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her parents. Throx didn’t know how long a Ymn could survive his attentions. He was eager to find out.
    He followed the woman into what appeared to be the food preparation chamber. She had picked up a sort of water jug from which a cable dangled, and was staring at it, seeming puzzled.
    ‘Now,’ said the woman, ‘how do you suppose this thing works?’ She smiled and put the jug-thing down on the counter. ‘I really should have figured that out, shouldn’t I?’
    Throx stood in perplexed silence.
    ‘So, I’m guessing . . . Morbis Guild?’ asked the woman cheerfully.
    ‘W-what?’ stammered Tracey/Throx.
    ‘It’s the optical camouflage. It’s quite convincing if you don’t know what to look for. I do, of course. The hair pixellates when you turn quickly. Now, look at this—’
    The Ymn female seemed to warp and shimmer. Suddenly Throx found himself addressing an adult female, but not a Ymn. The grey-blue skin, the black oval eyes, the smug presumption of intellectual superiority . . . He had always hated Fnrrns on sight; he saw one now, and hated it accordingly.
    ‘ THAT ’s optical camouflage,’ said the Fnrrn female cheerfully. ‘Completely undetectable, either organically or mechanically. You won’t have seen anything like it, of course. I’ve been monitoring the calls made to this house. I intercepted yours, and made sure you’d get here when these nice people were elsewhere. They’ve had a trying day and need some time to themselves.’
    Throx had no idea what was going on and he didn’t care. He just knew he’d had enough of this planet. He deactivated his own camouflage system and stood, glistening and black, in the suburban kitchen.
    ‘There, that’s much comfier isn’t it.’ The Fnrrn smiled. ‘Now, you are NOT supposed to be on this planet, and neither am I, so why don’t we try to sort this out in a civilised fashion? Of course, I’m not even supposed to be in this—’
    Throx decided he’d also had enough of this prattling Fnrrn. She fell satisfyingly silent at the sight of the blast-tube he now brandished at her.
    The silence didn’t last.
    ‘Is that a Frastik-Jalga blast-tube? I haven’t seen one of those for AGES . I take it you’ve never seen this kind of body armour before, then?’ She indicated the shiny metal plates dotted about her clothing. ‘It’s the latest thing and, I’m afraid, very effective against blast weapons. You see it doesn’t just deflect blast energy, it actually refocuses it—’
    Throx could stand it no longer. He set the blast-tube to ‘obliterate’ and fired.
    ‘—back towards its point of origin. Oh dear,’ continued the Fnrrn female, addressing the cloud of smoke which a second earlier had been Throx of the Morbis Guild.
    She checked her chronoscope. The real Bradburys would be back in exactly six blips. A shame about the Tastak, but the galaxy still had plenty of thieves and assassins.
    She heard the key in the door. Time to go. Lots to do, lots to do. With a faintly audible pop, the Fnrrn female vanished.
    Mr and Mrs Bradbury helped each other in with the shopping. Mrs Bradbury dumped the bulging plastic bags on the kitchen table and sighed heavily.
    ‘Are you okay?’ asked her husband, placing an arm around her shoulder.
    She sniffed. ‘I will be.’
    ‘I guess we always knew this would happen,’ said Mr Bradbury, taking his coat off.
    ‘I know, I know. I just hoped she’d be a bit more . . . grown up.’
    Mr Bradbury smiled. ‘She’d changed the course of history on two planets by the age of twelve. Grown up is a relative concept. She belongs out there as much as she belongs down here.’
    ‘That’s just it,’ said Mrs Bradbury, her voice cracking, ‘I’m not sure she belongs anywhere.’
    A heavy silence; the kind that is best broken by putting the kettle on.
    Mrs Bradbury picked up the kettle to fill it. She noticed it was unplugged for some reason. She was about to ask her husband if he had unplugged it, but he spoke