The Time Paradox

by Eoin Colfer

  And it doesn’t get any bigger than a brand-new sentient species. The Extinctionists are about to go global.

  And just in time. Truth be told, the Extinctionists were old news. Subscriptions were dropping off, and for the first time since its inception, the conference was not a total sellout. In the beginning it had been wonderful, so many exciting species to hunt and nail to the wall. But now countries were protecting their rare animals, especially the big ones. There was no flying to India for a tiger shoot anymore. And the sub-Saharan nations took it extremely badly if a group of well-armed Extinctionists showed up in one of their reserves and began taking potshots at elephants. It was getting to the point where government officials were refusing bribes. Refusing bribes.

  There was another problem with the Extinctionists, though Kronski would never admit it aloud. The group had become a touchstone for the lunatic fringe. His heartfelt hatred for the animal kingdom was attracting bloodthirsty crazies who could not see past putting a bullet in a dumb beast. They could not grasp the philosophy of the organization. Man is king, and animals survive only so long as they contribute to the comfort of their masters. An animal without use is wasting precious air and should be wiped out.

  But this new creature changed everything. Everyone would want to see her. They would film the entire trial and execution, leak the tape, and then the world would come to Damon Kronski.

  One year of donations, thought Kronski. Then I retire to enjoy my wealth. Five million. This fairy, or whatever it is, is worth ten times that. A hundred times.

  Kronski jiggled in front of the air conditioner for a minute then selected a suit from his wardrobe.

  Purple, he thought. Tonight I shall be emperor.

  As an afterthought he plucked a matching tasseled Caspian tiger-skin hat from an upper shelf.

  When in Fez, he thought brightly.

  The Fowl Lear Jet, 30, 000 Feet Over Gibraltar

  Ten-year-old Artemis Fowl tried his best to relax in one of the Lear jet’s plush leather chairs, but there was a tension knot at the base of his skull.

  I need a massage, he thought. Or some herbal tea.

  Artemis was perfectly aware what was causing the tension.

  I have sold a creature . . . a person . . . to the Extinctionists.

  Being as smart as he was, Artemis was perfectly capable of constructing an argument to justify his actions.

  Her friends will free her. They almost outsmarted me, they can certainly outsmart Kronski. That fairy creature is probably on her way back to wherever she came from right now, with the lemur under her arm.

  Artemis distracted himself from this shaky reasoning by concentrating on Kronski.

  Something really should be done about that man.

  A titanium PowerBook hummed gently on Artemis’s fold-out tray. He woke the screen and opened his personal Internet browser program that he had written as a school project. Thanks to a powerful and illegal antenna in the jet’s cargo bay, he was able to pick up radio, television, and Internet signals almost anywhere in the world.

  Organizations like the Extinctionists live and die on their reputations, he thought. It would be an amusing exercise to destroy Kronski’s reputation using the power of the Web.

  All it would take was some research and the placement of a little video on a few of the Net’s more popular networking sites.

  Twenty minutes later Artemis junior was putting the finishing touches to his project when Butler ducked through the cockpit door.

  “Hungry?” asked the bodyguard. “There’s some hummus in the fridge, and I made yogurt-and-honey smoothies.”

  Artemis embedded his video project onto the final Web site.

  “No, thank you,” mumbled Artemis. “I’m not hungry.”

  “That will be the guilt gnawing at your soul,” said Butler candidly, helping himself from the fridge. “Like a rat on an old bone.”

  “Thank you for the simile, Butler, but what’s done is done.”

  “Did we have to leave Kronski the weapon?”

  “Please, I put remote-destruct charges in my hardware, do you really think such an advanced race will leave their technology unprotected? I wouldn’t be surprised if that gun is melting in Kronski’s hands. I had to leave it as a sweetener.”

  “I doubt the creature is melting.”

  “Stop this, Butler. I made a deal and that’s the end of it.”

  Butler sat opposite him. “Hmm. So you are governed by some sort of code now. Honor among criminals. Interesting. So what’s that you’re cooking up on your computer?”

