Maybe half a minute later, he heard Opal’s voice from outside.
“Now, whoever is passing wind, please stop it, or I will devise a fitting punishment.”
Oops, thought Mulch guiltily. In dwarf circles it is considered almost criminal to allow someone else to be blamed for your air bubbles. Through sheer force of habit, Mulch almost raised his hand and confessed, but luckily his instinct for self-preservation was stronger than his conscience.
Moments later the signal came. It was hard to miss. The explosion rocked the entire shuttle twenty degrees off center. It was time to make his move and trust Artemis when he said that it was almost impossible not to watch an explosion.
Mulch nudged the hatch open a crack with the crown of his head. The dwarf half expected someone to stamp on the hatch, but the cargo bay was empty. Mulch folded the hatch back and crept all the way into the small chamber. There was a lot here to interest him. Crates of ingots, Perspex boxes of human currency, and antique jewelry hanging from mannequins. Obviously Opal did not intend on being poor in her new role as a human. Mulch snagged a single diamond earring from a nearby bust. So Artemis had told him not to take anything. So what? One earring wouldn’t slow him down.
Mulch popped the pigeon’s egg–size diamond into his mouth and swallowed. He could pass that later when he was on his own. Until then it could lodge in his stomach wall, and it would come out shinier than it went in.
Another explosion bucked the floor beneath his feet, reminding Mulch to move on. He crossed to the bay door, which was slightly ajar. The next chamber was the passenger area, and it was just as plush as Holly had described. Mulch’s lips rippled at the sight of fur-covered chairs. Repulsive. Beyond the passenger area was the cockpit. Opal and her two friends were clearly visible, staring intently out of the front windshield. They were making not a sound, and saying not a word. Just as Artemis had said.
Mulch dropped to his knees and crawled across the lounge’s carpet. He was now completely exposed. If one of the pixies decided to turn around, he would be stranded in the center of the lounge with nothing but a smile to hide behind.
Just keep going and don’t think about that, Mulch told himself. If Opal catches you, pretend you’re lost or have amnesia, or just came out of a coma. Maybe she’ll sympathize, give you some gold, and send you on your way. Yeah, right.
Something creaked slightly beneath Mulch’s knee. The dwarf froze, but the pixies didn’t react to the sound. Presumably that was the lid of the booty box. Opal’s little hidey hole. Mulch crawled around the box. If there was one thing he didn’t need, it was more creaks.
Two shaped charges lay on a chair, level with Mulch’s nose. He couldn’t believe it. Right there, less than a yard away. This was the one part of the plan that relied on luck. If one of the Brill brothers had the charge tucked under his arm or if there were more charges than he could carry, then they would have to ram the shuttle and hope to disable her. But here it was, almost begging to be stolen. When he was committing a robbery, Mulch often gave voices to the objects he was about to steal. This, he knew, would sound a little crazy to the rest of the world, but he spent a lot of time on his own and he needed someone to talk to.
Come on, Mister Handsome Dwarf, said one of the charges in a breathy falsetto. I’m waiting. I don’t like it here, you know. Please rescue me.
Very well, Madame, said Mulch silently, taking the bag from inside his shirt. I’ll take you, but we’re not going very far.
Me, too, said the other charge. I want to go, too.
Don’t worry, ladies. Where you’re going, there’s plenty of room for both of you.
When Mulch Diggums crept out through the torn seal a minute later, the charges were no longer on the chair. In their place was a small handheld communicator.
* * *
The three pixies sat quietly in the stealth shuttle’s cockpit. One was concentrating on the transport craft hovering two hundred yards off their bows. The other two were concentrating on not passing wind, and not thinking about not passing wind.
The transport shuttle’s side entrance opened, and something winked in the morning light as it tumbled earthward. Seconds later the something exploded, rocking the stealth shuttle on its suspension bags.
The Brill brothers gasped, and Opal cuffed them both on the ear.
