'No, sir. Not up close.'
'Good. Let's not make today your first time.'
'Understood.'
Root glared at her. 'I don't know why it is, Captain Short, but whenever you start agreeing with
me, I get decidedly nervous.'
Root was right to be nervous. If he'd known how this straightforward Recon assignment was
going to turn out, he would probably have retired there and then. Tonight, history was going to be
made. And it wasn't the discovery-of-radium, first-man-on-the-moon happy kind of history. It was
the Spanish-Inquisition, here-comes-the-Hindenburg bad kind of history. Bad for humans and
fairies. Bad for everyone.
Holly proceeded directly to the chutes. Her normally chatty mouth was a grim slash of
determination. One chance, that was it. She would allow nothing to break her concentration.
There was the usual queue of holiday visa hopefuls stretching to the corner of Elevator Plaza, but
Holly bypassed it by waving her badge at the waiting line. A truculent gnome refused to yield.
'How come you LEP guys get to go topside? What's so special about you?'
Holly breathed deeply through her nose. Courtesy at all times. 'Police business, sir. Now if you
could just excuse me.'
The gnome scratched his massive behind. 'I hear you LEP guys make up your police business just
to get a look at some moonlight. That's what I hear.'
Holly attempted an amused smile. What actually formed on her lips resembled a lemon-sucking
grimace.
'Whoever told you that is an idiot…sir. Recon venture only above ground when absolutely
necessary.'
The gnome frowned. Obviously he had made up the rumour himself and suspected that Holly
might have just called him an idiot. By the time he'd figured it out, she had skipped through the
double doors.
Foaly was waiting for her in Ops. Foaly was a paranoid centaur, convinced that human intelligence
agencies were monitoring his transport and surveillance network. To prevent them reading his mind,
he wore a tinfoil hat at all times.
He glanced up sharply when Holly entered through the pneumatic double doors.
'Anybody see you come in here?'
Holly thought about it.
'The FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, MI6. Oh and the EIB.'
Foaly frowned. 'The EIB?'
'Everyone in the building,' smirked Holly.
Foaly rose from his swivel chair and clip-clopped over to her.
'Oh, you're very funny, Short. A regular riot. I thought the Hamburg affair might have knocked
some of the cockiness out of you. If I were you, I'd concentrate on the job in hand.'
Holly composed herself. He was right.
'OK, Foaly. Fill me in.'
The centaur pointed to a live feed from the Eurosat, which was displayed on a large plasma
screen.
'This red dot is the troll. He's moving towards Martina Franca, a fortified town near the city of
Brindisi. As far as we can tell, he stumbled into vent E7. It was on cool-down after a surface shot,
that's why the troll isn't crispy barbecue right now.'
Holly grimaced. Charming, she thought.
'We've been lucky in that our target has bumped into some food along the way. He chewed on a
couple of cows for an hour or two, so that bought us a bit of time.'
'A couple of cows?' exclaimed Holly. 'Just how big is this fellow?'
Foaly adjusted his foil bonnet. 'Bull troll. Fully grown. One hundred and eighty kilos, with tusks
like a wild boar. A really wild boar.'
Holly swallowed. Suddenly Recon seemed a much better job than Retrieval.
'Right. What have you got for me?'
Foaly cantered across to the equipment table. He selected what looked like a rectangular
wristwatch.
'Locator. You find him, we find you. Routine stuff.'
'Video?'
The centaur clipped a small cylinder into the accommodating groove on Holly's helmet.
'Live feed. Nuclear battery. No time limit. The mike is voice-activated.'
'Good,' said Holly. 'Root said I should take a weapon on this one. Just in case.'
'Way ahead of you,' said Foaly. He picked a platinum handgun from the pile. 'A Neutrino 2000.
The latest model. Even the tunnel gangs don't have these. Three settings, if you don't mind.
Scorched, well done and crisped to a cinder. Nuclear power source too, so plug away. This baby will
outlive you by a thousand years.'
Holly strapped the lightweight weapon into her shoulder holster.
'I'm ready…I think.'
Foaly chuckled. 'I doubt it. No one's ever really ready for a troll.'
'Thanks for the confidence booster.'
'Confidence is ignorance,' advised the centaur. 'If you're feeling cocky, it's because there's
something you don't know.'
Holly thought about arguing, but didn't. Maybe it was because she had a sneaking suspicion that
Foaly was right.
The pressure elevators were powered by gaseous columns vented from the earth's core. The LEP
tech boys, under Foaly's guidance, had fashioned titanium eggs that could ride on the currents. They
had their own independent motors, but for an express ride to the surface there was nothing like the
blast from a tidal flare.
Foaly led her past a long line of chute bays to E7. The pod sat in its clamp, looking very fragile to
be rocketing about on magma streams. Its underside was charred black and pockmarked from
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