“Damn,” Roque muttered. “She’s right.”

  “Let’s kiss to seal the deal, for now,” Burn said.

  “Oh, yes,” Levi agreed.

  Levi kissed Quiti, and Roque kissed Burn. Damn, Quiti thought as she shared telepathically with Roque, echoing his sentiment; these were nice partners! Then the two visitors departed.

  Now they held a private council with the others of their contingent: Speedo, Desiree, and Gena. Gina’s daughter Idola was away in school, where Tillo was meeting her. They caught the three up on the backgrounds of Levi and Burn, and the agreed contest.

  “So what do you think?” Quiti asked. “You know we value your judgment,” because you have not been changed by alien influence.”

  “You’re too hot to trot with them,” Speedo said. “Did they get into your minds to make you want to get into their pants?” He was a young neighbor of Quiti’s she had recruited to help when they set up the Embassy. He had a passion for her that was now transferring to Desiree, the shapely blue-eyed blonde, former prostitute, then friend of Roque’s, now also Quiti’s friend. She had AIDS, under control thanks to special medication Roque had arranged, which made her cautious about indulging Speedo’s clear interest.

  The two women nodded. Desiree was of course quick to pick up on any sexual interest in the area, having had thorough experience. She could read the minds of men from trace shifts in their posture, respiration, and the pupils in their eyes. Quiti’s close friend Gena was also savvy about such things.

  “They’re not telepathic,” Quiti said. “We got into their minds.”

  “But still you want sex,” Speedo said. “Not that I object; I want sex. But it’s too soon. Are you sure they didn’t find a secret way to fascinate you?”

  “I’m sure,” Quiti said. “I’ve been in Levi’s mind.”

  “The Chips evidently did it the old fashioned way,” Gena said. “With blatant sex appeal.”

  “Which they certainly have,” Desiree agreed. “That Burn girl has the best come-hither body I’ve ever seen, and that Levi man could conjure me into his bed with one smoky glance.”

  Roque laughed. “Got me there. You were my first lover, Desiree, and Quiti is my second. No disrespect to either of you, but I’ll be dreaming about Burn.”

  “I gather you folk are dubious about our proposed contest,” Quiti said dryly.

  All three nodded soberly.

  “So what alternative do you propose?” Quiti asked. She respected the judgment of the three, because they were unchanged humans, diverse folk united by a common dedication to the welfare of the Hairs. If the three agreed, they were probably correct.

  “Postpone the sex,” Gena said. “Get to know them better first.” She raised her hands, “Oh, I know you’ve been into their minds. You know they wish you no ill. But you are seeing them as they see themselves; you need to form your own separate judgments, which may or may not align. I’m not suggesting that the Chips are bad folk, but they could be mistaken about some things. They do owe their allegiance to a different power, and may be subtly or un-subtly controlled by that. And what about those wormholes?”

  “Damn,” Roque said. “This smells suspiciously like the voice of reason.”

  “Damn,” Quiti echoed, again.

  “So when they come here tomorrow ready for love, we tell them not just yet?” Roque asked.

  “That would be best,” Gena said. “It isn’t as if you have to suffer much. Clasp each other tonight. It isn’t as if you don’t like each other.”

  “Damn!” they said together, laughing. That was exactly what they did, when night came.

  Next day Levi and Burn arrived on schedule. Roque and Quiti were ready, and Speedo, Desiree, and Gena were with them as moral support. “We regret we must postpone the contest,” Levi said.

  Quiti was taken aback, having been braced to deliver a similar decision. “Why?”

  “I went to the worm hole for further news,” he said. “In case it affected our decision. It did.”

  Quiti felt a chill. This could not be good news. “How?”

  “We seem to have misunderstood the prior message, or it was incomplete. The threat to our project is not you. Not the Hair Sphere. It is far worse.”

  “Worse?” Quiti asked, prompting him.

  “There is a representative of a third alien—to you—culture. This one is not friendly, and has no interest in the game of Galactic Go. It is the Pod.”

