‘That’s as near as we get,’ she said into her helmet mike. ‘Any closer and the thermals could flip us against the rock face.’
Thermals?’ growled Root. ‘You never said anything about thermals before I climbed out here.’
The commander was spread-eagled on the port wing, a concussor egg jammed down each boot.
‘Sorry, Commander, someone has to fly this bird.’ Root muttered under his breath, dragging himself closer to the wing-tip. While the turbulence was nowhere as severe as it would have been on a moving aircraft, the buffeting thermals were quite enough to shake the commander like dice in a cup. All that kept him going was the thought of his fingers tightening around Mulch Diggums’s throat.
‘Another metre,’ he gasped into the mike. At least they had communications, the shuttle had its own local intercom. ‘One more metre and I can make it.’
‘No go, Commander. That’s your lot.’
Root risked a peek into the abyss. The chute stretched on forever, winding down to the orange magma glow at the Earth’s core. This was madness. Crazy. There must be another way. At this point, the commander would even be willing to risk an over-ground flight.
Then Julius Root had a vision. It could have been the sulphur fumes, stress or even lack of food. But the commander could have sworn Mulch
Diggums’s features appeared before him, etched into the rock face. The face was sucking on a cigar and smirking.
His determination returned in a surge. Bested by a criminal. Not likely.
Root clambered to his feet, drying sweaty palms on his jumpsuit. The thermals plucked at his limbs like mischievous ghosts.
‘Ready to put some distance between us and this soon-to-be hole?’ he shouted into the mike.
‘Bet on it, Commander,’ responded Holly. ‘Soon as we have you back in the hold, we’re out of here.’
‘OK. Standby.’
Root fired the piton dart from his belt. The titanium head sank easily into the rock. The commander knew that tiny charges inside the dart would blow out two flanges securing it inside the face. Five metres. Not a great distance to swing on a piton cord. But it wasn’t the swing really. It was the bone-crushing drop and the lack of handholds on the chute wall.
Come on, Julius, sniggered the Mulch edifice. Let’s see what you look like splattered against a wall.
‘You shut your mouth, convict,’ roared the commander. And he jumped, swinging into the void.
The rock face rushed out to meet him, knocking the breath from his lungs. Root ground his back teeth against the pain. He hoped nothing was broken, because after the Russian trip, he didn’t even have enough magic left to make a daisy bloom, never mind heal a fractured rib.
The shuttle’s forward lights picked out the laser burns where the LEP tunnel dwarfs had sealed the supply chute. That weld line would be the weak spot. Root slotted the concussor eggs along two indents.
‘I’m coming for you, Diggums,’ he muttered, crushing the capsule detonators embedded in each one. Thirty seconds now.
Root aimed a second piton dart at the shuttle wing. An easy shot, he made this kind of thing in his sleep in the sim-range. Unfortunately, the simulators didn’t have thermals fouling things up at the last moment.
Just as the commander fired his dart, the edge of a particularly strong whirlpool of gas caught the shuttle’s rear, spinning it forty degrees anti-clockwise. The dart missed by a metre. It spun into the abyss, trailing the commander’s lifeline behind it. Root had two options: he could rewind the cord using his belt winch, or he could jettison the piton and try again with his spare.
Julius unhooked the cord; it would be faster to try again. A good plan, had he not already used his spare to get them out from under the ice. The commander remembered this half a second after he’d cut loose his last piton.
‘D’Arvit,’ he swore, patting his belt for a dart which he knew wouldn’t be there.
‘Trouble, Commander?’ asked Holly, her voice strained from wrestling with the controls.
‘No pitons left, and the charges are set.’
There followed a brief silence. Very brief. No time for lengthy think-tanks. Root glanced at his moonomenter. Twenty-five seconds and counting.
When Holly’s voice came over the headset, it was not bursting with enthusiasm or confidence.
‘Er. . Commander. You wearing any metal?’
‘Yes,’ replied Root, puzzled. ‘My breastplate, buckle, insignia, blaster.
Why?’
Holly nudged the shuttle a shade closer. Any nearer was suicide.
‘Put it like this. How fond are you of your ribs?’
‘Why?’
‘I think I know how to get you out of there.’
‘How?’
‘I could tell you, but you’re not going to like it.’
‘Tell me, Captain. That’s a direct order.’
Holly told him. He didn’t like it.
Dwarf gas. Not the most tasteful of subjects; even dwarfs don’t like to talk about it. Many a dwarf wife is known to scold her husband for venting gas at home and not leaving it in the tunnels. The fact is that, genetically, dwarfs are prone to gas attacks, especially if they’ve been eating clay in the mine. A dwarf can take in several kilos of dirt a second through his unhinged jaws.
That’s a lot of clay, with a lot of air in it. All this waste has to go somewhere.
So it goes south. To put it politely, the tunnels are self-sealing.
Mulch hadn’t eaten clay in months, but he still had a few bubbles of gas at his disposal when he needed them.
The dogs were poised to attack. Slobber hung in ribbons from their gaping jaws. He would be torn to pieces. Mulch concentrated. The familiar bubbling began in his stomach, pulling it out of shape. It felt as though a couple of gnome garbage wrestlers were going a few rounds in there. The dwarf gritted his teeth, this was going to be a big one.
The handler blew a football whistle. The dogs lunged forward like torpedoes with teeth. Mulch let go with a stream of gas, blowing a hole in the rug and propelling himself to the ceiling, where his thirsty pores anchored him.
Safe. For the moment.
The German shepherds were particularly surprised. In their time they had chewed their way through most creatures in the food chain. This was something new. And not altogether pleasant.You have to remember that a dog’s nose is far more sensitive than a human one.
The handler blew his whistle a few more times, but any control he might have had disappeared the moment Mulch flew through the air on a jet of recycled wind. As soon as the dogs’ nasal passages cleared, they began to leap, teeth gnashing at the apex.
Mulch swallowed. Dogs are smarter than the average goblin. It was only a matter of time before they thought to scale the furniture and make a jump from there.
Mulch made for the window, but the handler was there before him, blocking the hole with his padded body. Mulch noticed him fumbling with a weapon at his belt. This was getting serious. Dwarfs are many things, but bulletproof is not one of them.
To make matters worse, Maggie V appeared at the bedroom door, brandishing a chrome baseball bat. This was not the Maggie V the public was used to. Her face was covered with a green mask, and there appeared to be a tea bag taped under each eye.
‘Now we have you, Mister Grouch,’ she gloated. ‘And suction pads aren’t going to save you.’
Mulch realized that his career as the Grouch was over. Whether he escaped or not, the LAPD would be visiting every dwarf in the city come sunrise.
Mulch only had one card left to play. The gift of tongues. Every fairy has a natural grasp of languages, as all
