by Eoin Colfer
Turnball was shocked and frightened by how feeble Leonor had become. Somehow, the simple act of marrying a fairy had slowed down her aging process, but now it seemed that he could delay her decline no longer. Turnball took his fear for his wife, turned it into rage, and pointed it at his crew.
“We have a historic opportunity here,” he shouted at the small group, who were assembled in the second-story library, “to strike a blow at the heart of our ancient enemy and also secure a supply of magic that will never run dry. If one of you useless jail rats fails in his task, there will be nowhere on this earth you can hide from me. I will hunt you down and peel the skin from your head. Do you understand?”
They understood. Historically, Turnball’s threats were usually vague and stylish—when he got down to specifics, then the captain was close to the edge.
“Good. Good.” Turnball took a breath. “Is everything ready, Quartermaster?”
Quartermaster Ark Sool stepped forward. Sool was an unusually tall gnome who had, until quite recently, been an internal affairs officer for the LEP. Having been demoted to private following an investigation into the ethics of his own methods, Sool had cashed in whatever years he had and decided that he would use the accumulated knowledge of decades of criminal investigation to make himself some of the gold that gnomes were almost hypnotically attracted to. He’d advertised his services at The Sozzled Parrot and had soon been picked up by Turnball, anonymously at first, but now they were meeting face-to-face.
“Everything is ready, Captain,” he said, tones clipped, back straight. “The shuttle we acquired from the LEP pound has been fitted out as an Atlantis ambulance. And I managed to trim the budget quite a bit and took the liberty of ordering a few new dress suits for you.”
“Excellent work, Quartermaster,” said Turnball. “Your share has just gone up three percent. Initiative pays. Never forget that.”
He rubbed his hands. “How soon can we leave?”
“As soon as you give the word, Captain. The ambulance is on the jetty and ready for push off.”
“The laser?”
“Modified as requested. Small enough to fit in your pocket.”
“I find myself liking you quite a bit, Sool. Keep it up and soon you will be a full partner.”
Sool bowed slightly. “Thank you, sir.”
“Any casualties while you were doing the shopping?”
“Not on our side, sir,” said Sool.
“And who cares about the other side, eh?”
Turnball liked the idea of blood being spilled. It made the entire exercise seem worthwhile.
“Now, we all know I am a selfish fairy—that’s what’s kept us alive and prospering, apart from our recent stint at the Council’s pleasure. If I get what I want, then we all flourish. And what I want is a source of magic strong enough to make my wife young again. And if that source of magic can also make your dreams come true, so much the better. Until recently, there was no everlasting source, but now the demons have returned from Limbo, bringing a mighty warlock with them. A young demon who has taken the unusual name of No1.”
“A smarmy little upstart,” said Sool. “Won’t salute or wear a uniform.”
“I’m taking one percent of your share back for interrupting,” said Turnball gently. “Do it again and I’ll take an arm.”
Sool opened his mouth to apologize, but on consideration decided that another little bow would suffice.
“You’re new. You’ll learn. And if you don’t, at least Mr. Ragby will have a nice meal. He loves limbs.”
Ragby made the point by gnashing his large teeth.
“So, to continue uninterrupted, there is now a demon warlock in Haven. If we can take him, then he shields us forever and he brings my Leonor back to me. Questions?”
Bobb Ragby raised a finger.
“Yes, Mr. Ragby?”
“Won’t this No1 be hard to get to?”
“Ah, excellent question, Mr. Ragby. Not quite as stupid as you appear, after all. And you are right. Generally, a person of this importance would be hidden away like the last stink worm at a dwarf sludge pool party, but in the event of a disaster at sea, where the medical staff are stretched to their limits, such a powerful warlock will be pressed into service by the medical warlocks. So we will find him in the aquanaut Nostremius, the floating hospital.”
A broad smile spread across Ragby’s face. “And we have a fake ambulance.”
“We do indeed, Bobb. You put things together quickly.”
