The Time Paradox (3 page)

“The water is pretty clean, thanks to Shelly. I’m getting a decent picture.”

Holly topped up her suit buoyancy a few notches until she was at neutral, and hung in the water as still as she could.

“Well, what do you see, Foaly?”

“The same as you,” replied the centaur. “A sensor with a flashing red light. I need to take a few readings, if you wouldn’t mind touching the screen.”

Holly laid her palm on the gel so that the omnisensor on her glove could sync with the ancient instrument.

“Nine and a half minutes, Foaly, don’t forget.”

“Please,” snickered the centaur, “I could recalibrate a fleet of satellites in nine and a half minutes.”

It was probably true, thought Holly, as her helmet ran a systems check on the sensor.

“Hmm,” sighed Foaly, thirty seconds later.

“Hmm?” repeated Holly nervously. “Don’t hmm, Foaly. Dazzle me with science, but don’t hmm.”

“There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with this sensor. It is remarkably functional. Which means . . .”

“That the other three sensors are malfunctioning,” concluded Holly. “So much for your genius.”

“I did not design these sensors,” said Foaly, wounded. “They’re old Koboi gear.”

Holly shuddered, her body jerking in the water. Her old enemy Opal Koboi had been one of the People’s leading innovators, until she decided that she would prefer to pursue all criminal avenues to crown herself queen of the world instead. Now she was housed in a specially constructed isolation prison cube suspended in Atlantis, and spent her time shooting off mail to politicians, pleading for early release.

“Apologies, old friend, for doubting your wonderfulness. I suppose I should check the other sensors. Above sea level, I do hope.”

“Hmm,” said Foaly again.

“Please stop that. Surely, now that I am here, I should check the remaining sensors?”

Silence for a moment as Foaly accessed a few files, then he spoke in hitched phrases while the information opened before him. “The other sensors . . . are not the pressing issue . . . right now. What we really need to know . . . is why would Shelly be redlining on
this
sensor. Let me just see . . . if we have ever had these kind of readings before.”

Holly had no choice but to maintain contact with the sensor, legs swaying underneath her, watching the air clock on her visor run down.

“Okay,” said Foaly finally. “Two reasons for a kraken’s readings to redline. One, Shelly is having a baby kraken, which is impossible since he’s a sterile male.”

“That leaves two,” said Holly, who was certain that she would not like the second reason.

“And two. He’s shedding.”

Holly rolled her eyes in relief. “Shedding. That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Weeeellll, it’s a little worse than it sounds.”

“What do you mean, a little?”

“Why don’t I explain as you fly away as fast as you can.”

Holly did not need to be told twice. When Foaly advised an officer to leave
before
he delivered one of his beloved lectures, then the situation was serious. She spread her arms wide, and the action was mimicked by the wings on her back.

“Engage,” she said, pointing both arms to the surface; the engines ignited and blasted her clear of the Baltic, boiling the water wake as it hung in the air. Her suit was instantly dry as moisture slipped from its nonstick material and air resistance tugged at any remaining drops. In seconds she had climbed to a few hundred feet, the anxiety in Foaly’s voice hurrying her along.

“A kraken sheds its shell once, and records show that Shelly dumped his three thousand years ago, so we presumed that was that.”

“But now?”

“Now it seems as though Shelly has lived long enough to do it again.”

“And why are we concerned about this?”

“We are concerned about this because kraken shed very explosively. The new shell has already grown, and Shelly will get rid of the old one by igniting a layer of methane cells and blasting it off.”

Holly wanted to be sure she understood what was being said. “So you’re saying that Shelly is going to light a fart?”

“No, Shelly is going to light
the
fart. He has stored enough methane to power Haven for a year. There hasn’t been a fart like this since the last dwarf tribal gathering.”

A computer representation of the explosion appeared in Holly’s visor. To most fairies the image would be little more than a blur, but LEP officers were forced to develop the double focus necessary to read their screens and watch where they were going at the same time.

When the simulation put Holly clear of the projected blast radius, she dropped her boots, swinging in a loose ascending arc to face the kraken.

