The Girls From Space, Chapter Nine

It was a high-pitched keening, barely audible at first. The Foretold One glanced about him.

His gaze fell first on his father, tall atop an overhanging crag, one hand roaring with flame.

Harbin whipped in the opposite direction, whence the noise emitted, and saw at last its source. Luminous particles were constellating about the barrel of a gigantic gun, this attached to mighty tank-tracks, all of which had been assembled from the wreck of a Grindo star-interceptor by Dylan’s Four Heroes powers. That one sat at the improvised ironclad’s steering-controls, Phoenix above him in the gunner’s seat.

For a heartbeat, so the tableau held, amid the gathering fireflies’ whine.

This lasted as long as it took for Neetra, by Joe’s side having teleported the pair of them down from their ship, to say:

“Let’s do it.”

Then they piled it on. Joe’s raging red fire cut loose and blasted Harbin from the ridge, while Phoenix discharged her capacitors and ploughed patriotic prairie with a brilliant beam meant for the foe’s other flank. Neetra glowed golden as she threw her psionic persuasiveness after Joe’s torrent, and so The Foretold One’s twilight hide was bathed in an onslaught of living hue.

Light ranging from fire-bright to the vermilion depths of Dylan’s plasma-bore played over the slumberous forms of Joe’s Special Program Mini-Flashes and Storm-Sky.

Auntie Green beheld, gripping an invisible ball of Harbin’s design fast to her bosom.

Mini-Flash Meek from within the sphere stared too, and still she yelled the recitation that had occupied her from the outset, her prison’s smooth wall transmuting this to unintelligible flux.

Even Mona lifted her weary head and mooed softly. In her millions of years of motherhood, this was something new.

The Foretold One resisted, while for the first time in this quadrant, one unified interpretation of The Four Heroes’ cause held the line.

Maybe there was nothing about this in the Prophecy. Here on the Patriotic Planet it was happening regardless. Maybe too each of the quartet was well aware they were one short, or rather five, were their adversary fully charged at any rate. Still they pressed on. For maybe their path was not set down in writing or stone. Maybe The Four Heroes were bound for another horizon, one where division would be no more, and words such as faction and Alliance and Flash Club took second place to a common goal.

It was over. Harbin sank to his knees.

He was down.

Flashlab Central’s digital restoration suite completed its task and played back Mini-Flash Meek as she had wished to be heard. 4-H-N listened despairingly to the confirmation of her fears.

There were indeed no words. Mini-Flash Meek was vocalizing the refrain of a song.

That, over and over, was the sum of what 4-H-N had banked on being intelligence of vital import.

“I was so sure,” she groaned. “But how’s that supposed to help?”

“And why that song?” added an equally baffled Mini-Flash Bobbypins. “It’s ancient.”

Slowly 4-H-N turned to her. “You know it?” she asked.

The answer came back that everyone did. “Er, I don’t,” hinted 4-H-N, as patiently as she could manage.

“Oh, well, obviously you wouldn’t,” Bobbypins went on. “You only learn it when you’re in The Flash Club, at the start of entry-level. And you’re from another galaxy.”

So was The Foretold One. Which meant he couldn’t be expected to know the song either.

4-H-N said nothing. In fact, she barely breathed.

That was it. It had to be.

Harbin knew what Mini-Flash Meek’s communication was for, and to whom it was going. He would have wanted to prevent it getting through for those reasons alone.

Not necessarily because he understood its content.

Information that might work the Special Program advantage would surely do so for The Foretold One too. Clinching proof of 4-H-N’s theory had been staring her in the face all along, for why else had Harbin captured Mini-Flash Meek in the first place? When before now had he ever felt the need for a Special Program prisoner? The issue was whether they were going to stand with him. Kidnapping a solitary member would not serve that end.

It was her knowledge he wanted, and to wrest it from her through force. What a predicament for Mini-Flash Meek, that that which she must for the sake of creation keep from Harbin should also be the bargaining-chip on which her life depended! How to relay it to those who might rescue her, without his learning of it in the process? And yet she found a way. Mini-Flash Meek had countered his code with one of her own, thereby transmitting that tantalizing truth in a form only other Mini-Flashes could comprehend. Evidently girls weren’t as different the universe over as 4-H-N had earlier thought. In her Avion days she’d been pretty skilled at keeping secrets, but that was schoolgirl stuff both literally and figuratively compared to Mini-Flash Meek.

“Talk about I-know-something-you-don’t-know,” declared 4-H-N in a soft voice, though she felt like laughing out loud. Mini-Flash Bobbypins however was lost.

“What does all this mean?” she cried.

4-H-N grabbed her hand.

“It means you’d better be able to sing,” said she. “Because I can’t.”

Hurrying Bobbypins down the stairs 4-H-N parked her in the doorway to the rec-room, then seizing the master-switch cut power to all that lay beyond. This killed the thumping pop music and left the oblong in which Mini-Flash Bobbypins was outlined the sole source of illumination for 4-H-N’s little lotos-eaters. They looked about them wondering, suitably mild-eyed and melancholy.

4-H-N cued the bemused one. Unto the silence and the dark, Bobbypins began.

Mortal peoples of a mortal star,

Our homeworlds long since cast afar,

Nothing left us but the past,

Parted from our friends;

And we knew that we were there at last,

The place where the universe ends.

That did it. Round about the lit doorway with faces pale, dark faces staring speechless out of shadow, 4-H-N’s Special Program partygoers came.

“Is that what she’s been saying?” breathed Mini-Flash Yeast.

“You better believe it, Daddy-O,” replied 4-H-N, deciding that even her limited research into Special Program phraseology could only speed them along right now.

“Oh, but that’s ever so helpful,” Mini-Flash Yeast exclaimed. Behind her the other girls were exchanging significant looks and nodding, all with such an air of seriousness that it was difficult to believe in their behaviour of less than a minute ago. “The place where the universe ends. Everything makes such sense now. Oh, good old Mini-Flash Meek. Trust her. It’s always the meek ones.”

Immediately Mini-Flash Yeast commenced what looked to 4-H-N like a swift appraisal of how many of her company still had their wits and powers sufficiently about them to be equal to an unexpected duty, as opposed to those such as Sue who were naked and insensible at their feet. “Mini-Flash Pseudangelos has been getting her smell on,” remarked Mini-Flash Yeast in a conversational voice.

“You might have to serve out as best you can without her,” urged 4-H-N.

Apparently Mini-Flash Yeast was much of her opinion. Taking charge, she enlisted four or five of her fellows who were at least still dressed and upright.

Together they began at once to do what the Special Program did.

And 4-H-N and Mini-Flash Bobbypins, rather like Auntie Green earlier on in the battle, couldn’t have said if pressed what exactly that was.

TO BE CONCLUDED