“The submersible’s cameras are only designed to operate underwater,” said Honey.
We all looked at each other.
“I’ve got a really good camera built into my phone,” said Peter.
“Oh, this is all just so amateur night, darlings,” said Katt.
“It’ll do,” Honey said shortly. “I’m not begging and pleading with Langley for more equipment. This whole mission is drowning in paperwork and requisitions as it is, and you just know they’ll find some way to stick me with the overruns. I’ll locate Nessie and goose her up to the surface, and, Peter, you had better get some really good photos.”
“This is a state-of-the-art phone, with still shots and film,” Peter protested. “I designed it myself.”
He started to spout off some detailed technobabble, only to shut up and sulk as it became clear none of us was listening. Honey stalked down to the edge of the bank, and we all trailed after her, feeling just a bit left out. None of us were used to being left behind while someone else went off to do all the interesting fun stuff. Honey jumped lightly onto the side of the bright yellow submersible, grabbing one of the more sturdy protrusions to steady herself. The submersible hardly bobbed at all under her added weight. She hit the access panel with her fist, and a hatch swung slowly outward. She wriggled in past it and disappeared inside. This was followed by a certain amount of swearing as she couldn’t find the light switch and then the sound of powerful engines coming on line, and the whole submersible seemed to shake itself like a hunting dog coming awake, ready for action. The access hatch opened itself a little wider, and then we all ducked and fell back as a package the size of a kitchen sink shot out over our heads and crash-landed on the bank behind us.
We all turned to look, and then watched with interest as the package jumped up and down on the spot, turning itself rapidly over and around in midair, shaking and shuddering as it unfolded in several different directions at once. It kept growing and growing in size, throwing out offshoots of itself, and finally sank several barbed steel legs into the ground to hold it securely in place. By the time it had finished showing off, the package had formed itself into a large, flashy, and more than state-of-the-art remote communications centre, complete with radio, sonar, live television feeds, and a few things even I didn’t recognise. Walker immediately strode over and commandeered the nearest keyboard, looked it over briskly, and then punched in a series of instructions that had the whole thing up and running in a few moments.
I wandered around the console, checking the data streams on the monitors, familiarising myself with the various comm systems, very careful not to touch anything. I was damned if I was leaving any fingerprints or DNA traces on the console’s suspiciously gleaming surfaces for the CIA to study once the mission was over. After a while I moved in beside Walker and casually indicated a few more things he could do to bring the console up to full power. Just to show I wasn’t being left out of things. The others crowded in beside us, peering over our shoulders.
“We have radio and video contact with the pilot,” said Walker, “direct feed from seven underwater cameras on those monitors there, and an ongoing display of whatever the submersible’s long-range sensors are picking up. Almost as good as being there.”
“Can you hear me, Honey?” I said, leaning forward over the mike.
“Of course I can hear you! I can hear all of you.” Strapped into a pilot’s chair and surrounded very closely on all sides by what looked like enough instrumentation to take the submersible into near Earth orbit, Honey glared out at us from a small screen.
“Looks a bit snug,” I said.
“Snug? I’ve known spacier coffins. There isn’t room in here to swing a flea. I’ve already severely bruised precious parts of my anatomy just getting into the driving seat, and you don’t even want to know what I have to do to work the air-conditioning. Still, all systems are go; we are ready to proceed.”
“We still haven’t decided how you’re going to lure the famously shy Nessie out of hiding,” said Walker. “You don’t appear to have anything on board that will do the trick. Or at least, nothing that hasn’t been tried before.”
“Maybe I should try to attract the creature,” said Katt, half seriously. “I do have an outstanding track record for attracting anyone and anything with a pulse . . .”
“Yeah,” said the Blue Fairy. “That’ll do it. Stand on the edge of the loch and show it your tits, Katt.”
“Crude little man,” Katt said frostily.
“Actually, you’ve just given me an idea,” said Blue. “Attraction: that’s the key. We have to make Nessie want to come up to the surface. And there are some things, some sounds, that will attract anything, luring them on against their will, pulling them on like a hook in the jaw. And I have just the thing in mind: something I’ve fished for before.”
We all looked at him, standing tall and proud and only a bit bedraggled in his Elizabethan finery, his battered old fishing rod and reel at the ready. And perhaps I was the only one who saw just how much he needed to be taken seriously.
“What did you have in mind?” I said.
“A mating call,” said the Blue Fairy, smiling back at all of us, pleased at being the centre of attention. “I once brought up from the dimensional depths, entirely by accident I have to admit, a kind of . . . siren. A temptress, a seducer, whose call no mortal will could hope to withstand. Fortunately, this particular siren’s call was only ever intended to work on those of a heterosexual persuasion, so I remained relatively unaffected and was able to throw the damned thing back.”
“Can you find it again?” said Walker.
“Well, obviously,” said Blue, “or I wouldn’t have said anything. I’ll find it, hook it, and reel it in, and then we can use its call to bring Nessie right to us.”
“Hold everything,” said Walker. “Are you seriously proposing we call up another monster and drop it into the loch? Isn’t the situation here complicated enough as it is? Not to mention the problem we would be leaving behind for the future. What if the siren developed a taste for the locals? They could end up swarming here like so many lemmings.”
“I never suggested leaving the siren here,” the Blue Fairy said in a calm, patient, and infuriatingly understanding voice. “In fact, I think it would be downright dangerous to keep the thing around one moment longer than we absolutely have to. What I have in mind is much simpler, bordering on elegant. I bring the siren here, we record its call on this marvellous communications system . . . and I throw it back again. We then broadcast the recording of the call into the loch’s waters. Foolproof. Unless Nessie turns out to be gay as well, of course . . .”
“Let us very definitely not go there,” I said quickly. “The recording sounds fine to me. Everyone? Right; do your thing, Blue. Catch us a siren.”
Of course, then he had to make a whole big thing out of finding just the right spot along the bank of the loch. He walked us up and down through the mud and spiky grass, his face set in a rigid mask of concentration, which he had to spoil by occasionally glancing at us to see how we were taking it. He finally settled on one particular spot that looked exactly the same as all the others and gestured grandly with his left hand. A glowing golden pool some six feet in diameter appeared before him, flat and featureless, not so much covering the ground as replacing it. The pool was a gateway to everywhere else, to all the dimensions that ever were or may be, and was painful to look at directly for more than a moment.
Blue’s time with the elves had clearly helped him; I could remember when he needed to spill his own blood in sacrifice to summon the golden pool to him. And the pool looked a lot bigger than I remembered. A hole punched right through the walls of reality by sheer willpower. Only the Blue Fairy was skilled enough and crazy enough to call it up, just so he could go fishing in it . . .