Cycles, Chapter Four

Harbin was ready for blind anger. Measuring Dylan’s clumsy drive he spied the sword’s shatterpoint, and with his forearm reduced that shining glaive to shards. A summary follow-up dropped Dylan prone to the amphitheatre’s surface.

Well was it said across time and the universe that The Foretold One was no conversationalist. On this occasion however he sank to a knee before the fallen foe, and brought his dreadful featureless visage so close it filled the field of vision commanded by Dylan’s bleary eyes. Then in a voice that scraped and rattled round regions nowhere near the normal human range, Harbin inquired:

“Why do you think I’ve been fighting him, not you?”

Though wavering on the brink of final insensible collapse, Dylan knew the import of these words as he would have known the noise of a death-knell. With one weak hand he reached for what was left of his sword. Its broken pointed stump was not for Harbin. There was still one way at least in which Dylan need not be helpless. One victory yet he might deny The Foretold One.

A blast of wind swept the stage. Harbin’s fiery red eyes shot to beyond the precipice, where a drop-ship was all at once sitting on its own compressed air-jets. Dylan as one in a dream noted what a singular-looking craft it was, replete with unusually small transport-pods all clustered together at the prow-end. More surreal by far however was the figure standing atop the roof, for grown women were a rare enough sight in this sector, and so formidable a female of immaculate emerald uniform and iron-hued bouffant would scarcely have gone unnoticed even back on Earth. From the considerable bosom flamed a Flash Club insignia. It was Auntie Green, long-term Mini-Flash matron, and with her carbon-shafted birch in hand she faced The Foretold One down.

Dylan had deduced the Alliance’s plan almost perfectly. There had just been one tiny arrogance for which he hoped he could be forgiven. He and Phoenix had been part of the project to wear Harbin down alright. They’d just been wrong to assume they were last in the queue. It was another of those little reminders that they weren’t in The Four Heroes’ home galaxy anymore.

“Special Program,” boomed Auntie Green, “deploy.”

Phoenix, staggering charred but intact from the wreck of her interceptor, was better-placed than Dylan to witness the spectacle which therewith transpired. Not that she was at all sure he was going to believe her if she lived to furnish him with a verbal description. It wasn’t that little pretty mademoiselles were uncommon here, and as the drop-ship’s capsules were some distance short of man-size, Phoenix supposed she shouldn’t have been astonished when each technological chrysalis disgorged fluttering beige and silky limbs and soft-glowing tresses. Nor was it that those bouncing locks wanted for bow or barrette, nor that the long eyelashes did not flick or the lip-gloss glimmer, nor that the tunic-skirts fanned in flight above anything other than the flouncy frills and leg-elastic lace that were fashion standards here. There was something different about these girls though. Mini-Flash Bloomer for example, all jollity and cheesy grins and gym-socks smell, was light-years from this collection. Phoenix had never seen such Mini-Flashes. No, wait, she had. That tiny shy shimmering Bardot, tinted like an August evening, who accompanied Joe and Flashtease on Grindotron. And indeed, that hot-rodding neophyte with sliver-blue hair who was also one of Joe’s faction. Both were something akin to the Mini-Flashes Phoenix beheld now. Lovely girls, but lovely like a lingering scent of perfume, or a memory that made your heart lurch. Not quite as physically present as corporeal beings tended to be.

By what exact means these petites engaged the enemy, Phoenix never knew. She could not tell whether it was more like a dance or a playground game, some clandestine pat-a-cake chant carried out with the fearsome intensity and exactitude of the schoolgirls these creatures resembled. And everywhere light and colour, untouchable, celestial, Lucille Hadžihalilović and Stanley Kubrick brainstorming over several magnums of Oscar-ceremony champagne. Phoenix saw Harbin writhe and resist in the midst of it all. The she saw the tails of his cape beating a retreat before the dark.

There were other Flashes on the scene by now, more typical ones, regular musclemen. Phoenix felt the strong hands of these beefy seraphs close about her person and next second was heaven-bound, soaring safe to the fleet with Dylan and the rest of the rescue-party beside her. Solid deck-plates under Phoenix’s soles were welcome, and the medical-bay bunk to which she was guided beckoned her down to imminent restful sleep. She could still hear something though, some steady noise, and in the seconds before there was only nothingness it dawned on Phoenix what it was.

The sentient beings, the whole armada’s complement of Flash Club and Grindotron crew, were celebrating. Celebrating her, among others, Phoenix supposed. Flashes applauded uproariously to a man, a standing ovation all along the Arch of Titus, and though the Grindoes had no palms to smite together they more than made up for it in voice. Well done. Well done, everybody. Clap, clap, clap.

