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“I’ll kill him,” exclaimed Root pounding the control panel. “Can’t this bucket go any faster?”
Los Angeles
Mulch scaled the building without much difficulty. There were external closed-circuit cameras, but the helmet’s ion filter showed exactly where these cameras were pointed. It was a simple matter to crawl along the blind spots.
Within an hour, the dwarf was suckered outside Maggie V’s apartment on the tenth floor. The windows were triple-glazed with a bulletproof coating. Movie stars. Paranoid, every one of them.
Naturally there was an alarm point sitting on top of the pane, and a motion sensor crouching on a wall like a frozen cricket. Only to be expected.
Mulch melted a hole in the glass with a bottle of dwarf rock polish, used to clean up diamonds in the mines. Humans actually cut diamonds to shine them. Imagine. Half the stone down the drain.
Next, the Grouch used his helmet’s ion filter to sweep the room for the motion sensor’s range. The red ion stream revealed that the sensor was focused on the floor. No matter. Mulch intended going along the wall.
Pores still crying out for water, the dwarf crept along the partition, making maximum use of a stainless-steel shelving system that almost completely surrounded the main sitting room.
The next step was to find the actual Oscar. It could be hidden anywhere, including under Maggie V’s pillow, but this room was as good a place to start as any. You never know, he might get lucky.
Mulch activated the helmet’s X-ray filter, scanning the walls for a safe. Nothing. He tried the floor. Humans were getting smarter these days. There, under a fake zebra rug, a metal cuboid. Easy.
The Grouch approached the motion sensor from above, very gently twisting the neck until the gadget was surveying the ceiling. The floor was now safe.
Mulch dropped to the rug, testing the surface with his tactile toes. No pressure pads sewn into the rug’s lining.
He rolled back the fake fur, revealing a hatch in the wooden floor. The joins were barely visible to the naked eye. But Mulch was an expert, and his eyes weren’t naked—they were aided by LEP zoom lenses.
He wormed a nail into the crack, flipping the hatch. The safe itself was a bit of a disappointment, not even lead lined. He could see right into the mechanism with the X-ray filter. A simple combination lock. Only three digits.
Mulch turned the filter off. What was the point in breaking a see-through lock? Instead he put his ear to the door, jiggling the dial. In fifteen seconds the door was open at his feet.
The Oscar’s gold plating winked at him. Mulch made a big mistake at that moment. He relaxed. In the Grouch’s mind he was already back in his own apartment, swigging from a two-gallon bottle of ice-cold water. And relaxed thieves are destined for prison.
Mulch neglected to check the statuette for traps, plucking it straight from the safe. If he had checked, he would have realized that there was a wire attached magnetically to the base. When the Oscar was moved, a circuit was broken, allowing all hell to break loose.
Chute E37
Holly set the autopilot to hover at ten thousand feet below the surface. She slapped herself on the chest to release the harness, then joined the others in the rear of the shuttle.
“Two problems. Firstly, if we go any lower, we’ll be picked up on the scanners, presuming they’re still operating.”
“Why am I not looking forward to number two?” asked Butler.
“Secondly, this particular chute was retired when we pulled out of the Arctic.”
“Which means?”
“Which means the supply tunnels were collapsed. We have no way into the chute system without supply tunnels.”
“No problem,” declared Root. “We blast the wall.”
Holly sighed.“With what, Commander? This is a diplomatic craft. We don’t have any cannons.”
Butler plucked two concussor eggs from a pouch on his Moonbelt.
“Will these do? Foaly thought they might come in handy.”
Artemis groaned. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear the manservant was enjoying this.
Los Angeles
“Uh-oh,” breathed Mulch.
In a matter of moments, things had gone from rosy to extremely dangerous. Once the security circuit was broken, a side door slid open, admitting two very large German shepherds. The ultimate canine watchdogs. They were followed by their handler, a huge man covered in protective clothing. It appeared as though he was dressed in doormats. Obviously, the dogs were unstable.
“Nice doggies,” said Mulch, slowly unbuttoning his back flap.
