Artemis Fowl_ The Arctic Incident - Eoin Colfer [65]
Cudgeon shook his head. ‘The techies are working on it. We have sensors pointed at every centimetre of the surface. If we hit on the access code, it will be blind luck.’
Trouble rubbed the tiredness from his eyes. ‘I need time. There must be a way to stall them.’
Cudgeon drew a white flag from inside his tunic.
‘There is a way…’
‘Commander! You can’t go out there. It’s suicide.’
‘Perhaps,’ admitted the commander. ‘But if I don’t go, we could all be dead in a matter of minutes. At least this way, we’ll have a few minutes to work on the Operations’ booth.’
Trouble considered it. There was no other way. ‘What have you got to bargain with?’
‘The prisoners in Howler’s Peak. Maybe we could negotiate some kind of controlled release.’
‘The Council will never go for that.’
Cudgeon drew himself up to his full height. ‘This is not a time for politics, Captain. This is a time for action.’
Trouble was, quite frankly, amazed. This was not the same Briar Cudgeon he knew. Someone had given this fairy a spine transplant.
Now the newly appointed commander was going to earn that acorn cluster on his lapel. Trouble felt an emotion well up in his chest. One that he’d never before associated with Briar Cudgeon. It was respect.
‘Open the front door a crack,’ ordered the commander in steely tones. Foaly would be just loving this on camera. ‘I’m going out to talk to these reptiles.’
Trouble relayed the command. If they ever got out of this, he would see to it that Commander Cudgeon was awarded a posthumous Golden Acorn. At the very least.
UNCHARTED CHUTE, BELOW KOBOI LABORATORIES
The Atlantean shuttle sped down a vast chute, sticking tightly to the walls. Close enough to scrape paint from the hull.
Artemis poked his head through from the passenger bay.
‘Is this really necessary, Captain?’ he asked, as they avoided death by a centimetre for the umpteenth time. ‘Or is it just more fly-boy grandstanding?’
Holly winked. ‘Do I look like a fly boy to you, Fowl?’
Artemis had to admit that she didn’t. Captain Short was extremely pretty in a dangerous sort of way. Black-widow pretty. Artemis was expecting puberty to hit in approximately eight months, and he suspected that at that point he would look at Holly in a different light. It was probably just as well that she was eighty years old.
‘I’m hugging the surface to search for this alleged crack that Mulch insists is along here,’ Holly explained.
Artemis nodded. The dwarf’s theory. Just incredible enough to be true. He returned to the aft bay for Mulch’s version of a briefing.
The dwarf had drawn a crude diagram on a backlit wall panel. In fairness, there were more artistic chimpanzees. And less pungent ones. Mulch was using a carrot as a pointer – or, more accurately, several carrots. Dwarfs liked carrots.
‘This is Koboi Labs,’ he mumbled around a mouthful of vegetable.
‘That?’ exclaimed Root.
‘I realize, Julius, that it is not an accurate schematic.’
The commander exploded from his chair. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear there was dwarf gas involved. ‘An accurate schematic? It’s a rectangle, for heaven’s sake!’
Mulch was unperturbed. ‘That’s not important. This is the important bit.’
‘That wobbly line?’
‘It’s a fissure,’ protested the dwarf. ‘Anybody can see that.’
‘Anybody in kindergarten, maybe. So it’s a fissure, so what?’
‘This is the clever bit. Y’see, that fissure is not usually there.’
Root began strangling the air again. Something he was doing more and more lately. But Artemis was suddenly interested.
‘When does the fissure appear?’
But Mulch wasn’t just going to give a straight answer. ‘Us dwarfs. We know something about rocks. Been digging around ‘em for ages.’ Root’s fingers began beating a tattoo on his buzz baton. ‘What fairies don’t realize is that rocks are alive. They breathe.’
Artemis nodded. ‘Of course. Heat expansion.’
Mulch bit the carrot triumphantly. ‘Exactly. And, of course, the opposite.