  “Let me take your hand,” Quiti said. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but that I want a faster, more detailed illumination.” She took his hand, and Roque took Burn’s hand. Holding hands was less romantic but more significant than it was in traditional Earthly lore.

  It turned out that the Pod was a huge alien ship hurtling toward Earth. Its denizens were not creatures looking for hosts and fair exchange of information, but plants looking for lodging and soil. They intended to impact Earth hard enough to break open the Pod and release the plants, that would then spread out across the globe in dense clouds of spores and start feeding and growing. There would be no reasoning with them; they lacked minds as such. Earth would in due course become a malign greenhouse with no remaining animal life.

  “This will extinguish Earth as a site for Go,” Levi concluded. “Both Hairs and Chips lose.” He cracked a weary smile. “Not to mention the native life.”

  “Can it be stopped?” Quiti asked.

  “We know of no way. It is the size of a small moon, and the shell is virtually invulnerable. Any attempt to break it up in flight will only fragment it, and the pieces will still crash on Earth and start feeding. The spores are individually encapsulated so they can handle the rigors of the crash. It is a serious threat.”

  That was an understatement. “I think we now have a common cause,” Quiti said. “To save Earth, and with it, our roles in it. We can settle our rivalry some other time.”

  “Some other time,” Levi agreed. “I look forward to it.”

  Quiti’s hair gave her a feeling. “I think we need to join forces immediately,” she said. “To become a single unified effort.”

  Levi spread his hands. “Much as I would appreciate any chance to work closely with you, I don’t see how we can tackle this particular challenge.”

  “Your wormholes may have information,” Quiti said. “They don’t lead just to the Chip Sphere, do they? They should lead all over the galaxy. It could be like a galactically huge Internet. Somewhere some sphere may have an answer for us, if we can just get in touch.”

  Levi shook his head. “I can’t tackle the wormholes more than once a day. It takes too much out of me. As it is, their information is chancy, as we have found. It would be the same with Burn.”

  “So we need more Chips, so we can do several queries simultaneously.”

  “Had we but hosts! But risking bad ones could be its own disaster.”

  “I have some good ones in mind. Not ones I would have chosen to offer, were this not an emergency, but I believe they qualify.”

  “I am not sure you appreciate the problem. They would need to be people you know well and trust, not just incidental passers by. And the Chips might have to offer them something extra, because few folk would make any such commitment without personal reason. It’s not just the initial agreement; it’s the desire to follow through. I don’t see—”

  “Can a Chip cure AIDS?”

  Desiree looked startled.

  “Oh, of course, just as the Hair can cure any Earthly malady. But—”

  “Desiree,” Quiti said. “Would you take a Chip, knowing that you would have to do serious work with it? Becoming a super-girl will have its price.”

  “Oh, yes, I would!” Desiree said. “Hair or Chip, I’d take it, and not just to be rid of my AIDS! I’d give anything to be like you!”

  “There’s one,” Quiti said. “I can vouch for her; she’s my friend, and committed to the Hair cause, which is now also the Chip cause. Curing her AIDS is the extra fillip. Do you have a Chip handy?”

  Burn wordlessly held up a small worm-like metallic device.

  “Except,” Desiree said, looking at Speedo. “We are working on an understanding. Would you object? I would be cured, but this would put me in a different category.”

  “Speedo,” Quiti said before he could answer. “You’re my next prospect. Would you take a Chip?”

  “Sure,” Speedo said, amazed. “Especially if she’s doing it too. I’ve seen what your hair does for you. Have I ever!”

  “There’s two,” Quiti said. “I can vouch for him too.”

  Levi held out a Chip.

  Speedo and Desiree hardly paused. They went for the chips. Just like that they had them in their ears.

  “Gena, would Idola be interested?”

  “To join Tillo as an equal? You bet she would.”

  “Three,” Quiti said. “Gena, call her. She should get her folks’ approval.”

