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Holly strapped herself into the pilot’s wraparound seat. The thruster toggles almost seemed to jump into her hands. For a split second Captain Short’s natural good humor returned. She was an ace pilot, top of her class in the academy. On her final assessment, Wing Commander Vinyáya had written, “Cadet Short could fly a shuttle pod through the gap in your teeth.” It was a compliment with a sting in the tail. On her first tryout in a pod, Holly had lost control, crash-landing the craft six feet from Vinyáya’s nose.
So for five seconds, Holly was happy. Then she remembered who her passengers were.
“I wonder, could you tell me,” said Artemis, settling into the copilot’s chair, “how close the Russian terminal is to Murmansk?”
“Civilians behind the yellow line,” growled Holly, ignoring the inquiry.
Artemis pressed on. “This is important to me. I am trying to plan a rescue.”
Holly grinned tightly. “There’s so much irony here, I could write a poem. The kidnapper looking for help with a kidnapping.”
Artemis rubbed his temples.
“Holly, I am a criminal. It’s what I do best. When I abducted you, I was thinking only of the ransom. You were never supposed to be in any danger.”
“Oh, really?”said Holly.“Apart from bio-bombs and trolls.”
“True,” admitted Artemis. “Sometimes plans don’t translate smoothly from paper to real life.” He paused to clean some nonexistent dirt from his manicured nails. “I have matured, Captain. This is my father. I need all the information I can gather before facing the Mafiya.”
Holly relented. It wasn’t easy growing up without a father. She knew. Her own father had passed away when she was barely sixty. More than twenty years ago now.
“Okay, Mud Boy, listen up. I’m only saying this once.”
Artemis sat up. Butler’s head appeared in the cockpit. He could smell a war story.
“Over the past two centuries, with the advances in human technology, the LEP have been forced to shut down over sixty terminals. We pulled out of northern Russia in the sixties. The entire Kola peninsula is a nuclear disaster. The People have no tolerance for radiation, we never built up a resistance. In truth, there wasn’t much to close down. Just a grade-three terminal and a couple of cloaking projectors. The People aren’t very fond of the Arctic. A bit frosty. Everybody was glad to be leaving. So, to answer your question: there’s one unmanned terminal, with little or no aboveground facilities, located about twenty klicks north of Murmansk.”
Foaly’s voice blurted from the intercom, interrupting what was dangerously close to a civil conversation.
“Okay, Captain. You’ve got a clear run to the subway. There’s still a bit of waffle from the last flare, so go easy on the thrusters.”
Holly pulled down her mouth mike. “Roger that, Foaly. Have the rad suits ready when I get back. We’re on a tight schedule.”
Foaly chuckled. “Take it easy on the thrusters, Holly. Technically, this is Artemis’s first time in the chutes, seeing as he and Butler were mesmerized on the way down. We wouldn’t want him getting a fright.”
Holly gunned the throttle quite a bit more than was absolutely necessary.
“No,” she growled, “we wouldn’t want him getting a fright.”
Artemis decided to strap on his restraining harness. A good idea, as it turned out.
Captain Short gunned the makeshift shuttle down the magnetized approach rail. The fins shook, sending twin waves of sparks cascading past the portholes. Holly adjusted the internal gyroscopes, otherwise there’d be Mud Men vomiting all over the passenger area.
Holly’s thumbs hovered over the turbo buttons.
“Okay. Well, let’s see what this bucket can do.”
“Don’t go trying for any records, Holly,” said Foaly over the speakers. “That ship is not built for speed. I’ve seen more aerodynamic dwarfs.”
Holly grunted. After all, what was the point in flying slowly? None whatsoever. And if you happened to terrify a few Mud Men along the way, well that was just an added bonus.
The service tunnel opened onto the main chute. Artemis gasped. It was an awe-inspiring sight. You could drop Mount Everest down this chute, and it wouldn’t even hit the sides. A deep red glow pulsed from the earth’s core like the fires of hell, and the constant crack of contracting rock smacked the hull like physical blows.