  Artemis rubbed the tense spot on his neck. “Please, Butler. All of this is for my father. You know it must be done.”

  “One question,” said Butler, ripping the plastic from a cutlery set. “Would your father want it to be done this way?”

  Artemis did not answer, just sat and rubbed his neck.

  Five minutes later Butler took pity on the ten-year-old. “I thought we might turn the plane around and give those strange creatures a little help. Fez Saïss airport has reopened, so we could be back there in a couple of hours.”

  Artemis frowned. It was the right thing to do, but it was not on his agenda. Returning to Fez would not save his father.

  Butler folded his paper plate in half, trapping the debris from his meal inside.

  “Artemis, I would like to swing the jet around, and I intend to do that unless you instruct me not to. All you need to do is say the word.”

  Artemis watched his bodyguard return to the cockpit, but said nothing.

  Morocco

  The Domaine des Hommes was buzzing with limo-loads of Extinctionists coming in from the airport, each one wearing their hatred for animals on their sleeve, or on their heads or feet. Kronski spotted a lady sporting thigh-high Ibex boots. Pyrenean, if he wasn’t mistaken. And there was old Jeffrey Coontz-Meyers with his quagga-backed tweed jacket. And Contessa Irina Kostovich, her pale neck protected from the evening chill by a Honshu wolf stole.

  Kronski smiled and greeted each one warmly and most by name. Every year there were fewer newcomers to the ranks, but that would all change after the trial tonight. He skipped along toward the banquet hall.

  The hall itself had been designed by Schiller-Haus in Munich, and was essentially a huge prefabricated kit, which arrived in containers and was erected by German specialists in less than four weeks. Incredible, really. It was an impressive structure, more formal in appearance than the chalets, which was only proper, as serious business was conducted inside. Fair trials and then executions.

  Fair trials, thought Kronski, and giggled.

  The main doors were guarded by two burly Moroccan gentlemen in evening wear. Kronski had considered crested jumpsuits for the guards, but dismissed the idea as too Bond.

  I am not Dr. No. I am Dr. No-Animals.

  Kronski breezed past the guards, down a corridor carpeted with sumptuous local rugs, and into a double-height banquet hall with a triple-glazed glass roof. The stars seemed close enough to reach out and capture.

  The decor was a tasteful blend of classic and modern. Tasteful except for the gorilla-paw ashtrays on each table and the row of elephant-foot champagne coolers on stands outside the kitchen doors. Kronski squeezed through the double doors, past a brushed-steel kitchen, to the walk-in freezer at the rear.

  The creature sat flanked by three more guards. She was cuffed to a plastic baby chair borrowed from the compound’s creche. Her features were alert and sullen. Her weapon lay out of reach on a steel trolley.

  If looks were bullets, thought Kronski, picking up the tiny weapon and weighing it on his palm, I would be riddled.

  He pointed the weapon at a frozen ham hock hanging on a chain and pulled the tiny trigger. There was no kickback and no obvious flash of light, but the ham was now steaming and ready to serve.

  Kronski raised the violet-colored sunglasses that he wore day and night, to make sure his vision was accurate.

  “My goodness,” he said in wond
erment. “This is quite a toy.”

  He stamped on the steel floor, sending a bong reverberating through the chamber.

  “No tunneling out this time,” he announced. “Not like at the souk. Do you speak English, creature? Do you know what I am saying to you?”

  The creature rolled her eyes.

  I would answer you, her expression said, but there is tape across my mouth.

  “And for good reason,” said Kronski, as though the sentence had been spoken aloud. “We know all about your hypnotism tricks. And the invisibility.” He pinched her cheek as one would a cute infant. “Your skin feels almost human. What are you? A fairy, is that it?”

  Another eye roll.

  If eye-rolling were a sport, this creature would be a gold-medal winner, thought the doctor. Well, perhaps silver medal. Gold would surely go to my ex-wife, who’s no slacker in the eye-rolling department herself.

  Kronski addressed the guards. “Est-ce qu’elle a bougé?” he asked. “Has she moved?”