  “I will. She’ll wrest it from them by force if necessary.” They both smiled. Idola was a sweet girl, but imperious when she set her mind on something. Her folks were used to it, and benignly tolerant. Quiti hoped that this would not further complicate the problem her parents faced.

  “This is amazing,” Levi said. “Are you not concerned that this means that the Chips are outnumbering the Hairs? Especially since Chip conversion is much faster than growing six feet of hair?”

  “We’re on the same side now,” Quiti said. “These two people are close and trusted friends. They will not play us false, regardless what powers they achieve. Idola is Gena’s natural daughter; I know her and trust her.” She paused for reflection. “Still, there should be a referee who understands both types, in case differences arise.”

  “You have someone in mind?” Levi asked.

  “Is it possible to have one human being be both? To host Hair and Chip together?”

  Levi looked at Burn, who pursed her lips, surprised. “Perhaps if they were introduced at the same time, so that Chip and Hair associated from the start,” he said, and Burn nodded. “However such a person would be extremely powerful, once fully meshed, because of the integration of the different slates of abilities. Very special care would need to be taken in the selection, as it could not be undone if it went wrong. It would have to be someone you would trust with your life.”

  “Yes. I have one in mind.”

  The others looked at her.

  “Gena,” Quiti said. “I know you. I trust you. I believe in you. Would you do it?”

  Gena seemed about to faint. “You’re serious?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I—believe I would, if that is what you want. I have always envied your hair.” She took a breath. “But you know I have a problem that could complicate my involvement.”

  “It could also solve it,” Quiti said evenly. “You would become competent to take Idola back, if necessary, especially with her being another Chip.”

  Gena considered that. “I hope that never becomes necessary. But I’d take her, if I had to.”

  “Then let’s set you up for the duo,” Quiti said. “The chip is easy; you simply put it in your ear and it does the rest, without discomfort. The hair is more complicated.”

  “Three years to grow six feet,” Gena agreed. “Do we have three years?”

  “We don’t,” Levi said. “Indications are we may have a month, maybe less.”

  “Hair reproduces in more than one way,” Quiti said. “Roque, Tillo, and I did it the slow way, from seed. But the Hair advises me that there is also fissioning, the fast way.”

  “This is new to me,” Levi said.

  “Well, you’re not of the Hair sphere. It is this way: donor and new host get close together, head to head, and each hair swells and splits lengthwise, one portion remaining on the original head, the other detaching, then anchoring on the new head. The process requires several hours, but the new host starts with fully mature hair, and will develop her powers in a few days as she acclimatizes and the hair fills out, rather than two years.”

  “Amazing,” Levi said. “You are to be the donor?”

  “Yes, I have the most mature hair.” She turned to Gina. “There are cautions. Adapting your body to hair alone will require much energy, and the same will be true for the chip. You will have to eat ravenously, and your body will process that nourishment efficiently, which means you’ll spend half your time on the pot, literally. The others here will take care of us, of course, but there will be no physical privacy, and not much mental privacy either. But in a few days that should ease, and you will be a super woman.”

  “I’ll do it,” Gena said gamely.

  Quiti glanced at the others. “Levi, Burn, you will be moving into the Hair Suite here, so you can take proper care of the three or four new hosts and acquaint them with the nuances of the chips. You will be training them so they don’t have to flounder; you know exactly what the chips can do. You will also check the wormholes for further information on the Pod. Soon the new Chips will be able to assist in that, especially with your guidance.”

  “Of course,” Levi said.

  “Move your things in, the two of you. Give me a Chip; I will give it to Gena when the Hair tells me to.” Levi gave her a metal worm. It lay passively in her hand, pulsing faintly. “Tillo, bring Idola here and give her a Chip.” She glanced at Burn, who gave Tillo a Chip. “I leave things in your hands, as I will be busy,” she said to Tillo as the two Chip Monks departed. Then to Gena: “Come lie with me, friend.”

