Striding with dignity down the corridors of power was unfortunately not something Rove could keep up, not with the ceilings as low as they were. Lucas found he rather enjoyed seeing his boss having to crawl for once. Then Rove had him go first, which he enjoyed less. Partly because they kept running into mobs of rats trying to save the ship, or perhaps escape it. Lucas had to roar and threaten to make them give way. And Lucas never quite convinced himself that Rove would still be there if he glanced back. The bastard was certainly equal to deciding there was only one seat in the lifeboat.

If there is a lifeboat. Rove seemed to think there was a way out of this, but every step saw the airship fray further. Sometimes they only saw dimly lit rat warrens. Sometimes Lucas was looking down onto London streets: showered with broken glass, gusting with flames. It was like all the war zones he’d ever seen, live or on video, except it was his home under the hammer.

Rove climbed into a tiny lift with barely enough room for Lucas to squeeze in beside him. A rat-soldier tried to get in with them, and put the barrel of a weapon in their faces, twittering shrilly.

“Kill it,” Rove said flatly, and Lucas shot the creature point-blank. He recognized the same deficiency he had noted previously: the rat kings were used to their threats being respected. Their bully boys were less used to having to pull the trigger.

The force of the impact threw the small creature away from them, and they ascended.

“I don’t get it,” he said, trying to shift so that Rove’s elbow wasn’t in his ribs. “How did they fuck up so bad? I mean, they grew me a new hand, for Chrissake.”

“Poor leadership,” Rove said. “Inferior genetic stock. I mean, they’re rats, Lucas. What did you expect? You saw those ridiculous creatures.”

Lucas choked down a number of possible responses. His boss was right about one thing, though: it wasn’t a meritocracy around here. The rat kings would pass their fancy robes and spacious chambers on to their little rat princes and princesses. And all their time and effort would go into jockeying with each other and maintaining the status quo. They probably didn’t do the hard work of understanding how things worked—they had people to do that for them. But if those experts told them things they didn’t like, inbred privilege trumped actual knowledge and they did as they pleased.

Then they were up top, and it looked like the end of the world. They were in London’s commercial heart, in a ship that had manifested within a half-dozen separate buildings, all now slanting perilously. He could hear screams, sirens and the basso profundo moan of buildings stressed beyond their tolerances.