“You’re not talking about snails?”

  “Not snails,” Vinia agreed. “They are Signal Siren, Nimbus Nickelpede, Sali Salamander, and Ghorgeous Ghost. They don’t know each other yet, but we plan to get together after the mission, and I think it will be a great group. They have nothing in common except that they are young females, and should relate, because males seem to be, well, sometimes similarly obnoxious, at least where pretty girls are concerned. You can be part of it if you want to. They will all be at Thanx, so could meet physically, with a translation spell. Or maybe astrally, as I am now with you.”

  “This intrigues me,” Snazzy agreed. “But I’m not sure how well I could relate to, well, for example, a ghost. Aren’t they dead?”

  “They are dead physically but can be very much alive as spirits. I can introduce you to one now, if you’d like.”

  “This makes me shiver, which is odd because snails don’t shiver. Are you sure it is safe?”

  “Oh yes. I know this one. She’s nice.”

  “Then bring her on.” Snazzy braced herself for the impact, which was also odd, because snails didn’t brace. Then Vinia realized that it was her influence, because she could shiver and brace.

  Vinia focused on the ring. “Ghorgeous.”

  And the ghost was there. “What, are you in trouble already, Vin? I got your call.” She looked around. “Exactly where are we? We seem to be standing still on dirt.”

  “We are sharing the host body of Snazzy Snail as we race along. Snazzy, this is Ghorgeous Ghost.”

  “You are beautiful,” Snazzy said, surprised. “So diaphanous.”

  “So are you. What a lovely shell.”

  Vinia knew already that it would work out. Soon they were in a pleasant three-way dialogue, agreeing that males could be problematical and females difficult, whatever the species. Then the ghost departed, as she had haunting to do, and the snail was reassured. She could indeed relate to a ghost. They would get together again in due course.

  They were coming up to the stalk where Queen Snafu resided. There was a quick introduction, followed by Vinia’s summary of the situation.

  Now Snafu focused. “Your boyfriend is a Magician? With many elixirs? And his sister is a Sorceress, who can sew magic into her cloth?”

  “Yes, and yes,” Vinia agreed. Had she mentioned Ion and Hilda? She didn’t think so. That meant that the queen had her own sources of information. Maybe Snazzy had mentioned Grossclout, and Snafu had done some spot research. But how did this background information relate to the present problem? “But this is Mundania, where such magic doesn’t work.”

  “Pshaw! Magic works here, for those who believe in it. Mundane mammals don’t. We mollusks do. We are not limited the way they are. You are magically here, after all.”

  She seemed to have a point. “Still, I’m not sure how such magic relates.”

  “Could Hilda sew a flying carpet big enough to support the field of fennel?”

  “I suppose she could,” Vinia said. “But it would take her a lot of time and a great deal of yarn.”

  “I understand she has a bag of yarn that can’t run out. Ion has a time contraction elixir?”

  “I believe he does. But—”

  “And he has an accommodation elixir?”

  “Yes, but—” Then it registered. “Apply time contraction so Hilda can take the time she needs to sew the giant carpet. Put the field on the carpet. Use the accommodation elixir to make it fit through the portal to Thanx.”

  “Smart girl.”

  “This is genius!” Snazzy exclaimed.

  The queen made a mental smile. “Elementary, my dear.”

  “I will contact Ion and Hilda,” Vinia said. But she still wondered how the tiny snails could stop the gnomes. She decided to keep her mind shut.

  After that things moved rapidly along, albeit at a snail’s pace. Vinia used the ring to get in touch with Ion and Hilda, and surprisingly quickly they were there in snail size with an enormous rolled carpet. Hilda and Snafu conversed with the help of a translation spell, and it was clear from the outset that they each admired the other’s magic and intelligence. Vinia would have liked to pick up on more of their dialogue, but Ion corralled her for some kisses. That was weird because she was only one-sixth of her normal physical self, and she was now in the host body of a snail, but it was still fun. Maybe there was more to kisses than just the touching of lips.

  Ion used some sort of elixir to enable the carpet to slide under the field of fennel. Hilda made the carpet slowly lift, and they all boarded the now flying field. Ion opened the accommodation elixir, they became smaller yet, and flew into the portal. Suddenly they were in Xanth, and in Thanx, at the designated plain for the field. Grossclout and Demesne were there to welcome them, and there were more introductions. Ion released the accommodation spell and the field expanded and unrolled. The fennel flashed its colorful florescence, making the field lovely. The snails were delighted that no rising sea was threatening to flood it out. This mission, too, was a success.

  “One to go,” Demon Grossclout said as Vinia detached, as if it were a routine class exercise.

  Vinia was finding this mission surprisingly fulfilling, but she would be glad when it was finally accomplished. “Map,” she said. It appeared, and she reached out to touch the last spot: LOVEBUGS.

  “Halt,” Grossclout said quietly beside her.

  Vinia jumped. “Oh!”

  “There is a complication. We must rescue two swarms.”

  “Two?” she asked blankly.

  “Spot biology lesson. These bugs come in two varieties, the female lovebugs, and the male hatebugs. When they bite animals of either gender, they either love or hate, or both if a bug of each type bites the same creature. They are therefore not popular with other creatures, and in many areas are extirpated on sight. Caution is advised.”

