The Great Skua’s owner-a burly Icelander in proud possession of both a walrus mustache with the wingspan of a fair-sized cormorant and the unlikely name of Adam Adamsson-stood in the restaurant’s porch, popping his fingers and stamping his feet to an imaginary rhythm and also finding the time to chuckle at Artemis’s erratic progress along the lagoon’s frozen shore.

“That was a mighty display,” said Adamsson when Artemis finally managed to ram the snowmobile into the restaurant’s decking. “Hell, harður maður. I haven’t laughed that hard since my dog tried to eat his reflection.”

Artemis smiled dourly, aware that the restaurateur was poking fun at his driving skills, or lack thereof. “Hmmph,” he grunted, dismounting the Ski-Doo as stiffly as a cowboy after three days on a cattle drive, whose horse had died, forcing him to ride the broadest cow in the herd.

The old man actually cackled. “Now you even sound like my dog.”

It was not Artemis Fowl’s habit to make undignified entrances, but without his bodyguard Butler on hand, he had been forced to rely on his own motor skills, which were famously unsophisticated. One of the sixth-year wits at St. Bartleby’s School, the heir to a hotel fortune, had nicknamed Artemis Left Foot Fowl, as in he had two left feet and couldn’t kick a football with either of them. Artemis had tolerated this ribbing for about a week and then bought out the young heir’s hotel chain. This choked the teasing off abruptly.

“Everything is ready, I trust?” said Artemis, flexing fingers inside his patented Sola-Gloves. He noticed that one hand was uncomfortably warm; the thermostat must have taken a knock when he’d clipped an ice obelisk half a mile down the coast. He tugged out the power wire with his teeth; there was not much danger of hypothermia, as the autumn temperature hovered just below zero.