Chute E37
Holly nudged the flight controls, inching the shuttle closer to the chute wall.
“That’s as near as we get,” she said into her helmet mike. “Any closer and the thermals could flip us against the rock face.”
“Thermals?” growled Root. “You never said anything about thermals before I climbed out here.”
The commander was spread-eagled on the port wing, a concussor egg jammed down each boot.
“Sorry, Commander, someone has to fly this bird.”
Root muttered under his breath, dragging himself closer to the wingtip. While the turbulence was nowhere as severe as it would have been on a moving aircraft, the buffeting thermals were quite enough to shake the commander like dice in a cup. All that kept him going was the thought of his fingers tightening around Mulch Diggums’s throat.
“Just a few feet,” he gasped into the mike. At least they had communications, the shuttle had its own local intercom. “A few more feet and I can make it.”
“No go, Commander. That’s your lot.”
Root risked a peek into the abyss. The chute stretched on forever, winding down to the orange magma glow at the earth’s core. This was madness. Crazy. There must be another way. At this point the commander would even be willing to risk an aboveground flight.
Then Julius Root had a vision. It could have been the sulphur fumes, stress, or even lack of food. But the commander could have sworn Mulch Diggums’s features appeared before him, etched into the rock face. The face was sucking on a cigar and smirking.
His determination returned in a surge. Bested by a criminal. Not likely.
Root clambered to his feet, drying sweaty palms on his jumpsuit. The thermals plucked at his limbs like mischievous ghosts.
“Ready to put some distance between us and this soon-to-be hole?” he shouted into the mike.
“Bet on it, Commander,” responded Holly. “Soon as we have you back in the hold, we’re out of here.”
“Okay. Stand by.”
Root fired the piton dart from his belt. The titanium head sank easily into the rock. The commander knew that tiny charges inside the dart would blow out two flanges, securing it inside the face. Five yards. Not a great distance to swing on a piton cord. But it wasn’t the swing really. It was the bone-crushing drop, and the lack of handholds on the chute wall.
Come on, Julius, sniggered Root’s Mulch rock mirage. Let’s see what you look like splattered against a wall.
“You shut your mouth, convict,” roared the commander. And he jumped, swinging into the void.
The rock face rushed out to meet him, knocking the breath from his lungs. Root ground his back teeth against the pain. He hoped nothing was broken, because after the Russian trip, he didn’t even have enough magic left to make a daisy bloom, never mind heal a fractured rib.
The shuttle’s forward lights picked out the laser burns where the LEP tunnel dwarfs had sealed the supply chute. That weld line would be the weak spot. Root slotted the concussor eggs along two indents.
“I’m coming for you, Diggums,” he muttered, crushing the capsule detonators embedded in each one.
Thirty seconds now. Root cut the piton loose, aiming a second dart at the shuttle wing. An easy shot—he made this kind of thing in his sleep in the sim-range. Unfortunately, the simulations didn’t have thermals fouling things up at the last moment.
Just a
s the commander loosed his dart, the edge of a particularly strong whirlpool of gas caught the shuttle’s rear, spinning it forty degrees counterclockwise. The dart missed by a yard. It spun into the abyss, trailing the commander’s lifeline behind it. Root had two options. He could rewind the cord using his belt winch, or he could jettison the piton and try again with his spare. Julius unhooked the cord; it would be faster to try again. A good plan, had he not already used his spare to get them out from under the ice. The commander remembered this half a second after he’d cut loose his only piton.
“D’Arvit!” he swore, patting his belt for a dart that he knew would not be there.
“Trouble, Commander?” asked Holly, her voice strained from wrestling with the controls.
“No pitons left, and the charges are set.”
There followed a brief silence. Very brief. No time for lengthy consultations. Root glanced at his moonomenter. Twenty-five seconds and counting.
When Holly’s voice came over the headset, it was not bursting with enthusiasm or confidence.
“Eh . . . Commander. You wearing any metal?”
“Yes,” replied Root puzzled. “My breastplate, buckle, insignia, blaster. Why?”
Holly nudged the shuttle a shade closer. Any nearer was suicide.
