Beetle Juice (15 page)

He was lost in the sheer wonder of it.

Wetzel.

She was calling him. He reluctantly shut his mental gaze and returned to the macroscopic realm. “LadyBug,” he replied, gazing at his hand with the ladybug on it.

Now you know me as no other creature not of my own kind has. You have seen me nude.

“Thank you for that vision.” He understood perfectly what she meant. “I was lost in your beauty.”

You lent me your mind. Then I could show you.

“You showed me,” he agreed. “LadyBug, you are the most fascinating creature I have ever seen.”

You are the only one of your kind to see me thus.

“I am immensely privileged.”

No one else must see.

Because any human being who saw her would want to possess her, squeezing the juice from her and making the empty shell into jewelry. That could not be tolerated. But there was a question. “What of my associates? They too want to rescue you.”

They may know of me as LadyBug, but not see my true form.

“And how is it we are now communicating so much more effectively?”

You are lending me your huge mind and telepathy, amplifying my own. Alone I have little mind; with you I have enough. I owe it to you.

“Welcome to it, LadyBug.”

Now I will perch on your head, where the contact will be strongest. I will show your associates only the ladybug form.
She flew from his hand to his head as he sat up. He wasn't sure how she flew, because her real form seemed to have no wings. For that matter, he was similarly ignorant about how she walked, because she lacked legs. Did she even have eyes to see? Ears to hear?

I move my extensions. They are invisibly small to your gaze, but there are many, and they suffice. I can perceive the flexes in my surroundings that you refer to as light and sound. I can see and hear you well enough. My finer extensions reach into the realm of thought, enabling telepathy. Now tell your companions.

“I will introduce you,” he agreed.

That is good.
Now the thought was remarkably strong and clear.
Remember to warn them not to reveal my presence to others. It could cost me my life.

It could indeed. “Folks,” Wetzel said. “I want to introduce my contact, LadyBug. She is not as she appears, but must hide her true form for the sake of safety. She is a scarab, but we will refer to her only as LadyBug. We will not tell anyone else her identity, because no one else can be trusted to truly preserve her.”

The others came to him, peering at his head. “Oh, she really is a ladybug!” Veee said. “From what I see.”

“If I could see her as she is,” Tod asked, “would I see the Mandlebrot set?”

“Yes, in all its infinite detail, extending from the physical basis to the nuances of thought. LadyBug is that shape, alive.”

“I am awed.”

I like him, as I see him reflected in your mind. I will make an exception.

“Look closely at her,” Wetzel told Tod.

Tod looked. His face went slack. Wetzel knew from his mind that he was falling onto the planet, appreciating its marvelous detail. He was a fan of the Mandlebrot set, and this was a spirited version.

Enough.

Wetzel put his hand up, interrupting Tod's view of LadyBug. Tod's face resumed animation. “She really is,” he breathed. “The most beautiful creature in the universe.”

“She is,” Wetzel agreed.

“It seems our roster is complete,” Wizard said. “Now we can organize for the mission.”

They returned to the village. “We have been befriended,” Tod told Pinkie. “Each of us has a bug.”

Each of them stepped before her, showing off their companions: ants, flower flies, mosquitoes, spider, and ladybug.

“Very nice,” Pinkie said. “But no scarab.”

“We are now able to contact the scarabs when we need to, via our friends,” Tod said. “That should suffice.”

“I suppose it should.” She was plainly disappointed. “What is your next step?”

“We must ponder that,” Tod said. “We are thinking of locating a secure retreat where the scarabs can mate and grow safely. This may not be easy to find.”

“Not easy at all,” Pinkie agreed.

They retreated to their house. “We shall need to clarify aspects with our associates,” Wizard said. “Such as can we safely take showers when they are with us?” He looked at Wetzel.

“Let me formulate an opinion,” Wetzel said. Then he communed with LadyBug. “Can we?”

Picture this ablution.

