"It's working," Rhea said, slapping a fresh capsule of hydrazine into the flamethrower's reservoir breech. "Landesman was right."
Landesman had theorised that the Hydra would have a much harder time repairing burns than any other kind of injury. "It was Hercules's method, in the myths," he had said. "Behead, then burn."
The cauterised stumps did start to re-grow new heads, but at a greatly retarded rate. The burnt tissue had to be sloughed off first before the proto-head could bubble up and take shape. Now Tethys and Rhea were in a race against the clock. They needed to destroy all nine heads before any of them could renew itself completely. Entirely headless, the monster would surely not survive.
Landesman had made Tethys and Rhea spend a whole afternoon rehearsing this move back at Bleaney. Iapetus was contributing now by taking potshots at the gradually emerging new heads, blowing them to smithereens while they were still just glistening, formless bulges.
All the same it required concentration and nerve to keep the production-line decapitation and cauterisation going, especially as the Hydra was rearing up and all of its necks, beheaded and otherwise, were thrashing to and fro, presenting a set of confusing and highly unstable targets. The monster stood its ground, at least. It seemed fully aware that these humans had discovered a vulnerability which they were exploiting without mercy, but it was either too enraged or too stubborn to think of retreating. Perhaps it simply couldn't believe that after all these years spent at the top of the food chain, during which time it had got used to humans being slow-moving and almost willing prey, it could ever be defeated. It continued to hiss and snap viciously at the Titans even as they whittled its headcount down to three, then two.
At last only a single head remained. Its features had a look of distress and resignation about them, and the baleful yellow glare in that final remaining pair of eyes was suddenly dulled. The Hydra knew the game was up. As if in pique, it swung away from Tethys and Rhea, turning its attention back to the human it had first spotted, the one it had been on the verge of attacking before another of them had so rudely interrupted. If it must die, the Hydra wasn't going to without taking one of these infernal creatures with it, the one it perceived as the weakest.
Theia, however, was on her feet. She had only a few pieces of her armour on. She was, in fact, mostly naked. But clasped in her right hand was a combat knife with a ten-inch blade, and as the Hydra lowered its head towards her, teeth glinting avariciously, Theia said, "This is for Nanna," and she plunged the knife into the monster's throat. "This is for Hubert and Celeste," she said, twisting the knife once back and forth, its tantalum-carbide-coated titanium blade widening the jagged slash she had created. Blood gushed over her arm, sluicing out from both the wound and the Hydra's open maw. "And this," she said, "is for me." She jerked the knife upwards, parting two vertebrae.
The head lolled sideways on the neck. A flap of skin held it on for a few seconds, but the weight was too much for it and it stretched and tore, and the head landed with a thump at Theia's feet.
Nine truncated necks suddenly went limp, and the Hydra swayed for a moment, then slumped heavily into the mud. Its body convulsed, a shudder ran along the necks, and then it lay still.
"Step aside," Rhea told Theia, and Theia numbly obeyed, and Rhea set about incinerating the Hydra, scorching the carcass until her last flamethrower capsule was used up.
Barrington, thumbing his visor up, surveyed the smoking, blackened mound of ex-monster.
"Now that," he said, "is one hell of a barbie."
20. CHAMPAGNE
D uring the flight home, a couple of bottles of Krug were broached and everyone partook except Barrington, who had beer instead — "Aussie champagne" — and Sparks, who didn't drink.
"And even if I did," she said to Sam, "I ain't in the mood."
Sparks felt ashamed, that much Sam knew. The Hydra had caught her with her pants down (in more ways than one) which was bad enough, but then there'd been further humiliation to follow. First, Sam had had to send Barrington off. He, not famous for his sense of propriety, had been openly leering at the half-dressed Sparks. Then Hamel had gone over to the Louisianan, offering to help clean her up and get her back into her battlesuit, only to be rudely rebuffed.
"Don't you come near me, woman," Sparks had snapped. "Don't you touch me with your filthy hands."
Sam had volunteered instead, and Hamel was now pretending to be indifferent about the incident, but her chagrin showed. She wouldn't even look at Sparks.
Celebrating hardest on the plane was McCann, who soon became flush-faced and unsteady on his legs.
"No cockups," he said to Sam, leaning too close, breathing winey breath in her face. "Clean bill of health for the TITAN suits. Who's the greatest engineer in the whole world? Only me!"
When they got back to Bleaney Island there was more Krug to be had, and more celebrating, and although Sam felt leaden-headed from jetlag she couldn't not join in. The mood was boisterous and relieved, and in the midst of it all Landesman stood up to make a short speech, the gist of which was: this was the first Titan op that could be considered a truly unqualified success, congratulations were in order, but no time for resting on laurels, onward and upward from here.
He concluded by saying, "Even now, back in the Everglades, I imagine alligators are busy disposing of the Hydra's mortal remains. I envisage them tearing the carcass to pieces and squabbling over the scraps. Perhaps, if alligators can think at all, they're thinking what an unexpected boon this is. A gift from the gods, one might even say. And perhaps also, somewhere in the dim recesses of their brains, they're feeling a satisfaction far deeper than the mere quenching of physical appetite. The tyrant who was slaughtering their kind is dead. The upstart, usurping emperor of their domain has been deposed. Their home is theirs again. They are free to enjoy it as before, to roam uncontested and unmolested. They are the rulers once more."
"It's a metaphor," Ramsay murmured to Sam out of the side of his mouth, "in case you didn't realise."
Sam laughed, until she remembered she was still pissed off at Ramsay. Then, thanks no doubt to all the pricey bubbly, she forgot why she was pissed off at Ramsay, and resumed laughing.
"That's more like it," the Chicagoan said. "You did a good job back there, Sam, you know. You don't want or need my endorsement but I'm giving it to you anyway 'cause that's how conceited a motherfucker I am. You dealt with everything like a pro — way better than I could have. You knocked it out of the park. You played a blinder."
"Picking up some of the local parlance there, Rick."
"Hey, lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas."
"I just think it's nice some of our Britishness is rubbing off on you. You could do with a bit of polish," Sam said.
"Any Britishness I'm getting off you guys mostly comes from the techs, and I don't think 'polish' applies there. Still, I reckon I've absorbed enough to be able to pass for a native." He adopted the most appalling English accent Sam had ever heard. "'Ey, luv, fetch moy a cuppa, woodjer? I'm roit gaspin,' I am."
"Please," she said. "Please stop."
"Leave it aht, you muppet."
She mimed being on the phone. "Hello, Dick van Dyke? You can relax. We've found someone worse."
"Blimey, worra load of bonkers bollocks yer spoutin.'"
"That's enough, Rick. Seriously. If you carry on, I will have to kill you."
"Cheers, ta."
"There is an arsenal of weapons not far from where we're standing. Don't believe that I am not willing to use one of them on you. For everyone's sake."
"Yeah, mate, wha'ever, know wha' ah mean?"