“To be sure. This will take no longer than you wish.”

  She gestured, establishing a sphere of privacy around them both. It would fog their outlines and their words so that others could not intercept their dialogue. “Yes?” Her hair now formed a conservative business suit, discouraging any hint that she was available for anything romantic. Men tended to get notions.

  “I am Levi. I am a Chip Monk.”

  A what? She tried to read his mind, but found it opaque. That was interesting; was he immune to mind reading?

  “This is humor?”

  “No more than being a Hair Suit is for you. I am here on business.”

  “What is with your closed mind?”

  “Telepathically closed,” Levi said, smiling. “It is not an advantage; we chip monks are not telepathic. We do have compensating abilities.”

  “Such as?”

  “Similar to yours. We can float or fly.” He lifted smoothly off the ground. “We are highly intelligent. We are handsome, as we were not originally. We are strong; I could bend a steel bar with my bare hands, as I will demonstrate if you wish. We have acute senses. We are much like you, but in different ways. We are of course essentially alien, in human hosts, as you are. But we do come in peace.”

  It was apparent that he spoke the truth. He represented another alien culture! “What do you want with us?”

  Levi frowned politely. “That requires careful explanation. Perhaps I should meet with the other hair suits, as you will all want to hear it.”

  “Perhaps you should,” she agreed. “Please come inside.”

  “May I bring my companion? She’s friendly.”

  This continued to grow in interest. “By all means.”

  “Burn,” Levi said.

  A young woman walked through the crackling shell of the privacy sphere. Quiti masked her astonishment; that should not have been possible. She should have been rendered harmlessly unconscious by the mere touch of it.

  “Hello Quiti,” the woman said, extending her hand. Her skin was deep brown, her hair black. “I am the other chip monk. I am so glad to meet you at last. I have admired your performance. I am Burnetta, Burn for short, my name meaning ‘little brown one.’ My folks told me I was baked too long in the oven.” She laughed. “Little did they know!”

  Quiti took the proffered hand. It was warm and firm, and though the touch was gentle, very strong. The woman looked purely average in size, and her shape was highly feminine; she was a beauty. But she was also an extremely fit athlete. “I am glad to make your acquaintance, Burn. I suspect there is no one else on Earth like you.”

  “Apart from you,” Burn agreed, smiling. Her white teeth were bright in her dark face. “I hope we will be friends.”

  Quiti knew already that Burn would make a very bad enemy. “Is there a reason we should not be friends?”

  “Yes. But it can be navigated.”

  Quiti snapped her fingers and the privacy bubble vanished. Visitors, she thought to Roque. Bring Tillo too.

  They entered the building, and the Hair Suite. The receptionist looked up, a pretty blue-eyed blonde in a low cut blouse. “Company?”

  “Indeed,” Quiti said. “Levi and Burn, here to meet the Hairs.” To the visitors she said, “Desiree, our first defense against intrusions. She distracts folk until we know whether we want to see them.”

  The two visitors smiled, appreciating how Desiree could do that.

  A young man stepped up, handsome and muscular in a haphazard way. “May I help?”

  “This is Speedo, our second line of defense,” Quiti said.

  “Glorified handyman, and errand boy,” Speedo said, smiling.

  “Speedo, take us to Gena.”

  “This way, please,” Speedo said, making a mock bow.

  Gena was at her desk in the next room. She looked up as if surprised as they entered. It was an act, as Quiti had warned her telepathically. “Yes?”

  “And Gena, our office manager. She runs the show. Gena, these are Levi and Burn, similar to me but of a different alien species. Notify Roque and Tillo.”

  Gena pressed buttons on the desk. “Quiti is bringing Levi and Burn to consult with you on an even basis. You will meet in the main reception chamber.”

  There was a brief pause while the unseen parties assimilated that. An “even basis” meant they had special powers; it was fair warning, apart from the telepathy.

  In that moment Quiti picked up on something. What’s wrong, Gena? she queried mentally, projecting her thought.

