Beetle Juice by Piers Anthony

Author:Piers Anthony
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5726-7
Publisher: Open Road Media

Chapter 6

LadyBug

In the morning they went to commune with the bugs. Pinkie showed them to a quiet glade in the forest, and they sat or lay on the soft moss, spread moderately apart. “You may talk, rest, or sleep, as you choose,” Pinkie said. “The point is to let the bugs come to you. It may take a few minutes, or an hour, or a day. You need to stay in place until each of you has a bug.” She was not speaking facetiously or dismissively; the term “bug” included more than insects and spiders. “You will know when it happens.”

“Thank you,” Tod said somewhat tersely.

Pinkie departed, leaving them to their communing. “I wonder what kind of bug I’ll get?” Vanja said. “Maybe hornets. Then I could sic them on anyone who annoyed me.”

“Or scorpions,” Wizard said. “They can be beautiful and deadly.”

“You’re right,” Vanja said. “My type.”

“I’d prefer butterflies,” Veee said. “They are artistic.”

“I’d settle for the scarab,” Tod said.

“Wouldn’t we all,” Wizard agreed. “Then we could address the next stage: how to save it from extinction.”

“I have been thinking about that,” Veee said. “I think what it needs is a refuge somewhere in the natural universe, where it can breed without being in danger from the poachers.”

“Poachers can get anywhere anyone else can,” Tod said.

“That’s the problem,” Wizard said. “We need either to mask the scarab’s home planet so that the poachers can’t find it, which I strongly suspect is beyond our powers to accomplish, or locate another world that will do. Then the problem would be finding that world, and verifying that it is suitable.”

“We can find it through the Amoeba,” Tod said. “And verify it if we have a scarab along.”

“Which nicely validates our present quest,” Wizard said. “One of us must befriend a scarab.”

“Or be befriended by it,” Veee said.

“And what if it doesn’t choose to befriend any of us?” Vanja asked.

They lapsed into silence, unable to answer. Wetzel lay on his back and gazed at the sky, letting his mind go blank.

“Well, now,” Tod said.

“You have a contact?” Veee asked.

“Yes. I have been befriended.”

“Out with it!” Vanja said. “By what?”

“By ants.”

“Ants!”

“Specifically, fire ants. I know them from my home frame. Small, reddish, and their bite burns for hours.”

Vanja laughed. “They find you compatible? That must say something about your nature.”

“Actually they are hard workers, and fair protection. Pinkie is right: they seem to have a bit of telepathy, so I know their sentiment. They do find me compatible. And, actually, I find them compatible, now that I know them.”

“It’s hilarious,” Vanja said. Then: “Oh.”

“You’ve found your bug?” Veee said.

“Mosquitoes.”

They all laughed. Of course bloodsuckers would like the vampire. It did seem to serve her right.

Then Wizard spoke. “My turn. I have been adopted by a spider. I believe it is the brown recluse, one of the most poisonous known.”

“That figures,” Tod said. “You can use that poison in a potion.”

“I’m not that kind of wizard. I do magic, not concoctions.”

“But you see, now you are that kind,” Vanja said.

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