Oh, What Feeling is This? Chapter Two

Neetra and Flashthunder were taking a breather too. They had kept going until the heat started issuing final ultimatums to their state of consciousness, and a cessation in deliberately making themselves hotter became the only alternative to passing out. It was a strange respite though that left both longing to plunge straight back into the discomfort. Neither head had stopped swimming, neither heart had reverted to a regular beat, and neither pair of lips had lost the sensation of the other. Girl and boy alike were drenched with sweat under their identical brown tunics, but there could be no cooling-off anywhere on the ship while it was ploughing along this merciless thermonuclear wasteland, which left Neetra and Flashthunder of much the same opinion that ripping the wet chafing things asunder might be the better route.

“I guess that’s one way to take our minds off our impending doom,” Flashthunder remarked at last. He sounded delirious.

“Most likely everyone on this ship’s doing it,” Neetra agreed with a grin. Then for some seconds there were no further words. Gone was the clean neutral ether that cycled through the air-ventilators of Flashthunder’s compact cabin, displaced by a swampy turgid dampness rising from their bodies to lower thickly overhead. In every inhalation of this pungent humidity was the maddening urge to press on.

Finally Neetra leaned over and her nether lip found out Flashthunder’s again, a light lingering touch.

“It’s OK,” she told him, her voice softer than before. “The only thing you can do is make jokes when you’re feeling like this.”

Neetra however could also see there was one serious question she needed to ask, before the imminent moment she and Flashthunder lost themselves again in the feeling to which she referred. It was no easy subject to broach, but given the direction in which all this seemed to be leading, nor was it one our heroine could overlook.

“Um, Flashthunder,” she therefore began, almost shyly. “I think we both really want to do this, so…well, can we? I mean, there must be some differences between us. One of the reasons species like mine do this is to reproduce, but obviously that can’t be so for yours?”

“Well, no, of course not,” Flashthunder acknowledged. “Girls having only just been invented and all. This whole sector would be pretty much devoid of sentient life. Although as a matter of fact, many of our scientists say that the way things are looking, it’ll probably become a means of reproduction some time in the future.”

“I’m never going to get the hang of this place,” Neetra declared.

Flashthunder paused, sighed, and pushed a hand through his dark silken locks. This time he was the one struggling to express himself in words. At length he continued:

“But…it’s there. Maybe not in the most ancient eras – you don’t detect it reading histories of The First and Final War, or really old cultures like the Grindoes and Purplecoats. But it’s been there longer than people will tell you, and it’s everywhere in our galaxy now. Just for example – ” he gave a half-embarrassed laugh “ – you know these little tiny things they make us Mini-Flashes wear?”

In absent-minded illustration he plucked the hem of his skirt between finger and thumb and lifted it up from his leg. Neetra’s eyes were detained for a second by the strip of pale thigh thus exposed, but then she swallowed hard and looked up at him saying swiftly: “Erm, yes.”

“Well, everyone knows what that’s all about,” Flashthunder informed her, in a kind of low intent hush. “No-one talks about it, but we know. There’s just no language for it yet. Some of our latest music, like you heard before, Cherry and Flashshadow and the band…it’s kind of making a start. At any rate, none of our old songs are about falling in love. But what you and I are feeling for each other, right now…that’s still a secret the entire galaxy just shares. We Mini-Flashes carry it around every minute, all stuffed-up inside our tunics and pants. Like we’re waiting.”

Flashthunder’s cheeks were flushed and aglow by the end of this, and his voice was quickening with what Neetra knew to be the excitement of discussing these topics aloud for the first time. On the very sight of him in such a state it was all she could do to resist seizing hold of him once more, but something in the content of his speech had also struck a chord so curious and intriguing that its appeal to her thoughts temporarily superseded the compulsions of her body.

“Flashthunder, I think I’ve figured out what’s going on here,” she began slowly. “That is, why females have only just started to appear in your sector. I think this whole galaxy’s coming of age. I didn’t know galaxies did that. And I don’t know if it’s because it’s older or younger than the galaxy I come from – either one makes its own sort of sense. But if this is happening now, then it means your generation, all the Mini-Flashes I’ve met…well, you must be important somehow. And my guess would be that the changes you’re experiencing now are nothing to the ones you’ve got in store. This time, this place, and your people…you’re going to see incredible things.”

Flashthunder was gazing at her, without any disbelief – for Neetra’s team of Mini-Flashes had held her too much in awe for that since the moment of their first encounter – but as if this information was too much for him to absorb in one sitting. Neetra took his hand.

“Trust me,” she told him confidentially. “I know a thing or two about those sort of changes. When I was little I helped make one happen.”

Still holding hands, Neetra and Flashthunder turned to the small square window. Both were oblivious to the burning barren death-trap directly opposite its pane. They were looking beyond, seeing the incalculable height and scope of the universe’s timeless vaults and glimpsing, somewhere in the prismatic depths between the stars, that unknown force steadily and dauntlessly rising. It was dizzying for the duo to think that what was young and strong within themselves might find harmony in this cosmic correlative whose reach would span the galactic spectrum, suffusing new light into those farthest twinkling sparks of creation. Flashthunder had said earlier he was waiting. Now Neetra had arrived at an inkling of what it was he was waiting for. She knew she may yet be some small part of it for him, but the purest and wildest dreams of Flashthunder and his kind still lay beyond, out there in the great onward and ever on.

Thoughts such as these were not conducive to self-control. In no time at all Neetra and Flashthunder were back in each other’s arms, their lips fully occupied again.

The question Iskira Neetkins had asked remained unanswered. Bravely Dr. Mendelssohn mustered a smile.

“We are in a state of war,” he commenced, his voice as stable as he could keep it. “And I assisted you of my own volition. We must all take our chances when last-ditch ploys become final hopes. I fully understood the risks and the potential consequences when I agreed to – ”

Iskira started up in her fireside chair.

“By the two moons, stop being so gallant!” she interrupted brokenly. “That’s all you’ve ever done. You sit there and let me hurt you, over and over again…”

“My dear…” Mendelssohn began, making at once to reassure her. But then he stopped. She was after all correct, and his long train of thought had lately made him most aware of it. Why tell her she was mistaken, as he had always done on such occasions, when that would not be true? Perhaps his old student was right to affirm that the time had come for him to admit her self-accusation was just, and to stop pretending this was otherwise.

“Besides, you’re still only talking about our recent fine example,” continued Iskira, as a tear rolled down her sliver cheek. “That’s not what I was referring to…”

END OF CHAPTER TWO