Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl. The Opal Deception

He tore off large chunks, taking care to spit them out immediately.

In less than a minute, Mulch had torn a thirty-centimetre-square hole. Just enough for him to squeeze through. Anyone unfamiliar with dwarfs would have bet money that Mulch could never squeeze his well-fed bulk through such a narrow aperture, but they would have lost their cash. Dwarfs have spent millennia escaping from cave-ins, and they have developed the ability to squeeze through tighter holes than this one.

Mulch sucked in his gut and wriggled through the torn seal, head first. He was glad to be out of the faint morning sunlight. Sun was another thing dwarfs do not like; after mere minutes in direct sunlight, a dwarf’s skin will be redder than a boiled lobster’s. He shinned up the battery rod into the shuttle’s engine compartment. Most of the small space was taken up with flat batteries and a hydrogen generator. There was an access hatch overhead that should lead into the cargo bay. Ropes of lights ran the length of the compartment, giving off pale-green light. Any radiation leak from the generator would show up purple. The reason why the light ropes were still working without power was because the illumination was supplied by specially cultivated, decaying algae. Not that Mulch knew any of this, he just thought that the light was very similar to the luminescence from dwarf spittle, and the familiarity made him relax. He relaxed a bit too much, as it happened, allowing a small squib of tunnel gas to escape through his bum-flap. Hopefully nobody would notice that…

Maybe half a minute later, he heard Opal’s voice from above.

‘Now, whoever is passing wind, please stop it, or I will devise a fitting punishment.’

Oops, thought Mulch guiltily. In dwarf circles it is considered almost criminal to allow someone else to be blamed for your air bubbles. Through sheer force of habit,

Mulch almost raised his hand and confessed, but luckily his instinct for self-preservation was stronger than his conscience.

Moments later, the signal came. It was hard to miss. The explosion rocked the entire shuttle twenty degrees off centre. It was time to make his move and trust Artemis when he said that it was almost impossible not to watch an explosion.

Mulch nudged the hatch open a crack with the crown of his head. The dwarf half expected someone to stamp on the hatch, but the cargo bay was empty. Mulch folded the hatch back and crept all the way into the small chamber. There was a lot here to interest him. Crates of ingots, perspex boxes of human currency and antique jewellery hanging from mannequins. Obviously Opal did not intend to be poor in her new role as a human. Mulch snagged a single diamond earring from a nearby bust. So Artemis had told him not to take anything? So what? One earring wouldn’t slow him down.

Mulch popped the pigeon’s-egg-sized diamond into his mouth and swallowed. He would pass that later, when he was on his own. Until then it could lodge in his stomach wall, and come out shinier than it went in.

Another explosion bucked the floor beneath his feet, reminding Mulch to move on. He crossed to the bay door, which was slightly ajar. The next chamber was the passenger area, and it was just as plush as Holly had described. Mulch’s lip rippled at the sight of fur-covered chairs. Repulsive. Beyond the passenger area was the cockpit. Opal and her two friends were clearly visible, staring intently out of the front windscreen.

They were making not a sound, and saying not a word. Just as Artemis had said.

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 middle 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 under 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 round 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 metre 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 they were, 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, thought Mulch, 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 hand-held communicator.

The three pixies sat quietly in the stealth shuttle’s cockpit. One was concentrating on the transport craft that was hovering two hundred metres 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 earthwards. 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 into 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 bullseye 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.

More grenades dropped from the LEP craft, but they were further away now and the Shockwaves barely caused a shudder in the stealth shuttle. This went on for two or three minutes without the remotest danger to Opal or the Brills, then suddenly the transport shuttle sealed its door and peeled away, back down the chute.