by Colfer, Eoin
The battery rod vibrated slightly as it harvested, and it was this vibration that Mulch homed in on now. It took him just over five minutes of steady munching to clear the rock shelf and reach the tip of the battery rod. The vibrations had already loosened the earth, and it was a simple matter for Mulch to clear himself a little cave. He spread saliva on the walls and waited.
Holly piloted the LEP craft through the small shuttleport, overriding the shuttle doors with her Recon access code. Police Plaza hadn’t bothered to change her code, because as far as they were concerned, she was dead.
A sheet of black rain clouds was spreading shadows across the Italian countryside as they cleared the holographic outcrop that shielded the shuttleport. A light frost coated the reddish clay, and a southerly wind lifted the shuttle’s tail.
‘We can’t stay out here for long,“ said Holly, throttling back to a hover. ”This transporter doesn’t have defenses.“
‘We won’t need long,“ said Artemis. ”Fly in a grid search pattern, as though we’re not certain where exactly the stealth shuttle is.“
Holly punched some coordinates into the flight computer. “You’re the genius.”
Artemis turned to Butler, who was cross-legged in the aisle. “Now, old friend, can you make certain that Opal is looking this way?”
‘Can do,“ said Butler, crawling to the port side exit. He knuckled the access button and the door slid back. The shuttle bucked slightly as the cabin pressure equalized then settled.
Butler opened his bag of weaponry and selected a handful of metal spheres, roughly the size of tennis balls. He flicked back the safety cap on one, then depressed the button below with his thumb. The button began to rise to its original position.
‘Ten seconds until the button is flush with the surface. Then it makes a connection.“
‘Thank you for the lecture,“ said Artemis dryly. ”Though now is hardly the time.“
Butler smiled, tossing the metal sphere into the air. Five seconds later it exploded, blowing a small crater in the earth below. Scorch lines emanated from the crater, giving it the appearance of a black flower.
‘I bet Opal is looking now,“ said Butler, priming the next grenade. ‘I’m sure others will be looking soon. Explosions don’t tend to go unnoticed for long. We are relatively isolated here. The nearest village is approximately ten miles away. If we are lucky, that gives us a ten-minute window. Next grid square, please, Holly. But not too close; we don’t want to scare them off.“
Fifty feet below the ground, Mulch Diggums waited in his little DIY cave, watching the tip of the battery rod. As soon as it stopped vibrating, he began working his way upward through the loose clay. The telescopic rod was warm to the touch, heated by the energy it conducted to the shuttle’s batteries. Mulch used it to help him on his journey, pulling himself upward, hand over hand.
The clay he consumed was broken and aerated from the rod’s drilling action, and Mulch was glad for that extra air. He converted it to wind, using it to boost himself upward.
Mulch increased his pace, pumping the air and clay through his recycling passages. Opal would only be distracted by the shuttle for so long before it occurred to her that it was a diversion. The rod thickened as he went along, until he arrived at a rubber seal in the belly of the shuttle itself, which was raised on three retractable legs two feet off the ground.
When the shuttle was in flight, this seal would be covered by a metal panel; but the shuttle was not in flight at the moment, and the sensors were turned off.
Mulch climbed from his tunnel and rehinged his jaw.
This was precision work and he needed fine control of his teeth. Rubber was not a recommended part of a dwarf’s diet, and so could not be swallowed. Half-digested rubber could seal up his insides as effectively as a barrel of glue.
It was an awkward bite. Difficult to get a grip. Mulch flattened his cheek against the battery rod, worming upward until his incisors could get some purchase on the seal. He bore down on the heavy rubber, rotating his jaw in small circles until his upper tooth broke through. Then he ground his teeth, enlarging the rent until there was a six-inch tear in the rubber. Now Mulch could get one side of his mouth into the gap. He tore off large chunks, careful to spit them out immediately.
In less than a minute Mulch had torn a foot-square hole. Just enough for him to squeeze through.
Anyone unfamiliar with dwarfs would have bet money that Mulch would never squeeze his well-fed bulk through such a narrow aperture, but they would have lost their cash.
Dwarfs have spent millennia escaping from cave-ins, and have developed the ability to squeeze through tighter holes than this one.
Mulch sucked in his gut and wiggled through the torn seal, headfirst. He was glad to be out of the faint, morning sunlight. Sun was another thing dwarfs did not like. After mere minutes in direct sunlight, a dwarf’s skin would be redder than a boiled lobster’s. He shinned along the battery rod into the shuttle’s engine compartment. Most of the small space was taken up with flat batteries and a hydrogen generator. There was an access hatch overhead that led into the cargo bay. Light ropes ran the length of the compartment, giving off pale green light. Any radiation leak from the generator would show up purple.
The reason that the light ropes were still working without power was that illumination was supplied by specially cultivated decaying algae. Not that Mulch knew any of this; he just knew that the light was very similar to the luminescence from dwarf spittle, and the familiarity made him relax. He relaxed a bit too much, as it happened, allowing a small squib of tunnel gas to escape through his bum-flap. Hopefully nobody would notice that…
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 s
ympathize, 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 Jar.
Me, too, said the other charge. still 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’s- eye 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-was 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.“