Ching had a question too. “A person like that, with all this power, surely the LEP are going to come after a person like that?”
This was exactly the question Turnball wanted asked. He was delighted by how this presentation was going. “Let me answer your question with one of my own, just to get your mind working, because I have faith that you’re not just a stupid goblin. Do you know why I had the space probe crash into the prison shuttle?”
Ching’s reptilian face wrinkled in concentration, and he absently licked his eyeballs as he thought. “I think you done that so the Leppers would assume we were dead.”
“Correct, Mr. Mayle. I orchestrated a huge catastrophe so everyone would believe we had been killed.” Turnball shrugged. “I don’t feel bad about that. We are at war with the Leppers, as you call them. If you take sides in a war, then you can expect to be a target. I might feel a little bad about the next catastrophe. I’m a little sentimental about hospitals: I was born in one.”
Bobb raised the same finger again. “Uh, Captain, was that a joke?”
Turnball beamed a charming smile. “Why, yes it was, Mr. Ragby.”
Bobb Ragby started to laugh.
The Atlantis Trench; Now
Artemis Fowl felt the tentacles of the giant squid tighten around him. Saucer-sized spherical suckers latched on to his pressure suit, slobbering on the surface, searching for purchase. Each cup was lined with rings of razor-sharp chitin teeth, which gnashed viciously on Artemis’s protected limbs and torso.
Eight arms, if I remember correctly, thought Artemis. Which is two fours. Die! Die!
Artemis almost giggled. Even in the death grip of the biggest squid ever to be seen by a man, he was persisting with his compulsive behavior.
It won’t be long now before I am counting my words again.
When the squid’s biting suckers could not gain access to the tender meat inside, it held Artemis away from the giant mantle.
The next stage of the squid’s assault was to batter Artemis with one of its two longer tentacles, which it swung like a mace. Artemis felt the jarring blow, but his suit did not rupture.
“One two three four five,” shouted Artemis defiantly. “Wear the suit and stay alive.”
Number poetry. Back to square one.
Three times more, the squid struck and then it drew Artemis close in circling bands of fat tentacle and took his entire head inside its gnashing beak. The noise was exactly what Artemis had always imagined it would sound like if a giant squid tried to crack his sea helmet.
If I get out of this, I will start thinking about girls like a normal fifteen-year-old.
After several heart-stopping minutes, the squid apparently gave up and dashed Artemis down in a nest of bones and sea junk that it had assembled on a high shelf at the side of an underwater cliff.
Artemis lay on his back and watched as the creature expanded its mantle cavity, filled it with hundreds of gallons of seawater, then contracted the mantle, shooting itself into the near pitch black of deep water.
Artemis felt that in the circumstances, a slang word was justified.
“Wow,” he breathed. “Of all the things that have almost killed me, that was the most fearsome.”
After several minutes, Artemis’s heart rate slowed enough to extinguish the flashing heart readout on his suit, and he felt that he could move without throwing up.
“I’ve moved position,” he said into his helmet, in case Foaly’s phone, which was stuck into the helmet over his fo
rehead, was still actually functional. “I intend to try and take some bearings so you can come and rescue me.”
“Moved position?” said Foaly’s voice, which was transmitted faintly by vibration through the helmet’s polymer, so that it seemed to come from everywhere. “That’s an understatement. We’re going to try to catch up.”
“Look for landmarks,” said another voice, Butler. “We can use them to triangulate with Foaly’s phone and pinpoint your position.”
This was a hopeful plan at best, but Artemis felt that it was better to have something to do other than just wait for his air to run out.
“Actually, how much air do I have?”
Foaly, of course, was the one to answer that technical question. “The suit has functioning gills that draw oxygen from the ocean, so it will keep breathing long after you’re dead, so to speak. Not that you’re going to die.”
Artemis turned over and raised himself onto all fours. Any difficulty he experienced was due to his body being in shock from the cephalopod attack, and not the pressure suit, which was functioning perfectly and which would later go on to win an industry award for its performance that day.
