The Arctic Incident

“Eh . . . 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.

*





Los Angeles


Dwarf gas—not the most tasteful of subjects. Even dwarfs don’t like to talk about it. Many a dwarf wife was 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 pounds 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 there were a couple of gnome garbage wrestlers going for a couple of 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-clay 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, since all tongues are based on Gnommish if you trace them back far enough. Including American Dog.

“Arf,” grunted Mulch. “Arf, rrruff rruff.”

The dogs froze. One attempted to freeze in midleap, landing on his partner. They chewed each other’s tails for a moment, then remembered that there was a creature on the ceiling barking at them. His accent was terrible, something Central European. But it was Dog nevertheless.

“Aroof?” inquired dog number one.

Mulch pointed at the handler.

“Woof arfy arrooof! That human has a big bone inside his shirt,” he grunted. (Obviously, that’s a translation.)

The German shepherds pounced on their handler; Mulch scampered through the hole in the window; and Maggie V howled so much that her mask cracked and her tea bags fell off. And even though the Grouch knew that this particular chapter in his career was closed, the weight of Maggie V’s Academy Award inside his shirt gave him no little satisfaction.





Chute E37