“Happy to,” she said, and attacked the tarp as though it had insulted her grandmother. Suddenly there was a knuckle knife adorning the fingers of her right hand, and three judicious slices later, the tarp fluttered to the ground.
“You might as well do the crate while you are about it, Captain Short,” said Artemis, wishing he could sneak in an extra word to bolster the sentence.
Immediately, Holly mounted the crate and apparently punched it into sections.
“Wow,” exhaled Foaly. “That seemed excessively violent, even for you.”
Holly descended to earth, barely making a footprint in the snow. “Nope. It’s more of a science. Cos tapa. The quick foot. An ancient martial art based on the movements of predatory animals.”
“Look!” said Foaly, pointing with some urgency into the vast steel-gray gloom. “Someone who cares!”
Artemis was glad of the banter, as it distracted from his loosening grasp on the logical world. While the fairies enjoyed their customary back-and-forth, he allowed his spine to curve for a moment, let his shoulders dip, but someone noticed.
“Artemis?”
Holly, of course.
“Yes, Captain Short.”
“‘Captain’? Are we strangers, Artemis?”
Artemis coughed into his hand. She was probing. He needed to ward off her attentions. Nothing to do but say the number aloud.
“Strangers? No. We’ve known each other for more than five years.”
Holly took a step toward him, her eyes wide with concern behind the orange curve of visor.
“This five thing, Arty. I’m worried about that. You’re not yourself.”
Artemis swept past her to the container that rested on the floor of the crate.
“Who else would I be?” he said brusquely, cutting short any possible discussion on the state of his mental health. He waved impatiently at the ice haze as though it were deliberately obstructing him, then pointed his mobile phone at the container, zapping the computerized locks. The container looked and sounded like a regular household refrigerator, squat, pearlescent, and humming.
“Just what they need in Iceland,” muttered Foaly. “More ice makers.”
“Ah, but a very special ice maker,” said Artemis, opening the fridge door. “One that can save the glaciers.”
“Does it make Popsicles too?” asked the centaur innocently, wishing his old buddy Mulch Diggums was there so they could high-five, a practice so puerile and outmoded that it would be sure to drive Artemis crazy, if he weren’t already crazy.
“You said this was a demonstration,” snapped Vinyáya. “So demonstrate.”
Artemis shot Foaly a poisonous look. “With great pleasure, Commander. Observe.”
Inside the container sat a squat chrome contraption, which resembled a cross between a top-loader washing machine and a stubby cannon, apart from the jumble of wires and chips nestled under the bowl.
“The Ice Cube is not pretty, I grant you,” said Artemis, priming the equipment with an infrared signal shot from the sensor on his phone. “But I thought better to get production moving along than spend another month tidying the chassis.” They formed a ragged ring around the device, and Artemis could not help thinking that had a satellite been observing the group, they would have looked like children playing a game.
Vinyáya’s face was pale and her teeth chattered, though the temperature was barely below freezing. Chilly in human terms, a lot more uncomfortable for a fairy.
“Come on, human. Switch this Ice Cube thing on. Let’s get the dwarf on the mudslide.”
A fairy expression that Artemis was not familiar with, but he could guess what it meant. He glanced at his phone.
“Surely, Commander. I will certainly launch the first pouch of nano-wafers just as soon as whatever unidentified craft is passing through the airspace moves on.”
Holly consulted her visor readout communicator. “Nothing in the airspace, Mud Boy. Nothing but a shielded shuttle full of hurt for you, if you’re trying to pull some kind of trick.”
Artemis could not stifle a groan. “No need for the rhetoric. I assure you, Captain, there is a ship descending through the atmosphere. My sensors are picking it up quite clearly.”
Holly thrust her jaw forward. “Well, my sensors aren’t picking up a thing.”
“Funny, because my sensors are your sensors,” countered Artemis.
Foaly clopped a hoof, chipping the ice. “I knew it. Is nothing sacred?”
