The Grindotron Faction

“You should have called me in sooner,” Dylan declared.

The subterranean temple on Planet Eshcaton was by its very nature a quiet place, but today sadly bereft of that mystic murmuring calm amid whose stillness the wisest men might divine whispers of destiny not yet fulfilled. Much was amiss in the galaxy’s holiest of sanctums, and the stern silence which resounded at present from its gloomy obsidian walls would have been welcoming only to forensic scientists. It was the sterile inimical hush of a crime-scene, which was what the temple had lately become.

Most of the investigations were taking place on the barren tempestuous surface where the kidnap itself had occurred, but Dylan’s business had brought him downstairs to these sacred caves deep in Eschaton’s glassy mantle. Beside him was Phoenix Neetkins, and not far from her the Flash Club’s mighty leader Storm-Sky resplendent in his flowing robes. Rounding off the group was a Toothfire delegate representing the other half of the Alliance, a small dark green podlike robot which bobbed about in midair and glowered at the humanoids from its unblinking round lenses.

“Joe was here alright,” continued Dylan, holding up one hand which fluctuated magenta in the temple’s shadows. “My psychic powers tell me that much, while my technological ones confirm the part both your respective scans agreed on. That is to say, the part that doesn’t make sense. He phase-shifted in and out again, even though you’re not meant to be able to do that through an energy-barrier. It’s like Joe to rewrite the laws of science when it suits him. All it can point to is that he and his followers have gained access to some new power which enabled him to do it, one that’s not yet documented or understood.”

“A mystery indeed,” concurred Storm-Sky, very grave.

“And it remains as much so to you as any of the rest of us, Earthling,” the Toothfire delegate added coldly to Dylan. “Strange, then, that you boast you might have averted this had we enlisted you in advance.”

“I didn’t,” Dylan replied. “We’re just getting to the reason you should have brought me here at your first opportunity, ideally the day I woke up. Because Joe’s not the only member of The Four Heroes who’s recently been in this room.”

Phoenix looked to him at once, her eyes suddenly alive behind her glasses. Dylan returned a sad resigned smile.

“She was, babe,” he told her gently. “It was Neetra. According to my telepathic readings, not long after the Solidity war came to an end. She’ll have stopped by on the way to wherever it was she was going, to touch base with the four farns. It makes sense. When we were all back in Nottingham she told us about the connection she’d built with them and this place, ever since sending her long-range psychic signal to Earth. Naturally she’ll have wanted to talk to her friends on Eshcaton about what Empress Ungus told me and Joe, and it’s a pretty safe bet that whatever the farns decided with Neetra at that time is somehow connected to Harbin’s subsequent attack.”

“But ma soeur would nevair ’ave departed without leaving some word for ’er loved ones!” cried Phoenix. “She knows we are ’ere in zis galaxy, and so much depends on our knowing ze outcome of ’er conference with zese sages, to say nothing of ’er present whereabouts, or some means of contacting ’er…!”

“True enough,” came back the grim reply. “And Joe will have sensed everything I did, the minute he set foot in here. Not that he’ll have needed his psychic powers for what was next.”

Dylan pointed to a nearby shelf, where were a number of arcane instruments and ritual statuettes. Amid the otherwise universal dustiness of the smooth rock ledge on which these sat was one clean circle of shiny black, about the diameter of a coffee-cup, devoid of dust. Whatever object Neetra had discreetly slipped amongst the other knick-knacks during her last visit to the temple had been and gone with Joe.

“So,” Dylan couldn’t help remarking to the Toothfire delegate. “Next time you’ve got a human problem, try going to the human who’s on your side. Preferably at some point before the human who’s not runs rings round your planetary blockade like Joe’s just done.”

“He will not keep this communication from us!” the robotic representative began to splutter. “We shall seek it out and obtain it!”

“You go right ahead,” Dylan responded pleasantly, “though you’ll find that a bit hard, seeing as none of us knows what it looks like. It’ll be something Joe or Phoenix or I would recognise immediately, but to a resident of this galaxy must have blended in alongside these other artifacts here. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine. It could be in front of your optic sensors right now and you’d be none the wiser.”