  Gena smiled, understanding. They went to Quiti’s bedroom and took care of natural functions. Then Gena stripped naked and lay on the bed. Quiti joined her, not needing to strip, as her hair was her clothing. They clasped each other like lovers, and put their heads together.

  “This would be weird, if I didn’t know better,” Gena said.

  “We’re not lovers,” Quiti agreed. “Actually this is closer.”

  Gena laughed. “I suppose it is. It’s hard to imagine becoming a super woman. The prospect makes me nervous.”

  “I’ll be with you all the way.”

  “That comforts me.”

  Quiti’s hair thickened and spread. Soon it wrapped them both in a cocoon. Now, the hair thought, and she put the chip to Gena’s ear. It quickly disappeared. Then the hair rendered them both unconscious.

  Quiti had a flashback dream of her life when it had significantly changed, first when she was diagnosed with brain cancer and was pronounced terminal, then when she encountered the floating Hairball, helped it reach sunlight, and was rewarded with the seeding of a head of remarkable hair to remedy her baldness resulting from treatment. That had ushered in the most remarkable two years of her life, bringing her to the present.

  Three hours had passed. Burn was there with food and drink provided by the supplementary Embassy staff. Quiti felt depleted in a way food could not entirely repair. Half her hair was gone! Not actually gone; she still had every thread of it. But they had fissioned, each hair becoming two, with the companion hair gone, and were lean. She could function well enough, but would not feel whole again until the hair filled out to its original state.

  That meant ravenous eating for several days. She separated from Gena, no longer cocooned with her, leaving the bed to her. Then she grabbed the food and wolfed it down. Burn was already bringing more.

  “Speedo and Desiree?” she asked Burn.

  “In her room, lying embraced,” Burn said. “The process is individual and internal for each, but they prefer to experience it together. Roque is watching them.” She flashed a smile. “A Hair safeguarding two forming Chips. I don’t believe that has happened before.”

  Quiti nodded. “The onset of the Pod changes everything. The two were becoming a couple. Now they can be a couple squared. They will both be very pleased with that.” She paused a moment, assimilating. “Idola?”

  “Tillo fetched her. She took the chip. They are resting together.”

  Quiti finished the additional food. Burn brought more. “Let’s get to know each other better,” Quiti said. “We do want to be friends.”

  “We do,” Burn agreed.

  “Roque telepathically shared what you showed him, but that’s background. Now I’d like to know you personally.”

  “Yes.”

  Quiti glanced at Gena, lying still unconscious with her marvelous new head of hair wrapped around her like a cloak. “I wonder what she is dreaming. Her mind is a complicated blank as the hair and chip take hold and integrate.”

  “I wonder too,” Burn said. “Maybe she will let me touch her, when she is ready, so that I can read her experience.”

  “She may become our new leader, because of the powers she will have.”

  “I am trusting your knowledge of her, hoping that will be a good thing.”

  “I do believe in her,” Quiti said. “But it’s still a gamble. Her life is complicated.” Then she headed for the pot, as her enhanced digestion was making it urgent. Her fissioned hair was lean and hungry.

  Burn smiled and went to fetch more food.

  Chapter 5

  Gena

  Gena was back in childhood, a slightly rebellious girl in a more than slightly conservative family. She tended to get in trouble for asking awkward questions about biblical literalisms, and for trying to be an independent tomboy instead of a dependent maiden. She dreamed of traveling, but knew that her likely destiny was to become a dutiful wife and mother to a good conservative young man. But she learned early to repress the expression of her wildest notions and to put on a semblance of meekness, to save her body from hidings.

  The moment she was eighteen, so that she could not be stopped, she moved out of her parents’ house and into the motor home of a handsome rogue, living in sin. Soon they were traveling, going anywhere that his dubious job prospects encouraged.

  Her parents disowned her. She learned this from a public notice bearing her name.

  She was careful, but evidently not careful enough; two years later she found herself pregnant. She told her boyfriend, and he took it better than she had feared. It was an error that could be fixed. He knew a cheap abortionist.