They climbed down the tree, finding their way to its sturdy central trunk. Veee was surprisingly good at this; she had muscles where it counted. She must have climbed many trees in her original life.
Finally they reached the ground. There were Tod and Vanja. Tod opened his mouth to speak.
There was a horrendous roar. A giant lizard charged out of the brush, teeth snapping. It was going for Veee.
Wetzel didn’t even think before he acted. He transformed to unicorn and stepped between Veee and the lizard. He lowered his deadly horn.
The lizard evidently had not encountered a unicorn before. It continued its charge.
Wetzel judged he massed only about half what the lizard did, but his weapon was highly effective against flesh. He braced himself for the impact. The lizard would run right onto the horn and be lethally impaled by its own momentum.
But the shock didn’t come. At the last moment the lizard veered aside and ran on past without attacking. Wetzel turned to watch it, bemused, as it charged on across the plain that opened out in that direction. Why had it changed its dim mind?
I repelled it.
Oh. That did seem to be better. “Thanks, LadyBug,” he mentally vocalized. “That is better than mayhem.” He reverted to manform.
“The dinosaur avoided you,” Veee said, surprised. He got from her mind that a dinosaur was a big reptile of Earth’s distant past. She had learned this from Tod, who knew about such things. It seemed their scientists had found the bones.
“LadyBug repelled it. She can send negative thoughts, enhanced by my mind.”
“Yes, that is how they avoid capture,” Veee agreed. “I did not realize it would work against such a massive creature.”
“It works,” Wetzel said. “We can demonstrate.” With LadyBug’s help he sent her a Go Away thought.
Veee walked away from them.
Wetzel reversed it, and Veee turned around and approached. “Yes, I felt the mind touches, but responded anyway.”
“You can block them, he reminded her. “If anything else tries to make you do something you do not wish to, like the mind monster…”
“Yes. I will be on guard.”
“Now we’d better rejoin the others.” Tod and Vanja had scattered in another direction when the lizard charged. Wetzel saw them returning.
There was a rumble. The ground shook. A widening crevice opened between the two couples.
“Earthquake!” Tod called. “Get away from it!” He and Vanja retreated again.
“Mount me!” Wetzel told Veee, and transformed back to unicorn. He stepped close to her; she dived onto his back, then scrambled to right herself. She had never ridden a horse, but was lithe and strong and caught on rapidly. She caught hold of his mane.
He trotted away from the crevice. He felt the ground quivering under his hooves and realized that the quake was growing faster than his trot. He broke into a gallop while Veee hung on. The ground continued to be shaky, but that diminished as he outdistanced the effect. He found firmer footing, but continued moving at speed, uncertain how far away was safe.
Indeed, he saw a lattice of cracks appearing on the plain to either side. They were not safe at all. He had to veer to thread between the churning crevices, and the ground was losing cohesion.
“The trees!” Veee said. “They are not shaking!”
Now he saw that the trees were virtual islands of stability. The ground cracked all around them, but not under them. Their roots might be holding the ground together. This was evidently a regular thing, because grass was growing there, while farther out it was just sand.
He ran for the nearest large tree. It had hugely spreading branches, marking its territory. He felt the ground firm up in its vicinity. This was an island of stability.
Veee slid off, landing neatly on the turf. Wetzel changed back to manform. “Now we’re safe,” he said, relieved.
“Not yet.”
He followed her gaze. There was the lizard, heading for their same tree. “We can repel it”
“It needs to live too. We should let it come here.”
She had sympathy for all living things. “Then we’d better climb the tree.”
He boosted her up to the lowest branch. Then she wrapped her limbs around it and extended an arm down for him. He grasped it and hauled himself up to the branch. The two of them straddled it, then ascended to a higher branch.
Just in time, for the beast had arrived. It circled the trunk and lay down, its snout almost touching the tip of its tail. It seemed unaware of them.
