“Mulch. Talk to me, dammit.”
“I’m running a scan on his vitals . . . Whoa!”
“What? What is it?”
“His heart has gone crazy. Beating like a rabbit . . .”
“A rabbit?”
“No, wait, it’s . . .”
“What?” breathed the commander, terribly afraid that he already knew.
Foaly leaned back in his chair. “It’s stopped. His heartbeat has stopped.”
“Are you sure?”
“The monitors don’t lie. All vitals can be read through the iris-cam. Not a peep. He’s gone.”
Root couldn’t believe it. Mulch Diggums, one of life’s constants. Gone? It couldn’t be true.
“He did it too, you know, Foaly. Recovered a copy of the Book no less, and he confirmed Short was alive.”
Foaly’s wide brow creased for an instant.“It’s just that ...”
“What?” said Root, suspicion aroused.
“Well, for a moment there, just before the end, his heart rate seemed abnormally fast.”
“Maybe it was a malfunction.”
The centaur was unconvinced. “I doubt it. My bugs don’t have bugs.”
“What other explanation could there be? You still have visuals, don’t you?”
“Yep. Through dead eyes, no doubt about it. Not a spark of electricity in that brain; the camera is running on its own battery.”
“Well, that’s it then. No other explanation.”
Foaly nodded. “It would seem that way. Unless . . . No, it’s too fantastic.”
“This is Mulch Diggums we’re talking about here. Nothing is too fantastic.”
Foaly opened his mouth to voice his incredible theory, but before he could speak the shuttle’s bay door slid open.
“We have him!” said a triumphant voice.
“Yes!” agreed a second. “Fowl has made a mistake!”
Root swiveled on his chair. It was Argon and Cumulus, the so-called behavioral analysts.
“Oh, we’ve finally decided to earn our retainers, have we?”
But, united by excitement, the professors were not so easily intimidated. Cumulus even had the temerity to wave Root’s sarcasm aside. This more than anything else made the commander sit up and take notice.
Argon brushed past Foaly, pressing a laser disk into the console’s player. Artemis Fowl’s face appeared, as seen through Root’s iris-cam.
“We’ll be in touch,” said the commander’s recorded voice. “Don’t worry, I’ll see myself out.”
Fowl’s face disappeared momentarily as he rose from his chair. Root lifted his gaze in time for the next chilling statement.
“You do that. But remember this, none of your race has permission to enter here while I’m alive.”
Argon pressed the pause button triumphantly. “There, you see!”
Root’s complexion lost any final traces of pallor.
“There? There what? What do I see?”
Cumulus tutted, as one would at a slow child. A mistake, in retrospect. The commander had him by the pointy beard in under a second.
“Now,” he said, his voice deceptively calm. “Pretend we’re pushed for time here and just explain it to me without any attitude or comments.”
“The human said we couldn’t enter while he was alive,” squeaked Cumulus.
“So?”
Argon took up the account. “So . . . if we can’t go in while he’s alive . . .”
Root drew a sharp breath. “Then we go in when he’s dead.”
Cumulus and Argon beamed. “Exactly,” they said in perfect unison.
Root scratched his chin.
“I don’t know. We’re on shaky ground here legally.”
“Not at all,” argued Cumulus. “It’s elementary grammar. The human specifically stated that entry was forbidden as long as he was alive. That’s tantamount to an invitation when he’s dead.”
The commander wasn’t convinced. “The invitation is implied, at best.”
“No,” interrupted Foaly. “They’re right. It’s a strong case. Once Fowl is dead, the door is wide open. He said it himself.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe, nothing,” blurted Foaly. “For heaven’s sake, Julius, how much more do you need? We have a crisis here, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Root nodded slowly. “One, you’re right. Two, I’m going to run with it. Three, well done, you two. And four, you ever call me Julius again, Foaly, you’ll be eating your own hooves. Now, get me a line to the Council. I need to get approval for that gold.”
“Right away, Commander Root, your worship.” Foaly grinned, letting the hoof-eating comment slide for Holly’s sake.
“So we send in
the gold,” muttered Root, thinking aloud. “They send out Holly, we blue-rinse the place and stroll in to reclaim the ransom. Simple.”
“So simple it’s brilliant,” enthused Argon. “Quite a coup for our profession, wouldn’t you say, Dr. Cumulus?”
Cumulus’s head was spinning with possibilities. “Lecture tours, book deals. Why, the movie rights alone will be worth a fortune.”
“Let those sociologists stuff this in their collective pipe. Puts the kibosh on the deprivation-breeds-antisocial-behavior chestnut. This Fowl character has never gone hungry in his life.”
“There’s more than one kind of hunger,” noted Argon.
“Very true. Hunger to succeed. Hunger to dominate. Hunger to—”
Root snapped. “Get out! Get out before I strangle the pair of you. And if I ever hear a word of this repeated on an afternoon talk show, I’ll know where it came from.”
The consultants retreated warily, resolving not to call their agents until they were out of earshot.
“I don’t know if the Council will go for this,” admitted Root when they’d departed. “It’s a lot of gold.”
Foaly looked up from the console. “How much exactly?”
The commander slid a piece of paper across the console. “That much.”
“That is a lot.” Foaly whistled. “A ton. Small unmarked ingots. Twenty-four carat only. Well, at least it’s a nice round weight.”
“Very comforting. I’ll be sure to mention that to the Council. Have you got that line yet?”
The centaur grunted. A negative grunt. Very brazen really, grunting at a superior officer. Root didn’t have the energy to discipline him, but he made a mental note: when this is over, dock Foaly’s pay for a few decades. He rubbed his eyes exhaustedly. Time lag was beginning to set in. Even though his brain wouldn’t let him sleep because he’d been awake when the time-stop was initiated, his body was crying out for rest.
He rose from the chair, swinging the door wide to let in some air. Stale. Time-stop air. Not even molecules could escape the time-field, much less a human boy.
There was activity by the portal. Lots of it. A swarm of troops gathered around a hovercage. Cudgeon stood at the head of the procession, and the entire bunch was heading this way. Root stepped down to meet them.