The Time Paradox

by Eoin Colfer

  Opal was running out of magic. Her bolts fizzled out or spiraled off target like errant squibs. She abandoned them and drew two pistols from her belt. One was immediately batted from her hand by the tiger that had lumbered to join the fray, but Opal did not submit to hysteria and quickly thumbed that other gun to a broad-spread setting and slashed the barrel from side to side as she fired, releasing a fan of silver energy.

  The tiger was the first to drop, with a look on its face that said Not again. Several more followed, cut off in midscreech, howl, or hiss.

  Artemis hauled back on the quagga’s spiked mane, jumping it onto an operating table. The beast snorted and complained but did as it was bid, skittering the length of one table and leaping across to the next.

  Opal loosed a shot in their direction, but it was absorbed by a brace of condors.

  The door was directly before them, and Artemis feared the quagga would falter. But no, it butted through to the corridor connecting the lab to the holographic flame chamber.

  Artemis quickly opened the control panel in his stolen network goggles and chose the ramp setting.

  It took maddening moments for the platform to extend itself, and for those seconds Artemis rode the quagga around in circles to take its mind off dislodging the unwelcome rider on its back and to make them both a more difficult target if Opal followed them through the corridor.

  An eagle swooped by, its feathers raking Artemis’s cheek. A muskrat clambered along his torso, hopping to the rising platform.

  There was light above. The sickly wavering beams of a faulty strip light. But light nevertheless.

  “Come on, girl,” said Artemis, feeling very much the cowboy. “Yee-haw.”

  The Extinctionists gathered aroun Tommy Kirkenhazard’s raised finger, listening intently as if the noise emanated from inside the finger.

  “Ah, I don’t hear nothing,” admitted Tommy. “I must have been dreaming. After all, it’s been a stressful night for human-lovers.”

  Then the lodge burst open, and the Extinctionists were utterly engulfed in a sea of beasts.

  Kirkenhazard went down under a couple of Chacma baboons, vainly pulling the trigger on his empty gun and shouting over and over: “But we killed you, darn it. We killed you.”

  Though there would be no fatalities in the compound that night, eighteen people were hospitalized with bites, skin burns, broken bones, and various infestations. Kirkenhazard fared the worst. The baboons ate his gun and the hand holding it, and then turned the unfortunate man over to a groggy tiger, who found himself waking in a very bad mood.

  Not one of the Extinctionists noticed a small, dark craft rising silently from behind one of the chalets. It flew across the central park and scooped up a long-haired youth from the back of what looked like a small striped donkey. The craft spun in a tight arc like a stone in a sling, then hurtled into the night sky as though it had to be somewhere in a real hurry.

  Pedicures, and indeed all spa treatments, were canceled for the next day.

  Opal was desolate to find that, on top of everything else, her boots were ruined.

  “What is that stain?” she demanded of Mervall and his recently liberated twin, Descant.

  “Dunno,” muttered Descant, who was still a bit moody from his time in the cage.

  “It’s a dropping of some kind,” volunteered Mervall quickly. “Judging from the size and texture, I would say one of the big cats got a little nervous.”

  Opal sat on a bench and extended the boot. “Pull it off, Mervall.”

  She placed her sole on Mervall’s forehead and pushed until he tumbled backward, clutching the dropping-laden footwear.

  “That Mud Boy. He knows about my lemur. We must follow him. He is tagged, I take it.”

  “Oh yes,” confirmed Mervall. “All the newcomers are sprayed on landing. There’s a radioactive tracer in his every pore right now. Harmless, but there’s nowhere on this planet that he can hide from us.”

  “Good. Excellent, in fact. I think of everything, do I not?”

  “You do, mistress,” droned Descant. “Brilliant, you are. Astounding is your fabulosity.”

  “Why, thank you, Descant,” said Opal, as ever oblivious to sarcasm. “And I thought you’d be upset after the pigpen. Fabulosity isn’t a word, by the way. In case you’re thinking of writing how wonderful I am in your diary.”

  “Point taken,” Descant said seriously.

