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that keeps us on the air, you know."
"Can you take us to him?" Annja asked.
Phil Dirt smiled hugely. "Just how adventurous are you feeling, luv?"
"What makes me think," she said, "there's no right answer to that question?"
Chapter 13
"Adventures," Annja muttered to Tex as the black Zodiac boat bottomed between
two-story North Sea waves. The seat slammed her tailbone again. A spray of
saltwater drenched her anew. Her hair felt as if she had soaked it with an
entire bottle of some toxic hairspray, from all the salt. "Why does it always
have to be adventures?"
Her companion had his head up and his jaw set in a somewhat fixed smile.
"What'd I tell you earlier?"
In the stern, Lightnin' Rod steered, looking even more pirate-like with a
black head rag sporting a skull and crossed cutlasses tied over his lengthy
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windblown locks. Having seen the same logo on a T-shirt sporting the legend
Pirates of the Internet, worn by a geek from the tech department of the
television station, Annja knew the kerchief probably came from some online
store. She wasn't sure whether that added or detracted from the effect.
Ahead of them the Gannet C drilling platform rose slowly out of the gloom like
a giant battle robot from some science fiction yarn. A few lights shone yellow
and furtive from its bulk in the overcast early evening. Abandoned in the
early nineties by British Petroleum after it ran too dry to remain economical
to operate, the platform had become the haven and broadcasting station for
Black Bart's bunch. The John o' Groat's contingent were cramped into the black
inflatable power craft looking as serene as if bashing through sea were no
more strenuous than a stroll in Hyde Park.
In among the shadowed pillars that formed the legs of the station, they found
a welded metal ladder awaiting them. With a theatrical gesture Phil Dirt waved
them to go up first. Tex in turn deferred to Annja.
Annja put a hand on a rung. It was cold and slick. Just the way she expected.
Oh, well, she thought, no one is shooting at me.
She climbed. Tex followed.
"Our friends are being pretty magnanimous letting us go first," he called when
they were twenty or so feet up.
"I just kind of figured Phil did it so he could watch my butt," Annja said.
"Well, that's certainly among the fringe benefits, ma'am. But, going first, if
we slip and fall we fall on them. As opposed to vice versa."
"I feel so special."
"Right," the young man said, rubbing together hands in fingerless gloves.
"Let's see what we have, then."
The main engineering room at the heart of Black Bart's broadcasting station
was a boxy steel womb lined with racks and racks of equipment of unknown
purpose. The various tiny multi-colored blinking lights and indicators
provided all the illumination except for a few amber blackout foot lamps. It
added to the sense of claustrophobia, as well as giving Annja the impression
of being surrounded by hundreds of psychedelic rats.
Gannet Hundredmind swiveled on his stool, flipping switches to the left and
right, at seeming random. Annja and Tex stood behind him. Annja tried hard not
to hover. Tex looked centered and relaxed and in general as if he was having a
fine old time. But then, he always looked like that.
Lightnin' Rod had stayed with the Zodiac boat when the others went up,
apparently to berth it somewhere. Making her apologies, the matronly Suze had
vanished after the climb to the platform, a chilly collection of rusty pipes
and metal bulkheads, saying she wanted to tend to dinner. The others who had
met the Americans in the Jolly Wrecker escorted them through a warren of dimly
lit passages that echoed to the sounds of their footsteps, with water
incessantly dripping from overhead. Now they stood in a clump at the back of
the control center and chatted while young Gannet worked his magic.
"Sodding podcasts," Phil was saying to a stocky guy with a fluorescent pink
Mohawk, jughandle ears and a pug's face, who wore grimy dark coveralls. He was
Stan the Man McLeod, the physical plant engineer who kept the place as livable
as it was  which, on first impression, wasn't very, although Annja suspected
he deserved huge credit for keeping it habitable at all in the chill and
hostile environment. He poured a sable ferret named Isadora from one big,
stained, scarred, crack-nailed fist to the other without seeming to notice.
"They're stealing our audiences right out from beneath our noses, they are."
"It's a terrible thing," added Rod, who had just slid in the door. "The pigs
couldn't shut us down for decades of tryin' their black-hearted best. And here
we are getting done down by Silicon bleeding Valley!"
"We get all manner of chatter on the air up here," Gannet said. The young
broadcast engineer had turned back to his monitor. He wore grimy cargo pants
and several layers of sweaters over what was evidently a skinny young frame,
so that his head stuck on a thin neck out of an incongruously huge mass of
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clothing. He looked like a plush toy turtle. "Satellite phone broadcasts,
other radio traffic. It's increased a great deal the past few months. Never
paid much mind to it before this, though."
"Can you listen in on any of the traffic?" Annja asked.
Gannet gave her a questioning look. He had pale skin that in the glow looked
blue-white, and moist, almost purplish lips. "Oi, that would be un-ethical,
now, wouldn't it?" he commented in a lilting Liverpudlian accent. Then he
grinned. "Not that that slowed me down much. But the phone traffic is all
encrypted. The rest is bloody banal. Talking to ships, the odd helicopter,
that sort of thing. If I had to guess, I'd say somebody else has occupied
another old rig like this rattletrap. Only they're a bit better funded than we
are."
"Kids these day," Rod was saying, shaking his gaunt-cheeked head. "They've no
appreciation for the fact we do this out of love. Not like when we was young."
"Do you know which platform?" Annja asked.
Gannet shook his shaggy head. "There's a dozen it could be. More. Sorry."
"Can you triangulate the traffic?" Tex asked.
The boy held up a forefinger. "Ah," he said. "That we can do."
His fingers danced over his keyboard. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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