Foaly dived into the hole. It was not elegant—centaurs do not make good divers, which is why they do not compete in pool events.
“Whatever your idea was, it’s not working,” he cried.
Holly also dived into the depression, covering Artemis as well as she could.
“Put your face in the ice,” she ordered. “And hold your breath.”
Foaly ignored her, his attention attracted by Artemis’s Ice Cube, which was swiveling on its base.
“It seems that Artemis’s cannon is about to fire,” he said, his scientific interest piqued in spite of the horrible death approaching them.
Holly grabbed the centaur’s mane, roughly dragging him to the ground. “Face down, hold breath. How hard is that?”
“Oh,” said Foaly. “I see.”
There must have been a buildup of heat somewhere, because the bots froze for a moment, exchanging curious chitters. The noise was quickly drowned out by a bass heavy thump followed by a descending whistle.
“Ooooh,” chorused the amorphobots, sprouting gel periscopes.
Foaly closed one eye and cocked his ear. “Mortar,” he proclaimed, and then as the whistling grew louder he decided that it might be a good idea to take a breath and cover as many orifices as possible.
This is really going to hurt, he thought, and for some reason giggled like a four-year-old pixette.
Then the entire indent was submerged in a pancake of densely packed nano-wafers that worked into every crack, coating the occupants of the hole and completely obliterating any heat signatures.
The amorphobots jiggled backward, away from the mystery substance, searched around for the beings they had been pursuing, and then shrugged their blobby shoulders and trundled after their mother ship, which had bludgeoned and melted its way through the surface to the subterranean volcanoes below.
Underneath the gunky quagmire, two fairies and one human lay still, blowing bubbles with their breath.
“It worked,” gasped Holly finally.
“Shut your face,” snapped Foaly.
Holly pulled his head free from the goo strings. “What did you say to me?”
“Don’t take it personally,” said Foaly. “I just felt like being rude to someone. Do you have any idea what it’s going to be like getting this stuff out of my mane? Cabelline will shave me for sure.”
“Save you?
“Shave me. What are you, deaf?”
“No. My ears are clogged with stuff.”
Holly flip-flopped herself and Artemis from the indent, using her glove-sensor to check the human’s vitals.
Still alive.
She tilted his head back to make sure the airway was clear.
Come back to us, Artemis. We need you.
The amorphobots had gone, and the only signs that they had ever been on the Vatnajökull glacier were the grooves in the ice and snow that marked their passage. The air was blessedly chitter free, though maybe a little chittering would have distracted from the crackle of still-burning troop shuttle.
Holly separated from Artemis with a noise like a very big Band-Aid being slowly pulled from a weeping wound.
What a disaster, she thought, the weight of her coated helmet causing her head to droop. What a total catastrophe.
Holly looked around, trying to make some kind of assessment of the situation. Commander Vinyáya was gone, along with the military. An LEP Martian probe had been hijacked by forces unknown and seemed to be heading into Earth’s crust. The probe was blocking their link to Haven, and it was only a matter of time before humans came to investigate all the flares and explosions. And she had no magic left to shield herself.
“Come on, Artemis,” she said, desperation creeping into her voice. “We’re in deeper trouble than ever before. Come on, you love this kind of impossible problem. I’m sorry I shot you.”
Holly tugged off a glove and held her fingers high, inspecting them just in case a spark remained.
Nothing. No magic. Perhaps it was just as well. The mind was a delicate instrument, and Artemis’s dabblings with the fairy arts had probably triggered his Atlantis Complex in the first place. If Artemis wanted to get well, he would have to do it the old-fashioned way, with pills and electroshock. I already gave him his first shock, thought Holly, swallowing a guilty chuckle.
Artemis shifted on the ice, trying to blink under a faceful of sloppy nano-wafers.
“Unhhh,” he moaned. “Ayyy ga breee.”
“Wait,” said Holly, scooping handfuls of gunk away from his nostrils and mouth. “Let me help.”
Artemis’s own inventions dribbled from the corners of his mouth. There was something different about his eyes. They were the same colors as usual, but softer somehow.
You’re dreaming.
“Artemis?” she said, half expecting a typical snappy retort, as in, Of course it’s Artemis. Who were you expecting? But instead he simply said:
“Hello.”
Which was fine, and Holly was happy enough, until he followed it with:
“And who might you be?”
Ooooh, D’Arvit.
Holly tugged off her helmet. “It’s me, Holly.”
Artemis smiled in delight. “Of course, yes. Artemis thinks about you all the time. It’s embarrassing that I didn’t recognize you. First time up close.”
“Uh . . . Artemis thinks about me. But you don’t?”
“Oh yes, I do constantly, and may I say you look even more bewitching in the flesh.”
Holly felt a feeling of foreboding creep over her like the shadow of a summer storm cloud.
“So, we haven’t met before?”
“Not met, per se,” replied the human youth. “I have of course been aware of you. Seen you from afar, submerged as I was by Artemis’s personality. Thank you for releasing me, by the way. I had been making inroads in the host consciousness for some time now, since Artemis developed his little number obsession, but that jolt from your weapon was just the thing to give me the boost I needed. It was your weapon, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was,” said Holly absently. “And you’re welcome.
I think.” A sudden idea cut through her confusion. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
The boy did a quick digit check. “Four.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“No. To me a number is a number. Four is no more a harbinger of death than any other whole number. Fractions, though, they’re freakish.”
The youth smiled at his own joke. A smile of such simple saintly goodness that it would have made Artemis retch.
Holly was drawn into the psychosis and had to ask, “So if you’re not Artemis Fowl, then who are you?”
The boy extended a dripping hand straight up. “My name is Orion. I am so pleased to meet you at last. I am, of course, your servant.”
Holly shook the proffered hand, thinking that manners were lovely, but she really needed someone cunning and ruthless right now, and this kid didn’t appear to be very cunning.
“That’s great, em . . . Orion. Really. We’re in a bind here, and I can use all the help I can get.”
“Excellent,” said the boy. “I have been taking stock of the situation from the rear seat, as it were, and I suggest that we retire to a safe distance and construct some form of bivouac.”
Holly groaned. Of all the times for Artemis to go AWOL inside his own head.