  I don’t want to bother you when you’re busy. She was not telepathic, but knew Quiti could read her phrased thought.

  Gena was Quiti’s closest normal friend. What bothered her bothered Quiti. Give me a hint.

  Gena opened her mind and Quiti picked up on it in a single gulp. Unable to take care of her daughter Idola years ago, Gena had adopted her out, finding a nice family for her without leaving her life. Idola was satisfied and loved her foster parents, who took excellent care of her, and Gena had complete visiting privileges. Everyone was happy. But now Idola had confided that there was trouble in paradise that might break up the marriage. This threatened to ruin an idyllic association.

  Oh, my, Quiti thought, chagrined. It was not her business, technically, but she hurt when Gena hurt, and Gena’s daughter Idola was Tillo’s girlfriend. This impacted her indirectly, but was bound to complicate her situation.

  She could not afford to dwell on it at the moment. I’ll get back to you, she thought, compartmentalizing the issue.

  Thanks.

  “Please go on in now,” Gena said politely as if nothing had happened. “They are ready.” The mental interaction had taken only a moment.

  They went on in. Roque and Tillo were there.

  “This is Levi, a Chip Monk,” Quiti said, introducing him, mentally capitalizing it for the first rendition in the manner of a special description. “And his companion Burn. They are here on special private business.” Then, to the visitors: “This is Roque, my husband, and Tillo, our adoptive son, both hair suits.”

  They all shook hands, and Quiti knew that Roque and Tillo were picking up on the masked power of the visitors, as well as the potent sex appeal of the woman. They settled into a private room.

  “You were saying?” Quiti prompted Levi.

  “Burn and I are what you might term cyborgs,” Levi said. “Human beings with metallic alien components that enhance us in much the way your alien hair enhances you. We are part of the Chip sphere of influence, as you are part of the Hair sphere.” He gestured with his two hands, and a holographic picture appeared in the air before him. “Here is the Hairpin home planet, in the center of its sphere.” The planet glowed so that it showed up amid the stars in that region of the galaxy. “Here is the Chipper home world.” Another world glowed within its stellar sphere.

  Quiti was intrigued by more than the demonstration. This was not illusion; there was no touch on her mind. This was an actual picture. How was he doing it?

  “As you can see, the two spheres minimally intersect,” Levi continued as the secants of overlap glowed. “And directly within that common segment is Planet Earth.” Now Earth glowed. “It can inhabit either sphere or both. But with the present state of competition, it must be one or the other, not both. That is our concern.” The stellar picture faded.

  “We have not considered ourselves to be competitive,” Quiti said carefully. “Our interest is in being as friendly with Earth as possible. We bear Earth no malice, and would not join any other alien culture in anything that threatened Earth in any manner.”

  “Neither would the chips,” Levi said. “We, too, wish only the best for Earth, and are prepared to contribute significant technology to enhance its prospects. The question is whether Earth shall be considered a Hair or a Chip subculture.”

  Quiti shook her head. “Neither. It is not a subculture of anything.”

  “Perhaps my term is insufficient. I shall explain further. There is a larger competition occurring, on a galactic scale. Earth is one tiny planet of thousands bearing cultures, and the spheres are hundreds. The placements of particular worlds within spheres may be unimportant on the larger scale, or it may be vital. Perhaps it would help to think of it as resembling a three dimensional game of Go.”

  “The oriental tile game?” Roque asked. “I used to play that, but generally got tromped. You might think it would be easy to place stones one by one on a board, but the strategy is strenuous. Worse than chess.”

  “Think of a world as a single stone, and the board as the galaxy.”

  “That would be mind blowing! Go is considered maybe the simplest yet most sophisticated game extant. On a galactic scale, in three dimensions—”

  “Precisely.”

  “I don’t get it,” Quiti said. “I have heard of Go, but it’s only a board game. What’s this about worlds and stones?” Tillo was similarly perplexed.