  Opal offered her other foot to Mervall. “Good. Now set the self-destructs on this place and let’s get the shuttle prepped. I want to find this human and kill him immediately. We were too nice last time, with the leeches. This time, immediate death.”

  Mervall winced. He was holding two boots covered in tiger droppings, and he’d prefer to wear those than be in that human’s shoes.

  Artemis lay flat on his back in the cargo hold, wondering it he could possibly have dreamed the past few minutes. Superleeches, sleeping tigers, and a grumpy quagga.

  He felt the floor vibrate beneath him and knew that they were moving at several times the speed of sound. Suddenly the vibration disappeared, to be replaced by a far more sedate hum. They were slowing down!

  Artemis hurried to the cockpit, where Holly was glaring at a readout as if she could change the information displayed there. Jayjay was in the copilot’s seat and seemed to be in charge of steering.

  Artemis pointed at the lemur. “This may seem like a silly question, but is Jayjay . . .”

  “No. Autopilot. And nice to see you alive, by the way. You’re welcome for the rescue.”

  Artemis touched her shoulder. “Once again, I owe you my life. Now, I hate to move directly from gratitude to petulance, but why have we slowed down? Time is running out. We had three days, remember? There are only hours left.”

  Holly tapped the readout. “We were pinged by something at the compound. Someone’s computers have downloaded our schematics. Can you tell me any more about that?”

  “Opal Koboi,” said Artemis. “Opal is behind everything. She’s harvesting animal fluids to increase her own magic. If she gets her hands on Jayjay, she’ll be invincible.”

  Holly did not have time to be incredulous. “That’s wonderful. Opal Koboi. I knew this little trip was missing a psychotic element. If Opal pinged us, then she’ll be on our tail in something a little more war-worthy than this clunker.”

  “Shields?”

  “Nothing much. We might fool human radar but not fairy scanners.”

  “What can we do?”

  “I need to keep us up here in the air lanes with all the human traffic. We stay subsonic and don’t draw attention to ourselves. Then at the last moment we make a break for Fowl Manor. It won’t matter if Opal sees us then, because by the time she catches us, we’ll be back in the time stream.”

  Mulch Diggums poked his head through from the mail box. “Nothing much in here. A few gold coins. What say I keep them? And did I hear someone mention Opal Koboi?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Everything is under control.”

  Mulch guffawed. “Under control? Like Rathdown Park was under control. Like the leather souk was under control.”

  “You’re not seeing us at our best,” Artemis admitted. “But in time you will come to respect Captain Short and me.”

  Mulch’s expression doubted it. “I’d better go and look up respect in the dictionary, because it mustn’t mean what I think it means, eh, Jayjay?”

  The lemur clapped his delicate hands and chattered with what sounded like laughter.

  “It looks like you’ve found an intellectual equal, Mulch,” said Holly, returning to her instruments. “It’s a pity he isn’t a girl; then you could marry him.”

  Mulch imitated shock. “Romance outside your species. Now that’s disgusting. What kind of weirdo would kiss someone when they weren’t even part of the same species?”

  Artemis massaged his suddenly pounding temples.

  It’s a long way to Tipperary, he thought. And then a few more miles to Dub
lin.

  “A shuttle?” said Opal. “A fairy shuttle?”

  The Koboi craft was hovering at an altitude of thirty miles, tipping the border of space. Starlight winked on the hull of their matte-black shuttle, and the earth hung below them wearing a stole of clouds.

  “That’s what the sensors show,” said Mervall. “An old mining model. Not much under the hood, and zero firepower. We should be able to catch it.”

  “Should?” said Opal, stretching an ankle to admire her new red boots. “Why should?”

  “Well, we had her for a while. Then she went subsonic. I would guess their pilot is riding the human flight lanes until they feel safe.”

  Opal smiled devilishly. She liked a challenge.

  “Okay, let’s give ourselves every advantage. We have the speed and we have the weapons. All we need is to point ourselves in the right direction.”

  “What an incrediferous idea.” Descant smirked.

  Opal was pained. “Please, Descant. Use short words. Don’t force me to vaporize you.”