“Isn’t there something we can do?”

“Besides take a couple of pictures? Nope. Too late for that. Only a few minutes to go. Shelly’s inner shell is already at ignition temperature, so put your glare filter down and watch the show.”

Holly lowered her shade. “This is going to make the news all over the world. Islands don’t just explode.”

“Yes they do. Volcanic activity, gas leaks, chemical accidents. Believe me, if there’s one thing the Mud Men
do
know, it’s how to explain away an explosion. The Americans invented Area 51 just because a senator crashed a jet into a mountain.”

“The mainland is safe?”

“Should be. A little shrapnel, maybe.”

Holly relaxed, hanging from her wings. There was nothing she could do, nothing she
should
do. This was a natural process, and the kraken had every right to shed its shell.

Methane explosions. Mulch would love this.

Mulch Diggums was currently running a private investigations office in Haven with the pixie wheel-fairy Doodah Day. Mulch had, in his day, caused some methane disturbances himself.

Something pulsed gently in Holly’s visor. A plasma splotch of red in the thermal sweep windows. There was life on the island, and not just insect or rodent. Multiple humans.

“Foaly. I have something.”

Holly resized the window with a series of blink commands to track down the source. There were four hot bodies inside the sauna.

“
Inside
the sauna, Foaly. How did we miss them?”

“Their bodies were at the same temperature as the brick walls,” replied the centaur. “I’m guessing that one of the Mud Men opened the door.”

Holly magnified her visor to plus four and saw that the sauna door was open a crack, a wedge of steam pushing through the gap. The building was cooling faster than the humans, and so now they showed up separately on her scanner.

“What are those Mud Men doing here? You said nothing opens until eight.”

“I don’t know, Holly. How would I know? They’re humans. About as reliable as moon-mad demons.”

It didn’t matter
why
the humans were there, and wondering about it was a waste of time.

“I have to go back, Foaly.”

Foaly put a camera on himself, broadcasting his live image to Holly’s helmet.

“Look at my face, Holly. Do you see this expression? This is my
stern
face. Do not do it, Holly. Do not return to the island. Humans die every day, and we do not interfere. The LEP
never
interferes.”

“I know the rules,” said Holly, muting the growling centaur.

There goes my career again, she thought, angling her wings for a steep dive.

Four men sat in the sauna’s outer room, feeling very smug that they had once again outwitted island authorities and managed to sneak a free sauna before work. It did help that one of the men was Uunisaari’s security guard and had access to the keys, and a little five horsepower punt that accommodated the four friends, and a bucket of Karjala beer.

“Good temperature in the sauna today,” said one.

A second wiped the steam from his glasses. “A little hot, I thought. In fact, even here it feels hot underfoot.”

“Go jump in the Baltic, then,” said the guard, miffed at this lack of appreciation for his efforts. “That will cool down your poor toesies.”

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” said the fourth man, fastening his watch. “He has sensitive feet. Always some temperature problem.”

The men, friends since childhood, laughed and swigged their beers. The laughing and swigging ceased abruptly when a section of the roof suddenly caught fire and disintegrated.

The guard coughed out a mouthful of beer. “Was someone smoking? I said no smoking!”

Even if one of his sauna buddies had answered, the guard would not have heard, as he had somehow managed to fly through the hole in the roof.

“My toes are
really
hot,” said the bespectacled man as if hanging on to old topics of conversation could make new ones go away.

The others ignored him, busy doing what men generally do in dangerous times: putting on their trousers.

There was no time for introductions or doors, so Holly drew her Neutrino sidearm and carved a six-foot hole in the roof. She was treated to the sight of four pale, semi-dressed Mud Men quivering in sudden fright.

I’m not surprised they’re quivering, she thought. And that’s only the beginning.

As she flew, she worked on her problem: how to get four humans out of the blast zone in as many minutes.

