The detainees were housed in the shuttle port’s executive lounge, evicting several grumbling lawyers and businessfairies. It was all very civil: good food, clean clothes (not for Butler) and entertainment centres. But they were under guard nevertheless.
Half an hour later, Foaly burst into the lounge. ‘Holly! he said, wrapping a hairy arm round the elf. ’I am so happy that you’re alive.‘
‘Me too, Foaly,’ grinned Holly.
‘A little “Hello” wouldn’t hurt,’ said Mulch sulkily ‘“How are you, Mulch? Long time no see, Mulch. Here’s your medal, Mulch.”’
‘Oh all right,’ said Foaly, wrapping the other hairy arm around the equally hairy dwarf. ‘Nice to see you too, Mulch, even if you did sink one of my subs. And no, no medal.’
‘Because of the sub,’ argued Mulch. ‘If I hadn’t done it, your bones would be buried under a hundred million tonnes of molten iron right now.’
‘Good point,’ noted the centaur. ‘I’ll mention it at your hearing.’ He turned to
Artemis. ‘I see you managed to cheat the mind wipe, Artemis.’
Artemis smiled. ‘A good thing for all of us.’
‘Indeed. I’ll never make the mistake of trying to wipe you again.’ He took
Artemis’s hand and shook it warmly. ‘You’ve been a friend to the People. You too, Butler.’
The bodyguard was sitting, hunched, on a sofa, elbows on knees. ‘You can repay me by building a room I can stand up in.’
‘I’m sorry about this,’ said Foaly apologetically. ‘We don’t have rooms for people your size. Sool wants you all kept here until your story can be verified.’
‘How are things going?’ asked Holly.
Foaly pulled a file from inside his shirt. ‘I’m not actually supposed to be here, but I thought you’d like an update.’
They crowded round a table while Foaly laid out the reports.
‘We found the Brill brothers on the chute wall. They’re singing like stinkworms — so much for loyalty to their employer. Forensics have collected enough pieces of the stealth shuttle to prove its existence.’
Holly clapped her hands. ‘That’s it then.’
‘It’s not airtight,’ Artemis corrected her. ‘Without Opal we could still be responsible for everything. The Brills could be lying to protect us. Do you have her?’
Foaly clenched his fists. ‘Well, yes and no. Her escape pod was ruptured by the blast, so we could trace it. But by the time we reached the crash site on the surface, she had disappeared. We ran a thermal on the area and isolated Opal’s footprints. We followed them to a small rustic homestead in the wine region near Bari. We can actually see her on satellite, but an insertion is going to take time to organize. She’s ours, and we will get her. But it may take a week.’
Holly’s face was dark with rage. ‘She’d better enjoy that week, because it will be the best of the rest of her I life.’
NEAR BARI, ITALY
Opal Koboi’s craft limped to the surface, leaking plasma gouts through its cracked generator. Opal was well aware that this plasma was as good as a trail of arrows for
Foaly. She must ditch the craft as soon as possible and find somewhere to lie low until she could access some of her funds.
She cleared the shuttle port and made it nearly ten miles across country before her engines seized utterly, forcing her to ditch in a vineyard. When she clambered out of the pod, Opal found a tall, tanned woman of perhaps forty waiting for her with a shovel and a furious expression on her face.
‘These are my vines,’ said the woman in Italian. ‘The vines are my life. Who are you to crash here in your little aeroplane and destroy everything I have?’
Opal thought fast. ‘Where is your family?’ she asked. ‘Your husband?’
The woman blew a strand of hair from her eyes. ‘No family. No husband. I work the vines alone. I’m the last in the line. These vines mean more to me than my life, and certainly more to me than yours.’
‘You’re not alone,’ said Opal and she turned on the hypnotic fairy mesmer. ‘You have me now. I am your daughter, Belinda.’
Why not? she reasoned. If it worked once…
‘Belinda,’ said the woman slowly. ‘I have a daughter?’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Opal. ‘Belinda. Remember. We work these vines together. I
help make the wine.’
‘You help me?’
Opal scowled. Humans never got something the first time.
‘Yes,’ she said, barely concealing her impatience. ‘I help you. I work beside you.’
The woman’s eyes cleared suddenly. ‘Belinda. What are you doing, standing there? Get a shovel and clean up this mess. When you finish here, you must prepare dinner.’
Opal’s heart skipped a beat. Manual labour? Not likely. Other people did that sort of thing.
‘On second thoughts,’ she said, pushing the mesmer as hard as she could. ‘I am your pampered daughter Belinda. You never allow me to do any work, in case it roughens my hands. You’re saving me for a rich husband.’
That should take care of it. She would hide out with this woman for a few hours and then escape to the city.
But a surprise was coming Opal’s way. ‘That’s my Belinda,’ said the woman.
‘Always dreaming. Now take this shovel, girl, or you’ll go to bed hungry.’
Opal’s cheeks flushed red. ‘Didn’t you hear me, crone? I do not do physical work. You will serve me. That is your purpose in life.’
The Italian lady advanced on her tiny daughter. ‘Now listen here, Belinda. I’m trying not to hear these poisonous words coming out of your mouth, but it is difficult.
We both work the vines, that is the way it has always been. Now take the shovel, or I will lock you in your room with a hundred potatoes to peel and none to eat.’
Opal was dumbstruck. She could not understand what was happening. Even strong-minded humans were putty before the mesmer. What was happening here?
The simple truth was that Opal had been too clever for her own good. By placing a human pituitary gland in her own skull, she had effectively humanized herself.
Gradually, the human growth hormone was overpowering the magic in her system. It was Opal’s bad fortune that she had used her last drop of magic to convince this woman that she was her daughter. Now she was without magic, and was a virtual prisoner in the Italian lady’s vineyard. And, what’s more, she was being forced to work, and that was even worse than being in a coma.
‘Hurry!’ shouted the woman. ‘There is rain forecast, and we have a lot to do.’
Opal took the shovel, resting the blade on the dry earth. It was taller than she was, and its handle was pitted and worn.
‘What should I do with this shovel?’
‘Crack the earth with the blade, then dig an irrigation trench between these two frames. And after dinner, I need you to wash by hand some of the laundry that I have taken in this week. It’s Carmine’s, and you know what his washing is like.’ The lady grimaced, leaving Opal in no doubt as to the state of this person Carmine’s clothing.
The Italian lady picked up a second shovel and began to dig beside Opal.
‘Don’t frown so, Belinda. Work is good for the character. After a few more years, you will see that.’
Opal swung the shovel, dealing the earth a pathetic blow that barely raised a sliver of clay. Already her hands were sore from holding the tool. In an hour she would be a mass of aches and blisters. Maybe the LEP would come and take her away.
Her wish was to be granted — but not until a week later, by which time her nails were cracked and brown and her skin was rough with welts. She had peeled countless potatoes and waited on her new mother hand and
