Code, Chapter Four

Outside of the Junkyard Belts the nebula’s green glow receded, such that the slab of stone that was the Neetkins sisters’ rendezvous-point with the alliance sat against blackest space. The only illumination came of harsh sodium-lamps mounted on the Toothfire prison-ship, which idled fortress-like with bulkheads suggestive of forbidding iron walls. In and out of a white groundfog brewing from its rocket-engines a handful of Mini-Flash assistants scurried busily, but most of the reception-committee were Vernderernders. These, shaped like huge scavenging birds made of motorcycle pipes and rods, hunched their numerous glinting bodies upright atop rocky perches and surveyed the scene in cold motionless satisfaction.

If it was still a computer game, Carmilla thought to herself, then they were looking at the bad ending. There had been some princess they’d failed to rescue, some item they hadn’t managed to find, or a collection of such somethings they’d fallen short of completing. The line of text staring Carmilla in the face didn’t read “thanks for playing” but “try again,” and our heroine longed above all else for it to be possible they might do just that, play the game through once more and this time figure out how to get it right, so that their adventure could end in the way it was supposed to.

A male Mini-Flash handed to Phoenix one of that galaxy’s pyramid-shaped data-storage devices. Directly above the girls’ heads the Vernderernder commandant, who had settled himself on a crag there, inclined his long steely neck and spoke.

“There is the information that will heal the human boy. We have wrung it from the backslider Scientooth’s treacherous memory-banks. That is not all he will give up to us. He shall learn the price to pay for double-crossing the Lords of Toothfire.”

This was not calculated to make Carmilla feel any better, and what came next made it worse. The Vernderernder, in tones that were almost thoughtful at least insofar as that went for his kind, continued:

“You interest us. Our bio-scans reveal you are of the same genetic caste as one who assisted us before. She who guided us on the path to conquest, when with talon and blade we annihilated the upstart Solidity. We did not think flesh-creatures could be of such use to us. Further study of your subspecies may be warranted.”

“If I were you I would find it in myself to contain zat interest,” Phoenix advised him extremely shortly. “For ze data, merci.”

A team of Mini-Flashes was bearing Scientooth, still offline and clamped from his crown to tail-end in a hefty set of manacles, up the prison-ship’s embarkation ramp. Carmilla, watching, wrapped her arms around herself and turned from the sight.

“Nothing good’s going to happen to him, Phoenix,” she told her sister hollowly. “You know that as well as I do. Are you sure you can live with it?”

The answer that came back was clipped and brisk. On hearing its content Carmilla deeply hoped this tone was to mask the speaker’s true feelings, not lend emphasis to them.

“Apparently it is acceptable for Joe to bring ze Foretold One into existence, and still enjoy ze privileges of a worshipful fan-base celebrating ’im as mouthpiece of ze Four ’Eroes’ cause. Whereas I am to be condemned for such a breach of zat cause as I am charged with zis day, which was carried out in ze name of saving Dylan’s life? Zat seems scarcely consistent, ma soeur. Let us allow ’istory to judge which of us ’as committed ze more reprehensible transgression. Given what we know of future events, I tend to ze view zat Joe’s lapses are fated to do somewhat greater damage to ze cause zan mine.”

“Speaking of Joe,” Phoenix Prime put in, “he’s not going to take this lying down.”

She had never been any mistress of tact, and though the observation was very much needed, all three of Phoenix Prime’s kinswomen could have preferred for her to save it until a later hour. Her reminder of the larger crisis, on top of everything else, was less than welcome. Yet again it had been demonstrated that The Prophecy of the Flame’s predictions were alarmingly prone to coming true, even for those well-warned of them. Schisms within The Four Heroes. Differences over individual interpretations of the cause. Empress Ungus had hitherto revealed that such divides would lead either Dylan or Joe to Harbin himself, and now our heroines could not but fear they had played a significant part in speeding one of them along that road.

Far more of this cried out to be discussed. Phoenix however then said something that brought further conversation to a close:

“Let ’im take it ’ow he will. My arms ’ave been empty long enough, Phoenix Prime.”

It was not the finality with which this statement was made that set Phoenix’s sisters in terrain far beyond the prospect of any rejoinder. It was that never since taking upon herself the task of Phoenix Prime’s education had she drawn so close to directly addressing her originator’s guilt. As Scientooth had anticipated, something was already changed.

So Phoenix gripped the data-unit in her unstinting fist and a family silently watched as Vernderernders revved, swirling the exhaust-fumes while their claws parted company from the planetoid’s surface and their hulk prepared to get underway. Its rack of headlamps swung spaceward and locked for flight, abandoning the Neetkinses to darkness.

GAME OVER