  “I could be ex, extir, um, killed?”

  “Ion provided a spell of invulnerability that should cover you and your hosts for the duration.”

  Vinia’s mind was spinning. “Hosts? Plural?”

  The Demon frowned. “It seems that you are not the brightest wick on the candelabra.”

  “I am not,” she agreed, flustered. “Hosts?”

  “One lovebug, one hatebug.”

  “One of each,” she agreed. “But how can I—?”

  “You must fission this identity. Because this was not in the original program, you will be the same person, half in one host, half in the other host. The two will be in mental contact with each other, perhaps confusingly. You will need to focus.”

  “Focus,” Vinia said. Then her forgotten hand sank down and touched the map. Oh, no! She wasn’t ready.

  She was there in a white bug, flying through the air. And in another bug, a black one, perching on a twig in a completely different location. “Hello. I am Vinia Human, sent by Professor Grossclout,” she said automatically, in dual mental voices.

  “Oh, the professor told me you would come,” the white bug replied. “I am Lorna Lovebug. We got blown by a terrible storm and now are stranded on an isolated island. We can’t fly far enough across the sea to save ourselves.”

  “What are you doing in my mind, intruder?” the black bug demanded.

  Focus. Vinia shut down her black awareness and focused on the white one. “Yes. We will talk in a moment. Right now, I have to answer another line.”

  “Okay,” White agreed amicably. She was female and amenable.

  Vinia switched focus to the black bug. “I am here to help you. Do you want it or not?”

  “Not. Get out.” She was male and hostile in this host.

  Oops. Vinia marshaled whatever nerve she could manage, knowing that this one had to be recruited also. “No. You must be in trouble or I wouldn’t be here. Now tell me what trouble you are in.” Something else was bothering her in the background.

  “Very well. I will tell you. Then you can get out.”

  “I am listening. Start with your name.”

  “Why the hoo-hah should I give you my name?”

  Vinia thought as rapidly as she could arrange for in her flustered circumstance. “The human Kingdom of Hoo-Hah has nothing to do with this.”

  It worked. The bug was taken aback. “Delete that name. The question remains.”

  But the pause had given Vinia time to think of a reason. “Because I won’t be banished by an anonymous bug. Anonymity has no power over me.”

  That aggressive tone seemed to get through. “I am Hayes Hatebug. Our swarm was chasing a flock of rabbits so we could sting them into mayhem, but when we caught up to them, they transformed into Demons and dissipated. It was their joke on us. But they had mischievously led us so far astray that now we have no idea where we are. We are hopelessly lost and will soon perish if we don’t find our way back before the gnat-catchers come. Now go.”

  And in the brief interim Vinia had figured out what else was bothering her. She had recognized Hayes as “she.” She had thought it was a mental typo, “She was male.” But it wasn’t. This was a female masquerading as male. Why?

  She tackled it tail on. “Hayes, you are female. Why the subterfuge?”

  “Oh, bleep!” the hatebug exclaimed, near tears. “You know.”

  Vinia morphed into support mode. “I said I was here to help you, and I am. But you must be candid with me. Why are you pretending to be male?”

  Her secret exposed, Hayes collapsed into her real nature, which was gentle. “I-I am a female who prefers females.”

  “A lesbian,” Vinia agreed. “I have a lesbian friend, in another species. She’s a good person. Maybe you are too.” The logic was strained, as species and romantic orientation were rather different qualities, but she needed to work with the bug, not against her.

  “The other bugs don’t understand my orientation. I knew I would be driven out of the swarm if they found out. So I dipped myself in black powder, practiced my hate, and managed to fake being male well enough so I could join a male swarm. The males all focus on what they’d like to do with females. Lovebugs and hatebugs, we are all the same species, really. So I join them in wanting to catch a female, to breed with her, and they don’t suspect. If they ever did catch on, I’d soon be raped to death. Please, please don’t tell!”

  “I won’t tell,” Vinia promised. “Maybe I can help you in that, too, as well as saving your swarm.”

  “Oh, thank you!”

  Then Vinia got another notion. Grossclout had to have known of this complication, because he knew just about everything. Why had he sent her here? There had to be a reason, and she was getting a suspicion what it was. “I am only half here. My other half is with a female swarm. Hold on while I consult with her.” She changed her focus.

  Now she was back with Lorna. “How did you get in touch with the Demon professor? Did you take his class in magic?”

  “No, it was more prosaic. I was just emerging from the ground when—”

  “The ground?” Vinia asked, surprised. “But you are a flying creature.”

  “Most of our lives are spent developing and maturing in the ground. Only when we are ready to mate do we emerge as winged bugs. We don’t eat, being in our terminal form. Then we find our opposite gender, mate, and die.”

  “That must be awful!”