Opal was not worried. They were searching. Shooting in the dark, or very close to it. Maybe in thirty minutes there would be enough light to see the ship with the naked eye, but until then they were blending very nicely with the surrounding countryside, thanks to a hull made from stealth ore and cam-foil. Fowl must have guessed where they were because of this chute’s proximity to the probe. But all he had was an approximation. Of course it would be delightful to blast them out of the air, but plasma bursts would light up Foaly’s satellite scanners and paint a bull’seye on their hull.
She plucked a digi-pad and pen from the dash and scrawled a message on it.
Stay quiet and calm. Even if one of those charges hits us, it will not penetrate the hull.
Mervall took the pad. Maybe we should leave. Mud Men will be coming.
Opal wrote a response. Dear Mervall, please don’t start thinking; you will hurt your head. We wait until they leave. At this close range, they could actually hear our engines starting.
Another explosion rocked the stealth shuttle. Opal felt a bead of sweat roll down her forehead. This was ridiculous: she didn’t perspire, certainly not in front of the help. In five minutes the humans would come to investigate. It was their nature. So she would wait five minutes, then try to slip past the LEP shuttle, and if she couldn’t slip past, then she would blast them out of the sky and take her chances with the supersonic shuttle that would no doubt come to investigate.
More grenades dropped from the LEP craft, but they were farther away now, and the shock waves barely caused a shudder in the stealth shuttle. This went on for two or three minutes without the remotest danger to Opal or the Brills, then suddenly the transport shuttle sealed its door and peeled off back down the chute.
“Hmm,” said Opal. “Surprising.”
“Maybe they ran out of ammunition,” offered Merv, though he knew that Opal would punish him for offering an opinion.
“Is that what you think, Mervall? They ran out of explosives and so they decided just to let us go? Do you really imagine that to be true, you imbecilic excuse for a sentient being? Don’t you have any frontal lobes?”
“I was just playing devil’s advocate,” mumbled Merv weakly.
Opal rose from her seat, waving a hand at each Brill brother. “Just shut up. I need to talk to myself for a minute.” She paced the narrow cockpit. “What’s going on here? They track us to the chute, then put on a big fireworks display, then leave. Just like that. Why? Why?”
She rubbed both temples with a knuckle. “Think.” Suddenly Opal remembered something. “Last night. A shuttle was stolen in E1. We heard about it on the police band. Who stole it?”
Scant shrugged. “I dunno. Some dwarf. Is it important?”
“That’s right. A dwarf. And wasn’t there a dwarf involved in the Artemis Fowl siege? And weren’t there rumors of the same dwarf helping Julius to break into Koboi labs?”
“Rumors. No actual evidence.”
Opal turned on Scant. “Maybe that’s because, unlike you, this dwarf is smart. Maybe he doesn’t want to be caught.” The pixie took a moment to connect the dots. “So they have a dwarf burglar, a shuttle, and explosives. Holly must know that those pathetic grenades can’t penetrate our hull, so why drop them? Unless . . .”
The truth hit her like a physical blow in the stomach. “Oh no,” she gasped. “Distraction. We sat here like fools watching the pretty lights. And all the time . . .”
She heaved Scant aside, rushing past him to the lounge.
“The charges,” she shrieked. “Where are they?”
Scant went straight to the chair. “Don’t worry, Miss Koboi, they’re right—” He stopped, the
sentence’s final word stuck in his throat. “I, ah, they were right there. In the chair.”
Opal picked up the small handheld radio. “They’re toying with me. Tell me you put the backup somewhere safe.”
“No,” said Scant miserably. “They were together.”
Merv pushed past him into the cargo bay. “The engine compartment is open.” He stuck his head through the hatch. His voice wafted up, muffled by the floor panels. “The battery rod seal has been ripped apart. And there are footprints. Someone came through here.”
Opal threw back her head and screamed. She held it for a long time for such a small individual.
Finally her breath ran out. “Follow the shuttle,” she gasped when her wind returned. “I modified those charges myself and they cannot be disarmed. We can still detonate. At the very least we will destroy my enemies.”
