The Great Troll War

‘Very well,’ he said finally. ‘Ganymede, eh? It will be a good opportunity to see how well I can manoeuvre the tower at close quarters. A useful skill I should hone now, before we head over to Proxima Centauri. Besides, you are still not fully understanding the brilliance of my mission. Perhaps you need a couple of weeks so we can straighten it out in your head. Who knows? By the end of that fortnight you could have completely changed your mind about me.’

He smiled as he said it. My suspicions about a beguiling were correct.

‘That might indeed help,’ I said. ‘Would you pass the Waldorf salad?58 I seem to have developed something of an appetite.’

‘That’s good,’ said Shandar. ‘I do so hate girls who pick at their food.’

So we ate, and chatted, and Shandar, now more relaxed, was saying that if he couldn’t get enough power from sucking the energy out of Proxima Centauri, we’d pop on over to Barnard’s Star and harvest that one too. He made it sound like nipping down to the corner store for another packet of crisps. But while he was talking, it suddenly made a lot more sense that Monty had left those crude and easily discovered thermowizidrical devices in my car. They were never going to detonate; they were always going to be found. They were simply diversions in case Shandar was suspicious about the lack of an attack. If he found those, he would look no further. And it worked. He didn’t. The real plan was much subtler – and given Monty, Boo and Mawgon knew Shandar would search my mind for any clues, anything they cooked up I couldn’t know anything about. They would have to trust me to figure out what they were up to.

And I’m quite good at figuring stuff out.

But they knew that, too.

‘What are you smiling about?’ asked Shandar.

‘Because I’m lucky.’

‘To be here with me now on this adventure?’

‘No, I’m thinking that even out here, I have friends. The sort that have your back and give you the tools to do the job you need to do. They understand you, they trust you, they take care of you, and they never give up, no matter how bad things appear.’

‘That’s a heart-warming little story,’ said Shandar, plopping his napkin on his plate as a Hollow waiter moved his chair so he could stand up, ‘but I have work to do. The tower is the size of six cathedrals, so manoeuvring it into Ganymede’s orbit will be a little like trying to reverse an ocean liner into the Panama Canal at top speed blindfolded – not for the faint hearted, and requiring skill, dexterity and a sound understanding of mass, gravity and converging velocities. Why not watch? You might learn something.’

‘I’ll watch from here while I finish my breakfast.’

Shandar nodded, then walked to the elegant wooden pulpit in the middle of the room, which looked as though it had been swiped from a cathedral somewhere. He raised his hands and I felt the tower move as he warped the space beneath us to shift the mass of the skyscraper towards the Jovian moon. I looked up to see D’Argento staring at me in an odd manner.

‘Something on your mind, Jenny?’ she asked.

‘Can I ask you a question?’

‘I will answer as honestly as I can,’ she replied.

‘What do you get out of this?’

‘I get an opportunity,’ replied D’Argento thoughtfully, ‘to be in the right place at the right time, to assist a truly great person in their moment of triumph.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

She looked me straight in the eye.

‘I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.’

‘I think I’ll have some of the kedgeree after all,’ I said, and walked to the sideboard, where a Hollow waiter handed me a plate. I took a good spoonful – it smelled delicious – then walked off to a seat by the fire.

While Shandar and D’Argento were distracted – he placing the Chrysler Building into orbit around Ganymede, she flicking through the designs of suitable Evil Emperor costumes – I placed my hands on the brooch that Lady Mawgon had given me. When she had, she’d made up some stuff about how she wished she’d been more pleasant – probably also a diversion – but then crucially had given me the order that ‘I was to carry it with me always’. Not unusual, you might think, but it became more relevant when added to other events: when Once Magnificent Boo said goodbye she had added that ‘with eternal life must come limitless power’; and, crucially, the Quarkbeast communicated with me when I first came into the tower, even though he can only do that one way: through Mysterious X. I think it meant two things. Firstly, that the Mysterious X had snuck on board hidden among the atoms in Mawgon’s brooch, and secondly, that there was nothing particular about Ganymede that was important. The real message was this: We have your back – and whatever you do, don’t let him leave the solar system. There was something else, too. Zambini’s second message, the one I got through Molly: Help will come from an unexpected quarter.