Holly fired up all four flight engines, tumbling the shuttle into the abyss. Her worries evaporated like the eddies of mist swirling around the cockpit. It was a flyboy thing. The lower you went without pulling out of the dive, the tougher you were. Even the fiery demise of Retrieval Officer Bom Arbles couldn’t stop the LEP pilots from core diving. Holly held the current record. Five hundred yards before dipping the flaps. That had cost her two weeks’ suspension plus a hefty fine.
Not today though. No records in a slammer. With the G-force rippling the skin on her cheeks, Holly dragged the joysticks back, pulling the nose out of vertical. It gave her no small satisfaction to hear both humans sigh with relief.
“Okay, Foaly, we’re on the up ’n’ up. What’s the situation aboveground?”
She could hear Foaly tapping a keyboard.
“Sorry, Holly. I can’t get a lock on any of our surface equipment. Too much radiation from the last flare. You’re on your own.”
Holly eyed the two pale humans in the cockpit. On my own, she thought. I wish.
Paris
So, if Artemis wasn’t helping Cudgeon in his quest to arm the B’wa Kell, who was? Some tyrannical dictator? Perhaps a disgruntled general with access to an unlimited supply of power cells? Well, no. Not exactly.
Luc Carrère was the human responsible for selling batteries to the B’wa Kell. Not that you’d know it to look at him. In fact, he didn’t even know it himself. Luc was a small-time French private eye who was well known for his inefficiency. In P.I. circles, it was said that Luc couldn’t trace a golf ball in a barrel of mozzarella.
Cudgeon had decided to use Luc for three reasons. One, Foaly’s files showed that Carrère had a reputation as a wheeler-dealer. In spite of his ineptness as an investigator, Luc had a knack for laying his hand on whatever it was the client wanted to buy. Two, the man was greedy and had never been able to resist the lure of easy money. And three, Luc was stupid. And as every little fairy knows, weak minds are easier to mesmerize.
The fact that he had located Carrère in Foaly’s database was nearly enough to make Cudgeon smile. Of course, Briar would have preferred not to have any human link in the chain. But a chain comprised completely of goblin links is one dumb chain.
Establishing contact with any Mud Man was not something Cudgeon took lightly. Deranged as he was, Briar was well aware what would happen if the humans got wind of a new market underground. They would swarm to the earth’s core like a hive of red-backed flesh-eating ants. Cudgeon was not ready to meet the humans head on. Not yet. Not until he had the might of the LEP behind him.
So instead, Cudgeon sent Luc Carrèr
e a little package. First-class shielded goblin mail . . .
Luc Carrère had shuffled into his apartment one July evening to find a small parcel lying on his desk. The package was nothing more than a FedEx delivery. Or something that looked very much like a FedEx delivery.
Luc slit the tape. Inside the box, cushioned on a nest of hundred-euro bills, was a small, flat device of some kind, like a portable CD player, but made from a strange black metal that seemed to absorb light. Luc would have shouted to his receptionist, and instructed his secretary to hold all calls. If he had had a receptionist. If he had had a secretary. Instead, the P.I. began stuffing cash down his grease-stained shirt as though the notes would disappear.
Suddenly, the device popped open, clamlike, revealing a micro screen and speakers. A shadowy face appeared on the display. Though Luc could see nothing but a pair of red-rimmed eyes, that was enough to set goose bumps popping across his back.
Funny though, because when the face began to speak, Luc’s worries slid away like an old snakeskin. How could he have been worried? This person was obviously a friend. What a lovely voice. Like a choir of angels, all on its own.
“Luc Carrère?”
Luc nearly cried. Poetry.
“Oui. C’est moi.”
“Bonsoir. Do you see the money, Luc? It’s all yours.”
A hundred miles underground, Cudgeon almost smiled. This was easier than expected. He had been worried that the dribble of power left in his brain wouldn’t be sufficient to mesmerize the human. But this particular Mud Man seemed to have the willpower of a hungry hog faced with a trough of turnips.
Luc held two wads of cash in his fists.
“This money. It’s mine? What do I have to do?”
“Nothing. The money is yours. Do whatever you want.”
Now Luc Carrère knew that there was no such thing as free cash, but that voice. That voice was truth in a micro speaker.