He did, imagining taking a hot shower, then combing out his hair.

This resembles a rainstorm. We bugs can handle that. Your hair and skin will shield us from the heat and motion of the water. We will avoid the comb and brush.

“Showers are okay,” Wetzel announced.

“Next question,” Vanja said. “What about sex? We can no longer go elsewhere to have it, since the bugs will be with us.”

“Do you know about sex?” Wetzel asked LadyBug. “The villagers refrain from it so as not to drive you away.”

We do. They do. We appreciate that. But you may do it.

“We may? How can that be?

The other bugs have no objection. Only we scarabs. But now I know you, and you may do it.

“I don't understand. If you can handle sex, why do you avoid the villagers when they practice it?”

Jealousy.

Wetzel thought he had misheard. “I still don't understand.”

We are all females. We get the chance to breed only maybe once in a decade when there is a male, and only a few of us get to do it then. You humans do it so often and joyously that we can't stand it and have to retreat.

Oh. “But won't you be jealous if I do it with Vanja?”

Not if you let me share the experience.

“Again I have a confusion. How can you share it?”

Let me ride your mind and emotion. I will feel your feeling. I know already from your memories of prior occasions that I will revel in this vicarious experience. It will be much better than what I can anticipate on my own.

Wetzel nodded, physically and mentally. That did make sense.

“I believe I have the essence,” Wetzel said to the others. “We can indulge in our normal lives, including sex; the bugs can handle it. They know us better; the proscription remains for the village as a whole. I should be able to answer questions by the others, as I am in close touch with LadyBug and she will answer through me. We should be able to plan our mission now.”

“We need better background,” Wizard said. “Why are the scarab so rare? Is it entirely the fault of the poachers?”

Wetzel relayed the question to LadyBug as he heard it, so that it was as if Wizard were speaking directly to her. Then Wetzel answered for her. “Yes. The scarabs are inedible and harmless to others, so are not preyed upon by animals for food or self-defense. They were plentiful until their beauty and chemical properties were discovered by human beings. In twenty years predation was so bad they were reduced to perhaps a hundredth of their former number, and that continues. Only one in ten survive to adulthood in ten years. The Amoeba interceded by making itself a refuge, and that helped. But because there are no males here—males can't survive within the Amoeba, for reasons we don't understand—breeding must take place on the home planet, and that is where the poachers are. Without males the scarab will become extinct within a decade.”

“I gather the males are rarer than the females,” Wizard said. “Why is this so?”

“This relates to their life cycle,” Wetzel said, relaying it as he learned it. “One male can mate with one female every year or so; it takes him a while to recharge. He can do that for about thirty years before he dies. Each female that is bred fissions into about a hundred infant scarabs, who will in the course of a decade and four molts become adult and able to breed. She is then breedable for about thirty years, if she encounters a male. But there are no males here in the Amoeba; they must leave the Amoeba to have any hope of breeding.”

“This talk of breeding is getting to me,” Vanja said. “Let's take a break.”

“We will resume this discussion in the morning,” Tod said.

They took their showers, and none of the bugs were bothered. They made temporary shelters from the hair of their hosts.

Then Pinkie came to invite them to the evening meal, and they went. The women openly admired the bugs; now the team was similar to the villagers in that respect. Even Vanja's mosquitoes were well behaved, threatening no one. Younger women continued to flirt with the men, interested in trysts away from the village. The men continued to decline with evident regret.

Back at the house, in the evening, Tod remembered something. “We may be able to have sex, but the village stricture remains, and we should not violate it. They might misunderstand.”

Veee nodded. “The good ladies might want to know how we know that it's all right.”

“For us and not for them,” Tod said, faintly smiling.

“And we shall have no viable answer,” Wizard said.

Vanja was ready. “Give me a unicorn ride, Wetz.”

Veee sighed. “We shall hold the home fortress.”