Take five steps, Artemis urged himself. Just five. Whatever you do, don’t stop at . . . one less than five.
Artemis took five shuffling steps, feeling his way along the ledge, carefully avoiding shuffling off into the abyss. He could probably survive the drop, but he had no desire to have to climb back up again.
“I’m on a long flat ledge, on the lip of the trench,” he said softly, anxious not to disturb any vibration-sensitive creatures—sharks, for example.
He realized that the squid had dropped him into some kind of nest. Perhaps the creature did not actually sleep here, but it seemed to feed in the spot and collect things that interested it. There were several skeletons, including the gigantic ribbed remains of a sperm whale, which Artemis first mistook for a shipwreck. There were small boats, huge brass propellers, great chunks of gleaming quartz, phosphorescent rocks, various crates, and even a mangled orange deep-sea submarine with grinning skeletons inside.
Artemis moved quickly away from the craft, even though his intellect assured him that the skeletons could not harm him.
Pardon me if I don’t completely trust my intellect these days.
He noticed that in all this rubble there did not appear to be any fairy-made articles, even with Atlantis just over the crest.
Then Artemis saw that he was mistaken. There was, no more than thirty feet from him, a small, slick, metallic computer cube with unmistakable fairy markings which seemed to float just above the surface of the ledge.
No, wait, not floating. Suspended in gel.
Artemis poked the gel gingerly, and when there was no reaction apart from a gentle fizzling spark, he plunged his sheathed hand into the gel up to the shoulder, grasping the cube by a corner. With the aid of the suit’s servo motors, he easily pulled it free.
Wreckage from the probe, perhaps, he thought, then said aloud, “I have something. It could be pertinent. Are you seeing this, Foaly?”
There was no reply.
I need to get back to the ship, or into the crash crater. Somewhere away from the giant squid, which wants to nibble my flesh and suck my marrow.
Artemis immediately regretted thinking the suck-my-marrow bit, as it was far too graphic, and now he felt like throwing up again.
I don’t even know which way to go, he realized. This entire venture was ill-advised. What were the chances I would find a clue at the bottom of the ocean?
An ironic statement, as it would turn out, because he held a vital clue in his hands.
Artemis swung his head this way and that, to see if whatever was caught in the beams of his helmet could spark off an idea. Nothing. Just an almost transparent fish propelling its bloated body with stubby fins, and filtering plankton through its circular nostrils.
I need something to happen, thought Artemis a little desperately. The idea had occurred to him that he was lost alone underneath six miles of crushing ocean with not much of an idea of what to do next. Artemis had always performed well under pressure, but that was usually the intellectual pressure a person might experience at the end of a taxing chess match, not the kind of pressure that could splinter a person’s bones and squeeze every bubble of air from their lungs. Actual water pressure.
As it turned out, something did happen: the squid came back, and it bore in the grip of its larger tentacles what appeared to be the space probe’s nose cone.
I wonder what he wants that for? wondered Artemis. It’s almost as if he’s actually manipulating a tool.
But to what end? What nut would a giant squid wish to crack?
“Me,” Artemis blurted. “I’m the nut.”
Artemis could have sworn the squid winked at him before bringing the five-ton chunk of spacecraft swinging down toward the morsel of meat in its blue shell.
“I’m the nut!” Artemis shouted again, a little hysterically, it must be said. He backpedaled along the ledge, the suit’s motors lending him a little speed. Just enough feet per second to feel the force of the swing, but not the metal itself. The probe’s prow cut through the rock like a cleaver through soft meat and carved a V-shaped trench that ran between the soles of Artemis’s feet.
So much for being a genius, thought Artemis bitterly. One grand gesture and I’m fish food.
The squid yanked its weapon free from the rock and raised it high, pumping its mantle cavity full of water for the next effort. Artemis’s back was literally against the wall. He had nowhere to go, and made an easy target.
“Butler!” called Artemis, purely out of habit. He had no real expectation that his bodyguard could miraculously materialize at his side, and even if he did, it would just be to die there.
