The Girls From Space, Chapter Five

The star-fighter burned on the rocky banks of Limb. Phoenix swooped to the wreck and wrenched its canopy clear, freeing Dylan, and the pair of them struck off for safety together.

Another ship was rapidly making its way to the Patriotic Planet, this one a Nottingham City Transport interplanetary hauler. Joe on the bridge was grimly determined as parsec after parsec passed, and his thoughts on the perpetrator with whom they went to do battle were his own. Croldon Thragg, piloting with assistance from his moth-winged apprentice Thomthar, called out into the passenger section: “Limb Four’s in sight, girls, are you about ready?”

He sounded to Neetra like a bus-conductor, but Mini-Flash Splitsville responded at once:

“You better believe it, Daddy-O. Creep messes with one Special Program sister, he messes with the pack. This freaky fracas was like as foretold as his rep.”

Neetra only wished their smallest member spoke for them all. She was resisting the urge to fly at Mini-Flash Juniper’s straight fair tresses with a hairbrush, if only to halt the girl’s incessant pacing. This surely shouldn’t feel so much like getting her ready for a party. The problem however was that Juniper’s frets had little to do with the confrontation to come.

“My membrane is more practical, but for serving out to The Foretold One full uniform might be more appropriate,” she continued to think aloud. “Then there’s the question of streamlining. On my morning laps yesterday I outstripped my own best time with the membrane on. That’s an important consideration for the only Mini-Flash in Nottingham who can manage two circuits.”

Even when she was being quiet, Juniper talked in tones the room in general heard. This last however was fairly projected towards the co-pilot’s chair.

Flashshadow, at typical length, shared her opinions on the relative merits and failings of each outfit in turn. As the other three girls were her closest friends and well accustomed to her, they were all able to more or less follow the argument until it eventually rambled to its close. Most of the galaxy however would have struggled to make out a word, or for that matter to notice Flashshadow was there in the first place.

“All good points,” Juniper thanked her, holding up the beige and then the membrane and repeating an interminable number of times. Finally she seemed to decide it was a tunic day.

“Now, should I wear panties?” she asked the company.

Neetra tried hard not to roll her eyes. At the Arch of Titus it had taken the Special Program’s whole head-count to subdue Harbin. All bets were off when you boasted just three, only one of whom had been there. Especially when that one was Mini-Flash Juniper.

“Yes, Jenny, and before we arrive please,” Neetra advised at last. “You’re not fighting The Foretold One looking like that.”

Had Juniper’s ideas about modesty been those of the average girl, she might have blushed to learn this supposedly private scene was being scrutinized.

4-H-N’s heart ached. It did her good to see Neetra safe and well on Flashlab Central’s old colour viewscreen, but she missed her more than she could bear. Jumbled up with that bittersweetness was the one curious piece of good news which, always assuming everyone made it out of this, 4-H-N would report at the first available opportunity to Flashlight and her family. She may have stumbled on one of those Special Program mysteries around which her mission was supposed to revolve.

First you had Mini-Flash Pseudangelos, who’d made it abundantly apparent how comfortable she was eschewing not only outer garments but also the underwear that was of such social importance to her kind. Then on this very station you had the rest of Sue’s party, in both senses of the word. 4-H-N felt no need and less inclination for an over-the-shoulder glance to remind herself of their eagerness to start flinging tunics and knickers aside. Then finally you had that one of Joe’s Special Program Mini-Flashes. Last but by no means least. In fact her bum would have been hard to miss even if she’d had clothes on. 4-H-N’s theory rendered her, and especially the last thing she’d said, frankly provocative. In, erm, both senses of the word.

Of course, 4-H-N also acknowledged that if she and Mini-Flash Bobbypins happened to be being watched too, their unseen observer might be forgiven for concluding they were members of the Special Program. Or at any rate, that the dress-sense she attributed to them must be catching on fast.

Speaking of Mini-Flash Bobbypins. 4-H-N took a deep breath.