“Yes, Miss Koboi,” said Merv and Scant together.
“Don’t look at me,” howled Opal.
The Brill brothers fled to the cockpit, trying to simultaneously bow, look at their feet, not think anything dangerous, and above all, not pass wind.
* * *
Mulch was waiting at the rendezvous site when the LEP shuttle arrived. Butler opened the door and hauled the dwarf in by the collar.
“Did you get it?” asked Artemis anxiously.
Mulch passed him the bulging bag. “Right here. And before you ask, I left the radio.”
“So everything went according to plan?”
“Completely,” replied Mulch, neglecting to mention the diamond nestled in his stomach wall.
“Excellent,” said Artemis, striding past the dwarf to the cockpit.
“Go,” he shouted, thumping Holly’s headrest.
Holly already had the shuttle ticking over, and was holding it with the brake.
“We’re gone,” she said, releasing the brake and flooring the throttle. The LEP craft bolted from the rocky outcrop like a pebble from a catapult.
Artemis’s legs were dragged from the floor, flapping behind him like windsocks. The rest of him would have followed if he hadn’t held on to the headrest.
“How much time do we have?” asked Holly, through lips rippled by G-force.
Artemis pulled himself into the passenger seat. “Minutes. The orebody will hit a depth of one hundred and five miles in precisely one quarter of an hour. Opal will be after us any second.”
Holly shadowed the chute wall, spinning between two towers of rock. The lower portion of E7 was quite straight, but this stretch corkscrewed through the crust, following the cracks in the plates.
“Is this going to work, Artemis?” said Holly.
Artemis pondered the question. “I considered eight plans, and this was the best one. Even so, we have a sixty-four percent chance of success. The key is to keep Opal distracted so she doesn’t discover the truth. That’s up to you, Holly. Can you do it?”
Holly wrapped her fingers around the wheel. “Don’t worry. It’s not often I get a chance to do some fancy flying. Opal will be so busy trying to catch us that she won’t have time to consider anything else.”
Artemis looked out of the windshield. They were pointing straight down toward the center of the earth. Gravity fluctuated at this depth and speed, so they were alternately pinned to their chairs and straining to be free of their seat belts. The chute’s blackness enveloped them like tar, except for the cone of light from the shuttle’s headlamps. Gigantic rock formations darted in and out of the cone heading straight for their nose. Somehow Holly steered them through, without once tapping the brake.
On the plasma dash, the icon representing the gaseous anomaly that was Opal’s ship inched across the screen.
“They’re on to us,” said Holly, catching the movement from the corner of one eye.
Artemis’s stomach was knotted from flight nausea, anxiety, fatigue, and exhilaration. “Very well,” he said, almost to himself. “The chase is on.”
At the mouth of E7, Merv was at the wheel of the stealth shuttle. Scant was on instruments, and Opal was in charge of giving orders and general ranting.
“Do we have a signal from the charge?” she screeched from her chair.
Her voice is really getting annoying, thought Scant, but not too loudly. “No,” he replied. “Nothing. Which means it must be in the other shuttle. Their shields must be blocking the charge’s signal. We need to get closer, or I could send the detonation signal anyway; we might get lucky.”
Opal’s screech grew more strident. “No! We must not detonate before that shuttle reaches one hundred and five miles. If we do, the orebody will not change course. What about this stupid communicator? Anything from that?”
“Negative,” said Scant. “If there’s another one, it must be switched off.”
“We could always return to Zito’s compound,” said Merv. “We have a dozen more charges there.”
Opal leaned forward in her seat, punching Merv’s shoulders with her tiny fists. “Idiot. Moron. Half-wit. Are you in some kind of stupidity competition? Is that it? If we return to Zito’s, the orebody will be too deep by the time we return. Not to mention the fact that Captain Short will present the LEP with her version of events and they will have to investigate, at the very least. We must get closer and we must detonate. Even if we miss the probe window, at least we destroy any witnesses against me.”
