'Mmph!" Alek yelped as a hand clapped over his mouth from behind.
He struggled, attempting to cry out, when an arm grabbed him round the waist and yanked him backwards through what happened to be Dylan's cabin door.
"Barking spiders! Could you be a bit noisier about it, you ninny!" Dylan whispered irritably, an ear to the door he'd just slammed shut behind them.
Alek groaned from his tangled heap on the floor. "What are you doing?"
The midshipman shot him an exasperated glare. Bovril, balanced on Dylan's shoulder, mirrored it on his furry features.
"It's the bleeding official banquet tonight, isn't it? All the great toffee-nosed Japanese aristocrats are coming aboard, and I'm on kitchen detail. Captain's orders. Trust me; it's not the place you want to be of a Friday night."
Alek frowned "Why has nobody told me about this before now?"
Dylan paused. "They don't want you and your Clanker friends ruining the party, is all." he said. "Lucky thing. At least you don't have to wait on the sods hand and foot. I'm doing you a favour, taking you with me."
Alek rolled his eyes. "You're getting out of the washing-up by kidnapping me?"
Dylan grinned wickedly, but Alek could sense the nervous edge in his voice.
"Oh, come on. We're docked in barking Tokyo, and we leave tomorrow morning!" he exclaimed. "Don't tell me you'd rather be stuck rinsing some duke's soup-plates than exploring the night-life."
Picking himself up off the floor, Alek sighed. "All right. But you'd better not bring the creature," he indicated Bovril, "It tends to make the most noise right in the middle of an escape."
Bovril chirruped unhappily, then cleared its throat in a manner eerily reminiscent of Volger. "Bring." it said in Alek's voice.
'Please?" "He'll be quiet, won't you, beastie," Dylan crooned, stroking the creature on his shoulder. Bovril nodded sincerely, eyes wide.
Alek was evidently never going to win. He put on his best aristocratic sneer, modeled on one of his more detestable cousins, and agreed.
Dylan leapt up. "Right, then. Here's the plan."
Ten minutes later the two were creeping along the Spine, the web of light that was Tokyo glittering beneath them under a darkening sky.
Deryn took the lead, Bovril hunched in the collar of her midshipman's jacket, and Alek trailed behind, glancing nervously back the way they'd come.
"Are you sure everyone's at this banquet?" he whispered.
Deryn looked back at him briefly. "Course I'm sure, ninny" she hissed, hoping he couldn't hear the tremor in her voice. What if he knew? What if they'd told him?
Bovril, ever the mind-reader, chuckled softly. "Banquet."
She brushed the thoughts away. "Hurry!" she called back to Alek. 'We haven't got all night!"
The Leviathan was moored a good 20 metres off the ground, tethered against the wind by six thick ratlines attached to towers enclosing the landing yard.
There were no visible security guards- Deryn breathed a momentary sigh of relief. Perhaps, despite everything, luck was on their side.
She swallowed, steeling her nerves. Already the moon was rising- they had to move it.
They reached the place where the nearest ratline was knotted to a stanchion set into the ship's side, and Deryn produced a coil of rope from her coat, knotting a harness with deft, if shaking slightly, fingers.
She looped it tight around her waist, then motioned for Alek to come closer.
"Here. Pull this round you." They would have to go together, this was taking long enough as it was.
Alek frowned. "How are we going to get back up?"
Deryn forced herself to laugh. "Don't worry. I've got it covered. Those delegates have to get out of the ship somehow, don't they? We'll use their docking-stairs."
She clipped a metal carabiner to the huge mooring-line and threaded the harness through; tugging it till she was sure it would hold. She could feel her heart thrumming, relentless.
"Put your weight on it," she told Alek.
He shifted back uncertainly, testing the web of rope that would be the only thing between them and the ground, 20 metres straight down.
They leaned into the harness side by side, Deryn realising uncomfortably how close they were.
"Ready?" she glanced over her shoulder at Alek.
He muttered something in German, staring at the drop with wide eyes.
"Whenever you are, Captain."
She smiled despite herself, edging forward… and suddenly her feet left the Leviathan, she was swooping down giddily, wind tearing at her hair, Alek clinging to her so rigidly she could barely breathe.
They flew down the length of the rope, the harness was holding, they weren't falling to their deaths! Deryn reined in a triumphant whoop, happy for the first time all day.
The mooring tower loomed closer and closer every moment and Deryn braced herself for the impact, eyes shutting reflexively a split-second before they hit.
The breath was driven from her lungs as they crashed into the steel girders and rebounded. She clutched at the metal, seeking hand and footholds, and there, they were balancing on the side of the tower, gasping, bruised, and laughing like loons with the adrenaline rushing through their systems.
Deryn turned, wheezing, to face Alek, who was as white as a fabricated polar bear with the biggest smile she'd ever seen plastered on his face.
"Dylan?" he panted. "Never, ever, do that again. Ever."
"You should be used to this sort of thing by now," she laughed, reaching up to unclip the carabiner.
"You," Alek muttered "you I will never get used to."
And with that, they began the precarious climb to the ground.