“We’re seeing this through Storm-Sky’s secret espionage network,” she explained. “He keeps tabs on Joe. I don’t know why, but he’s got all your Flash Club technology working to hack into anything Joe goes near – even the black-box recorder on that transport-ship. It’s, um, just something I happened to find out about.”

That’s it, Bobby. You go right on believing your illustrious leader’s the only spy around here. 4-H-N wondered who she was trying to fool. Bobby may not have been bright, but few Mini-Flashes were less naive. This problem 4-H-N decided to shelve, and only hoped her Special Program intuitions were more convincing today than her act.

“We’re lucky I did too,” she therefore proceeded briskly, operating the monitor’s clunky old controls. “Because Joe, of all people, might just hold the answers we’re looking for.”

She had taped the transmission and now played it back, hitting pause after Mini-Flash Splitsville’s reply to Croldon Thragg.

“Now, she and I didn’t exactly hit it off,” admitted 4-H-N, remembering the skinned palms and knees. “But did you hear how many words and phrases she used that we don’t? It was practically a whole other language. Imagine for a minute all of ours apart from Sue only understand her kind of speech. It’d be no wonder if they just smiled politely every time we tried to strike up a conversation.”

“You’d sound daft talking like her though,” Mini-Flash Bobbypins pointed out.

“You mean, she does,” corrected 4-H-N. “Anyone would.”

“Yes,” said Bobbypins quickly.

“It’s not as simple as that anyhow, because as you heard, they all talk differently,” 4-H-N went on, fast-forwarding the recording to Flashshadow.

Listening to their one Special Program senior’s indistinct murmurs a second time, 4-H-N guessed communication breakdowns weren’t exclusive to her faction. Sue could be the same. All you’d get from her sometimes was vagueness rather than words. It seemed indeed to 4-H-N another universal Special Program trait, maybe something to do with their not-quite-corporeal appearance. You didn’t ask even the loveliest smell in the cosmos to articulate its meaning via concise copperplate print.

Once 4-H-N had returned to that bad day on Drenthis, it was never easy to leave. One of the many secondary reasons for its being so was that she knew Flashshadow had been an old friend of Flashlight’s, and she knew likewise he had never stopped beating himself up over how their friendship ended that day when he hurt her. He didn’t talk about it, not even to 4-H-N, but some boys you could read like a book. The sort of boys 4-H-N liked. Honest, open boys, with no deceptiveness or self-image about them.

It was the ones boasting a plentiful share of those latter characteristics who forced friend to turn on friend. A kind boy like Flashlight and that gentle Mini-Flash girl, both made to suffer. By Joe. Joe and his precious interpretation of the cause. In the name of which he stole sisters away from you, and did worse.

4-H-N told herself to focus on the here and now, not what these other thoughts stirred. Happily there was no trick to that when Flashshadow was talking. Her voice was a long peaceful roam one misty day round some ruinous landscape whose old castle arches barely bulked through the silence and sun. A minute or two of Flashshadow and you couldn’t stay mad. There was a quality about her that would soothe any savage breast.

“She’s got to be a musician,” 4-H-N ventured absently, though it wasn’t really a question.

“Used to play in Cherry’s band,” confirmed Mini-Flash Bobbypins, impressed.

Music seemed significant somehow. Duly 4-H-N filed it for future reference.

That left Mini-Flash Juniper, whose manner of speech was very similar to Sue’s, especially their shared smattering of archaisms and obscure usages. “Disfigure,” “outstrip,” “serve out,” “cumulus…” Could these be traces of some official Special Program vocabulary, which Auntie Green enforced? 4-H-N knew better than most how quick her charges were to relax the rules and regulations when she wasn’t around.

Mini-Flash Bobbypins always became fidgety around deep thought. “So where do we go from here?” she prompted. “That’s all of them.”

“No it’s not,” replied 4-H-N, and treated Bobbypins to her most teasing smile. The one male Mini-Flashes and public service announcers couldn’t get enough of.

“You’re forgetting the Special Program girl who’s said the most,” 4-H-N went on. “In fact, she’s not shut up since this started…!”

TO BE CONTINUED