The stealth shuttle had proximity sensors linked into the navigating software, which meant that Opal and company did not have to worry about colliding with the chute wall or stalactites.
“How long before we’re in detonation range?” Opal barked. To be honest, it was more of a yip.
Merv did some quick calculations. “Three minutes. No more.”
“How deep will they be at that point?”
A few more sums. “One hundred and fifty-five miles.”
Opal pinched her nose. “It could work. Presuming they have both charges, the resulting explosion, even if not directed as we planned, may be enough to blow a crack in the wall. It’s our only option. If it fails, at least we have time to regroup. As soon as they hit one hundred and five, send the detonate signal. Send it continuously. We may get lucky.”
Merv flipped a plastic safety cover off the DETONATE button. Only minutes to go.
Artemis’s insides were trying to force their way out his throat. “This heap needs new gyroscopes,” he said.
Holly barely nodded, too busy concentrating on a particularly tricky series of jinks and loops in the chute.
Artemis consulted the dashboard’s readout. “We’re at a depth of one hundred and five now. Opal will be trying to detonate. She’s closing fast.”
Mulch stuck his head through from the passenger section. “Is all this jiggling about really necessary? I’ve had a lot to eat recently.”
“Nearly there,” said Artemis. “The ride is just about over. Tell Butler to open the bag.”
“Okay. Are you sure Opal will do what she’s supposed to?”
Artemis smiled reassuringly. “Of course I am. It’s human nature, and Opal is a human now, remember? Now, Holly. Pull over.”
Mervall tapped the readout. “You’re not going to believe this, Op . . . Miss Koboi.”
The merest hint of a smile flickered across Opal’s lips. “Don’t tell me. They have stopped.”
Merv shook his head, astounded. “Yes, they are hovering at one hundred and twenty-five. Why would they do that?”
“There’s no point trying to explain it, Mervall. Just keep sending the detonation signal, but slow us down. I don’t want to be too close when we get a connection.”
She drummed her nails on the handheld communicator left behind by the dwarf. Any second now.
A red call light flashed on the communicator, accompanied by a slight vibration. Opal smiled, flipping open the walkie-talkie’s screen.
Artemis’s pale face filled the tiny screen. He was trying to smile, but it was obviously forced. “Opal, I am giving you one chance to surrender. We have disar
med your charges and the LEP is on its way. It would be better for you to turn yourself over to Captain Short than shoot it out with an armed LEP ship.”
Opal clapped her hands. “Bravo, Master Fowl, what a wonderful fiction. Now, why don’t I tell you the real truth. You have realized that the charges cannot be disarmed. The mere fact that I can receive your communication’s signal means that my detonation signal will soon penetrate your shields. You cannot simply jettison the explosives, or I will set them off in the chute, exactly as I had originally planned. Then I will simply fire a few heat seekers at your craft. And if you attempt further flight, then I will follow and penetrate your shields before you clear the parallel stretch. You are not in communication with the LEP. If you were, we would have picked up your broadcast. So your only alternative is this pathetic bluff. And it is pathetic. You are obviously attempting to stall me until the orebody passes your depth.”
“So you refuse to surrender?”
Opal pretended to think about it, tapping her chin with a manicured nail. “Why, yes. I think I will fight on, against all odds. And by the way, please don’t look directly at the screen: it’s bad for my skin.”
Artemis sighed dramatically. “Well, if we have to go, at least we’ll go on full stomachs.”
This was an unusually cavalier comment to make with seconds to live, even for a human. “Full stomachs?”
“Yes,” said Artemis. “Mulch took something else from your shuttle.”
He picked up a small chocolate-covered ball and wiggled it before the screen.
“My truffles?” gasped Opal. “You took them. That’s just mean.”
Artemis popped the treat into his mouth and chewed slowly. “They really are divine. I can see why you missed them in the institute. We’re really going to have to work hard to eat all we took before you blow us to smithereens.”