“Not sure, Holly. But I clearly remember making the exchange at the souk in Fez. At the very least it is a place to start. If Kronski and my younger self do not show up, then we proceed to the Extinctionists’ compound.”
Holly frowned. “Hmm. This scheme is not up to your usual standards, and our time is running out. We don’t have a couple of days to play around with. Time is the enemy.”
“Yes,” agreed Artemis. “Time is the crux of this entire misadventure.”
Holly took a nutri-bar from the tiny refrigerator and returned to her controls.
Artemis studied his friend’s back, trying to read her body language. Hunched, rounded shoulders, and arms crossed in front of her body. She was cutting herself off, hostile to communication. He needed to produce some masterstroke to get himself back into her good books.
Artemis pressed his nose to the porthole, watching the Moroccan desert flash past in streaks of ocher and gold. There must be something that Holly wanted. Something she regretted not doing, that in some way he could facilitate.
After a moment’s concentrated thought, it came to him. Hadn’t he seen a field holograph pack on one of the storage rails? And wasn’t there someone to whom Holly had never said good-bye?
Police Plaza, Haven City, The Lower Elements
Commander Julius Root was up to the quivering tip of his fungus cigar in paperwork. Not that it was actual paperwork. There hadn’t been any LEP files written on real paper in a centaur’s age. It was all saved on a crystal and kept in a central core somewhere in info-space, and apparently now Foaly’s people were trying to grow memory plants, which meant that someday information could be stored in plants or dung heaps, or even the cigar sticking out of Root’s mouth. The commander did not understand any of this, nor did he want to. Let Foaly have the worlds of nano and cyber technologies. He would take the world of everyday LEP problems. And there were plenty of those.
First, his old enemy Mulch Diggums was running riot aboveground. It was almost as if the dwarf were taunting him. His latest crime spree involved breaking into shuttleports, then selling his booty to exiled fairies living among the humans. At each site he would leave a nice pyramid of recycled earth in the middle of the floor, like a calling card.
Then there were those blasted swear toads. A couple of college graduate warlocks had granted the power of speech to the common bloated tunnel toad. Naturally, being college graduates, they had only granted the toads the power of bad language. Now, thanks to an unforeseen side effect, namely fertility, there was a virtual epidemic of these toads running around Haven, offending every citizen they hopped into.
The goblin gangs were growing in strength and audacity. Only last week they had fireballed a patrol car on its route through a goblin town.
Julius Root leaned back in his swivel chair, allowing the smoke from his cigar to form a cloud around his head. There were days when he felt like hanging up his holster for good. Days when it felt as though there was nothing to keep him in the job.
The hologram ring buzzed on the ceiling like a disco ball. Incoming call. Root checked the caller ID.
Captain Holly Short.
Root allowed himself a rare grin.
Then there were days when he knew exactly what he had to do.
I have to groom the best people to take over when I am gone.
People like Captain Kelp, Foaly—gods help me—and Captain Holly Short.
Root had handpicked Holly from the ranks. Promoted her to captain, the first woman in the LEP’s history. And she had done him proud. Every recon so far had been successful, without a single mind-wipe or time stop.
She’s the one, Julius, said Root’s inner voice. Smart, fearless, compassionate. Holly Short will make a splendid captain. Who knows, maybe a great commander.
Root wiped the smile from his face. Captain Short did not need to see him smiling proudly like a doting grandfather. She needed discipline, order, and a healthy dollop of respect/fear for her commanding officer.
He tapped the accept pad on his desktop screen, and the hologram ring blasted a Milky Way of stars from its projectors, which swirled and solidified into the flickering form of Captain Holly Short wearing a human suit. Undercover, obviously. He could see her exactly as she was, but she could not see him until he stepped into the footprint of the holographic ring, which he did.
“Captain Short, all is well in Hamburg, I trust?”
Holly seemed speechless for a moment; her mouth hung open and her hands reached out as if to touch the commander. In her time he was dead, murdered by Opal Koboi, but here and now Julius Root was as vital as she remembered.
Root cleared his throat. “All is well, Captain?”
“Yes. Of course, Commander. All is well, for the moment. Though it might be an idea to have Retrieval on standby.”
Root dismissed this idea with a wave of his cigar. “Nonsense. Your record so far speaks for itself. You have never needed backup before.”
Holly smiled. “Always a first time.”
Root blinked. Something on the hologram ring’s floating gaseous readout had caught his eye.
“Are you calling me from Africa? What are you doing in Africa?”
Holly slapped her palm against the instrument panel on her end. “No, I’m in Hamburg, in the observation hide. Stupid machine. The projectors are all wrong too. I look about ten years old on the monitor. I’m going to strangle Foaly when I get back.”
Root couldn’t help but smile at that, but he tucked it away quickly.
“Why the hologram, Short? What’s wrong with a plain old communicator? Do you know how expensive it is to beam sound and vision through the earth’s crust?”
Holly’s image flickered and stared at its feet, then up again.
“I . . . I just wanted to thank you, Jul . . . Commander.”
Root was surprised. Thank him. For months of impossible tasks and double shifts.
“Thank me, Captain? This is most irregular. I’m not sure I’m doing my job right if fairies are thanking me.”
“Yes, yes you are,” blurted Holly’s image. “You do a fine job, more than fine. No one appreciated . . . appreciates you enough. But I do now. I know what you were . . . are trying to do for me. So thank you, and I won’t let you down.”
Root was surprised to find that he was actually touched. It wasn’t every day he was faced with such genuine emotion.
r /> Look at me, he thought. Blubbering at a hologram. Wouldn’t Foaly love this.
“I . . . ’hem . . . I accept your thanks, and I believe them to be heartfelt. Although I don’t expect an expensive hologram call during every mission; just the once will be fine.”
“Understood, Commander.”
“And be careful in Hamburg. Make sure to check your equipment.”
“I will, Commander,” said Holly, and Root could have sworn she rolled her eyes, but it could have been another glitch in the program.
“Anything else, Captain?”
Holly reached out her hand; it shimmered and wavered slightly with the motion. Root was not sure what he was supposed to do. Hologram etiquette was very clear: hugging and shaking were not encouraged. After all, who wants to embrace a pixellated image?
But still the hand was there.
“Wish me luck, Commander. One officer to another.”
Root grunted. With any other subordinate he would have suspected toadying, but Captain Short had always impressed him with her candor.
He reached out his hand and felt a slight tingle as it touched Holly’s virtual digits.
“Good luck, Captain,” he said gruffly. “And try to tone down that maverick streak. Someday I won’t be around to help you.”
“Will do, Commander. Good-bye,” said Holly, and then she was gone. But in the seconds before her holographic image fizzled out, Julius Root could have sworn he saw rough holographic tears glint on her cheeks.
Stupid machine, he thought. I will demand that Foaly recalibrate the lot of them.
Holly stepped out of the holo-booth, which resembled an ancient shower unit with a rubber curtain. With the touch of a button it collapsed and self-sealed into the portable briefcase.
There were tears in her eyes as she strapped herself into the pilot’s chair and flicked off the autopilot.
Artemis squirmed slightly in the copilot’s chair.
“So, are we even?”