  The men shook their heads. It was a stupid question. How could she move?

  “Very well. Good. All proceeds according to my plan.”

  Now Kronski rolled his own eyes. “Listen to me. All proceeds according to my plan. That is so Doctor No. I should go and get myself some metal hands. What do you think, gentlemen?”

  “Metal hands?” said the newest guard, unaccustomed to Kronski’s rants. The other two were well aware that many of the doctor’s questions were rhetorical, especially the ones about Andrew Lloyd Webber or James Bond.

  Kronski ignored the new guy. He placed a finger on pursed lips for a moment, to communicate the importance of what he was about to say, then took a deep whistling breath through his nose.

  “Okay, gentlemen. Everyone listening? This evening couldn’t be more important. The future of the entire organization depends on it. Everything must be totally perfect. Do not take your eyes off the prisoner and do not remove her restraints or gag. No one is to see her until the trial begins. I paid five million in diamonds for the privilege of a grand reveal, so no one gets in here but me. Understood?”

  This was not a rhetorical question, though it took the new guy a moment to realize it.

  “Yes, sir. Understood,” he blurted, a fraction after the other two.

  “If something does go wrong, then your final job of the evening will be burial duty.” Kronski winked at the new guard. “And you know what they say: last in first out.”

  * * *

  The atmosphere at the banquet was a little jaded until the food arrived. The thing about Extinctionists was that they were picky eaters. Some hated animals so much that they were vegetarians, which limited the menu somewhat. But this year Kronski had managed to poach a chef from a vegetarian restaurant in Edinburgh who could do things with a zucchini that would make the most hardened carnivore weep.

  They started with a subtle tomato-and-pepper soup in baby turtle shells. Then a light parcel of roast vegetables in pastry with a dollop of Greek yogurt, served in a monkey-skull saucer. All very tasty, and by now the wine was relaxing the guests.

  Kronski’s stomach was so churned with nerves that he could not eat a single bite, which was most unusual for him. He hadn’t felt this giddy since his very first banquet in Austin all those years ago.

  I am on the verge of greatness. Soon my name will be mentioned in the same sentence as Bobby Jo Haggard or Jo Bobby Saggart. The great evangelist Extinctionists. Damon Kronski, the man who saved the world.

  Two things would make this banquet the greatest ever held.

  The entrée and the trial.

  The entrée would delight everyone, meat-eaters and vegetarians alike. The vegetarians could not eat it, but at least they could marvel at the artistry it took to prepare the dish.

  Kronski tapped a small gong beside his place setting and stood to introduce the dish, as was the custom.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “Let me tell you a story of extinction. In July 1889, Professor D. S. Jordan visited Twin Lakes in Colorado and published his discoveries in the 1891 Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission. He found what he proclaimed to be a new species, the yellowfin cutthroat. In his report Jordan described the fish as silvery olive with a broad lemon-yellow shade along the sides, lower fins bright golden yellow, and a deep red dash on each side of the throat, hence the “cutthroat.” Until about 1903, yellowfin cutthroats survived in Twin Lakes. The end for the yellowfin came soon after the introduction of the rainbow trout to Twin Lakes. Other trout interbred with the rainbows, but the yellowfins quickly disappeared and are now completely extinct.”

  Nobody shed a tear. In fact, there was a smattering of applause for the E word.

  Kronski raised a hand. “No, no. This is not a cause for joy. It is said that the yellowfin was a very tasty fish, with a particularly sweet flavor. What a pity we shall never taste it.” He paused dramatically. “Or shall we . . . ?”

  At the rear of the room a large false wall slid aside to reveal a red velvet curtain. With great ceremony, Kronski drew a remote control from his jacket and zapped the curtain, which pulled back with a smooth swish. Behind it was an enormous trolley bearing what appeared to be a miniature glacier. Silver and steaming.

  The guests sat forward, intrigued.

  “What if there had been a flash freeze more than a hundred years ago in Twin Lakes?”

  A twittering began among the diners.

  No.

  Surely not.

  Impossible.