  This was a hollow threat, as Opal had not been able to produce so much as a spark since the compound. She still had the basics—mind control, levitation, that kind of thing—but she would need some serious bed rest before she could muster a lightning bolt. The Brills did not need to know that, though.

  “Here’s my idea. I ran the lab tapes through voice recognition and got a regional match. Whoever that Mud Boy is, he lives in central Ireland. Probably Dublin. I want you to get us down there as fast as you can, Descant, and when that mining shuttle drops out of the air lanes”— Opal closed her tiny fingers around an imaginary ant, squeezing the blood from its body—“We will be waiting.”

  “Fabulicious,” said Descant.

  Fowl Manor, Dublin, Ireland

  The sun had risen and was sinking again by the time Holly had dragged the spluttering shuttle over the Fowl Estate wall.

  “We’re close to the deadline, and this piece of junk is close to dead,” she said to Artemis. Holly placed a hand on her heart. “I can feel No1’s spark dying inside, but there’s still time.”

  Artemis nodded. The sight of the manor somehow made his mother’s plight seem even more urgent.

  I have to go home.

  “Well done, Holly. You did it. Set us down in the rear courtyard. We can access the house by the kitchen door.”

  Holly pressed a few buttons. “Around the back it is. Scanning for alarms. Found two and a sneaky third. Motion sensors, if I’m not mistaken. Only one alarm is being remotely monitored, and the other two are self-contained. Should I disable the remote alarm?”

  “Yes, Holly, please disable the alarm. Anybody home?”

  Holly checked the thermal imaging. “One warm body. Top floor.”

  Artemis sighed, relieved. “Good. Just Mother. She will have taken her sleeping tablets by now. Little me can’t be back yet.”

  Holly set the shuttle down as gently as she could, but the gears were stripped and the suspension bags were drained. There were dents in the stabilizers, and the gyroscope was spinning like a weather vane. The landing gear stripped a channel of cobblestones from the courtyard surface, tumbling them like bricks of turf before the plow.

  Artemis gathered Jayjay in his arms.

  “Are you ready for more adventures, little man?”

  The lemur’s round eyes were filled with anxiety, and he looked to Mulch for reassurance.

  “Always remember,” said Mulch, tickling the creature’s chin, “that you are the smart one.”

  The dwarf found an old duffel bag and began stuffing the remaining contents of the fridge inside.

  “No need for that,” said Holly. “The ship is yours. Take it, dig up your booty, and fly far away. Dump this heap in the sea and live off your earnings for a few years. Just promise me that you won’t sell to humans.”

  “Only the junk,” said Mulch. “And did you say that I could keep the shuttle?”

  “Actually, I’m asking you to scrap it. You’ll be doing me a favor.”

  Mulch grinned. “I’m a generous person. I could do you a favor.”

  Holly smiled back. “Good. And remember, when we meet again, none of this ever happened, or it probably won’t.”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  Artemis squeezed past him. “Now, there’s something I would pay to see. Mulch Diggums with his mouth closed.”

  “Yes, nice meeting you too, Mud Boy. I look forward to robbing you in the future.”

  Artemis shook his hand. “I look forward to it myself, believe it or not. We will have some fine times.”

  Jayjay reached out for a handshake. “You look after the human, Jayjay,” said Mulch seriously. “He’s a bit dim, but he means well.”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Diggums.”

  “Later, Master Fowl.”

  Opal was on her third round of the Gola Schweem meditative circle chant when Mervall burst into her private chamber.

  “We found the shuttle, mistress,” he panted, clutching a flexi-screen to his chest. “They went supersonic for barely a minute over the Mediterranean. But it was enough.”

  “Humm humm haaa. Rahmumm humm haaaa,” intoned Opal, finishing her chant. “Peace be inside me, tolerance all around me, forgiveness in my path. Now, Mervall, show me where the filthy human is so that I may feed him his organs.”

  Mervall proferred the flexi-screen. “Red dot. East coast.”

  “Military?”

  “No, surprisingly. It’s a residence. No defenses whatsoever.”