Artemis squared his shoulders. “Let’s stop pretending that we don’t spend half our time spying on each other. I read your files and you read the files I allow you to steal. There is a craft that seems to be heading straight for us, and maybe your sensors would spot it if you used some of the same filters I do.”
Holly thought of something. “Remember Opal Koboi’s ship? The one completely built from stealth ore? Our pet geeks couldn’t detect that, but Artemis did.”
Artemis arched his eyebrows as if to say Even the police officer gets it. “I simply looked for what should be there but wasn’t. Ambient gases, trace pollution, and such. Wherever I found an apparent vacuum I also found Opal. I have since applied the same technique to my general scans. I am surprised you haven’t learned that little trick, Consultant Foaly.”
“It will take about two seconds to sync with our shuttle and run an ambience test.”
Vinyáya scowled, and her annoyance seemed to ripple the air like a heatwave.
“Run it then, centaur.”
Foaly activated the sensors in his gloves and screwed a yellow monocle over one eye. Thus wired, he performed a complicated series of blinks, winks, and gestures as he interfaced with a V-system invisible to all but him. To the casual observer it would seem as though the centaur had inhaled pepper while conducting an imaginary orchestra. It was not attractive, which was why most people tended to stick with hardwired hardware.
Twenty seconds more than two seconds later, Foaly’s exertions ceased suddenly and he rested palms on knees.
“Okay,” he panted. “Firstly, I am nobody’s pet geek. And secondly, there may be a large unidentified space vehicle headed our way at high speed.”
Holly instantly drew her weapon, as though she could gun down a spaceship that was already falling on them.
Artemis rushed toward his Ice Cube, arms outstretched maternally, then literally stopped in his tracks as suspicion filled his heart with heat.
“This is your ship, Foaly. Admit it.”
“It’s not my ship,” protested Foaly. “I don’t even have a ship. I come to work on a quadricycle.”
Artemis fought the paranoia until his hands shook, but there seemed to be no other explanation for the arrival of a strange ship at this precise time.
“You’re trying to steal my invention. This is just like the time in London when you interfered in the C-Cube deal.”
Holly kept her eyes on the skies, but spoke to her human friend.
“I saved Butler in London.”
Artemis?
??s whole frame was shaking now. “Did you? Or did you turn him against me?” The words he spoke disgusted him, but they seemed to push through his lips like scarab beetles from the mouth of a mummy. “That’s when you made your alliance against me, wasn’t it? How much did you offer him?”
For a long foggy breath, Holly was speechless; then, “Offer him? Butler would never betray you. Never! How can you think that, Artemis?”
Artemis glared at his fingers as if he half hoped they would reach up and strangle him. “I know you’re behind this, Holly Short. You have never forgiven me for the kidnapping.”
“You need help, Artemis,” said Holly, tired of talking around the problem. “I think you may have a condition. It might be something called the Atlantis Complex.”
Artemis stumbled backward, knocking against Foaly’s hindquarters. “I know,” he said slowly, watching his breath take form before him. “Lately, nothing is clear. I see things, suspect everyone. Five. Five is everywhere.”
“As if we would ever do anything to hurt you, Artemis,” said Foaly, patting the hair Artemis had ruffled.
“I don’t know. Would you? Why wouldn’t you? I have the most important job on Earth, more important than yours.”
Holly was calling in the cavalry.
“There’s a UC in the atmo,” she called into her communicator, using that soldier shorthand that seemed more confusing than plain speaking. “Descend to my seven for evac. Stat.”
A fairy shuttle fizzled into visibility twenty feet overhead. It appeared plate by plate from nose to stern, the soldiers inside visible for a brief moment before the hull solidified. The sight seemed to confuse Artemis even further.
“Is that how you’re going to take me? Scare me into voluntarily coming aboard, then steal my Ice Cube?”
“It’s always cubes with you,” noted Foaly somewhat randomly. “What’s wrong with a nice sphere?”
“And you, centaur!” said Artemis, pointing an accusing finger. “Always in my system. Are you in my head too?”
Vinyáya had forgotten the cold. She shrugged off her heavy coat to gain some ease of movement.