No: its mind was perfectly aware of them, but it knew it could not reach them on the branch they were on. So, catlike, it ignored them, until such time as they dropped to the ground. Its first priority at the moment was safety.
“I think we have to wait a while,” Wetzel said. “Do you really prefer to save the life of a creature who would gobble you down the moment you got in reach?”
“Yes, if it is not threatening me. It lives according to its nature, as we do.”
I like this person.
“So do I,” Wetzel agreed.
“I heard that,” Veee said, surprised.
“LadyBug shared her thought with you. She can do that, in my ambiance.”
“Should she have to leave you, she will be welcome to join me. My flower flies would not mind.”
I will do that, if I have to.
“Meanwhile we have an assessment of this world,” Wetzel said. “It is unsuitable for colonization, because it is too dangerous. Because of the lizards and quakes.”
No. This world is fine for scarabs. The dinosaurs and quakes don’t prey on bugs.
“Which is the point,” Veee said. “We don’t want humans here, because they do prey on scarabs.”
“I stand corrected,” Wetzel said. “This world is ideal.”
A bat flew toward them. It was Vanja. You folk all right?
“We’re fine,” Veee answered. “We decided to rest in the tree. How is Tod?”
We found our own tree. Naturally I worked him over.
“Naturally,” Veee agreed. There was no trace of jealousy in her mind. She and the vampire had come to terms long ago, and shared Tod as convenient.
Wetzel was satisfied to have Veee instead as a friend, not a lover. It was unusual, for him, but worthwhile.
It is, LadyBug agreed.
Vanja perched on the branch, transformed, and straddled it. “Tod thinks this planet is too tectonic for human colonization.”
“We agree,” Wetzel said. “But it’s ideal for scarabs.”
“Good enough,” Vanja said. “Now all we need to do is find our way back to the Amoeba.”
“Tod will be figuring that out,” Veee said.
“He is. He says the portal cloud drifts at a set rate, on a set route, allowing the planet to rotate under it, and will return to the mountain we found it on in about four days. All we need to do is be there. And find a way to jump high enough.”
“We’ll work on that challenge,” Wetzel said dryly.
“Do that.” Vanja transformed and flew away.
“Actually she could fly up to the portal ahead of time, and tell Wizard,” Veee said. “Wizard could then do telekinesis magic and lift us up.”
“That seems good,” Wetzel agreed. He had yet to see any of Wizard’s magic personally, other than brief illusion, but the others believed in it.
“We do,” Veee said.
Meanwhile the shaking had stopped. The quake had passed.
“Now you can tell the dinosaur to go,” Veee said.
Oh. They could not descend from the tree until the big lizard was gone.
Go Away LadyBug thought.
The reptile roused itself, uncoiled from around the tree, and set out across the now-stable plain. It did not even know it had been directed.
They dropped down. Wetzel converted, and carried Veee across the plain, the way they had come. The ground was firm throughout.
LadyBug located Vanja’s mind
, and they homed in on her. I love possessing such long-range telepathy. I could never do it without you.
“I like being able to send thoughts,” Wetzel said. “I can’t do that without you.”
We make a good team.
“We do.”
I wish I could be your woman.
Veee laughed, not unsympathetically. “Sometimes friendship is worth more than sex.”
Yes. I wish for friendship and sex, as he has with Vanja. But I can do it only vicariously. There can never by physical sex between us. In fact, away from him, I can’t even sustain the concepts. I’m a bug.
Veee was sympathetic. “You’re a person in bug form. Picture yourself as a svelte human female. Then he can picture himself with you: a virgin.”
Wetzel stayed out of it.
They reached the other pair. “About time you got here,” Vanja said. “This man is wearing me out.”
“We haven’t done it since you returned,” Tod protested.
“Exactly.”
They all laughed. Then they foraged for berries and fruits, finding plenty. They would not go hungry here.
They planned their strategy: remain in this area, on the slope of the mountain, until the cloud returned. Then Vanja would fly into it, notify Wizard, and he would levitate them to the hanging chair one by one.