  Opal climbed out of her snuggle-me chair. “Good. Run a few scans. Warm up the cannons and get me down there.”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  “And Mervall?”

  “Mistress?”

  “I think little Descant has a crush on me. He told me earlier that I was very phototractive. Poor little simpleton. Could you tell him that I am unavailable? If you don’t, I shall have to have him killed.”

  Merv sighed. “I shall tell him, mistress. I feel sure he will be disconnipted.”

  Artemis found himself scratching Jayjay’s head as they moved through the manor.

  “Be calm, little chap. No one can hurt you now. We’re safe.”

  Holly was behind him on the stairs, guarding the rear, two fingers rigidly extended. The fingers were not a loaded weapon, but they could break bones with enough momentum behind them.

  “Come on, Artemis. No1 is weaker now, so we have to jump soon.”

  Artemis stepped around a weight-sensitive pad on the twelfth step. “Nearly there. Seconds away.”

  His study was exactly as he had left it, the wardrobe still open, a scarf drooping from the top shelf like an escaping snake.

  “Good,” said Artemis, his confidence growing. “This is the spot. The exact spot.”

  Holly was panting. “About time. I’m having trouble holding on to the signal. It’s like running after a smell.”

  Artemis put an arm around her shoulder. A group of three; tired, hungry, but excited.

  Holly’s shoulders shook with an exhaustion and tension she had kept hidden until now.

  “I thought you were dead,” she said.

  “Me too,” admitted Artemis. “Then I realized that I couldn’t die, not in this time.”

  “I presume you’re going to explain that to me.”

  “Later. Over supper. Now can we open the time stream, friend?”

  There was a sudden swish as the bay window curtain slid back. Young Artemis and Butler were there, both wearing foil suits. Butler unzipped his suit to reveal a large gun strapped across his chest.

  “What was that about a time stream?” asked ten-year-old Artemis.

  Mulch Diggums was burying a gold coin as a sacrifice to Shammy, the dwarf god of good fortune, when the earth exploded underneath him, and he found himself straddling the blade of a shuttle icebreaker prow.

  I never even heard that coming, he thought. And then:

  So much for Shammy.

  Before he
could gather himself sufficiently to figure up from down, Mulch found himself tumbled to the base of a silver ash tree, with the barrel of a Neutrino restricting the movement of his Adam’s apple. His beard hairs instinctively realized that the gun was not friendly, and twined themselves around the barrel.

  “Nice shuttle,” said Mulch, playing for time until the stars in his vision flickered out.“Whisper engine, I’m guessing.”

  Three pixies stood before him. Two males and a female. Generally, pixies were not very threatening creatures, but the males were armed and the female had a look in her eyes.

  “I bet,” said Mulch, “that you would set the world on fire just to watch it burn.”

  Opal tapped the suggestion into a small electronic notepad on her pocket computer.

  “Thanks for that. Now, tell me everything.”

  I’ll resist for a minute, then feed her some misinformation, thought Mulch.

  “I’ll tell you nothing, pixie she-devil,” he said, Adam’s apple knocking nervously against the gun barrel.

  “Oooh,” said Opal, stamping with frustration. “Isn’t anyone afraid of me?”

  She stripped off a glove and placed a thumb on Mulch’s temple. “Now, show me everything.”

  And with a few remaining sparks of ill-gotten magic, she sucked every memory of the past few days from Mulch’s brain. It was an extremely unpleasant sensation, even for someone used to expelling large amount of material from his person. Mulch gibbered and bucked as the last few days were vacuumed from his head. When Opal had what she wanted, the dwarf was left unconscious in the mud.

  He would wake up an hour later with the starter chip for an LEP shuttle in his pocket and no idea how he’d gotten there.

  Opal closed her eyes and flicked through her new memories.

  “Ah,” she said, smiling. “A time stream.”

  “There isn’t time for this,” insisted Artemis. “I think there is,” argued ten-year-old Artemis. “You have broken into my house again; the least you can do is explain that time stream comment. Not to mention the fact that you are alive.”

  Artemis the elder flicked his hair away from his face.

  “You must recognize me now. Surely.”