Artemis Fowl_ The Opal Deception - Eoin Colfer [93]
Mulch dropped to his knees and crawled across the lounge’s carpet. He was now completely exposed. If one of the pixies decided to turn around, he would be stranded in the center of the lounge with nothing but a smile to hide behind.
Just keep going and don’t think about that, Mulch told himself. If Opal catches you, pretend you’re lost or have amnesia, or just came out of a coma. Maybe she’ll sympathize, give you some gold, and send you on your way. Yeah, right.
Something creaked slightly beneath Mulch’s knee. The dwarf froze, but the pixies didn’t react to the sound. Presumably that was the lid of the booty box. Opal’s little hidey hole. Mulch crawled around the box. If there was one thing he didn’t need, it was more creaks.
Two shaped charges lay on a chair, level with Mulch’s nose. He couldn’t believe it. Right there, less than a yard away. This was the one part of the plan that relied on luck. If one of the Brill brothers had the charge tucked under his arm or if there were more charges than he could carry, then they would have to ram the shuttle and hope to disable her. But here it was, almost begging to be stolen. When he was committing a robbery, Mulch often gave voices to the objects he was about to steal. This, he knew, would sound a little crazy to the rest of the world, but he spent a lot of time on his own and he needed someone to talk to.
Come on, Mister Handsome Dwarf, said one of the charges in a breathy falsetto. I’m waiting. I don’t like it here, you know. Please rescue me.
Very well, Madame, said Mulch silently, taking the bag from inside his shirt. I’ll take you, but we’re not going very far.
Me, too, said the other charge. I want to go, too.
Don’t worry, ladies. Where you’re going, there’s plenty of room for both of you.
When Mulch Diggums crept out through the torn seal a minute later, the charges were no longer on the chair. In their place was a small handheld communicator.
* * *
The three pixies sat quietly in the stealth shuttle’s cockpit. One was concentrating on the transport craft hovering two hundred yards off their bows. The other two were concentrating on not passing wind, and not thinking about not passing wind.
The transport shuttle’s side entrance opened, and something winked in the morning light as it tumbled earthward. Seconds later the something exploded, rocking the stealth shuttle on its suspension bags.
The Brill brothers gasped, and Opal cuffed them both on the ear.
Opal was not worried. They were searching. Shooting in the dark, or very close to it. Maybe in thirty minutes there would be enough light to see the ship with the naked eye, but until then they were blending very nicely with the surrounding countryside, thanks to a hull made from stealth ore and cam-foil. Fowl must have guessed where they were because of this chute’s proximity to the probe. But all he had was an approximation. Of course it would be delightful to blast them out of the air, but plasma bursts would light up Foaly’s satellite scanners and paint a bull’s eye on their hull.
She plucked a digi-pad and pen from the dash and scrawled a message on it.
Stay quiet and calm. Even if one of those charges hits us, it will not penetrate the hull.
Mervall took the pad. Maybe we should leave. Mud Men will be coming.
Opal wrote a response. Dear Mervall, please don’t start thinking; you will hurt your head. We wait until they leave. At this close range, they could actually hear our engines starting.
Another explosion rocked the stealth shuttle. Opal felt a bead of sweat roll down her forehead. This was ridiculous: she didn’t perspire, certainly not in front of the help. In five minutes the humans would come to investigate. It was their nature. So she would wait five minutes, then try to slip past the LEP shuttle, and if she couldn’t slip past, then she would blast them out of the sky and take her chances with the supersonic shuttle that would no doubt come to investigate.
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