'Can't you guess? It's the TMB-2, a clone of the original Hughes Mining Barge-1, equipped with updated telemetry and new materials so that pressure-induced brittleness in the grab cantilever arms won't stop it from working this time.'
'But you know the Deep Ones won't let you retrieve — '
'Really?' His grin widens.
'But!' My head's spinning. I know about the original HMB-1, Operation JENNIFER, the BLUE HADES defense system that nearly dragged the mother ship down. 'You said this was about Ramona'
'She's one of the in-laws,' Billington explains cheerfully.
'She's got the Innsmouth look, you know? She tastes right to their minions the abyssal polyps. You didn't think the Deep Ones guarded every inch of their territory in person, did you?
The polyps are subsentient just like your burglar alarm. They work by biochemical tracers, discriminating self from other.'
He picks up his whisky. 'I need her to ride the grab down and keep an eye on it while it locks onto the target. If the defenders of the deep smell Old One in the water they'll stay cowering in their burrows in the abyssal mud. What do you say to that'
'It's an interesting theory,' I admit, which is true because I don't know one way or the other whether it'll work.
'It's more than a theory. I sank a lot of money into arranging for the Black Chamber to send her, boy. Her folk aren't so numerous and most of them would die rather than let themselves be turned to such a purpose. She's been tamed, which is unusual, and you've got a handle on her, and I've got you. So, I'll make you a new offer. Convince her to ride the barge for me willingly, and I'll have McMurray free her from her curse. Convince her to ride the barge and I won't even have to threaten you. How about it'
He's backed me into a corner, I realize. And not just with menaces; the thing is, he has found Ramona's price. And having been inside her skull, even if only a bit, I'm not sure I can criticize her. Or easily stand in her way, if she really wants to do it. Threats of torture are redundant — just forcing her to go on living in her current state is torment enough.
Plus, if she doesn't cooperate, Billington might turn nasty and take it out of my hide. Which reminds me of something else ...
'Why me?' I finally burst out. 'I mean, if you needed her, surely you don't specifically need me to control her? I'm nothing to you. You've got McMurray. You already know about my government's offer. What am I doing here? Why don't you just do the disentangling ritual and dump me overboard'
Billington's smile widens, disturbingly: 'Ah, but that's where you're wrong, Mr. Howard. Your presence here prevents anyone else — like the US Navy, for example — from turning up and spoiling my scheme. Which I realized would be a likely response to my current operation right at the outset, and took steps to prevent, in the form of a monumentally expensive and rather intricate destiny-entanglement geas that compels the participants to adopt certain archetypal roles that have been gathering their strength from hundreds of millions of believers over nearly fifty years. The geas doesn't mess with causality directly, but it does ensure that the likelihood of events that mesh with its destiny model are raised, while other avenues become less ... probable. Going against the geas is hard; agents get run over by taxis, aircraft suffer inexplicable mechanical failures, that sort of thing. Now you've jumped through all the hoops in the geas and in so doing massively reinforced it. You've taken on the role of the heroic adversary. Which in turn means that nobody else is allowed to play the hero around here. And in accordance with another aspect of the geas, you're in my power for the time being and you're going to stay there until a virtuous woman turns up to release you. Got that'
My head's spinning. What the hell is he on about? And where am I going to find a virtuous woman on board a mad billionaire's yacht at three in the morning as we steam towards the Bermuda Triangle? 'What about the auction?' I ask plaintively.
Billington laughs raucously. 'Oh, Mr. Howard! The auction was only ever a blind, to make your superiors believe I could be bought and sold!' He leans forwards across the Desk, and his eyebrows furrow like thunderclouds: 'What use do you think I have for mere gigabucks? This is the highstakes table.' He looks past my shoulder, towards the gorilla.
'Take him back to his room and lock him in until morning.
We'll continue this conversation over breakfast.' The gorilla stomps over and lays a beefy hand on my shoulder. 'When I have JENNIFER MORGUE they'll do anything I want,' he mutters, and my skin crawls because I don't think he's talking to me anymore. 'Anything at all. They'll have to listen to me once I own the planet.'
The gorilla herds me back down a short flight of steps and onto a passage that sports a row of mahogany- paneled doors like a very exclusive hotel. He opens one of them and gestures me inside. I briefly consider trying to take him, but realize it won't work: they've got Ramona and they've got the surveillance network from Hell and I'm on a ship that's already out of sight of land. I'll only get one chance, at most, and I'd better make sure I don't blow it. So I go inside without a struggle, and look around tiredly as he turns the key in the lock.
Being locked in one of Billington's guest rooms is a comfortable step up from a police cell. It's aboard ship so it's smaller than a five-star hotel suite, but that's about the only way it suffers by comparison. The bed's a double, the carpet is luxuriously thick, there's a porthole (non-opening), a wet bar, and a big flat-screen TV, a shelf next to it holds a handful of paperbacks and a row of DVDs. I assume I'm supposed to drink myself comatose while watching cheesy spy thrillers.
The desk (small, guest-room-sized) opposite the bed shows raw patches where they must have yanked out a PC earlier — it's a damn shame, but Billington's people are smart enough not to leave a computer where I can get my hands on it.
'Shit,' I mutter, then sit down in the sinfully padded leather recliner next to the wet bar. Surrender has seldom been such an attractive prospect. I massage my head. Looking out the porthole there's nothing but an expanse of nightblack sea, overlooked by stars. I yawn. Whatever that bitch Johanna used to put my lights out was fast-acting; it can't be much past three in the morning. And I'm still tired, now that I think about it. I look around the room and there's nothing particularly obvious in the way of escape routes.
Plus, they're probably watching me, via a peephole in the door if they've got any sense. 'What a mess.'
**You can say that again, monkey-boy.** I flinch, then force myself to relax. Trying to show no sign of anything in particular, I open my inner ear again.
**Ramona?**
**No, I'm the fucking tooth fairy. Have you seen my pliers lying around? There's a couple of folks here in line for some root-canal surgery when I get free.** The wash of relief is visceral; if I was standing I'd probably collapse on the spot. It's a good thing I found the recliner first **You're all right?** She snorts. **For what it's worth.** I can feel something itchy where my eyes can't see. Focusing on it, I see the inside of another room, much like this one. She's kicked off her heels and is pacing the floor restlessly, examining everything, looking for an exit.
They've wired the walls. There's a shielding graph in the floor but they must have switched it off for the time being to let us talk. I don't think they can overhear us, but they can stop us any time they want.**
**Nice of them — **
**To let us know they've got us where they want us?
Don't be silly.**
**How'd they catch you?** I ask, after an uncomfortable pause.
**It's probably the oldest trick in the book.** She stops pacing. **I was looking for Eileen's inner circle when I ran into a lure, a daemon disguised as someone I know professionally — a real class act, I could have sworn it was really him. He suckered me into an upstairs meeting room and before I knew what was happening they had me in a summoning lock. Which should be impossible unless they've got the original keys the Contracts Department used when they enslaved me, yet they did it. So I guess it's not impossible after all.** I stare at the blank TV set. **Not if it was the real thing.
His name's McMurray, isn't it?** I can taste her shock. **How the fuck did you know that?** she demands.
**Because he took me for my entire expenses tab at baccarat,** I confess. **He's got a new employer with very deep pockets. Has Billington tried to buy you yet?** She starts pacing again. **No, and he won't. Where he comes from there are different rules for people like me.
You're employable. You're human. I'm ...** I can feel her working her jaws, as if she's about to spit: **Let's
