In the courtyard, a doorway had been cut into the orange glow of the morning sky, and in that doorway stood Foaly, looking decidedly nervous.
“Which do you think seems less suspicious?” asked Butler. “An alien-looking craft hovering in the yard of a country home, or a floating doorway with a centaur standing in it?”
Foaly clopped down the gangplank, towing a hover trolley behind him. The shuttle door closed and fizzled out of the visible spectrum.
“Can we get on with this, please?” he wondered. “Everything we’re doing here is against fairy law and possibly immoral. Caballine thinks I’m at Mulch’s ceremony. The Council is actually giving him a medal. I hate lying to my wife. If I stop to think about this for more than ten seconds, I might just change my mind.”
Holly took control of the hover trolley. “You will not change your mind. We have come too far just to go home without a result.”
“Hey,” said Foaly. “I was just saying.”
Holly’s eyes were hard with a determination that would tolerate no argument. She had been wearing that expression every day now for six months, ever since she had returned home from the Berserker Gate incident. The first thing she had done was seek out Foaly in Police Plaza.
I have a message for you from Artemis, she’d said, once Foaly had released her from a smothering hug.
Really? What did he say?
He said something about a chrysalis. You were to power it up.
These words had a powerful effect on the centaur. He trotted to the door and locked it behind Holly. Then he ran a bug sweep with a wand he kept on his person.
Holly knew then that the word meant something to her friend.
What chrysalis, Foaly? And why is Artemis so interested in it?
Foaly took Holly’s shoulders and placed her in a lab chair. Why is Artemis interested? Our friend is dead, Holly. Maybe we should let him go?
Holly pushed Foaly away and jumped to her feet. Let him go? Artemis didn’t let me go in Limbo. He didn’t let Butler go in London. He didn’t let the entire city of Haven go during the goblin revolution. Now tell me, what is this chrysalis?
So Foaly told her, and the bones of Artemis’s idea became obvious, but more information was needed.
Was there anything else? asked the centaur. Did Artemis say or do anything else?
Holly shook her head miserably. No. He got a little sentimental, which is unusual for him, but understandable. He told me to kiss you.
She stood on tiptoes and kissed Foaly’s forehead. “Just in case, I suppose.”
Foaly was suddenly upset, and almost overwhelmed, but he coughed and swallowed it down for another time.
He said, Kiss Foaly. Those exact words?
No, said Holly, thinking back. He kissed me, and said, Give him that from me.
The centaur grinned, then cackled, then dragged her across the lab.
We need to get your forehead under an electron microscope, he said.
Holly explained their interpretation of Artemis’s plan to Butler as they walked toward the Berserker Gate. Foaly trotted ahead, muttering calculations to himself and keeping an eye out for early-bird humans.
“The chrysalis was what Opal used to grow a clone of herself. It was turned over to Foaly, who was supposed to destroy it.”
“But he didn’t,” guessed Butler.
“No. And Artemis knew that from hacking into LEP recycling records.”
“So, Artemis wanted Foaly to grow a clone? Even an old soldier like me knows that you need DNA for that…”
Holly tapped her forehead. “That’s why he kissed me. There was enough DNA in the saliva for Foaly to grow an army, but it seemed like a natural trace to the airport scanners.”
“A genius to the end,” said Butler. He frowned. “But aren’t clones poor, dumb creatures? Nopal could barely stay alive.”
Foaly stopped at the lip of the crater to explain. “Yes, they are, because they don’t have a soul. This is where the magic comes in. When the first Berserker lock was closed, all fairy spirits within the magic circle were released from their bodies, but Artemis may have had enough human in him, and enough sheer willpower, to remain in this realm, even after his physical body died. His spirit could be a free-floating, ectoplasmic, ethereal organism right now.”
Butler almost stumbled over his own feet. “Are you saying Artemis is a ghost?” He turned to Holly for a straight answer. “Is he actually saying that Artemis is a ghost?”
Holly steered the hover trolley down the incline. “The Berserkers were ghosts for ten thousand years. That’s how the spell worked. If they lasted that long, it’s possible that Artemis held on for six months.”
“Possible?” said Butler. “That’s all we’ve got?”
Foaly pointed to a spot near the tower. “Possible is being optimistic. I would say barely conceivable would be a better bet.”
Holly undid the clips of a refrigerated container on top of the hover trolley. “Yes, well the barely conceivable is Artemis Fowl’s specialty.”