“This is irrelevant,” said Artemis sharply. “We have no option but to go.”
“Very well,” said No1, flexing his fingers. He bent his knees and rested his entire body weight on the tip of his tail.
“Power posture,” he explained. “I do some of my best work in this position.”
“So does Mulch Diggums,” muttered Foaly. “Quantum zombies. I need to get a copy of that program.”
A red haze blossomed around the demon warlock, tiny lightning bolts crackling across his horns.
“He’s powering up,” said Foaly from the screens. “You’ll be off any second. Remember, try not to touch anything you don’t have to. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t contact me in the past. I have no desire not to exist.”
Artemis nodded. “I know. Make as little impact as possible, in case the time paradox theory has some merit.”
Holly was impatient to get going. “Enough science. Just blast us into the past. We’ll bring the monkey back.”
“Lemur,” said Artemis and Foaly together.
No1 closed his eyes. When he opened them again they were pure crimson.
“Okay, ready to go,” he said conversationally.
Artemis blinked. He was expecting No1’s voice of power to be a bit less squeaky. “Are you sure?”
No1 groaned. “I know. It’s the voice, isn’t it. Not enough gravel. Qwan says I should go for less airy and more fairy. Trust me, I’m ready. Now hold hands.”
Artemis and Holly stood there in their underwear, gingerly locking fingers. They had crossed space and time together, weathered rebellions, and tangled with demented despots. Coughed blood, lost digits, inhaled dwarf fumes, and swapped eyeballs, yet they found holding hands awkward.
No1 knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t resist a parting crack.
“I now pronounce you . . .”
Neither hand-holder was amused, but before they had time to do more than scowl, twin bolts of red energy crackled from No1’s eyes, blasting his friends into the time stream.
“Man and elf,” he said, finishing his joke, then chuckling delightedly.
On screen, Foaly snorted. “I’m guessing you’re laughing to cover your anxiety?”
“Exactly right,” said No1.
Where Artemis and Holly had been standing, there were flickering copies of them both, mouths open to object to No1’s comment.
“That really freaks me out, the ghost images. It’s like they’re dead.”
Foaly shuddered. “Don’t say that. If they’re dead, we all could be. How soon will they be back?”
“In about ten seconds.”
“And if they’re not back in ten seconds?”
“Then never.”
Foaly started counting.
CHAPTER 6
I TO I
There is a moment of confusion when a land animal enters the water. Beast, human, or fairy, it doesn’t matter. The surface is broken and every sense is suddenly shocked. The cold stings, motion slows, and the eyes are filled with smears of color and the snap of bursting bubbles. The time stream is like that moment sustained.
That’s not to say that traveling through the time stream is a consistent experience. Never the same journey twice. The demon warlock Qwan, who was the planet’s most experienced time-traveling fairy, wrote in his best-selling autobiography, Qwan: My Time Is Now, that riding the time stream is like flying through a dwarf’s intestine. There are very nice free-flowing stretches, but then you turn a corner to find the thing backed up and putrid. The problem being that the time stream is largely an emotional construct, and it absorbs ambient feelings from the real time it flows around. If you happen across a stretch of foul-smelling gunk, you can bet that the humans are killing something.
Artemis and Holly were being dragged through a foul-smelling stretch that corresponded with an entire ecosystem being destroyed in South America. They could sense the animals’ terror and even smell the charred wood.
Artemis felt too that Holly was losing herself in the maelstrom of emotions. Fairies were so much more sensitive to their environments than humans. If Holly lost concentration, her atoms would dissipate and be absorbed by the stream.
Focus, Holly, Artemis broadcast into the stream. Remember who you are and why we are here.
It was difficult for them both. Their particle memory had already been weakened by the Limbo journeys, and the temptation to meld with the stream was strong.
Artemis conjured a picture of his mother in his consciousness to bolster his determination.
I know when and where I want to be, he thought. Exactly when and where . . .
Fowl Manor, Almost Eight Years Ago