This is the Interplanetary Broadcasting Service. From Owioo to Grindotron, Dexon to Merehpolis, Acheldama to Mnulx, it’s where we live and where we make our lives. The lunar cycle ended on a joyful note today with the safe return home of our beloved long-lost wisemen. Once again we have good reason to give thanks to Dylan Cook and Phoenix Neetkins, Four Heroes representatives and friends to the Alliance, who are fast making themselves a known name in our quadrant for this kind of dedicated peacekeeping action...

At Flash Club Headquarters the four farns were guests of honour for a ceremony which glittered even more brightly than Micro-Mallet, resplendent in his new coat of luxury polish, the envy of every other air-robot. Albazorascabaranthi, Manual, Benmor and Prune, addressing a meeting-hall crammed to capacity, assured their myriad well-wishers that whatever secrets of the future Harbin had wrung from them in his infernal machine would soon be at the Alliance’s disposal too, as the elderly quartet vowed to turn their mystic powers to the task of recovering any lost advantage in this regard. Commendations were placed on the permanent records of every Mini-Flash involved, and the Special Program’s solemn révérence, eyelids lowered, lips slightly apart, was perhaps the most breathtaking tribute to synchronised curtseying ever seen onstage. Mini-Flash Bloomer and 4-H-N made a brave go of matching their seemingly effortless elegance, though Flashlight struggled to compete. Finally, Alliance decorations of the highest order were conferred on Dylan and Phoenix, and as they bowed their heads for the ambassador-android to bestow the honours with its articulated mandibles, the auditorium gave itself up to righteous adulation.

When the war-torn lovers looked up again though, medallions agleam in the spotlight such that each golden disc looked somehow detached from the breast on which it rested, a few dignitaries in the foremost rows noticed that neither hero’s gaze seemed to take in these opulent adoring surroundings. Theirs was a determined look to be sure, even a desperate one, but it was fixed on some point far beyond the hall’s embracing bulwarks. If Dylan and Phoenix were seeking out the future with that strange silent stare, then apparently the view was bleak. Maybe this victory had carried too high a cost.

One other shared this opinion, and for that reason, none of the merrymaking. Storm-Sky, Flash Club leader, stood in gloom on a balcony far above and watched without speaking as the distant revels sparkled on. Presently he was joined by Auntie Green, together with Miss Love, the Flash Club’s costume-designer.

“Storm-Sky, why do you carry the weight of the galaxy on your shoulders?” the kindly latter asked. “Your gamble paid off. We saved the day.”

“Yes, we did,” replied Storm-Sky, patient and sad. “But my gamble, Miss Love, was that we might earn one Earthling’s much-needed friendship and goodwill. I doubt open confrontation and the theft of his theory have brought us closer to that goal.”

“Great Storm-Sky, you make it sound as if the Special Program was Joe’s idea,” scoffed Auntie Green, ever oblivious to her addressee’s polite requests she omit his predecessor’s preferred prefix. “When in fact it was one of many masterful innovations that made Lightning the Flash Club leader he was,” she then added, with comparable sensitivity to Storm-Sky’s feelings.

“Lightning inaugurated the Special Program when the second gender began to appear, that he might study this phenomenon and ascertain whether it posed a threat,” Storm-Sky tactfully both agreed with and corrected her. “He drew no link between the mysterious changes among our children and the struggle against The Foretold One. Joe was first to do so, and he has already swayed at least half the young people you train, Auntie. Now we have put his teachings to their first practical test, and lo and behold, we may see with our own eyes that Joe was correct all along. Even as the Alliance triumphantly takes its place on the opposing side of The Four Heroes’ schism.”

Amid faint continuing noise from the jubilee, Storm-Sky’s expression was grave.

“We saved the day,” he repeated to Miss Love. “My master Manual and his fellowship are free. But we have lost Joe as an ally. Who can say what losses this shall wreak in turn, when the coming conflict is upon us?”

News broke soon into the subsequent solar cycle. Professor Grindo at a jam-packed press-conference made the announcement which before long was beaming from a billion broadcast-screens.

“This morning I completed a financial transaction possibly unprecedented in our quadrant’s long history. After all, there’s no point being the wealthiest world around if you can’t show it off every once in a while,” Prof slipped in with a typical twinkle behind his eye-visor. There was however something besides humorousness about the wise wrinkled features as he went on: “Especially in the light of those little eventualities it’s always just as well to guard your people against. Protection under the Alliance Treaty has been much appreciated. But the Grindoes are soon to be safer than we’ve ever been before.”

Only in one particular quarter were these provocative words, but for the galaxy as a whole their gist became clear quick enough. Prof had obtained a planet, which he intended to terraform forthwith for Grindo colonization on a global scale.

The Nereynis Purchase. And Prof was right. It would go down in history.

THE END