since uni.'
'Fun, ain't it?' said Ramsay.
'I suppose.' She climbed out and started hunting around for her bra. 'Wonder what Landesman wants.'
'Wild guess? He's gonna bust your balls about the Minotaur.'
'What? He was all for bringing it here.'
'On-comms he was. But that was only 'cause he didn't want to lose face in front of everybody. Privately's going to be a different matter.'
'You think?'
'I hope not.'
But what Ramsay predicted was what happened, more or less. In his office, in a voice like the bubble of a boiling kettle, Landesman told Sam that he believed she was making a mistake. He'd been reluctant to say so at the time. Hadn't want to undermine her authority. But, in his opinion, the Minotaur was pure beast, nothing else. It couldn't be, in her phrase, 'won over.' It couldn't be rehabilitated like a secure-wing psychiatric patient and converted into some kind of ally. The whole notion was preposterous.
Sam related what she had seen up by the lake in Corsica, the Minotaur's behaviour, its reaction to its own reflection.
'A budgerigar will attack the mirror in its cage,' Landesman said, 'thinking it's seeing off a rival budgerigar. No, I don't buy your theory at all, Sam.'
'You won't even give me the benefit of the doubt?'
'I've let you lock the monster up downstairs. I think you could call that the benefit of the doubt. You have a week. One week. That's all I'm allowing you. You want to make a project out of that creature, fine, but you need to get results within a week. Not a day longer. When time's up, and you're unable to show us any proof of progress, I'm sending Hyperion in there with his rocket launcher and he isn't coming out 'til the Minotaur's in pieces. Understood?'
Sam nodded. 'I take it there won't be any ops for a week, then. That's good. Everyone could do with a break.'
'Oh no, ops are going to continue. We've built up a good head of steam. It'd be a shame to lose it.'
'I can't do both, deal with the Minotaur and lead an op.' She saw the look in Landesman's eye, and everything became clear. 'I'm being relieved of my command, aren't I?'
'You're being temporarily reassigned.'
Same difference. 'And Rick's going to be team leader in my absence. No? Then who?'
'You're looking at him.'
'You, Mr Landesman?'
'Is there anyone else in the room?'
'But…'
'But what? I'm too old?' Landesman laughed. ' Au contraire. I am, as I believe I may have mentioned at some point, in top physical condition for a man my age, and my mental faculties are, I'm sure you'll agree, unimpaired.'
'But training…'
'I've trained long and hard in the TITAN suit. I was proficient in one long before you lot arrived.'
'Cronus,' Sam said, a lightbulb popping on in her head. 'Of course. You're Cronus. That's why no one else has been found to wear that suit. You've been keeping it back for yourself.'
'Spot-on. And now seems the opportune moment to make the move — to join the ranks. It always was my intention to. I've simply been waiting for the rest of you to gel as a unit, so that I could feel safe fitting in. And my presence on missions might have had an inhibiting effect before now. As things stand, I'm confident the Titans can accommodate me in their midst without it upsetting the balance of their functioning.'
'Even though you've had no field experience?'
'I'll pick it up as I go. I'm a quick study.'
'Will the Titans take orders from you, though?'
'They do already, to some extent. The only difference now will be I'll be right there beside them, not miles away. Sam, you can raise all the objections you like, but this isn't negotiable. This is just how it's going to be.'
'And when I come back after a week, what then?'
'We shall figure out a way of meshing together seamlessly, you and
I.'
'I've been doing OK on my own so far.'
'There's absolutely no slight intended here on your leadership qualities. Those have been all but impeccable. This is about taking the Titans to the next level. Our biggest battles lie ahead. I like to think that the addition of me to your number will strengthen your — our — effectiveness.'
'Well,' said Sam frostily, 'you're the boss.'
'Indeed I am.'
'And Darren Pugh,' she said. 'Would I be wrong in thinking he was never going to be Cronus? It was never likely?'
'Ah, Pugh. Yes. He was more of a… Do you know the word libation?'
'Long word for a drink. Popular with pompous pub landlords and real-ale bores.'
'Bit more than that. It's an offering. In classical times, before wine was served at a feast some of it would be poured out onto the ground, to appease the gods. The same at sacrifices, so that the gods would be propitiated and whatever the sacrifice was being made in aid of would be granted. Now I of course don't believe in any of that nonsense literally, but I thought it would be a nice idea — appropriate — if in this classically-based enterprise of mine I followed the precedent. Instead of a wine libation for good luck, a human libation. One of you. One I could afford to lose, even wanted to lose. I selected Pugh as the twelfth invitee secure in the knowledge, or let's at least say ninety-nine per cent certain, that he would back out before we'd even got going. He didn't have the incentive or the temperament to commit to the cause. And sure enough, he did exactly as anticipated. In addition, I'd been havering somewhat over whether I ought to enrol myself as a Titan. I was treating Pugh as a kind of test of fate. If he baulked, that would confirm that I was meant to be Cronus. And so he did, and so I was.'
'A rigged test. You chose him mainly because you knew he wouldn't sign up.'
'A test weighted in my favour, perhaps. But then it never hurts to give fate a little helping hand every now and then. That's something I've learned in business over the years. Good fortune is a case of playing the odds, and only an idiot plays poor odds.'
'And Pugh was also there to consolidate the rest of us,' Sam said. 'He helped us make up our minds, by being such a wanker. We thought, Let's not be like him. Let's do the opposite of what he's done.'
Landesman raised a sage eyebrow. 'Such an accusation! Now would I do a thing like that? Deliberately expose you all to someone whose actions would, through contrasting example, lend impetus and validity to your actions?'
Sam stood. 'All right, Mr Landesman. This is your show. You can run it however you like. I will prove you wrong about the Minotaur, though. And I'll do it within a week easily.
'And don't think I don't realise that taking away my prefect's badge is just another way of playing me. Now the pressure's on and I'll be twice as determined to get the Minotaur onside. You're an arch manipulator, and that's fine. I just want you to know I know I'm being manipulated, and I'm only going along with it because it serves my purpose.'
Landesman acknowledged this. 'For what it's worth,' he said, 'I'd never make anyone do anything they didn't already — '
He broke off. Sam was half out the door and, he could tell by the tension in her upper body, poised to bang it shut behind her as hard as she could.
'Please!' he cried. Then, more softly, and imploringly: 'Please. Don't.'
'Don't…?'
