Holly winked. 'Do I look like a fly boy to you, Fowl?' Artemis had to admit that she didn't. Captain Short was extremely pretty in a dangerous sort of way. Black-widow pretty. Artemis was expecting puberty to hit in approximately eight months, and he suspected that at that point he would look at Holly in a different light. It was probably just as well that she was eighty years old.

Very well. I understand. Just ... shut up!

Holly walked rapidly into the cockpit, strapping herself into the pilot's chair. "Seven and a half hours to save the world. Isn’t there some law that says we get at least twenty-four?" Artemis strapped himself into the co-pilot's chair. "I don't think Opal bothers with laws.

The craft's occupants clutched their armrests, and more than one of them closed their eyes. But not Artemis. He couldn't. There was something morbidly fascinating about flying into an uncharted tunnel at a reckless speed with only a kleptomaniac dwarf's word for what lay at the other end.

It took teams of LEP warlocks to slow down time for a few hours; the magic required to open a door to the tunnel was stupendous. It would be easier to shoot down the moon. Opal tapped this into her notepad. Reminder. Shoot down the moon? Viable?

Good. Illegal is always faster.

If Koboi defeats and presumably murders us both then you can consider the debt null and void.