Night was falling. They concluded that their best bet was to sleep in a big tree. That would be safe from large reptiles, and from quakes. They quested for the right tree, near the top of the mountain, big enough and with spreading branches to hold them all comfortably.
Evening was a surprise. When the light from the sun dropped beyond the horizon, they saw the night sky in all its splendor. There was no moon, but an almost solid array of burningly bright stars, so that they could see almost as well as in daylight.
“This must be in a star cluster,” Tod said. “Tightly packed stars. It should be hard to access from normal space, which lessens the likelihood of pirates. But will that bother the scarabs?”
No. We forage by night as well as day.
They found two suitable nest sites, which they padded out with ferns. Wetzel expected Vanja to join him, but it was Veee. “I made a deal with LadyBug,” she explained. But she had hidden that deal in her storm cellar.
Wetzel didn’t argue; she was entitled to her privacy. They settled down embraced not for sex but for warmth and security in the center of the nest. He closed his eyes.
There before him stood a lovely young woman who vaguely resembled Veee but was not. Hello, Wetzel.
“LadyBug!”
Veee is lending me the semblance of her body so I can be with you.
He did not question it. “Then we can interact as humans.”
Yes. Kiss me.
He took her in his arms and kissed her. In reality Veee was in his arms, but he was not kissing her. This was imagination buttressed by telepathy. The kiss did feel real, and was pleasant.
I am a virgin, she reminded him.
Indeed she was. His interest intensified. He kissed her again, and she kissed him back and pressed her virginal breasts against him. She might not be a real human, but she was a real virgin, and that was more important. He was in a manner falling in love with her, odd as that might seem to anyone who didn’t understand about unicorns and virgins.
Take me.
Could he do that in this shared daydream? He wasn’t sure. Would it actually be Veee he took, which was not something either of them wanted? Or if he did complete the act with Ladybug, would it cause her to explode and be lost?
No, and no, she responded. I went over this with Veee, and she will not touch you that way physically. And I will not explode, because what causes that is the pressure of my own mass in inserted seminal fluid, which can’t happen in a virtual mating. I will merely suffer the rapture of your sexual love, and feel your orgasm feminized by Veee. I will be your woman as much as is possible, and that will make me utterly happy.
They had really worked it out! It might be more dream than reality, but dreams could reflect fundamental desires sometimes better than reality allowed. “Then let’s do it,” he agreed.
Wetzel!
For a moment he was confused. That was not LadyBug’s thought. Then he realized it was the bat. Vanja had flown across to join them. “What is it?”
There’s a predator coming. A giant carnivorous tree sloth. We have to move.
“Veee,” he said. “LadyBug.”
Veee woke. The human form of LadyBug dissipated. In a moment both got the message. Wetzel and LadyBug verified the hungry presence of the sloth zeroing in on them.
Go Away! But the thing was too dull to respond. All it cared about was crunching flesh and bones. Because they were in the tree, Wetzel could not transform to unicorn and stab it. They had no choice but to vacate, as Tod had already done.
Wetzel and Veee scrambled out of the nest. They climbed to a lower branch, ready to jump onto the ground, but halted. There were nocturnal lizard predators there, too many to dissuade either physically or mentally. They had to stay tree-borne.
The bat hovered near. Up is the only way; we already discovered that. Tod’s higher.
They climbed to a higher branch as the hot breath of the sloth sounded near the nest. But the sloth followed. It was slow moving, but completely competent in the tree, and readily kept pace with them. Now Wetzel read its mind: it was sure of its prey, because this was how it always caught it. Driving it upward until it had nowhere to go, then sweeping it in. Slow but sure.
“We’re in trouble,” he muttered to Veee.
“I heard. Ladybug has me in the loop. It seems this tree gets narrower as it ascends, and the branches don’t intersect with others. At least none sturdy enough to support our weight.”
“We’ll have to go down, then, and risk the reptiles.”