The squid closed one huge eye, taking careful aim.
These things are smarter than scientists think, thought Artemis. I do wish I had been able to write a paper.
The prow came hammering down, compressing water then pushing it aside. Metal filled Artemis’s vision, and it occurred to him that this was the second time this particular prow had almost crushed him.
Except this time it’s not almost.
But it was to be almost. An orange circle pulsed in Artemis’s helmet readout, and he prayed that it was a sign that an electromagnetic connection had been established between his suit and the ship.
It was. Artemis felt a gentle tug, then a fierce one that yanked him off the ledge straight up toward the hovering mercenary craft. In the light of his suit beams he could see a magnetic plate in the ship’s belly. Underneath him the squid abandoned its improvised mallet and bunched itself for pursuit.
I’ll probably slow down before I hit that plate, Artemis thought hopefully.
He didn’t, but the impact hurt a lot less than a blow from an armed giant squid.
Generally, the diver would be taken inside immediately, but in this case Holly decided that it would be best to leave Artemis where he was, and put a little distance between them and the squid, which Artemis would later agree was the correct decision even though at the time he was screaming. Artemis craned his head around to see the massive dome of the squid’s head jetting after him, tentacles behind rippling like skipping ropes—skipping ropes with razor-lined suckers and enough power to crush an armored vehicle, not to mention the ability to manipulate tools.
“Holly!” he shouted. “If you can hear me, go faster!”
Apparently she could hear him.
Holly took the ship deep into the impact crater, and when she was absolutely sure the squid was off their scopes, she flipped the magnetic plate, and Artemis was dumped into the air lock, still clutching the fairy box to his chest.
“Hey, look,” said Mulch, once the air lock had drained. “It’s the nut.” He ran in small circles around the bay, squealing, “I’m the nut. I’m the nut.” The dwarf stopped for a laugh. “He cracks me up, really.”
Butler hurried to Artemis’s
side. “Cut him some slack, Diggums. He just tangled with a giant squid.”
Mulch was not impressed. “I once ate one of those things. A big one, not a minnow like that fellow.”
Butler helped Artemis with the helmet. “Anything broken? Can you move your fingers and toes? What is the capital of Pakistan?”
Artemis coughed and stretched his neck. “Nothing broken. Digits all mobile, and the capital of Pakistan is Islamabad, which is noteworthy for having been built to be the capital.”
“Okay, Artemis,” said Butler. “You’re fine. I won’t ask you to count to five.”
“I would rather count in fives, if you don’t mind. Foaly, congratulations on building such a sturdy phone with an excellent tracking program.”
Holly hit the water flaps to slow the ship’s forward motion. “Did you find anything?”
Artemis held out the hardware cube. “Wreckage from the probe. This was covered in some kind of gel. Interesting texture, loaded with crystals. Something of yours, Foaly?”
The centaur clopped over and took the small metal box. “It’s the heart from an amorphobot,” he said fondly. “These little guys were the perfect foragers. They could absorb anything, including each other.”
“Maybe they absorbed this Turnball guy and his buddies,” said Juliet, half joking.
Artemis was about to explain in patronizingly simple terms exactly why this wasn’t possible, when it occurred to him that it was indeed possible—not only that, it was probable.
“They weren’t programmed to act as rescue vehicles,” said Foaly.
Holly scowled. “If you tell me one more time that those amorphobots weren’t programmed to do something, then I will have to shave your hindquarters while you sleep.”
Artemis crawled to the steel bench. “Are you saying that you people knew about these amorphobots all the time?”
“Of course we did. They attacked us in Iceland. Remember?”
“No. I was unconscious.”
“That’s right. Seems like ages ago.”
“So I endured trial by squid for nothing?”
“Oh no. Not for nothing. It would have taken me minutes to make the connection, and even then it would only have been a theory.” Foaly typed a code into his phone, releasing it from the pressure suit’s helmet. “Whereas now we can check the programming.”