Special Guest, Chapter Three

4-H-N and Flashsatsumas raced to ground zero. Just when it had been starting to go well. Now what were they in for? Tears and fury and recriminations and –

Mini-Flash Juniper was laughing.

She sat in the middle of a big dent on top of the mangled platform, one palm caressing her fair head while every bit of her blushed. Even her legs were glowing redly through the tight nylon, but none of that held in check the merry peals which spluttered and snorted forth without cease.

“I guess that’s one way to demonstrate physicality!” declared Mini-Flash Juniper, and then for the first time that day, smiled.

It was well worth the wait. From out of the flushes of embarrassment beamed such honest and artless self-effacing cheesiness that 4-H-N wished Mini-Flash Juniper would make it her look more often. All the mysterious powers of the Special Program might have been nothing to a smile like that. Let the galaxy whisper on the implications and magnitude of the former, but it was only the latter that could make you feel you’d do absolutely anything at all for the sake of seeing it again.

And 4-H-N was a girl herself. Twice now she’d had to remember that. As for Flashsatsumas, he was about to find out just how airtight his containment-suit was.

They’d know about any punctures when his melted heart started slopping out.

That one was allowed to keep Mini-Flash Juniper’s drawing, ostensibly to be included in his finished assignment, though 4-H-N suspected his bedroom wall or underneath his pillow were likelier destinations. On which note, the girls were now on their way back to the Flash Club docking-port, where Mini-Flash Juniper’s shuttle was waiting to convey her home.

“Heck of a clean break,” said 4-H-N in admiration. “Those wall-brackets didn’t stand a chance.”

“When Mini-Flash Robin and I get around to consummating our relationship in an appropriate manner, he’s going to have to get used to me weighing a lot more than he thinks,” Mini-Flash Juniper replied.

She went into the changing-room for the last time and came out again with her travelling-bag. The shuttle was warming its jets.

“Jenny, will you do one more thing for me?” 4-H-N asked.

Mini-Flash Juniper promised she would.

“Stop by any time you like,” said 4-H-N.

Because the boundaries had to come down. All of them. Factions and interpretations and causes. They weren’t going to come to any good. They weren’t the route to peace.

Where had 4-H-N heard words like those before? Not so long ago?

Never mind that now. The point was it had to happen. 4-H-N had to make it happen. The Special Program mattered too much, to the galaxy, to the future, and to 4-H-N.

She and Mini-Flash Juniper didn’t curtsey this time. There wasn’t any need for it between friends. Instead 4-H-N gave her a hug, then sent her on her way.

After watching the dwindling taillights a little while, 4-H-N’s keen sense of when she herself was being watched kicked in as reliably as ever.

By the two moons, don’t let it be Auntie Green again.

She took a deep breath and turned.

It wasn’t Auntie Green.

4-H-N gaped on rich purple robes and an ebony face of wisdom and calm, surveying her in turn from a height twice hers and a physique roughly four times as broad.

“Great Storm-Sky,” breathed 4-H-N, and now she really did curtsey low.

“You know I do not demand such formalities, Mini-Flash 4-H-N,” said Storm-Sky.

As a matter of fact, 4-H-N did know. That had been the very reason she’d observed both. Storm-Sky was still in her bad books.

“You’ll be disappointed in me, Storm-Sky,” reported 4-H-N. “I’m afraid we weren’t able to get any Flashball pictures. It’s all been a bit of a disaster, to be honest. We’ve wasted a day, and we’ve got nothing to show the galaxy as proof The Flash Club and Nottingham are getting on.”

But Storm-Sky’s dark eyes were twinkling.

“You do yourself no justice, Mini-Flash 4-H-N,” he declared, the deep voice warm with mirth. “Do you suppose I was not by to listen to your farewells? And the harmony, Mini-Flash 4-H-N. It reverberates from the very bulkheads of this old docking-port. Your leader was the poorest of pupils, but credit him with one or two lessons learned from his farn master. Amity, contentment, and hope. Those are what I prayed you would accomplish through this exercise, not a two-minute news bulletin in our favour.”

4-H-N didn’t know what to say. She wanted to be happy, and honoured. Yet everything she achieved these days for The Flash Club’s sake, she seemed to find herself adding to a list which taken in total still tallied up to insufficient grounds for advancement.

“And I knew you could,” Storm-Sky went on, softly now. “If any Mini-Flash under my command could. If any boasted the skills and experience to work thus with the Special Program.”

A sudden wide-mouthed stare was answered by the same steady benevolence.

“There’s no rota for this sort of thing, Mini-Flash 4-H-N,” Storm-Sky informed her.

So saying he turned in a sweep of his cloak and with balanced tread departed, leaving 4-H-N agape on the landing-pad.

She couldn’t believe it.

Flashbee was right.

He knew.

THE END