Everybody in Police Plaza was all talk about the Zito probe. In truth it was a bit of a distraction from recent events. The LEP didn’t lose many officers in the field. And now two in the same shift. Foaly was taking it hard, especially the loss of Holly Short. It was one thing to lose a friend in the line of duty, but for that friend to be falsely accused of murder was unbearable. Foaly could not stand the idea that the People would forever remember Holly as a cold-blooded killer. Captain Short was innocent. What’s more, she was a decorated hero, and deserved to be remembered as such.
A com screen flickered into life on his wall. One of his technical assistants in the outer office appeared. The elf’s pointed ears were quivering with excitement.
“The probe is down to sixty-five miles. I can’t believe the humans have gotten this far.”
Foaly opened a screen on his wall. He couldn’t believe it either. In theory, it should have been decades before humans developed a laser sophisticated enough to puncture the crust without frying half a continent. Obviously, Giovanni Zito went right ahead and developed the laser without worrying about Foaly’s projections for his species.
Foaly almost regretted having to shut Zito’s project down. The Sicilian was one of the brightest hopes for the human race. His plan to harness the power of the outer core was a good one, but the cost was fairy exposure, and that was too high a price to pay.
“Keep a close eye on it,” he said, trying to sound interested. “Especially when it runs parallel to E7. I don’t anticipate any trouble, but eyes peeled just in case.”
“Yes, sir. Oh, and we have Captain Verbil on line two, from the surface.”
A tiny spark of interest lit the centaur’s eyes. Verbil? The sprite had allowed Mulch Diggums to steal an LEP shuttle. Mulch escaped a few hours after his friends on the force had been killed. Coincidence? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Foaly opened a window to the surface. In it he could see Verbil’s chest.
Foaly sighed. “Chix! You’re hovering. Come down where I can see you.”
“Sorry,” said Chix, alighting on the floor. “I’m a bit emotional. Trouble Kelp gave me a real grilling.”
“What do you want, Chix? A hug and a kiss? I have things on my mind here.”
Verbil’s wings flared up behind him. It was a real effort to stay on the ground. “I have a message for you, from Mulch Diggums.”
Foaly fought the urge to whinny. No doubt Mulch would have some choice words for him.
“Go on, then. Tell me what our foul-mouthed friend thinks of me.”
“This is between us, right? I don’t want to be pensioned off on the grounds that I’m unstable.”
“Yes, Chix, it’s between us. Everyone has a right to be temporarily unstable. Today of all days.”
“It’s ridiculous, really. I don’t believe it for a minute.” Chix attempted a confident chuckle.
Foaly snapped. “What’s ridiculous? What don’t you believe? Tell me, Chix, or I’ll reach down this com link and drag it out of you.”
“Are we secure?”
“Yes!” the centaur screeched. “We’re secure. Tell me. Give me Mulch’s message.”
Chix took a deep breath, saying the words as he let it out. “Opal Koboi is back.”
Foaly’s laughter started somewhere around his hooves and grew in volume and intensity until it burst out of his mouth. “Opal is back! Koboi is back! I get it now. Mulch conned you into letting him steal the shuttle. He played on your fear of Opal waking up, and you bought it. Opal is back; don’t make me laugh.”
“That’s what he said,” Chix mumbled sulkily. “There’s no need to laugh so hard. You’re spitting on the screen. I have feelings, you know.”
Foaly’s laughter petered out. It wasn’t real laughter anyway, it was just an outburst of emotion. Mostly sadness, with some frustration mixed in.
“Okay, Chix. It’s not your fault. Mulch has fooled smarter sprites than you.”
It took Chix a moment to realize that he was being insulted.
“It could be true,” he said, miffed. “You could be wrong. It is possible, you know. Maybe Opal Koboi conned you.”
Foaly opened another window on his wall. “No, Verbil, it is not possible. Opal could not be back, because I’m looking at her right now.”
Live feed from the Argon Clinic confirmed that Opal was indeed still suspended in her coma harness. She’d had her DNA swab minutes beforehand.
Chix’s petulance crumbled. “I can’t believe it,” he muttered. “Mulch seemed so sincere. I actually thought Holly was in danger.”
Foaly’s tail twitched. “What? Mulch said Holly was in danger? But Holly is gone. She died.”
“Yes,” said Chix morosely. “Mulch was shoveling more horse dung, I suppose. No offense.”
Of course. Opal would set Holly up to take the blame for Julius. That little cruel touch would be just like Opal. If she wasn’t right there, in her harness. DNA never lies.
Chix rapped the screen surround at his end, to get Foaly’s attention. “Listen, Foaly, remember what you promised. This is between us. No need for anyone else to know I got duped by a dwarf. I’ll end up scraping vole curry off the sidewalk after crunchball matches.”
Foaly absently shut the window. “Yes, whatever. Between us. Right.”
Opal was still secure. No doubt about it. Surely she couldn’t have escaped. If she had, then maybe this probe was more sinister than it seemed. She couldn’t have escaped. It wasn’t possible.
But Foaly’s paranoid streak couldn’t let it go. Just to be sure, there were a few little tests he could perform. He really should get authorization, but if he was wrong, nobody had to know. And if he was right, nobody would care about a few hours of computer time.
The centaur ran a quick search on the surveillance database and selected the footage from the chute access tunnel where Julius had died. There was something he wanted to check.
Uncharted Chute, Three Miles Below Southern Italy
The stolen shuttle made good time to the surface. Holly flew as fast as she could without burning the gearbox or smashing them into a chute wall. Time may have been of the essence, but the motley crew would be of little use to anyone if they had to be scraped off the wall like so much crunchy pâté.
“These old rigs are mainly for watch changes,” explained Holly. “The LEP got this one secondhand at a criminal assets auction. It’s souped up to
avoid customs ships. It used to belong to a curry smuggler.”
Artemis sniffed. A faint yellow odor still lingered in the cockpit. “Why would anyone smuggle curry?”
“Extra-hot curry is illegal in Haven. Living underground, we have to be careful of emissions, if you catch my drift.”
Artemis caught her drift and decided not to pursue the subject.
“We need to locate Opal’s shuttle before we venture aboveground and give our position away.”
Holly pulled over next to a small lake of black oil, the shuttle’s downdraft rippling the surface.
“Artemis, I think I mentioned that it’s a stealth shuttle. Nothing can detect her. We don’t have sensors sophisticated enough to spot her. Opal and her pixie sidekicks could be sitting in their craft just around the next bend, and our computers wouldn’t pick them up.”
Artemis leaned in over the dashboard readouts. “You’re approaching this the wrong way, Holly. We need to find out where the shuttle is not.”
Artemis launched various scans, searching for traces of certain gases within a hundred-mile radius. “I think we can assume that the stealth shuttle is very close to E7, perhaps right at the mouth; but that still leaves us with a lot of ground to cover, especially if our eyes are all we have to rely on.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying. But do go on; I’m sure you have a point.”
“So I’m using this shuttle’s limited sensor dishes to scan from here right up the chute to the surface and down about thirty miles.”
“Scanning for what?” said Holly in exasperation. “A hole in the air?”
Artemis grinned. “Exactly. You see, normal space is made up of various gases: oxygen, hydrogen, and so on, but the stealth shuttle would prevent any of these from being detected inside the ship’s hull. So if we find a small patch of space without the usual ambient gasses . . .”