Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

south. The floods are unpredictable.”
    “And we should have hired the women of Hannasvik as guides.”
    She might have enjoyed that. “You meant to come up here for your survey.”
    “Yes. And it would have been more difficult than we realized. The terrain is rougher. We would have had to hire a balloon or an airship.”
    She couldn’t mistake the irony in his tone. Here they were, on an airship—and he had his journal again. Di Fiore had carried it up from his cabin shortly after they’d started out, and gave it over to David with a smile for him and a wink for her.
    Though David hadn’t said a word, Annika had been surprised that he hadn’t strangled the man there and then.
    “This doesn’t have to be a lost opportunity,” she said. “Perhaps you can conduct part of your survey while you’re here.”
    “No. The only thing I care about is getting you away from here.” He met her eyes again, his expression focused, intense. “I will do anything to keep you safe. Anything. For now, he wants me to help his father, and he was smart enough not to threaten you. But if you feel threatened for even a second, it’s over. I’ll rip his head off, and face whatever comes next.”
    Which would probably be di Fiore’s guards. Annika glanced back, saw his cold, assessing gaze fixed on them. A shiver raced over her skin. She quickly looked ahead again.
    The airship gained altitude, giving her a better view of the glacier ahead. Beyond the next rise, an enormous balloon sat on the glacier, as if a giant’s airship had been trapped beneath the ice. Annika stared at the long envelope, mouth open. The balloon couldn’t be as large as it appeared…but the whale shouldn’t have been, either.
    It was oddly shaped, flatter toward the bottom. The gas inside the metal fabric must have been cold, but the shape of the balloon appeared heavier than it should have if filled with hydrogen—or even with natural air. Pipes led to the bottom of the balloon.
    David pushed his scarf down, inhaled. “Do you smell that?”
    A familiar pungent odor. “Like the mudpots, or the hot springs.”
    “Sulphur.”
    On Phatéon , Komlan had said that di Fiore’s men were mining for that mineral. “Are they drilling through the ice, then?”
    They were obviously doing something. Annika’s gaze followed the pipes south, where a tall structure rose. The steel framework resembled a tower of scaffolding. The tower supported a large steel capsule, long and smooth, rounded on each end.
    Annika squinted across the distance, but couldn’t make sense of the object at the top. “Is that a submersible?”
    The capsule resembled one, though it stood vertically rather than lengthwise. Annika couldn’t imagine why they’d need a submersible on the ice…though David had said that water was trapped below.
    He shook his head. “I don’t see any propellers—but there’s a borehole in the ice beneath the tower.”
    So they had drilled through the ice. Steam drifted around the base of the tower, rising from the hole. “How deep does it go?”
    “God knows. Look there, Annika.”
    To the north. A troll was crossing the ice—not Austra Longears, but an identical machine. “Where is it going?”
    “There.” David pointed directly ahead. “A camp.”
    Annika could see men moving about and another troll, but expecting buildings similar to the rail camp’s, she didn’t immediately spot them—only mounds of snow that formed long, regular shapes, but weren’t tall enough for bunkhouses. Yet they were, she realized. Instead of building on top of the ice, they’d cut down into it. She was looking at peaked roofs with eaves almost flush with the ground.
    Though the three-sided layout was similar to the rail camp’s, now she saw that it was much more extensive. Smaller buildings with roofs that were hardly more than a bump sat behind longer ones. Steam rose from one small building, and the snow over its roof appeared thinner, the surface icier. A furnace chamber, perhaps, that heated the other buildings. Good. If she ever needed a distraction, a furnace could usually provide a deadly one.
    And even better, in the clearing sat a means of escape—several means, in fact, in the form of two-seater balloons. Several of them possessed engines. Those would be too loud, and they would take too long to rise into the air. But at least one was pedal-powered—that would be quiet. She and David could climb into the seats and be on their way within