  “I’d better explain,” Roque said. “The board is lined, nineteen-lines to a side. There are black stones and white stones, which are placed on the intersections, not the squares. Two players, one playing black, the other white. The strategy is to enclose the other player’s stones, surrounding them and taking them off the board. It’s called the game of enclosure. The one who encloses more territory and stones wins, but it can be tricky to score, and mind-bendingly complicated to play. I’m a lot smarter now than I was before I became a hair suit, but I’d still be a duffer player. I remember when a computer defeated a top oriental player it was a milestone that put chess in the shade. But the essence is yes, the placement of a single pebble can make a phenomenal difference, maybe winning or losing the game. If there are players using our world as stones, we of Earth are utter pikers.”

  “Thank you,” Levi said. “It is only an analogy; the actual contest is more sophisticated. But it provides a notion why Earth is important. It may be considered to be a black stone or a white stone, depending on the sphere it associates with. The hairs and chips are not antagonistic to each other, but are on opposite sides of this contest.”

  “So the thing is to decide whether Earth is a black or white stone?” Quiti asked.

  “Yes. The hairs are black, the chips white. Once the color is decided, there is no quarrel. The larger competition will not impact the affairs of the planet, any more than the pebbles on a board affect the material of the board.”

  Quiti was amazed. Levi’s knowledge of the interstellar cultures was impressive. How did he know about this, when Roque and Quiti did not? Was he making it up? That did not seem likely; he knew too much about them, and he had not gotten it from them. “Shouldn’t this be a matter for the two spheres to work out?” Quiti asked.

  “Indeed. They do wish to work it out. They have agreed to decide by local competition conducted by their representatives.” He nodded meaningfully. “That is to say, us.”

  “We’re not looking for any competition,” Quiti repeated. “And we have no directives from any distant Hairpin authority. We’re on our own.”

  “Oh, but you do,” Levi said. “Ask your hair.”

  And then Quiti felt the thought of her hair, which seldom manifested as such. Yes, it was true. There needed to be a competition, lest the hair suits lose the planet by default. She checked mentally with Roque and Tillo, and verified it from their hair. The hair knew; it simply had not volunteered the information.

  “You evidently know things about galactic politics that we don’t,” Quiti said. “Given the limitations of light speed, so that what you know must be seriously dated, how do you know anything about the contemporary scene?”

  “There are differences between the Hairs and the Chips,” Levi said. “The Hairs have telepathy, as we do not. But we have wormhole communication.”

  “What is that?”

  “You are of course familiar with the concepts of wormholes in space, related to black holes, that may be used to punch through the folds of space to reach other sections. Some are large, swallowing entire stars, but most are smaller, and there are many miniature holes, hardly the diameter of silken threads. Those are the ones we use, as they permeate all parts of galactic space. In effect instant travel, at least for communication.” He smiled. “Perhaps for physical travel also, except for a small problem: no living body that emerges from a wormhole remains alive.”

  “A small problem,” Quiti agreed wryly.

  “So it is limited for the time being to inanimate messages. Unfortunately natural wormholes seem not to have been designed for civilized communication. They wriggle about like the roots of trees, branching out, looping back on themselves, tangling together, so that a message sent from A to B may actually emerge at C, while what arrives at B may have originated at D. More often, a given message reaches the right destination, but may be compromised.”

  “How?”

  “Only part of it may arrive, the rest hopelessly garbled. Or it may seem correct, but be subtly changed so that it can’t be entirely trusted.” Levi shrugged. “At any rate, we do receive messages from the home sphere, and they seem to be current. So we do have contemporary information of a sort, we believe. That is what brings us here.”

  “A wormhole message told you to vie with us for the orientation of this planet?”

  “Not exactly. The message, approximately translated, was EMERGENCY! STELLAR THREAT! We did not know what that meant. But when your Hair Embassy was announced, we realized that this must be it.”

  That did seem to make sense. “What kind of competition?” Quiti asked grimly.

