The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross [2]
Ace titles by Charles Stross
SINGULARITY SKY
IRON SUNRISE
ACCELERANDO
THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES
GLASSHOUSE
HALTING STATE
SATURN’S CHILDREN
THE JENNIFER MORGUE
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2006 by Charles Stross.
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eISBN : 978-1-440-66067-2
1. Geeks (Computer enthusiasts)—Fiction. 2. Intelligence service—Fiction. 3. Demonology—
Fiction. 4. Great Britain—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6119.T79J46 2009
823’.92—dc22
2008041099
http://us.penguingroup.com
FOR ANDREW, LORNA, AND JAMES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
No book gets written in a vacuum, and this one is no exception. I’d like to thank my editors, Marty Halpern at Golden Gryphon and Ginjer Buchanan at Ace, and my agent, Caitlin Blasdell, all of whom helped make this book possible. I’d also like to thank my hundreds of test readers—in no particular order: Simon Bradshaw, Dan Ritter, Nicholas Whyte, Elizabeth Bear, Brooks Moses, Mike Scott, Jack Foy, Luna Black, Harry Payne, Andreas Black, Marcus Rowland, Ken MacLeod, Peter Hollo, Andrew Wilson, Stefan Pearson, Gavin Inglis, Jack Deighton, John Scalzi, Anthony Quirke, Jane McKie, Hannu Rajaniemi, Andrew Ferguson, Martin Page, Robert Sneddon, and Steve Stirling. I’d also like to thank Hugh Hancock, who valiantly helped me MST3K my way through the Bond canon.
Prologue
JENNIFER
August 25, 1975
165° W, 30° N
THE GUYS FROM THE “A” AND “B” CREWS HAVE been sitting on their collective ass for five weeks, out in the middle of nowhere. They’re not alone; there’s the ship’s crew, from the captain on down to the lowliest assistant cook, and the CIA spooks. But the other guys have at least got something to do. The ship’s crew has a vessel to run: an unholy huge behemoth, 66,000 tons of deep-ocean exploratory mining ship, 400 million bucks and seven years in the building. The CIA dudes are keeping a wary eye on the Russian trawler that’s stooging around on the horizon. And as for the Texan wildcat drilling guys, for the past couple of days they’ve been working ceaselessly on the stabilized platform, bolting one sixty-foot steel pipe after another onto the top of the drill string and lowering it into the depths of the Pacific Ocean. But the “A” and “B” teams have been sitting on their hands for weeks with nothing to do but oil and service the enormous mechanism floating in the moon pool at the heart of