Lady Hyacinth Grimm vs the Nautilus

Chapter 11: Beethoven's Fifth

The marine psychologist musicians tried to identify the audio qualities of Lady Hyacinth's lullabies that invoked specific cephalopod behavior. They decided on a program of gradually escalating excitement.

The spook submarine courted disaster as the orchestra warmed up. Apparently the giant octopus rather strenuously objected to the sound of violins being tuned. A bright minion noticed the monster's agitation. She turned off the external speakers in a display of leadership and on-her-feet thinking that would get her demoted to sub-minion and sent back on the war blimp. When the orchestra was ready, external speakers were turned back on and an emotional rendition of Für Elise poured out into the depths of the ocean. The great octopus swayed one great tentacle along, like an old man conducting his gramophone, but it did not fall into a deep sleep as predicted by the marine psychologist musicians. A rousing polka only convinced the monster to drift a bit from side to side.

All of the spooks exchanged glances. Since there were so many spooks present, the full exchange of glances took about three minutes. (This is one of the reasons spooks operate best alone or in pairs.) The giant cephalopod was not reacting according to plan at all. Still, the spooks of Her Royal Majesty's Secret Service did not know the meaning of the word quit and continued to the next stage of their plan. One of the identically-dressed spooks signaled the conductor. He had to signal the conductor again after the woman finished gulping water; the polka jig had been tiring. With a sense of unease, the conductor told her musicians to turn to the final piece and raised her baton.

Over on the Widowmaker, Hyacinth and the bridge crew watched the octopus reach out one tentacle to gently poke at the Secret Service submarine. At the moment of contact, the crew heard the beginning notes of Beethoven's fifth.

"Bam bam bam baaaaam," the orchestra played, and the giant cephalopod went rigid, finally fully responding to the orchestra's music. "Bam bam bam ba—"

The final note was cut off by a much louder BAAAM as the giant octopus slapped the large submarine and half-crushed it against the ocean floor, then shook it for good measure. Countless bows, oboe bits and cellos lost their lives that fateful day. The orchestra members, who had cross-trained as acrobats against the unexpected, tumbled and back-flipped around the cabin without injury, but three spooks were knocked out by a flying kettle drum.

When they reported back to Queen Victoria four days later, the spooks would call the mission an unmitigated success. After all, they had successfully trained the giant creature to attack on command. Training it to attack the right target, they insisted, was only a step or two behind.

From the Widowmaker, the mission's success looked rather mitigated by the fact that everyone aboard the submersible was about to die. After silencing the spook's submarine, the enormous monster advanced on the smaller submarine. The Poisons and Toxins song, Death Ray song, the Elements song, and even the Human Brain Dissection song had no effect on the enraged beast.

Everyone on the bridge turned to look at Hyacinth, who froze. She couldn't think of a single other song. She knew they existed; surely there were at least ten songs in existence, but she couldn't think of a single one. She shut her eyes and tried to remember what her nanny had sung to her that time she'd had a fever; something about Aetheric energy? She was sure she could remember it if everyone would just stop begging her, "Do something for God's sake!"

One of the octopus's giant tentacles lifted over the Widowmaker, prepared to crush it. Into the breech stepped Bom-bom, who cradled the external speaker's microphone tenderly and crooned in French: