One tentacle coiled serenely in the breeze, but otherwise the airbeast didn't react. Deryn growled with frustration. Had she found the one Huxley in the Service that couldn't be spooked?
"Bum-rag!" she called, bouncing in the saddle. "I've gone insane, and I'm keen to set myself on fire!"
More tentacles coiled, and Deryn saw the venting gills softly ruffle. The Huxley was spilling hydrogen, but not fast enough.
She kicked her legs to swing herself back and forth, yanking on the straps that connected her harness to the airbeast. "Get down, you daft creature!"
Finally the smell of hydrogen filled her nose, and Deryn felt the Huxley descending. The tether line looked less steep every second, like the string of a falling kite.
Now came the tricky part - reconfiguring the pilot's harness into an escape rig.
Still yelling at the beast, Deryn began to take apart the harness. She loosened the straps around her shoulders, wriggling one arm free, then the other. As the belt around her waist unbuckled, the first wave of dizziness hit. Nothing was keeping her in the saddle now except her own sense of balance.
Deryn realized she'd been awake almost twenty-four hours - if you didn't count lying unconscious in the snow, which was hardly quality sleep. Probably not the best time for risky maneuvers ...
She stared at the undone straps and buckles, trying to remember how they went back together. How was she meant to reassemble them while clinging to her perch?
Sighing, Deryn decided to use both hands - even if that meant she was one Huxley twitch away from a long fall.
"Forget what I was saying earlier, beastie," she murmured. "Let's just float calmly, shall we?"
The tentacles stayed coiled around her, but at least the creature was still descending. The tether line had almost reached forty-five degrees.
After a long minute's fiddling, the escape rig looked right - the buckles forming a sort of carabiner in the center. Deryn gave the contraption a jerk between her hands, and it held firm.
Now came the scary part.
She clenched the rig between her teeth and pulled herself up with both hands. As her bum left the saddle, a fresh wave of dizziness hit. But a moment later Deryn was standing in a half crouch, her rubber-soled boots gripping the curved leather seat.
She reached up and clipped the buckles onto the tether line, then took one end of the strap in each hand, winding the leather several times around her wrists.
Deryn glanced down at the glacier. "Blisters!"
While she'd been getting ready, the walker had closed almost half the distance to the airship. Worse, the tether line had gotten steeper. The wind was tugging the Huxley higher. At this angle she'd slide down the rope much too fast. The Manual was full of gruesome tales about pilots who'd made that mistake.
Deryn stood to her full height, her head inches from the Huxley's membrane.
"Boo!" she cried.
The airbeast shivered all over, venting a bitter-smelling wash of hydrogen right into her face. The saddle jerked beneath Deryn, and her boots slipped from the worn leather ...
A fraction of a second later the straps around her wrists snapped, yanking her shoulders hard. And she found herself sliding down toward the massive bulk of the airship below.
She felt nothing but a roar in her ears, like staring into a headwind on the spine. Tears streamed from her face, freezing to her cheeks, but Deryn found herself letting out a wild, exultant scream.
This was real flying, better than airships or ascenders or hot-air balloons, like an eagle zooming down toward its prey.
For a few terrifying seconds the angle grew steeper, but the Manual had predicted that. It was the Huxley springing up behind Deryn as her weight slid away from it.
She glanced up at the rig. The metal buckles were giving off an audible hiss and a squick of smoke from the friction. But she was moving too quickly to burn through the rope. Everything was going perfectly.
"EMERGENCY ZIP LINE."
As long as another gust of wind didn't pull the Huxley higher ...
The airship grew in front of her. The crew were already scrambling, a muddle of tiny dots swarming on the snow. That was good. She didn't have time to make a formal report. She had to get to the machine room and back out before the walker arrived ...
But what was that? From out of nowhere a small shape had appeared on the rope ahead - a tangle, or some imperfection in the cable. At this speed, running into a knot could break her wrists - or even worse, snap the leather of the rig.
Then Deryn realized what it was: the message lizard, still making its plodding way down toward the ship.
"Out of the way, lizarrrrrrd!" she screamed.
At the last moment the beastie heard her - and leapt straight into the air! Deryn whipped past it, spinning herself around to look back. The lizard came down onto the rope, wrapping its sticky feet around the cable and shrieking random warnings as Deryn zipped away.
"Sorry, beastie!" she cried, then spun back toward the airship.
It was coming at her so fast.
She tried to slow herself, letting her legs dangle to catch the air. At least the membrane was squishy and half deflated. The flank was seconds away now, sniffers and riggers scrambling to get out of her way. Deryn let the straps around her wrists unwind ...
At the last second she dropped.
The membrane crumpled around her with a whump. For a moment she was buried in the warm, smothering embrace of the airbeast's skin, breathless and dazed.
She rolled over to face upward, her ears still ringing with the impact, and found herself nose-to-nose with a curious hydrogen sniffer.
"Ow," Deryn told it. "That hurt."
The beastie sniffed her and let out a concerned bark - apparently the impact had popped open a leak.
Hands reached down and pulled her up, setting Deryn onto her feet.
"You all right there, lad?"
"Aye, thanks," she said, looking around for an officer. But none had appeared to demand a report. The riggers were in motion all around her, the crew scattering below. "Is it in sight yet?"
"You mean that contraption?" The rigger turned and looked across the snow. On the horizon a squick of a reflection pulsed in a steady pattern, matching the rhythm of the walker's stride. "They say it's a big one."
"Aye, it is," Deryn said, and headed down.
Dashing across the membrane on shaky legs, she hoped that Alek was still with the eggs. Would he guess what the ringing battle Klaxon meant and try to escape? Or, with the enemy approaching, would some daft officer decide to lock him up again?