The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross [80]
Outmaneuvered.
The guy above me is turning in tight circles as he descends, keeping an eye open for signs of an ambush as he heads towards Ramona, who is feigning a false sense of security, her back to the outside of the cliff next to the point where the pillar merges with it in a jagged mass of crumpled volcanic rock. I shelter in the cleft between pillar and cliff as he strokes steadily down, hugging the far side of the pillar from Ramona. In his arms he’s clutching something that looks like a shotgun, if shotguns had viciously barbed harpoons jutting from their muzzles. Just great, I think. What was it Harry the Horse tried to beat into my head? Never bring a dagger to a harpoon duel, or something like that.
My luck runs out while he’s still about three meters above me, ten meters above Ramona. He slows his corkscrew, peering into the shadowy cleft, and I see a change in his posture. Shit. Everything happens in nightmarish slow-mo. I’ve got my feet braced against the pillar and I let go like a spring, kicking straight up towards him, knife-first. Something sizzles past my shoulder, drawing a hot line across my chest, then I ram him with my shoulder. He’s already tumbling out of the way of my knife and I try and bring it back round towards him. I can’t breathe—I’m out of range of Ramona’s gills—and in a bleak flash of clarity I realize I’m going to die here. The pressure in my chest eases as he takes a swing at me with a knife I sense rather than see, but I’m inside his reach and I grab his forearm and we go tumbling. He’s strong but I’m desperate and disoriented and I somehow manage to get my other arm around his neck and something snags my knife. I yank on it as hard as I can, as he tenses his knife arm—we’re arm-wrestling at this point—and something gives way. He thrashes spasmodically and lets go, kicks towards the surface, and there’s a silvery stream of bubbles rising above him that’s much too big and bright to be normal.
Ramona’s right below me. ★★Let’s go,★★ she gasps, tugging at my ankle. ★★Deeper!★★
★★But I just—★★
★★I know what you just did! Come on before they do it right back to us! Nobody in their right mind dives alone.★★ She lets go for a moment, kicks out, and moves her grip to my arm. ★★Let’s move it.★★ She rolls us round and pulls me away from the pillar, back up towards the murky gloom beneath the defense platform. I feel her fear and let it pull me along behind her, but my mind’s not home: I’m not feeling queasy, exactly, but I’ve got a lot to think about. ★★We’ve got to get back to the tunnel,★★ she says urgently.
★★The tunnel? Why?★★
★★They’ll have searched it first. And most divers don’t like confined spaces, caves. I figure they’ll concentrate on the open waters outside the reef, now they’ve got the sighting. We just wait them out.★★
★★In the tunnel.★★
What are we doing here? I shake my head. What’s it all for? I keep rerunning the video stream captured in my mind’s eye, the silvery parabola of bubbles rising above the drowning diver—
★★We’re missing something important,★★ Ramona muses darkly.
★★How did they find us?★★
★★Not sure. They’ve opened a channel to let them bring their minions in, but the core defensive wards are still working, you’re cleaner than—★★ She blinks at me. ★★Oh. That’s how.★★
The ceiling is right above our heads now, the dome set into it framing the deeper blackness of the tunnel. ★★What is it?★★
★★I was wrong about them planting a tracker on you. They don’t need to bug you,★★ she says tersely. ★★They can find you anywhere. All they have to do is zero in on the eigenplot. Except here, right where you’re shielded by the defense platform’s wards, even if they have hacked a tunnel right through them to let their associates in ... ★★
★★What is this eigenplot you keep talking about?★★ I ask. I’m dangerously close to whining. I really hate it when everyone