  “What if a frozen chunk of lake had been trapped by a landslide deep in an uncharted crevasse and was kept solid by near zero currents.”

  Then that would mean . . .

  Inside that chunk . . .

  “What if that chunk surfaced a mere six weeks ago on the land of my good friend Tommy Kirkenhazard. One of our own faithful members.”

  Tommy stood to take a bow, waving his Texas gray wolf Stetson. Though his teeth were smiling, his eyes were shooting daggers at Kronski. It was obvious to the entire room that there was bad blood between the two.

  “Then it would be possible, outrageously expensive, and difficult, but possible to transport that chunk of ice here. A chunk that contains a sizeable shoal of yellowfin cutthroat trout.” Kronski drew breath to allow this information to sink in. “Then we, dear friends, could be the first people to eat yellowfin in a hundred years.”

  This prospect even had a few of the vegetarians salivating.

  “Watch, Extinctionists. Watch and be amazed.”

  Kronski clicked his fingers, and a dozen kitchen staff wheeled the ponderous trolley into the center of the banqueting area, where it rested on a steel grille. The workers then stripped off their uniforms to reveal monkey costumes underneath.

  Have I gone over the top with the monkey rigs? Kronski wondered. Is it just too Broadway?

  But a quick survey of his guests assured him that they remained enthralled.

  The kitchen staff were actually trained circus acrobats from one of the Cirque du Soleil knockoffs touring north Africa. They were only too glad to take a few days out of their schedule to put on this private show for the Extinctionists.

  They swarmed up the huge ice block, anchoring themselves on with ropes, crampons, or grappling hooks, and began demolishing it with chainsaws, flaming swords, and flamethrowers, all produced seemingly from nowhere.

  It was a spectacular indulgence. Ice flew, showering the guests, and the buzz of machinery was deafening.

  Quickly the shoal of yellowfin poked through the blue murk of ice. They hung, wide-eyed and frozen in midturn, their bodies caught by the flash freeze.

  What a way to go, thought Kronski. With absolutely no inkling. Wonderful.

  The performers began carving the fish in blocks from the ice, and each one was passed down to one of a dozen line cooks, who had appeared from the side doors wheeling gas burners. Each individual block was slid into a heated colander to steam off excess ice, then the fish were expertly filleted
and fried in olive oil with a selection of chunky cut vegetables and a crushed clove of garlic.

  For the vegetarians there was a champagne mushroom risotto, though Kronski did not anticipate many takers. The nonmeat eaters would accept the fish just to stab it.

  The meal was a huge success, and the level of delighted chatter rose to fill the hall.

  Kronski managed to eat half a fillet, in spite of his nerves.

  Delicious. Exquisite.

  They think that was the highlight, he thought. They ain’t seen nothing yet.

  After coffee, when the Extinctionists were loosening their cummerbunds or turning fat cigars for an even burn, Kronski instructed his staff to set up the courtroom.

  They responded with the speed and expertise of a Formula One pit team, as well they should after three months of being whipped into shape. Literally. The team of workers swarmed across the grid where the melted ice sloshed below like a disturbed swimming pool, a few stray yellowfins floating on the surface. They covered this section of floor and exposed a second pit, this one lined with steel and covered with scorch marks.

  Two podiums and a dock were wheeled into the center of the hall, taking the place of the ice trolley. The podiums had computers on their swivel tops, and the wooden dock was occupied by a cage. The cage’s resident was masked by a curtain of leopard skin.

  The diners’ chatter ceased as everybody held their breath for the big reveal. This was the moment everyone had waited for, these millionaires and billionaires paying through the nose for a few moments of ultimate power: holding the fate of an entire species in their hands, showing the rest of the planet who was boss. The guests did not notice the dozen or so sharpshooters placed discreetly on the upper terrace in case the creature on trial displayed any new magical powers. There was little chance of a subterranean rescue, as the entire hall was built on a foundation of steel rods and concrete.

  Kronski milked the moment, rising slowly from his seat and sauntering across to the prosecutor’s podium.