The Age of Zeus

16. THE CYCLOPS

H yperion and Crius reached the cavemouth first, hurtling down the short scree slope and out onto the rock-strewn grass beyond. Themis was close behind, but suddenly the image from her visor whirled upwards, then stuttered and was almost lost in a blizzard of interference. When the image resumed clarity, it showed the apex of the cave roof.

"Themis," said Landesman. "Themis. Come in. Do you read me? Themis!"

"She tripped over," Sam said. "She's lying on the floor. Probably hit her head as she fell."

"Themis!" Landesman said again.

There was a groan, then Eto's voice replied, thickly, "I read you."

"Get up, Themis. You have to move."

"Sure. Yes. D'accord."

The image swung from side to side.

"My chin hurts," Themis said. "And my suit… I think… a malfunction. Legs heavy."

"Servo might've been knocked out of commission," said McCann.

"That can happen?" said Hamel.

"It's not supposed to, but aye, it can. That or a connection's come loose somewhere."

"You can still walk," Landesman said into the mic. "It'll feel ungainly but you have to. Hyperion? Crius? Themis's down."

"Copy that, base," said Hyperion. "We know. We're on our way back for her."

Themis was staggering to her feet. Something loomed in the green haze of her vision. Sam glimpsed a vast hairy hand tipped with nails that looked like talons, a barrel chest covered in dark stains that could only be patches of dried blood, and then a face — a lantern jaw, a mouth lined with tent-peg teeth, a crop of shaggy, matted hair, and an eye. A single, central eye the size of a tennis ball. Narrowed in confusion, then widening in comprehension, then narrowing again as it fixed Themis with a look of hungry malevolence.

The hand reached for Themis. She screamed.

Crius was first back into the cave. His visor-cam showed the Cyclops hoisting Themis off the floor by the head, bearing her entire weight with just one arm. Nearly three times as tall as her, the monster's head brushed the ceiling of the cave. Themis latched onto the Cyclops's wrist with both hands to support herself and take the pressure off the join between her neck and skull. She kicked out. The Cyclops extended its arm to full length, putting its body out of range of her feet.

Crius opened fire, strafing the monster with assault rifle fire. Ricochet sparks dazzled emerald-bright off the walls. Hyperion arrived and joined in with a semiautomatic pistol. The Cyclops recoiled, letting out a howl of affront.

"What are they doing?" McCann cried. "Mr Landesman, what are they doing?"

"Obviously they're trying to scare that thing into dropping Themis," said Landesman. "At the very least wing him. With luck, kill him. Why?"

"They might hit her."

"So? She's in her battlesuit."

"But the suit's integrity has been compromised," said McCann. "There's every chance she's not bulletproof any more."

Landesman swore under his breath. Into the mic he said, "Hyperion, Crius, hold your fire."

"What the — ?" said Hyperion. "Say again, base."

"Hold your fire. Themis is vulnerable."

"Shit. You're kidding. What the hell else are we supposed to do, then?"

"Charge him. Use stun-dusters on him."

But it was too late. The Cyclops had tightened its grip on Themis. Her helmet started to crack and crumple in its hand. Over the comms link came the desperate gasps and grunts of someone whose abject helplessness was almost as agonising to her as the sensation of her own skull being slowly crushed. The creaking of bone under pressure was all too crisply relayed back to base by the helmet's inbuilt sound sensors.

As Hyperion and Crius stowed their weapons and prepared for a close-up assault, all at once Themis stopped struggling. She let go of the monster's wrist and made a very deliberate show of raising her left arm and moving her right hand towards it.

Landesman understood. White-faced, grim-lipped, he said, "Hyperion, Crius, fall back."

"What?" said Hyperion. "No way."

"Themis is going to detonate."

"We can get to him before — "

"There isn't time. Fall back."

Sam commandeered the mic. "Hyperion, Crius, do it. Themis has made her decision."

Themis's right index finger was poised over her wristpad. She managed to choke out a few words. "This is good," she said. "I am happy with this."

"Go!" Sam shouted at Hyperion and Crius. "Move or die!"

"Aw fuck," said Hyperion, and he and his fellow Titan turned and fled.

The Cyclops raised Themis's face level with its own. A gaping mouth filled the screen, each tooth like an elephant tusk. The look in the monster's eye was now one of curiosity. What was this little human female up to? She wasn't dead yet, so why had she stopped writhing in distress?

Themis — Eto'o — spat out a curse at the monster in French. Then she said, " Maman, papa, je viens pour vous voir de nouveau… "

Hyperion turned back to look at the cave just as the dozen or so frostique charges went off in swift succession. There was a ripple of reports from within, like the sound of ice cubes cracking but magnified a thousandfold, and then the entire cavemouth seemed to implode, sucking shut and taking a section of the rockface with it. The boom was tremendous, overloading the speakers. At the same instant, Themis's visor-cam image went blank.

Hyperion and Crius, and all at mission control, were left staring at a shattered, sagging indentation in the rockface, from which a thick swirl of dust, like a soul released from a body, billowed up and dispersed into the starry sky.