* * *
Jerry watched in horror as Scylla’s heads swung lower and lower. One soldier tried what was presumably supposed to be a burst of automatic fire.
It didn’t work quite the way he had intended. A wailing Greek tragic chorus issued from the rifle barrel. If Jerry understood it correctly, it was a lament for the death of several lesser earth-spirits killed by the next lump of lead while they’d been pushing this one out. The soldier peered in puzzlement at his weapon.
Always keep your attention on the enemy. . . .
Scylla obviously preferred prey that wasn’t prepared for her. A head snaked down and seized the soldier. Kicking and shrieking, the paratrooper was ripped skywards.
The swarthy sergeant had grabbed an oar and swung it at Scylla’s nearest head, smashing it sideways. He nearly rescued the other soldier—except that the man . . . just suddenly wasn’t there any more.
Jerry realized that there was one way out of this nightmare. Die. Unfortunately, from what he’d been told, you got home dead too.
One of the Achaeans must have appeared tasty and distracted Scylla. She seized one of the sword-wielders next. The falling bronze Mycenaean blade nearly pinned Liz like a butterfly.
Liz grabbed it . . . just as, to Jerry’s horror, a head dived at her. Maybe the monster thought a female would be easier prey. Liz sidestepped Scylla’s lunge neatly. The head thudded into the deck planking. Hard. It didn’t stop Scylla for an instant. The head turned upward and lunged. Somehow the biologist managed to trap it between her body and arm, and then throw her legs around it.
* * *
She’d tried to do to what a good fisherman would do to a snoek. Only this was more like a cross between a Great White Shark and a python than a nasty-toothed predatory fish. It was also much bigger. Much, much bigger. And these teeth would make a big snoek’s needle-like teeth look like toothpicks. Her full-strength wrench hadn’t been nearly enough to tear across the base of the gill arches. Instead, she was being lifted off the deck. The creature was shouting at her. Any moment now its slimy strength would overmaster her. She’d dropped her pepper spray. But she still clutched the overgrown cheese knife that the sailor had nearly pinioned her with. She shoved it into the gills and cut outwards, as she desperately pulled back on the nose.
You can snap a fish’s neck if you sever the narrow piece of flesh where the gill openings nearly meet on the throat. On little fish it is surprisingly easy. With big fish, you struggle, but it is still possible. On really big fish it is virtually impossible unless you cut right through it. She’d cut it through. And fear lent her terrific strength. Truly desperate strength.
In a wild threshing and a spray of blood she was flung to the deck. Liz could have been badly hurt. But she hit Jerry, who’d been trying to grab her legs, and then crashed onto the hind end of the cowering Salinas.
* * *
The long neck swung about dementedly. The other heads withdrew slightly. Jerry, staggering to his feet, realized that they were lamenting. Well, most of them were.
“Poor Dindymene!” cried one, in tones of horror.
“How cruel and disrespectful!” said another one of the heads. It sounded as if the disrespect was what hurt most.
“She was always Mother’s favorite, eh, Pleione?” said the head next to the dangling Dindymene, not sounding as if she missed her fellow Scylla-head much.
The biggest of the heads was plainly shocked. “You know Mother never played favorites, Enyo!”
“Did too!” Enyo snapped back. “And it serves Dindymene right, always trying to get the tenderest ones!”
“We must avenge her!” hissed one of the other heads. “We’ll eat all of these.”
“You just want to pick the fat ones, Phaedra. You got the last swordfish even though I spotted it first!” snarled another.
Dragon’s teeth, thought Jerry. If only I can get them to bicker . . .
But he was no good at talking to ordinary people. Other academics were fine, but these were worse than bank managers. And it would have to be in ancient Greek too. He quailed at the idea, and then bit his lip. Somebody had to do something. And there was no one else . . .
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