Chapter VII

In a large windowless room in a large windowless building, a young Spanish woman with a flowing red cape stood and banged on a table with her fist. "Silence!" She glared at the circle of pensive faces around her as the whispers stopped. "There have been several setbacks in our bid to undermine the defenses of the defilers of the Goddess Math. The mole, Gyro, has warned an Indian man named Maraharishi of the Roach threat."

The group around her burst into worried discussion. One in particular piped up. "But what if he warns them of our plans --"

The discussion died again under her glare. "The second setback: Our attempt to capture both the Safon child and Clyde Millers with the matter transference beam have failed. The roaches are attempting to capture them as well; with the information that these two have in their heads, the roaches could begin to fight us successfully. We believe that Jonathan Safon is now being aided by another psionic. Clyde Millers disappeared from Atlantic City. We are currently tracking him. However, his sudden disappearance may be linked to an even worse problem." She paused. "All evidence suggests that one of our transference beams, en route from the manufacturers in the Horsehead Nebula, has fallen into human hands."

The room exploded into mayhem. Some people shouted and gesticulated, some merely sat in their sears and stared -- some even cried.

"Silence!" she shouted. "Silence!" The mayhem died, but not easily. "However, these problems are not insurmountable. Goddess Math has guided me to another potential problem before it damaged us. There is a girl on Earth who has nearly our own intelligence. She must be captured before she is discovered, and used against the roaches-- and then us."

The mathematicians leaned forward in their seats to listen.

Unaware of this deadly discussion, Clyde Millers stood naked in the midst of a jungle on Madagascar and stared at his bald cat, Tibby.

"You mean-- "

"Yes," declared the lead slug, the one that smelled like chocolate. "Your cat is actually one of our agents. He has been keeping tabs -- forgive the pun -- on you for quite some time. His knocking over the lamp woke you, and saved you from being captured by the Mathematicians’ transference beam."

The slug looked down at Tibby as Tibby said, "Irrowwer."

The slug smiled. "Oh, yes. He saved you with a little help from this Theodore Lind. Whoever he is."

Clyde sat down, bewildered, and held his head. First, his cat was an alien in cat-guise. He wasn’t sure if he liked the idea of an alien having seen him walking around his house in his underwear. And then that mystery package! It seemed to dog him everywhere he went! He thought for sure that DeGana and Anderson, those weirdo scientists in Atlantic City, had taken it with them. But now, suddenly, it was here, in a Madagascar jungle with a group of banana slugs. He wasn’t having a good day.

"LEADER!" another slug, the one with the bruise marks, suddenly shrieked. "THE SECRET WEAPON! COME QUICKLY!"

The head slug ran (or rather, oozed -- Clyde tried to avert his eyes from it, or else leave what little his stomach had left in it on a nearby bush) toward the back of the clearing, to look down at the cardboard box postmarked Cleveland. It was flickering in and out, blackly. Clyde suddenly realized that it was performing much the same odd fluctuations as his black-phasing second penis.

"The secret weapon! It’s -- it’s --" stuttered the bruised slug.

"This is terrible," intoned the head slug. "This is not the real package. Our efforts were not the reason for your appearance here."

"But where is the real one?" whined the bruised slug.

R.J. looked up at the blackening sky and suddenly regretted her name. Not only was she named for a raindrop, but she was about to be covered in millions of them.

The rain poured down on her as she stood waiting for the bus. She thought sourly that in less than one minute, she would be soaked to the skin and shivering. And of course, the bus would splatter her with water and mud when it pulled up. Wonderful.

She winced at the sound of damp brakes squealing. A black Mercedes Benz whipped around the corner to the left of her, and barreled onto the main road. She had a confused impression of a dark, wavy-haired man at the wheel -- and a young boy with a white streak in his hair in the passenger seat.

Odd. She shook her head, and wiped the rainwater out of her eyes as the Mercedes blistered past her. Is it just me, or did the rain get worse as they went by?

She screamed as someone yanked her off her feet by the back of her jeans. She got a whiff of cream cheese as a naked man threw her over her shoulder and began to run. Kicking and screaming, she frantically scanned the road for help.

She decided she was hallucinating when nine gigantic roaches scuttled into the space she had just forcibly evacuated -- and disappeared suddenly in a flash of white light. Where’s Gyro when I need him? she whimpered in her thoughts.

She passed out.

And somewhere in space, a particle of dust continued its lonely journey.

Not that it matters.

And on a beach in Madagascar, as he wandered around waiting for the slugs to send for help for him, Clyde was startled by the appearance of Tibby -- with fur intact, with startlingly human-looking eyes, and the faintest suggestion of the number nine in white on his forehead.