“Captain Short is in there somewhere, Foaly. Below decks. What can you give me?”
“Nothing, sir. It’s not a permanent fixture. By the time we’ve run down her registration, it’d be way too late.”
“What about thermal imaging?”
“No, Commander. That hull must be at least fifty years old. Very high lead content. We can’t even penetrate the first layer. I’m afraid you’re on your own.”
Root shook his head. “After all the billions we’ve poured into your department. Remind me to slash your budget when I get back.”
“Yes, sir,” came the reply, sullen for once. Foaly did not like budget jokes.
“Just have the Retrieval Squad on full alert. I may need them at a moment’s notice.”
“I will, sir.”
“You’d better. Over and out.”
Root was on his own. Truth be told, that was the way he liked it. No science. No uppity centaur whinnying in his ear. Just a fairy, his wits, and maybe a touch of magic.
Root tilted his polymer wings, hugging the underside of a fogbank. There was no need to be careful. With his shield activated, he was invisible to the human eye. Even on stealth-sensitive radar he would be no more than a barely perceptible distortion. The commander swooped low to the gunwales. It was an ugly craft, this one. The smell of death and pain lingered in the blood-swabbed decks. Many noble creatures had died here, died and been dissected for a few bars of soap and some heating oil. Root shook his head. Humans were such barbarians.
Holly’s beeper was flashing urgently now. She was close by. Very close. Somewhere within a two-hundred-foot radius was the hopefully still-breathing form of Captain Short. But without blueprints he would have to navigate the belly of this ship unaided.
Root alighted gently on the deck, his boots adhering slightly to the mixture of dried soap and blubber coating the steel surface. The craft appeared to be deserted. No sentry on the gangplank, no bosun on the bridge, not a light anywhere. Still, no reason to abandon caution. Root knew from bitter experience that humans popped up when you least expected them. Once, when he was helping the Retrieval boys scrape some pod wreckage off a tunnel wall, they were spotted by a group of potholing humans. What a mess that had been. Mass hysteria, high-speed chases, group mind wipes. The whole nine yards. Root shuddered. Nights like that could put decades on a fairy.
Keeping himself fully shielded, the commander stowed his wings in their sheath, advancing on foot across the deck. There were no other life-forms showing up on his screen but, like Foaly said, the hull had a high lead content, even the paint was lead based! The entire boat was a floating eco hazard. The point being that there could be an entire battalion of stormtroopers concealed below decks, and his helmetcam would never pick them up. Very reassuring. Even Holly’s beacon was a few shades below par, and that had a micro nuclear battery sending out the pulses. Root didn’t like this. Not one bit. Keep calm, he derided himself. You’re shielded. There’s not a human alive that can see you now.
Root hauled open the first hatch. It swung easily enough. The commander sniffed. The Mud People had greased the hinges with whale blubber. Was there no end to their depravity?
The corridor was steeped in viscous darkness, so Root flicked down his infrared filter. Okay, so sometimes technology did come in handy, but he wouldn’t be telling Foaly that. The maze of pipes and grilling before him was immediately illuminated with an unnatural red light. Minutes later, he was regretting even thinking something nice about the centaur’s technology. The infrared filter was messing with his depth perception and he’d whacked his head on two protruding U-bends so far.
Still no sign of life—human or fairy. Plenty of animal.
Mostly rodents. And when you’re just topping three feet in height yourself, a good-sized rat can be a real threat, especially since rats are one of the few breeds that can see straight through a fairy shield. Root unstrapped his blaster and set it to level three, or medium rare, as the elves in the locker room called it. He sent one of the rats scurrying away with a smoking behind as a warning to the rest. Nothing fatal, just enough to teach him not to look sideways at a fairy in a hurry again.
Root picked up his pace. This place was ideal for an ambush. He was virtually blind with his back to the only exit. A Recon nightmare. If one of his own men had pulled a stunt like this, he’d have their stripes for it. But desperate times required judicious risk-taking. That was the essence of command.
He ignored several doors to either side, following the beacon. Ten feet now. A steel hatch sealed the corridor, and Captain Short, or her corpse, lay on the other side of it.
