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CHEERING WOKE HER. She wasn’t sure how to react to that. She’d spent so long expecting trouble that her adrenals were in fight or flight mode permanently and for once she might need to do neither. She was sitting already and it felt chilly in the burrow, so she wrapped the extra blanket Kaj had found her round herself and nosed gently into the Sanctuary. Sanctuary seemed like the wrong word to describe it this span. It felt more like a Gantrytown dive bar. There was music. She hadn’t heard music in the longest time. A small group of instruments and the likely rogues to play them had gathered in the corner of the room. The music of Gantrytown, where the instruments were as improvised as the music itself, was a joy to hear. And hells, it made everyone dance. A whirling staggering reel was lashing its way past the door to the burrow as Fluppit edged out and like the corona of a whirlpool, she was swept into it.
“Whuh, uh?” was all she could manage as a hand grabbed her, and leaving her blanket in the doorway, whisked her like the tip of a whip round the edges of the room. She’d been round twice, volume of the band rising to a pitch where she was worried she’d crash into a musician and then away again, away past the vat where the smell, that awful miasma of sickness that had been hanging over OneLove for what seemed like cycles, had gone. And could she hear singing from the speaker, turned up loud but drowned out by the din in the room? Was OneLove singing? She tracked her consciousness along her arm to her hand, as much to ensure her grip as the tune changed and quickened. The other person’s hand their arm, that laugh, Sari?
“What. Is. Going. On?” Fluppit found herself laughing.
“We did it! We did it! We did it!” Sari chorused in a singsong voice. Fluppit could feel moisture in the air, but not the slightly clammy moisture of sickness, the warm, fuggy moisture of intense celebration. How long had this party been going on and she slept through it? “Wooooooooohh!”
“Are you drunk?”
“Noooooo, maybeeee?”
Mercifully, the manic tarantella came to an end and everyone applauded the band raucously. Sari, having had to let go of Fluppit’s hand to applaud, continued twirling slowly in a small circle.
“I don’t remember bringing back anything that was—fermentable?” said Fluppit, striding the line between affronted and hysterical.
“Nonsense my dear, anything organic is fermentable given enough time and determination.”
“You just wouldn’t want to drink most of it. Top-up?”
“Thank you Padg dear, I will.”
Padg enveloped Fluppit in a huge one-armed hug once he’d stopped pouring. “So, pleased you’re back safe, sweetheart,” he whispered into her ear. Though she knew Amber was her mother, no one in their extended family of Padg, Dun, Kaj, Nev and Amber much talked about who her actual biological father was. It hardly mattered. Fluppit had her suspicions though.
“Nev had been holding out on us,” said Kaj.
“There were several flasks of bamboo gin,” said Dun. “A whole crate nearly.”
“And one of the by-products of our concoction made a lovely mixer too,” said Sari.
“No fair,” said Nev. “Keeping for a special occasion is not the same as holding out.”
“Pfff,” said Kaj.
Fluppit was about to ask where her mother was when, Amber dinged on a pipe to gain everyone’s attention. “Thank you, I’d just like to say something very quickly. I’d like to say how proud I am of the heroes of the cycle Fluppit and Sari—”
“And the Fire-folk!” shouted Fluppit.
“Yes.” The smile was evident in her voice, “and our newfound friends in the Fire-folk who helped them find what they needed, looked after them fiercely and helped them home again in time—”
“Only just,” muttered Padg under his breath.
“And welcome home safely to OneLove too, it’s great to hear your voice again.”
“Thank you all,” said OneLove, in their more neutral professional voice. “Though you won’t be hearing too much of me over the next few spans as I need to check through everything and see all the systems are still properly in balance after my absence. Also, I need to prepare.”
“What for?” Meeting a talking, sentient, planet controlling, super-being did not seem to faze Chik-chik in the slightest.
“Why my young friend, I do not know your name yet,” said OneLove.
“You soon will do,” said Chik-chik.
The vat laughed.
“He’s from the Fire-folk and he’s called Chik-chik,” said Fluppit.
“Well hello, Chik-chik. We need to prepare for the occasion that is coming up is all—we have visitors.”
****
THE END.
