his arms as he tried to organize Villa's men.
"Do you know any Spanish, Miss Rogers?"
"As much as any girl from southern California. Which means more than a little but less than I'd like."
Deryn nodded. "You might be the only one on the ship who does. Stand ready."
"Much as I'd love to review my reflexive verbs, Mr. Sharp, it won't be necessary. I'm certain all of General Villa's motion picture contracts are in English."
"His what?"
"Didn't I tell you? That's how Mr. Hearst knows him. They're both in the movie business!" Miss Rogers swept her hand across the encampment. "That's how Villa finances all this. He takes moving pictures of his battles and sends them to Los Angeles. He's practically a motion picture star!"
"So Hearst has a movie deal with him?"
The reporter shook her head. "Villa's contract is with Mutual Films. But I suppose the chief wants to horn in. Crafty, isn't he?"