Treasures, Chapter Two

This talking-to out of the way, Neetra and Mini-Flash Robin sipped the cups of hot whatever-it-was Wodding had made for them and inspected the print some more.

“Speaking of Schiss-Zazz,” Robin recommenced at length, thoughtfully. “There’s something I totes can’t make out. He wasn’t there, but that’s deliberate, and you talk as if the rest of the picture’s more or less spot-on. Well, you’d totes know if anyone would, but how did these toy company chaps hit the mark? The Interplanetary Broadcasting Service didn’t get to Limb in time to film the battle.”

Neetra had noticed that yesterday, and she’d been wondering how long it was going to take her assistant to do the same.

“The company’s got psychics on the payroll, Robin,” she informed him. “I know the signs when I see them, and they’re all over this artwork.”

“Must totes be good ones like you,” he declared, impressed.

“They’re probably no more advanced than my own little girls in Nottingham,” said Neetra. “Another thing Wodding told me is these toylines only come out after the fact. Divining and refining trace impressions is nothing like the serious psionic business of actually reading the future. Here, I’ll show you what I mean.”

Stretching from her seat to the coffee-table Neetra grabbed one of the boxed Four Heroes playsets that sat there.

“Oh, just right for you,” she added, crinkling her little nose. “Both your girlfriends. Bet this is going straight on your festival-list!”

The other blushed and grinned, which was a big improvement seeing as he’d started the conversation wide-mouthed enough to swallow the box lengthways. He’d have regretted that for more reasons than one, since the glossy painting was indeed something near the keepsake of his dreams. A Neetra of airbrushed ink was helping Mini-Flash Juniper into her launch-tube, while smoke swirled about the cargo-bay and directly over the girls’ shoulders Flashshadow and Mini-Flash Splitsville were demonstrating in fictive form the real spring-loaded action of which the packaging-text bawled.

“Now, do you see how like the inside of our transport hauler that is?” the corporeal Neetra beside Mini-Flash Robin went on. “No psychic could be so accurate if this hadn’t already happened. A powerful one might pick up a general feel of it prior to the event – something about our Special Program trio shaping up for a fight perhaps, maybe even me being there with them. But a realist depiction with true-to-life launch-tubes? It’s exactly as I remember it. If psychic forecasts looked like this, all our troubles interpreting the Prophecy would be over.”

Robin seemed to have lost the thread of this lecture, but from his dreamy look Neetra could guess why. She directed considerable willpower into keeping her own face straight.

“I just bet there’ll be a figure of you in the next range,” our heroine told him kindly. “And then, when you’ve got him too, and one of these…”

Then, how oft would the poignant farewell play itself out in the secrecy of Mini-Flash Robin’s quarters? So much for verisimilitude. Neetra knew full well her part was certain to be supplanted in short order. There filling the place she had occupied Robin himself would manfully stand, and lift Juniper with strength and gentleness into her propulsion-tube. The imaginary smoke would swirl again, and two little likenesses of Mini-Flash friends would push their plastic hands together. He’d beg her to take care, and vehemently she’d return her vow, for neither one could bear to imagine life without the other. And then, Neetra supposed, there’d be the push of a button and Jenny would fly a short distance across Robin’s bedroom to land on the carpet with a clunk.

If you dare giggle, Neetra Neetkins, you know you’ll never forgive yourself. Surely if any boy on Flaban’s been teased enough this morning! But why does he have to make it so easy?

It wasn’t just that though. It was because it meant too much to Robin. It was no laughing matter that he yearned so deeply for a place where that story might be.

“Here we are!” sang Wodding, trundling in from the cocoon-room.

Thank the two moons. “Ah!” Neetra fairly gasped in relief, jumping up at once and managing to force the last of it down. “Now, Wodding, let’s see!”

The portly invertebrate bore in his lap something that looked like an attache-case.

“As I mentioned, I’ve friends in the trade who should be able sort you out for one of these,” said he. “But in the meantime, you just have a yourself a good look at mine…!”

Wodding undid the clasps. Inside was a long purple-coloured box, emblazoned with metallic-effect lettering, and with a polythene display-window. The package-design hinted to Neetra of a time quite some stretch before she and The Four Heroes ever set foot in this quadrant. Glaring out at her through the transparency were the cold intelligent yellow eyes of a robot toy with widely-spaced legs and a too-broad breast of gleaming mirrored stainless steel.

“It’s him,” Neetra breathed.

That night our heroine sat in bed with her knickers on. There was a mystery here, and she was determined to get to the bottom of it.

Outside the street was still peaceful and narrow, steeped in familiar straw-smelling Flaban. Then at length the hotel room’s oil-lamps flickered, much as they had done the previous evening, and Neetra knew the moment had come. It didn’t happen like the flick of a light-switch. That barren alien war-zone which burned beyond the window was downright sneaky in the way it crept up on you.

She sprang from the bedspread and next second was throwing on her pink feathers and pushing her feet into matching high heels. Neetra didn’t pick out any party-dress unless it was intended for having adventures in. A last purposeful tug on the rear hemline to bring it past the level of her panties and she turned to face the battle-light, from which huge stalking shapes were by now throwing their angular shadows on the curtains and walls. Among them was the one whose answers Neetra meant to demand.

Taking a run-up at the window-pane she teleported past it and plunged into the fray.

NEXT: "SUPPLY AND DEMAND"