"Yes, your ship looks terrible," Alek said. His eyes were wide, like he'd never seen a fabricated creature before. Maybe that explained his twitchiness. "Do you think you can fix it?"
Deryn stepped back for a better view of the wreck. Hardly anyone was working here on the starboard flank. But up on the spine men were silhouetted against searchlight beams reaching into the sky. The gondolas must have wound up on the other side of the wreck, so the repair work had started over there.
Deryn knew she should be helping them, and finding out what had happened to Newkirk and Mr. Rigby, but her hands felt too weak to climb. The cold had seeped into her bones while she'd lain unconscious.
"Eventually." Her eyes scanned the bleak terrain. "But I wouldn't fancy staying here very long! Maybe your people could help us?"
The boy's eyes widened a bit. "My village is quite far from here. And we don't know anything about airships."
"No, of course not. But this looks like a big job. We'll need lots of rope, maybe machine parts. The engines on this side must be smashed to blazes. You Swiss are good with gears, aren't you?"
"I'm afraid we can't help." Alek pulled a bunch of leather satchels from his shoulder. "But I can give you these. For your wounded men."
He handed the satchels to Deryn. She opened one and peered inside: bandages, scissors, a thermometer in a leather case, and a dozen tiny bottles. Whoever Alek's people were, they knew how to get proper supplies up the mountain.
"Thank you," she said. "But where did you get these?"
"I'm afraid I have to go." The boy took a step backward. "I'm expected home soon."
"Wait, Alek!" she cried, making him jump. Living up here, he probably wasn't used to strangers. But she couldn't let him wriggle away like this. "Just tell me where your village is."
"The other side of the glacier." He made a gesture toward the horizon, in no particular direction. "Quite far away."
Deryn wondered if he was hiding something. Of course, to live in a shivery wasteland like this, you'd have to be a bit cracked in the attic. Or were his people outlaws of some kind?
"Seems like an odd place to have a village," she said carefully.
"Well, it's not what you'd call a large village. Just me and ... my extended family."
Deryn nodded slowly, still smiling. So Alek was changing his story now. Was there a village or wasn't there?
He took another step backward. "Listen, I'm not really supposed to be this far from home. I just happened to be out hiking when I saw your ship come down."
"Out hiking?" Deryn said. "In all this barking snow? At night?"
"Yes. I often hike on the glacier at night."
Chapter 19
"With medicine?"
Alek blinked. "Well, that was because ..." There was a long pause. "Um, I'm afraid I don't know the word in English."
"The word for what?"
"I just said: I don't know it!" He turned from her and began to slide away on his funny oversize shoes. "I have to go now."
Alek's story was clearly a load of blether. And wherever he was from, the ship's officers would want to know about it. She started to follow him, but her foot cracked through the brittle surface, filling her boot with snow.
"Blisters!" 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!"