The Communique, Chapter Two

4-H-N’s devoted duo had been assigned to an unfrequented eddy of limpid space, where lumpy clusters of frozen gas-bubbles clumped together to dot the region with tiny translucent asteroids. Atop one of these waited Flashbee, standing up on account of his stinger, which was uncomfortable but he had to keep it primed for immediate use.

Flashslip meanwhile, a few islands away, was hugging his ankles with one cheek resting blissfully on his knee. Flashbee didn’t doubt he was ready to save the universe six times over for 4-H-N, but he was one lookout who couldn't be accused of looking out. The boy was on a cloud of something pleasanter by far than gaxon gas, and remembering what had happened last time, Flashbee felt a need to call across the modest gulf:

“Just wondering if I could interrupt your thoughts on the galaxy’s stuffiest a minute?”

Right away Flashslip snapped out of it and jumped to his feet, trying to make it look like he’d been all alertness all along.

“Don’t worry, no change of subject,” Flashbee continued. “Very much back to her old self this morning, wasn’t she? Now that everything’s sorted out. But she wasn’t when she and that other girl came to us in the first place. I’ve never seen the second gender so scared.”

“Their friend had gone missing, Bee,” protested Flashslip. “And you know, Sue isn’t from around here…”

His voice was feeble, and it was clear enough he spoke out of chivalry alone.

“You don’t believe she’s an Earthling any more than I do,” Flashbee declared. “It’s obvious she was wearing some sort of disguise. Never even mind her powers. Never even mind 4-H-N telling the Interplanetary Broadcasting Service afterwards that Flashsatsumas must have been the one who saved us. She and Sue and that Bobby are hiding something, Slip.”

The other boy sighed, seeing this. “But what?” he asked the cosmos.

“Well,” answered Flashbee, “there are a few things that might panic even the second gender. Such as accidentally misplacing a girl with powers on the scale we saw. Powers which, despite every adorably-delivered assurance we received earlier, aren’t common either here or on Earth. Among the few who are supposed to boast them are a pack of female runaways whose whereabouts remain mostly unknown. And since the said runaways are also supposed to be instrumental to the fate of our entire quadrant, losing one might just qualify as reason enough to panic. Even, as I say, for girls.”

At last he’d hinted strongly enough. Flashslip drew in breath, which luckily Mini-Flashes were able to do in deep space.

“The Special Program?” he whispered back. “Sometimes I wish you weren’t so good at figuring things out, Bee. Because if you’re right – ”

They both heard it at the same time. A footfall on one of the clusters above, dislodging stray gas-bubbles weightlessly.

What hunkered glaring down on the boys was of build and proportions approximating theirs. It might have been a Mini-Flash, albeit one which had clawed its way out of a nightmare. Naked, and of gender indeterminate, the flesh was white as chalk and the hair shagged and tawny, beneath which were red eyes, a snarling mouth and two black orifices that flared. Some deformity lent the creature a four-legged gait.

Flashbee’s hand darted to where he was raring to go, and uselessly, because his stupid stinger only worked at close range and he was light-years away and –

The shape, which was nearer Flashslip, sprang.

A baleful white noseless visage and blunt raking fingers outstretched like talons did the trick which in pleasanter circumstances 4-H-N had nearly pulled off. There wasn’t even time for Flashslip’s knees to give. One split-second and the essential him was gone, while his empty blue tunic flopped to the floor together with his boots and pants.

Another split-second and these were detritus on the cosmic winds, as creature and cluster collided.

Unstoppable force bored the hard bumpy surface of a less-than-immovable object, rupturing the handful of bubbles it took to initiate a chain-reaction. The results were spectacular. In less than a heartbeat the chimera punched from the cosmic chunk’s underside, only by then there was no chunk left, just vast vaporous plumes and blooms expanding amid aftershocks of noise.

These had bowled Flashbee back like a giant flicking finger. Now he swung his legs down from over his head, and trusting his skirt to follow the motion scrambled up agape.

Their attacker was a white speck in the distance. It hadn’t stuck around to fight. Evidently Mini-Flashes and exogeology alike had merely been in its way. Flashslip on the other hand was very much back, and all of him for that matter, difficult to miss. He could only hold himself out of phase for a breath or two, before returning to the same spatial point from which he’d departed.

Sadly, that was no longer the firm footing it had been when he left, and now Flashslip floundered pink and outstretched at the heart of a newborn nebula.

Fluidic gaxon was highly soporific. One more inhalation and he’d be asleep.

Which meant there wasn’t time for Flashbee to hesitate. He was male too, and couldn’t fly. So instead he used one hand to squeeze his nostrils tight, and leapt.

Lingering bits of the shattered mass, mostly no bigger than two or three bubbles, were cast about the disaster-area like widely-spaced stepping-stones. Flashbee traversed these, hurtling headlong, grateful for the sticky grip of his toes although even with this advantage he stumbled more than he skipped. As for his stinger, it was truly a marvel how it managed to be everywhere except where he wanted it to be. Nearly tripping over, breathing in gasps through his mouth, Flashbee fitfully tracked the insensible fleshiness of his friend while keeping his other eye on where his feet were going.

It was worse than Flashball with the girls. Couldn’t get near. But mustn’t give up.

Come on, Flashslip. Enough daydreaming about 4-H-N’s smile. You won’t have much to smile about when you’re stranded in galactic depths.

Finally!

Flashbee spied an escalading string of fragments that might just do. Still holding his nose he plunged face-first into billows of gaxon, high-stepping it up the steep staircase, leaning into its curve. As he closed with the angle of intersection on Flashslip’s drifting course he thrust his free arm aloft, clutching for any appendage or extremity to serve him as a tow-hook.

The one he found couldn’t have been better-suited. Sorry in advance, Flashslip.

But hey, it’ll wake you up.

“Aaaah! Oh! Oh! Why are you – ?”

Flashbee hit the top step and bounded one last time, hauling behind him his strange wailing trailer. Lurid fog parted before the plummeting pair and the galaxy glittered again, whereat gladly Flashbee released his nasal passages to draw deep of its ozone. Flexing adhesive toecaps once more, and the fingertips of his unoccupied hand, he gained purchase on the flank of the rock against which he and Flashslip fetched. Then a short vertical scramble and the latter was safe, if a little unhappy and abject, upon that asteroid’s summit.

Yes, it had been a rude awakening from the realm of romance, but a preferable one to the alternative, and Flashbee was sure it would do him good.

“Thank me later,” he said to Flashslip staunchly, then reached for his skirt-radio to contact Grindotron.

END OF CHAPTER TWO