Metallic clangour as the crab's erratic momentum skated him into the railing, pipe skittering away anarchically. "Bye, Nicky," Greg whispered.
"Radar cancelled," Suzi's voice squawked in his earpiece. "God, this place is exactly like Lady Gee described it. Wild!"
Greg finished up at the stern, scanning the glum water of the marina and its flotsam carpet of decaying seaweed. Oily ripples slapped lazily at Mirriam's hull.
"On the taffrail you'll find a control box with six weather-proofed buttons. Press the second from the left."
The box was there. Rigid forefinger pressing. A stifled drone of a motor lowering the diving platform ladder.
The inflatable dinghy surged out of the gloaming, four figures hunched down, muffled engine cutting a hazy wake through the seaweed. It turned a finely judged arc and rode its bow wave to a halt at the foot of the ladder. The first three figures swarmed up the ladder, dressed in combat leathers and helmets. Des and two of his troop, Lynne and Roddy.
They ignored Greg and crossed the deck to the half-open cabin-lounge door. Des slid it right back and the three of them rushed in.
Greg leant over the taffrail to see Gabriel puffing her way up the ladder. She was wearing a balaclava and a heavy night-camouflage flak jacket, restricting her movements; it was the largest the Trinities had in stock. He put his hand down and diplomatically helped her over the railing.
She tugged the balaclava off, wiping the back of her hand across her perspiring forehead. "We're too old for this Greg, you and I, believe me. If you weren't such a bloody ignorant stubborn bugger." A resigned smile lifted her lips. Shaking her head. "Crazy."
Greg smiled fondly. "Tell you, I have a horrible feeling you may be right."
"That's my boy." A sudden frown wrinkled her plump features. "Damn." She thumbed the comm set in her breast pocket. "Lynne, it's not that hatch, go to the next one, that's right. The crewman is standing behind the cowling."
"Come on," Greg said. "Time for you and I to rescue the damsel."
"You know, Teddy's done a good job with those kids," Gabriel admitted grudgingly as they moved into the lounge. Greg negotiated the unfamiliar obstacles and found the central companionway. A tube of impenetrably black air, which even the photon amp had difficulty discerning.
"Are we all right for some light?" he asked.
"Yes. One moment."
Greg heard her shut the lounge door, then the biolum strip came on. He peeled the photon amp off. Suzi slithered down a narrow set of stairs from the bridge.
"Mega," she breathed, pulling off her wig and ruffing up her mauve spikes. "You got it spot on, Lady Gee. All of it. Where you said, when you said. It's fucking incredible."
"Thank you, my dear."
The three of them headed for the lower deck. Thick vermilion carpet absorbed their footfalls down the stairs. One of the crewmen was lying on the bottom step, his limbs shivering spastically from the stunshot charge. Des was waiting for them outside the master bedroom's door, helmet off, grinning broadly, his hair a dark sweaty mat.
"All right!" he whooped blithely. "We breezed it, no problem. You ever need a job, Gran, you come'n see me, OK?"
"You're too kind," Gabriel said.
Des missed the mounting testiness, but Suzi winked at Greg, rolling her eyes for his denseness. Lynne and Roddy clattered up the stairs from the crew quarters below.
"Shall we get on with it?" Gabriel said, hurriedly forestalling the compliment Lynne had opened her mouth to begin. She took an infuser tube out of her flak jacket and handed it to Suzi. "You'll need this."
Suzi turned it over, mildly curious. "What for?"
"She's a big girl."
Des and Roddy exchanged a glance.
"Is she armed?" Lynne enquired.
"No."
Greg knew that mood well enough, Gabriel at her most obdurate. There'd be no budging her now.
He opened the bedroom door. There was a subdued pink light inside.
"Hoo boy." Suzi groaned in pawky dismay. Des and Roddy piled in behind her for a look.
Katerina was sprawled across a huge circular water-bed, wearing an Arabian harem slave costume; strips of diaphanous lemon chiffon held together with thin gold chains. It was a size too small, strained by the curves of her breasts and hips. The chiffon was so flimsy they could see her large areolas through it, dark purple-brown circles with aroused nipples.
Katerina batted drowsy eyelids at the five faces staring down at her. "I'm ready," was all she said.
Roddy let out a low admiring whistle. "Makes it all kind've worthwhile, doesn't it?"
Des sniggered.
"For God's sake find something to wrap her in," Greg said. Annoyed at their abrupt lapse of discipline. Hardly surprised, though. The porno-starlet stage setting sapped any sense of urgency. He let out a hiss of breath, silently cursing Gabriel for not warning him. "Suzi, help me get her up."
Katerina looked up with innocent bewilderment as they each took an arm and tugged her into a sitting position. "I remember you," she said to Greg. "Will you make it happen, too?"
"Not tonight."
"But this is the paradise place. The hurt and the wonder always happens here."
"Bollocks, what's she on?" asked Suzi.
"Phyltre. Stuff's blowing her brain apart."
Katerina turned her head to focus on Suzi. "Can you make it happen?"
"No way, girl. Come on, let's get you out of here."
Something in Suzi's inflexible tone must've finally penetrated Katerina's befuddled brain. "I don't want to leave, not here, not the wonder. Not ever."
Suzi brought up the infuser in a no-nonsense manner.
Katerina's bare foot lashed out, catching Suzi full in the stomach. She went down with a silent oof, curling around herself and fighting for breath. Greg was suddenly left holding a screaming, scratching, biting, kicking she-demon. Gabriel was right, Katerina was big, and strong, and utterly deranged. Tapering lavender nails slashed at his eyes, a knee thudded into his pelvic bone, a tornado of golden hair filled the air. He felt soft flesh, hard flesh. Hampered by not wanting to hurt her. An inhibition rapidly dissolving.
Des made a grab for Katerina's shoulders, succeeding only in ripping her mock slave-costume. All three of them tumbled to the floor in a frenziedly bucking heap. Then Lynne waded in, trying to pin Katerina's arms down. Roddy managed to grab hold of one leg. Finally a wheezing Suzi slammed the infuser on Katerina's neck with unnecessary force. For one horrendous moment Greg thought it wasn't going to have any effect, but a look of outright surprise shot across Katerina's enraged face and she subsided into a limp bundle shrouded in wispy scraps of lemon fog.
"Goddamn… ungrateful… bitch," Suzi spat between shudders. Her face was chalk-white. Greg thought she was going to kick the unconscious body. Probably wouldn't have stopped her.
"She doesn't know what she's doing," he offered in apology. "Hey, you all right?"
Her hands were still clasped tight around her abdomen. "Yeah. Bitch."
Roddy wrapped a towelling robe around Katerina, and Des carried her out in a fireman's lift.
Gabriel stood to one side as they filed out of the master bedroom. "Told you so," she said.
The seven of them rode the dinghy back to Event Horizon's finance division offices, stealing quietly across the Nene's scummy water, making good headway against the outgoing tide. City noises thrummed around them; sirens, horns, the trill of gas-powered traffic, peals of jukebox music from riverside pubs. The sough of the dinghy's electric outboard was lost without trace.
Des dodged the big freighters anchored in the middle of the river outside the port. They were waiting for the early-morning tide to provide the draught they needed to take them down the channel to the Wash. Rust-streaked metal giants, sprinkled with tiny navigation lights, their bows a check pattern of hoarfrost where their liquefied gas tanks nestled against the hull. Greg could hear a steady plop plop plop as chunks of the mushy rime fell into the water.