Until recently she would have had a second problem: the building itself. According to the fairy Book, fairies were forbidden to enter human buildings without an invitation. This was a ten-thousand-year-old hex that still had a little sting, causing nausea and loss of power to anyone who defied it. The law was an anachronism and a serious impediment to LEP operations, so after a series of public debates and a referendum, the hex had been lifted by demon warlock N
^o
1. It had taken the little demon five minutes to unravel a hex that had stumped elfin warlocks for centuries.

Back to the original problem. Four large humans. Big explosion imminent.

The first human was easy enough and the obvious choice. He was blocking the others and wore nothing but a towel and a tiny security guard’s cap, which perched on top of his skull like a nutshell on the head of a bear.

Holly grimaced.
I have to get him out of my sight as soon as possible, or I may never forget this image. That Mud Man has more muscles than a troll.

Troll! Of course.

There had been several additions to the Recon kit while Holly had been in Limbo, most invented and patented by Foaly, naturally. One such addition was a new clip of darts for her Neutrino. The Centaur called them anti-gravity darts, but the officers called them floaters.

The darts were based on Foaly’s own Moonbelt, which generated a field around whatever was attached to it, reducing the earth’s gravitational pull to one fifth of normal. The Moonbelt was useful for transporting heavy equipment. Field officers quickly adapted the belt to their own specialized needs, attaching their prisoners to the pitons, which made them much easier to handle.

Foaly had then developed a dart that had the same effect as his Moonbelt. The dart used the fugitive’s own flesh to conduct the charge that rendered him almost weightless. Even a troll seems less threatening when it is bobbing in the breeze like a balloon.

Holly slipped the clip from her belt, using the heel of one hand to ram it into the Neutrino.

Darts, she thought. Back to the Stone Age.

The big security guard was square in her sights, his lip wobbling petulantly.

No need for laser sights with this Mud Man, she thought. I could hardly miss.

And she didn’t. The tiny dart pricked the man’s shoulder, and he quivered for a moment until the antigravity field encircled him.

“Ooh,” he said. “That’s a little . . .”

Then Holly landed beside him, grasped his pale thigh, and hurled him into the sky. He went faster than a popped balloon, leaving a trail of surprised
O
’s in his wake.

The remaining men hurriedly finished pulling on their pants; two tripped in their haste, banging heads before crashing to the ground. Plates of tomato-and-mozzarella rolls were batted aside; bottles of beer went spinning across the tiles.

“My sandwiches,” said one man, even as he struggled with his purple jeans.

No time for panic, thought Holly, silent and invisible among them. She ducked low, avoiding pale swinging limbs, and quickly loosed off three more darts.

A strange calm descended on the sauna as three grown men found themselves floating toward a hole in the roof.

“My feet are—” began the bespectacled man.

“Shut up about your feet!” shouted sandwich man, swiping at him with a fist. The motion sent him spinning and bouncing like a pinball.

Foaly overrode Holly’s MUTE.

“D’Arvit, Holly. You have seconds.
Seconds!
Get out of there now! Even your suit armor will not stop an explosion of this magnitude.”

Holly’s face was red and sweating in spite of her helmet’s climate control.

Seconds left. How many times have I heard that?

No time for subtleties. She lay flat on her back, tapping the readout on her Neutrino to select concussion beams, and fired a wide pattern blast straight up.

The beam bore the men aloft, as a fast-flowing river would bear bubbles, bouncing them off the walls and each other before finally popping them through the still-sparking circle in the roof.

The last man out looked down as he left, wondering absently why he was not gibbering in panic. Surely flying was grounds for hysteria?

That will probably come later, he decided. If there
is
a later for me.

In the steam of the sauna, it seemed to him that there was a small humanoid shape lying on the floor. A diminutive figure with wings, which leaped to its feet, then sped toward the flying men.

It’s all true, thought the man. Just like Lord of the Rings. Fantasy creatures. All true.

Then the island exploded, and the man stopped worrying about fantasy creatures and began worrying about his trousers, which had just caught fire.

* * *

With all four men in the air, Holly decided that it was time to get herself as far from the supposed island as possible. She jumped from a squatting position, engaged her wings in the air, and shot into the morning sky.