"When your lot gets one of these to do the housework," Markham said, "give me a call, okay?"
"When one of these does the housework, Sandy, we'll all be obsolete!" He began packing up the keyboard and the scattered items of testing equipment on the table.
"May I give you a hand with this, then?" Markham offered.
She was holding Rosie's body, a female mannequin torso, complete with generous breasts, and draped in the top of a black ball gown that left the shoulders bare. "Sure," Esterhausen said. "It opens here… snaps shut like this."
The unit closed around the robot's central pylon, creating a bizarre mix of human and machine — a woman's body with mechanical arms and hands and a TV monitor for a head.
"Please, sir!" Rosie said as he straightened the hang of the gown, displaying her plastic cleavage. The monitor swiveled so that the camera and the woman's face peered directly at him. "I'm not that kind of girl!"
"What kind of girl are you, then?" Markham asked, grinning.
"Expensive, ma'am," Rosie told her, rotating her monitor to face Markham with a mechanical hum and a click. "So please keep your hands to yourself!"
Esterhausen felt a wave of relief. Maybe this cruise wasn't going to be so bad after all. When Rosie worked properly, she could utterly charm her audience, holding them spellbound.
Through the broad windows of the Pyramid Casino, he saw the sun dance off the waters of the Solent, the straits tucked in between Southampton Water and the Isle of Wight. Off the aft port quarter, he noticed the towering gray cliff of a Royal Navy aircraft carrier anchored in Stokes Bay, off Gosport and Spithead.
The ship raised some unexpected memories. Damned Navy bastards, he thought.
Carolyn Howorth sat at one of the tables in the elegant Atlantean Club, her laptop before her. The words Charlie: So how's it feel to be a rich bitch now? appeared on her screen.
She grinned, and typed back her response. I could get used to this. I feel pampered. Where R you?
Charlie: Back in my hotel getting ready to check out.
Can't get them to let U stay a few days?
Charlie: It would take that long to fill out the paperwork.
The server brought her the tea she'd ordered. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. Will there be anything else?"
"If I think of anything, I'll give 3 yell."
The club offered broad, high windows looking out to both port and starboard. In front of her was the coast of southern England and the city of Portsmouth. Several Navy ships were at anchor off Stokes Bay, and the Solent Express, a hovercraft ferry, made its way across the open water in a haze of spray. From here she could make out the white point of the Spinnaker, the modern-art tower. Rising from the Portsmouth waterfront, designed to look like a mast supporting a billowing spinnaker sail.
Carolyn snuggled back in her padded seat and wiggled her bare toes in the carpet. Yes, she could definitely get used to this.
The ship maintained its own Internet service, connected to the Net by satellite, allowing Carolyn to get her e-mail, exchange text messages with Charlie, and also check in with Peters at work. Vacation this might be, but it was a working vacation, and Carolyn was expected to log in each day to keep up with things. Her laptop ran its own encryption program, so she could use it as a secure link with GCHQ at Menwith Hill — not that she expected to be beaming top secret messages back and forth with the home office. Her job was strictly one of light reconnaissance, checking out the Atlantis Queen's security systems and looking for ways that GCHQ or the American NSA could use them to good advantage.
So when R U leaving? she typed.
Charlie: Flight out of Heathrow at 2115. Red-eye to BWI.
It was an unfamiliar expression. Red-eye?
Charlie: Means I'll be up all night.
Well, make Rubens give you some time off tomorrow.
Charlie: VERY unlikely! Got to run. You enjoy your cruise! I intend to!
Carolyn broke the connection, checked her tea, then poured herself a cup. The lounge was almost deserted at this hour of the morning, but she was aware of the small dark plastic domes worked inconspicuously into the ceiling at various points — surveillance cameras connected with the Ship's Security Office.
That, she decided, would be her first order of business — talking with the head security officer and seeing if she could get a tour.
Carolyn Howorth began typing, opening up the ship's home page and searching the menu for ship's officers.
There he was. David Llewellyn, Director Shipboard Security. She began composing an e-mail to him.
Chapter 7
Under way at last, she was magnificent and she was glorious. Rounding the eastern tip of the Isle of Wight, the Atlantis Queen steadily picked up speed as flocks of sailboats, speedboats, yachts, and other pleasure craft scattered before her. A bright, carnival atmosphere infused each deck, though most of her passengers were either still on the broad outside promenade around the Third Deck or, if they were wealthy enough to afford it, on the private balconies outside their luxurious staterooms, leaning on the railings and, if they were in a sufficiently generous mood, waving to the lesser mortals bobbing in their cockleshells and toy boats far below.
Like all cruise ships, the Atlantis Queen adhered to a particular theme, in this case the fabulous lost city of Atlantis. Each of the various nightclubs, theaters, restaurants, bars, and other popular gathering spots on board was named for some icon or myth connected with either Atlantis or, with an exclusively Atlantean mythology being a bit sparse, the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece, and with just a sprinkling of ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica thrown in as well.
The twelve passenger decks, for instance, were named for the twelve gods of Olympus, with two notable exceptions made in the name of good public relations. The First Deck, where passengers came aboard in the Grand Atrium with its myriad shops, tour offices, and computer center, was called the Neptune Deck. The ship's owners had substituted the Roman Neptune for the Greek Poseidon, fearing that the Greek version would conjure unsettling images of the doomed ship of the popular adventure movie. And there was no Ares Deck, again for obvious PR reasons, there being no need for a god of warfare, battle, and strife on a vacation cruise ship. Instead, the uppermost Twelfth Deck was called the Ouranos Deck, that predecessor of the classical deities of ancient Greece having been promoted to Olympian status because of his traditional association with astronomy and the sky. The view of the night sky from the Atlantean Grotto Terrace while the ship was at sea, far from smog and the light pollution of cities, was fantastic.
Hades wasn't included, in part because he'd not been one of the traditional Olympian twelve and, again, due to PR reasons. The Greek god of the underworld was remembered in the Hades Hot Spot, however, a bar and nightclub on the Aphrodite Deck featuring a DJ, loud music, and the raucously energetic Santorini Dancers, who, after ten in the evening, performed topless.
The ship was luxuriously appointed throughout — plenty of rich wood paneling, thick carpeting, and expensively modern furnishings. Many of the windows and skylights were stained glass with intricate patterns; some decks were laid out in highly polished mosaic tiles instead of carpet, with traditional marine scenes from Greek, Roman, or Cretan artistic traditions, showing octopi, dolphins, and other sea creatures. The Grand Atrium was a cavernous circular mall with huge aquaria built into the bulkheads between the shops, and deck-to-overhead tube-pillars filled with bubbling water, the whole subtly lit to create a shifting, eerie, deep-sea feel to the place. The Cayce Library was small but well appointed, with an emphasis on books about Greece, Atlantis, mythology, history, and travel books about Mediterranean countries. The Pyramid Club Casino went for the ultra-modern look — lots of chrome, lots of flashing lights, lots of electronic gambling machines, and, of course, the newly installed Blackjack Rosie, who promised to be quite a hit with the techno-geek crowd.