The two of them went out, and transformed, and raced to the official Village Love Nest. It was unoccupied, unsurprisingly. They transformed back to human form, and entered, neither having any need to strip off clothing.

Vanja stepped into him and kissed him. “It's lust, not love, but I am getting to like you, Wetzel.”

“It's my unicorn quality. It attracts all women except virgins.”

Virgins?
LadyBug inquired.

Uh-oh. “I need to discuss virginity,” Wetzel told Vanja.

“I'm no good for that,” Vanja said, smiling. “I'm not sure I ever was one.”

“A virgin is a woman who has never indulged in sex,” Wetzel explained to LadyBug. “Once she has sex, she is no longer a virgin. I am desperately attracted to virgins, but they are not attracted to me. This can be awkward.”

I am a virgin.

“Yes, you are virginal. Do you prefer that Vanja and I not do this?”

Not at all. My kind has no non-virgins. We all crave fulfillment, though it destroys us.

“So you do not follow the rule of the unicorn. You are net repelled by my interest in sex.”

Neither repelled nor attracted. I am an insect. We are governed by different rules.

“Yet you have a problem when other human couples indulge in sex.”

True. Now that I am sharing your mind, being vastly enhanced by it, I suspect I am sharing also your propensities. I never shared a human mind before.

“In that case, Vanja and I will proceed. But let me know if this becomes objectionable to you.”

Get on with it.

Wetzel smiled. “We're fit to proceed,” he told Vanja.

“So I heard, from your half of the dialogue. I wonder—could I talk with Ladybug, if we had reason to talk?”

“I don't think so. She could read your mind if she sat on your head, but her ability to project is limited to things like Go Away. That's how the surviving scarabs have managed to avoid capture.”

“I understand that. But if you enhanced her ability to project, so she could project to me?”

“I had not thought of that. I don't know.”

I might
.

“She might. We can try it, if you wish.”

“Try it.”

“LadyBug, see if you can draw on my telepathic power to project your thoughts to Vanja. Such an ability might be important.”

Hello, Vanja.

Vanja was startled. “I got that!”

“You can focus your thought to her by speaking it, Vanja, as I do. Or you can simply think hard, and she will read it via my telepathy.”

Hello LadyBug
. Vanja thought. Wetzel got it because it was his telepathy being used to read it.

You are a bat!

“Yes. You saw me transform. But I don't eat my friends.” Vanja found it easier to vocalize.

What is a friend?

“That is when two people—by people I mean anyone of any kind, human, unicorn, bat or bug—come to know each other, and to like each other. Wetzel and I are friends. We understand each other. We are both were-creatures.”

Can I be a friend? This concept is unknown in my species.

“When you borrow Wetzel's mind, you can understand friendship,” Vanja said. “Then it becomes possible for you.”

I want to be a friend
.

“We'll be your friends,” Wetzel said. “That means in part that if you should get in trouble, we would try to help you.”

“If you broke a wing and could not fly,” Vanja said, “I could transform to bat form and carry you to safety. I would not eat you because you are my friend, and you would trust me for the same reason.”

I don't know how I could help you if you were in trouble, but I would try.

“You can help us by enabling us to save your species,” Wetzel said. “That is our mission.”

Now will you have sex?

Wetzel and Vanja laughed.

“We had better do it slowly, and explain the steps, so she can understand it throughout,” Vanja said.

Wetzel approached her where she stood. He saw the mosquitoes perched on her hair, and hesitated.

“They won't bite you,” Vanja said. “They don't suck the blood of friends.”

He laughed. “Of course not. But do they get jealous?”

“They don't care about what else I do. They don't have the intellect or power of the scarabs. They are lesser creatures, content with their lot.”

“Then I will kiss you. This is a precursor to sex.” He held her close and kissed her.

I feel a surge of emotion.

“The kiss does arouse interest and expectation,” Wetzel said. “If she were not interested, she would avoid the kiss, or break away following it. It is a kind of courtship.”