The tunnel seemed to shudder with each blow. Large sections collapsed. Mud and rock clattered down on Artemis’s head and shoulders. Dirt pooled in Holly’s eye sockets.
Mulch’s cheeks ballooned, and he opened his lips the merest fraction to speak.
“Okay,” he said in a helium voice. “The tank is full.”
The dwarf gathered Artemis and Holly in his burly Popeye arms and vented every bubble of air in his body. The resulting jet stream propelled the group down the length of the tunnel. The trip was short, jarring, and confusing. The breath was driven from Artemis’s lungs, and his fingers were stretched to cracking, but he would not let go of Holly.
He could not let her die.
The unfortunate gorilla was blown head-over-rump by the windstorm and yanked back up the tunnel as though tethered to an elastic cable. It whooped as it went, digging its fingers into the tunnel wall.
Artemis, Holly, and Mulch popped from the tunnel mouth, bouncing and skittering along the ditch in a tangle of limbs and torsos. The stars above them were speed-streaked, and the moon was a smear of yellow light.
An old famine wall halted their progress, crumbling under the impact of three bodies.
“For more than a hundred and fifty years this wall stood,” coughed Artemis. “Then we come along.”
He lay on his back, feeling thoroughly defeated. His mother would die, and Holly would soon hate him when she worked out the truth.
All is lost. I have no idea what to do.
Then one of the notorious Rathdown pylons sharpened in his vision—more specifically, the figures clambering along its service ladder.
The lemur has escaped, Artemis realized. And is climbing as high as it can.
A reprieve. There was still a chance.
What I need to save this situation is a full LEP surveillance and assault kit. Perhaps I will have No1 send one back for me.
Artemis disentangled himself from the others and decided that underneath the pillar’s cornerstone would be a secure spot. He tugged off the remaining stones stacked on top, then wiggled his fingers under the final boulder, and heaved. It came away easily, revealing nothing but worms and damp earth. No package from the future; for whatever reason that particular trick would only work once.
So. No help. I must make do with what is available.
Artemis returned to where Holly and Mulch lay. Both were moaning.
“I think I split a gut getting rid of that wind,” said Mulch. “There was a bit too much fear in the mix.”
Artemis’s nose wrinkled.
“Will you be okay?”
“Give me a minute and I’ll be plenty strong enough to carry that huge amount of gold you promised me.”
Holly was groggy. Her eyes fluttered as she tried to pull herself together, and her arms flopped like fish out of water. Artemis did a quick pulse and temperature check. Slight fever but steady heartbeat. Holly was recovering, but it would be several minutes before she could control her mind or body.
I must do this on my own, Artemis realized. No Holly, no Butler.
Just Artemis versus Artemis.
And perhaps an omnitool, he thought, reaching into Holly’s pocket.
*** The Rathdown electricity pylons had been featured in Irish news headlines several times since their erection. Environmentalists protested vehemently that the appearance of the gigantic pylons blighted an otherwise beautiful valley, not to mention the possible detrimental effect the uninsulated power lines could have on the health of anyone or anything living below their arcs. The national electricity board had countered these arguments by pleading that the lines were too high to harm anything, and that to construct smaller pylons around the valley would blight ten times more land.
And so a half dozen of these metal giants bridged Rathdown Valley, reaching a height of three hundred feet at their zenith. The pylon bases were often ringed by protesters, so much so that the power company had taken to servicing the lines by helicopter.
On this night, as Artemis raced across the moonlit meadow, kicking up diamond dewdrops, there were no protesters ringing the pylons, but they had planted their signs like moon flags. Artemis slalomed through this obstacle course while simultaneously craning his neck to track the figures above.
The lemur was on the wire now, silhouetted by the moon, scampering easily along the metal cable, while Artemis the younger and Butler were stranded on the small platform at the pylon’s base, unable to venture any farther.
Finally, thought Artemis. A stroke or two of luck.