At this his addressee seemed more than ready to enumerate at length on the extraction methods at Toothfire’s disposal, but smoothly Storm-Sky interjected:

“Joe has trespassed in a restricted zone, but all he did while there was take possession of a message intended for him. Under the terms of the Alliance Treaty we do not punish minor offences with such reprisals as were common in the days of your empire. Be so good as to remember our quadrant enjoys rule of law now, and as Alliance leaders Toothfire is as bound by the law as any other galactic citizen or guest.”

The delegate said something that sounded like “Bah,” but at least refrained from further comment. Dylan and Phoenix meanwhile continued to gaze on the vacant spot which had once been occupied by longed-for intelligence from a beloved sister and friend. In spite of everything that had come between himself and Joe, Dylan could not keep back his grudging respect for the latter’s feat of infiltration. That, at any rate, was the Joe he remembered. Slipping an arm round Phoenix’s shoulders Dylan drew her close to him.

“Given ze way things stand, what desire can Joe possibly feel to share ze information contained in zat message?” she conjectured in a quiet voice.

An overcast night lowered over Planet Grindotron, and the undersides of heavy black clouds were stained reddish from the lights of technological towers they all but touched. A whistling wind was picking up, battering the glass walls of the brightly-lit departure-lounge which played host to a small family assembly. High overhead the great nosecones of outbound interplanetary craft loomed dark against the swirling ominous sky.

Carmilla Neetkins, clad in an entry-level Mini-Flash tunic with her travelling-case under one arm, faced her parents James and Iskira and her little sister-clone 4-H-N. The last-named said sadly: “I wish Dylan and Phoenix had made it back from Eshcaton in time to see you off.”

When Carmilla in a few soft words expressed to her she felt the same, James added: “I hope wi’ all me heart ye mean that, love. I wouldnae like tae think ye were secretly thankful they’d been delayed. How d’ye ken it looks tae them, this decision, hot on the heels o’ ye walking aroond the place dressed like that?”

He spoke with neither anger, nor even sternness exactly, but his voice was very firm. His eyes meanwhile held steady on the uniform Carmilla was wearing.

“Next you’ll be telling me it’s too short,” she returned with a grimace. “Like you never made that complaint about my old one.”

Even to Carmilla her joke sounded like a feeble attempt at deflecting the point she knew full well her father had raised. She gave a sigh.

“You make it sound like I’m rushing off to hear Joe’s latest lecture,” Carmilla declared, in earnest now. “Even though you know I’m not. But two of The Four Heroes on opposite sides? That’s not part of any cause I believe in. Putting the cheerleader outfit in mothballs isn’t some kind of critique on anything Phoenix or Dylan might have done lately. It’s because division and distrust aren’t what that insignia represents for me. I’m not choosing a side, Dad. This slinky beige ensemble is just my way of saying I refuse to.”

For all these assurances, Iskira nevertheless sounded close to tears as she went on: “Yet still you are leaving, my daughter. First Neetra, then Phoenix Prime…are we now to be without our firstborn too?”

“The reason I’m going is to bring Phoenix Prime back, Mum,” Carmilla insisted. “And I’m the only one here who might have a means of achieving that. Prof’s done so much for us already, but this is something he can’t help with. Grindotron’s the respectable centre of the galaxy, and if Phoenix Prime doesn’t want to be located she’ll fall back on old habits, go to ground in the way she does so well. To find her, I’m going to need someone who knows this galaxy from street-level. Someone who was working the quadrant back when it was under hostile rule, and who’s used to getting his information from the kind of sources your average Grindo steers clear of.”

Elucidation was clearly required for her three listeners, all of whom by now were giving her baffled looks. So Carmilla informed them confidently:

“I know a guy.”

Then, to be strict, she finished: “Kind of.”

After that and embraces and kisses of farewell the Neetkinses parted, Carmilla bound for the embarkation-tube to ascend the departing starship’s vertical height and vanish into its bulkheads. Her relatives repaired to a different part of the concourse and presently were watching from an observation-terrace, which commanded an impressive view of the spacecraft as it blasted off on its fiery track for Carmilla’s mysterious destination.

NEXT: 'NEW BEGINNINGS'