But the moment they reversed course, the sloth moved to cut them off. They could not get by it. Up was their only choice.
They climbed, as they could not afford to wait for it. The sloth followed. Sure enough, the central trunk narrowed, its radiating branches becoming smaller. Tod was already there, stopped by the risk of breaking the thinning stem.
“Well, we have knives,” Tod said.
Won’t work, Vanja thought. I checked it. That monster’s leather hide is so thick and hairy it’s almost invulnerable. Our knives would only annoy it.
It was LadyBug who got the key idea. Sometimes we bugs help our hosts. Insects can accomplish things knives can’t.
“My fire ants!” Tod exclaimed.
My mosquitoes, Vanja echoed.
Veee laughed nervously. “My flower flies are harmless.”
“As is my scarab,” Wetzel said.
No, LadyBug thought. Flies in the eyes can’t be ignored. And I can send thoughts to amplify the pain of the stings. The sloth won’t know it’s not real damage.
“Well, now,” Tod said. “Let’s do it.”
All you have to do is ask them. Speak and they will hear your mind.
“Ants,” Tod said. “Please sting the sloth. I will welcome you back when you’re done.” Then, surprised: “I feel their agreement!”
Put your hand to the sloth’s nose so they can drop onto it.
Tod reached down close to the sloth, which had come up on the trunk during the dialogue and was ready to strike. Wetzel saw or mentally felt a number of tiny insects drop down. They did not remain on the nose; they scurried across the head, down the neck, and into the body. Where were they going?
Meanwhile the Vanja bat hovered close. It seemed the mosquitoes had no more trouble with her transformations than LadyBug did with Wetzel’s. The insects hummed down to surround the furry head.
Veee did not need to reach close. Her flower flies simply flew to the sloth’s ugly face.
It did not take long for the sloth to react. It tried to sweep the flies from before its eyes, but they danced about as if flitting from flower to flower and could not be harmed by such sweeps. Meanw
hile the mosquitoes found its relatively tender ears, crawling in and feasting. And the ants found another site. Wetzel read its mind and relayed its sensation.
“Ooooo!” Tod exclaimed jubilantly. “They’re stinging its ass! And it hurts ten times as much as it should.”
Wetzel laughed, and even Veee had to smile. LadyBug was sending enhancement for all the insects’ attacks. The sloth’s eyes were blinking rapidly to avoid fancied bites by the flies, which it did not know were not the stinging kind. Its ears were itching madly. And its bottom was burning, especially where it counted. It would have trouble for hours if it wanted to defecate.
Before long it gave up the chase in the interest of scratching its ears and trying to rub its posterior against a branch. It slowly descended the trunk, realizing that the upper reaches of the tree had become uncomfortable.
“We have won,” Tod said. “Now let’s collect our bugs.”
Call them back.
They followed the sloth down, collecting bugs as they went. The flower flies and mosquitoes were easy, but the ants had to be picked up from the branches and trunk. All of them helped Tod get them; there were a surprising number, and they did not sting any of the team members. Wetzel got several on his hand and passed them to Tod.
They had, indeed won, thanks to their friends. They had not before fully appreciated the advantages in having insect associates.
The sloth moved on to another tree, satisfied that this one was too awkward to hunt in. The team members returned to their two nests. “Where were we?” Wetzel asked, closing his eyes.
The humanized LadyBug reappeared before him, lovely and gloriously virginal. He held her and kissed her, feeling her delight in being so treated. It was an experience she could have in reality only immediately before her demise, so this had the added thrill of cheating death.
A bed appeared. He guided her to it, laid her on it, and kissed her breasts. This affected her only secondarily, as her species had no breasts; she merely felt his pleasure in the act. Then he entered her, and felt her tense.
“No,” he told her. “My seminal fluid is only a few drops, not remotely approaching your body mass. It will not distend you to the bursting point, even in imagination”
True. But she remained tense. She simply could not have sex without the expectation of death, though it was what she desired. Do it.