  “I agree. But I am stuck with my nature.” She shrugged the length of her body. “But you asked how I met the professor. He had used his formidable mental powers to zero in on a spare webcam that it seemed he needed for his class and found one that must have fallen from its web. It looked like a disk with an off-center handle. I don’t know how it worked, but understand it enables folk to communicate with each other at a long distance. But this one was dirty, and he wanted it clean before he took it to the class. Then he spied me emerging and asked me: ‘Lovebug, I need a lake or a river, or at least a pond with clean water. Is there any near here?’ And I answered that I was familiar with this ground, having spent all my youthful life in it, and knew of a local underground river. Would that do? He agreed that it would, so I led him to the rock that marked the location of the river, and he popped down below with the webcam.”

  “I would have thought that he could have simply wiped it off with Demon smoke,” Vinia said.

  “I think he didn’t want to get his own substance dirty. Anyway, he soon popped up again, and the cam was clean. “I will return the favor you have done me in double measure,” he said. “Speak my name when you need it, and I will respond in due course.” Then he dissipated into smoke and was gone.” Lorna shrugged again. “I thought no more of it, until my swarm got blown away. Then I tried it, and in due course you appeared.”

  So the professor had cunningly used the need of Thanx to return a favor to the lovebugs. Except that he had said in double measure. What was the other half of it?

  “I need to know: which do you prefer to be with, romantically, male or female?”

  Lorna stared at her, mentally. “Is it that obvious? I prefer female. But I would be driven out of the swarm if the others knew. They are very straight fliers. What gave me away?”

  “Well, I am in your mind. But I was suspicious of the Demon professor’s motive in putting me with the two of you at the same time.”

  “The two of us?”

  “The other half of me is with a lesbian bug posing as a male.”

  Lorna made another mental stare. “Is she nice?”

  “Yes, I think so. She has to play a role of being meanly masculine, but I think you’d like the real her if you got to know her.”

  “But we are in different swarms.”

  “I believe my mission is to get both swarms to the Queendom of Thanx, so the males can get together with the females and perpetuate your species.”

  “But I don’t want to be with a male.”

  “I am thinking that you can be with Hayes—that’s her name—and pretend she is male. Then you can be a couple, and no one will question it.”

  Lorna nodded mentally. “If we don’t mate—and two females can’t—we won’t produce offspring and die. We will live on indefinitely.”

  “So the professor wasn’t fooling about double measure. He must have done spot research when he came to understand your orientation and located Hayes. You will get love and life, as well as saving your swarm. It seems he does pay his debts.”

  “It seems he does,” Lorna agreed. “Tell that other lesbian who I am.”

  Vinia switched to the other host. “My other host is lesbian. I told her about you. When your two swarms merge, go to her as a male, until you can get private. Then you can love each other as females and continue living. Maybe it will work out.”

  “Maybe it will,” Hayes agreed thoughtfully.

  “Now we need to arrange to take both swarms to Thanx, where you must defend your section from the human invaders. Can you do that?”

  “Humans? Any males who sting any humans will make them hate each other, so they will fight. Any I sting will love whoever is closest, but in the melee no one should notice.”

  “And the lovebug swarm will be stinging freely. Except if the invaders are all male, what then?”

  “Then they will love each other, which is apt to embarrass them. In any event they won’t continue invading.”

  “Oh, this is fiendish,” Vinia said. “Or rather, demonish.”

  “But how can you get our swarms to your Queendom?”

  “I will signal the Demon professor, who will have a portal or two portals you can fly through. That should not be a problem.”

  “One caution. If the two swarms arrive together, they will dissolve into mating, and not sting any invaders.”

  “Oops. We’ll have to keep them apart. I will tell Grossclout.”

  Vinia returned to Lorna and covered the situation with her. Then she spoke the name Grossclout to her ring.

  “Yes,” the professor said. “We will transport the lovebugs first, today, and the hatebugs tomorrow as the invasion starts. Both will encounter the invaders before each other.”

  “And you knew about their secret,” Vinia said.

  “Naturally. I knew you could handle it.”

  “One of these episodes, your confidence in me may turn out to be misplaced,” Vinia said ruefully.

  “No, I don’t make that sort of mistake. Now get the two swarms organized for travel.”

  Vinia got to work, explaining to the hosts what was necessary. Both hosts went to the swarm chiefs, who quickly agreed to use the portals. They were after all in desperate situations, and this promised immediate reprieves.

  Vinia signaled Grossclout again, and he set up the portal. The entire lovebug swarm passed through in single file, finding themselves in a delightful valley. They knew that in the morning the hatebugs would arrive. They were ecstatic.

  And Vinia’s sixfold mission was finally done. She flung her arms around the professor and kissed him on the cheek.

  He frowned. “I would have avoided that, had you warned me.”

  “That’s why I didn’t warn you.” But she knew that he was privately pleased.

  Chapter 10

  War

  Vinia joined Ion in their room on the carpet, quite ready to collapse back into anonymity after her sixfold day. To sleep in his arms. But it was not to be.

  Queen Demesne appeared. “The princesses and their consorts are concerned about the morrow,” she said. “They want to be quite sure that our defenses are working. In fact, they want to actually see it happening.”

  Vinia knew this would be more effort on her part, because otherwise the queen would not have come here at this hour. But how could she say no? She was committed to do all she could to help the larger mission of establishing the queendom, and tomorrow was critical. The invasions had to be stopped. “What can I do?” she asked reluctantly.