Root put his shoulder to the door. It swung open without protest. Bad news. If a live creature were being held captive, the hatch would have been locked. The commander flicked the blaster’s power level to five and advanced through the hole. His weapon hummed softly. There was enough power on tap now to vaporize a bull elephant with a single blast.
No sign of Holly. No sign of anything much. He was in a refrigerated storage bay. Glittering stalactites hung from a maze of piping. Root’s breath fanned before him in icy clouds. How would that look to a human? Disembodied breathing.
“Ah,” said a familiar voice. “We have a visitor.”
Root dropped to one knee, leveling the handgun at the voice’s source.
“Come to rescue your missing officer, no doubt.”
The commander blinked a bead of sweat from his eye. Sweat? At this temperature?
“Well, I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place.”
The voice was tinny. Artificial. Amplified. Root checked his locator for life signs. There were none. Not in this chamber at any rate. He was being monitored somehow. Was there a camera here somewhere, concealed in the maze of overhead plumbing, that could penetrate the fairy shield?
“Where are you? Show yourself!”
The human chuckled. It echoed unnaturally around the vast hold.
“Oh, no. Not yet, my fairy friend. But soon enough. And believe me, when I do, you’ll wish I hadn’t.”
Root followed the voice. Keep the human talking.
“What do you want?”
“Hmm. What do I want? Again, you will know soon enough.”
There was a low crate in the center of the hold. On it sat an attaché case. The case was open.
“Why bring me here at all?”
Root poked the case with his pistol. Nothing happened.
“I brought you here for a demonstration.”
The commander leaned over the open container. Inside, in snug foam packing, were a flat vacuum-packed package and a triple-band VHF transmitter. Resting on top was Holly’s locator. Root groaned. Holly wouldn’t willingly give up her equipment; no LEP officer would.
“What sort of demonstration, you demented freak?”
Again that cold chuckle.
“A demonstration of my utter commitment to my goals.”
Root should have started to worry about his own health then, but he was too busy worrying about Holly’s.
“If you’ve harmed one tip of my officer’s pointy ears ...”
“Your officer? Oh, we have management. How privileged. All the better to make my point.”
Alarm bells went off in Root’s head.
“Your point?”
The voice emanating from the aluminium speaker grid was as serious as a nuclear winter.
“My point, little fairy man, is that I am not someone to be trifled with. Now, if you would please observe the package.”
The commander duly observed. It was a nondescript enough shape. Flat, like a slab of putty, or . . . Oh no.
Beneath the sealant, a red light flicked on.
“Fly, little fairy,” said the voice. “And tell your friends Artemis Fowl the Second says hello.”
Beside the red light, green symbols began to click through a routine. Root recognized them from his human studies class back in the Academy. They were . . . numbers. Going backward. A countdown!
/>
“D’Arvit!” growled Root. (There is no point translating that word, as it would have to be censored.)
He turned and fled up the corridor, Artemis Fowl’s mocking tones carrying down the metal funnel.
“Three,” said the human. “Two . . .”
“D’Arvit,” repeated Root.
The corridor seemed much longer, now. A sliver of starry sky peeked through a wedge of open door. Root activated his wings—this would take some fancy flying. The Hummingbird’s span was barely narrower than the ship’s corridor.
“One.”
Sparks flew as the electronic wings scraped a protruding pipe. Root cartwheeled, righting himself at Mach one.
“Zero . . .” said the voice. “Boom!”
Inside the vacuum-packed package, a detonator sparked, igniting a kilogram of pure Semtex. The whitehot reaction devoured the surrounding oxygen in a nanosecond and surged down the path of least resistance, which was, of course, immediately after LEP Commander Root.
Root dropped his visor, opening the throttle to maximum. The door was just a few feet away now. It was just a matter of what reached it first—the fairy or the fireball.
He made it. Barely. He could feel the explosion rattling his torso as he threw himself into a reverse loop. Flames latched on to his jumpsuit, licking along his legs. Root continued his maneuver, crashing directly into the icy water. He broke the surface swearing.
Above him, the whaler had been totally consumed by noxious flames.