  “Friendly, as with local sports,” Levi said. “We do not wish to exterminate our opponents, merely to persuade them to yield the issue. A fair and friendly competition will suffice. Victory will decide the issue. Thereafter this world will be considered to be within the sphere of influence of the victor, and the loser will support that.”

  “And the local Earth authorities will know nothing about it,” Quiti concluded.

  “Correct. They will be satisfied to deal with the decided culture. No need to burden them beyond that.”

  “And just what kind of sporting competition did you have in mind?”

  “That is what we are here to discuss.”

  Quiti shook her head. “We’d have to know a lot more about you before we got into any such thing, if we do, which is doubtful.”

  “Yes, of course. We are prepared to exchange personal histories.”

  Quiti did not need to query Roque and Tillo; they had been in telepathic touch all along. “You and I will exchange, Levi. At the same time Roque and Burn will exchange. Is this satisfactory?”

  “It is. However, remember that we lack your telepathy, which makes direct mental contact difficult. We can clasp hands and communicate with greater authority, but that is not as thorough as your telepathy.”

  “There is a way, according to our hair,” Quiti said, mentally listening to that hair. “We can embrace, and our hair will enclose you and reach your mind. Then there will be full mental contact.”

  Levi glanced at Burn. “Do we wish to share in this manner?” he asked her. “Physical contact of the flesh, such as hand to hand, will enable a limited dialogue that shares only what we wish to share. Their enabled telepathy will have no such restraint. They will fathom our most intimate thoughts, and come to know us as well as we know each other or ourselves. There will be no secrets.”

  “It is, however, a two way street,” Quiti said. “You will know us too.”

  Burn considered briefly. “Roque is handsome,” she said. “I would not mind seducing him.” She did not seem to be joking, and she looked sexy enough to do it. Roque kept a straight face, but Quiti knew he was interested, not having to query him telepathically. Levi had stated the telepathic case correctly; it allowed no withholding. The full gamut of information and emotions would be in play.

  Quiti laughed. “Roque and I have an open marriage. Do your worst.”

  “So be it,” Levi agreed.

  Then Quiti went to Levi, put her arms around him, and her head close to his. Roque did the same with Burn. They did not need to lie down; their standing position was secure.

  “I’ll stand guard,” Tillo said.

  Quiti’s hair spread out, taking Levi in, first his head, then the rest of his body. The two of them were being cloaked together, in an embrace far more intimate than sex. Indeed, there would be no secrets now. They would each know everything about each other, regardless whether they enjoyed it.

  Chapter 2

  Levi

  Levi was 21 when he fell the first time. It was not a bad fall; his left foot just sort of snagged on the ground and he couldn’t recover his balance quick enough, and went down on the pavement. He scuffed one knee and the heel of a hand; apart from that the main damage was to his pride. He was well coordinated; how could he make a stupid misstep like that? Fortunately he hadn’t been carrying a pizza at the time.

  He had an interim job delivering pizza to a limited neighborhood: limited by the range he could cover on his bicycle without the pizza getting cold. If it chilled, the pizza was free and the price came out of his pay, and of course there was no tip. He made sure to get there quickly enough, regardless of the weather. He was known in his territory, and the regular customers liked him. Once a sudden rainstorm caught him, and he got soaked, but the pizza was dry and hot. Impressed, the older lady who had ordered it insisted he come in and share it with her. He tried to demur, as it wasn’t in the rules, but she promised not to tell and gave him a tip large enough to shut him up, and he was soaking. He showered while she ran his sodden clothing through the dryer. Then he wore her late husband’s bathrobe and had a slice, while they chatted about nothing much. He realized that she was desperately lonely and he was like a visiting grandson. It was socially awkward but sort of nice, and he really appreciated the dry clothes. When the rain passed he went out again, and that was the end of it. She died next month, and he was glad that he had given her that coincidental bit of comfort. After that, whenever rain threatened, he thought of her, and hoped she was in Heaven with her husband, maybe waiting on a pizza delivery.