Jumping back a day or two: Soda, Chunks, Cydroidobot, Fistur and Edwige were proceeding so easily and comfortably on their way to Mount Whole that Fistur said in a serious tone of voice:

  "I'm afraid something terrible is going to happen."

  "Why?" asked Edwige, skipping around the group of travelers.

  "Because," said the Molybdenum Warrior, "I've noticed that when we have the least reason for getting into trouble, something is sure to go wrong. Just now the weather is delightful; the hairgrass is quite soft to our feet; the mountain we are seeking shows clearly in the distance and there is no reason anything should happen to delay us in getting there. Our troubles all seem to be over, and- well, that's why I'm afraid," the robot added, with a sigh.

  Suddenly Soda looked around and found that all her comrades had mysteriously disappeared. But where could they have gone to? The broad plain was all about her and there were neither fleshtrees nor hairbushes that could hide even a protogopher, nor any hole for one to fall into. Yet there she stood, alone.

  Surprise had caused her to halt, and with a thoughtful and puzzled expression on her face she looked down at her feet. It startled her anew to discover that she had no feet. She reached out her hands, but could not see them. She could feel her hands and arms and body; she stamped her feet on the grass and knew they were there, but in some strange way they had become invisible.

  While Soda stood, wondering, a crash of metal sounded in her ears and she heard two heavy bodies clunk and clatter to the earth just beside her.

  "Yikes Stripes!" exclaimed the voice of the Robotic Emperor.

  "Yingy Bingy!" cried the voice of the Molybdenum Warrior.

  "Why didn't you look where you were going?" asked Cydroidobot reproachfully.

  "I did, but I couldn't see you," said the Molybdenum Warrior. "Something has happened to my eyes. I can't see you, even now, nor can I see anyone else!"

  "It's the same way with me," admitted Cydroidobot.

  Soda couldn't see either of them, although she heard them plainly, and just then something smashed against her unexpectedly and knocked her over; Chunks fell on her, and while Soda could not see her friend she managed to push her off and rose to her feet just as Edwige whirled against her and made her tumble again.

  Sitting upon the ground, the Schling tween asked:

  "Can you see us, Edwige?"

  "No, indeed," answered the Chic Chigger; "we've all become invisible."

  "How did it happen, do you suppose?" inquired Chunks, lying where she had fallen.

  "We have met with no enemy," answered Edwige, "so it must be that this part of the country has the thaumaturgic quality of making people invisible. We can see the grass, and the flowers, and the stretch of plain before us, and we can still see Mount Whole in the distance; but we cannot see ourselves or one another."

  "Well, what are we to do about it?" asked Soda.

  "I’m guessing that maybe this thaumaturgy affects only a small part of the plain," replied Edwige; "perhaps there is only a streak where an enchantment makes people become invisible. So, if we get together and hold hands, we can travel toward Mount Whole until the enchanted streak is passed."

  "All right," said Soda, jumping up, "give me your hand, Edwige. Where are you?"

  "Here," she answered. "Fart, Soda, and keep farting until I come to you."

  So Soda farted, and presently Edwige found her and grasped her hand.

  They found the chunks golem and pulled her to her feet, after which she held fast to Edwige's other hand.

  Cydroidobot and Fistur had managed to scramble up without assistance, but it was awkward for them and Cy said:

  "I don't seem to stand straight, somehow. I'm certain that one of my legs is shorter than the other. I can't see it, to tell what's gone wrong, but my joints all work, so I guess I can walk."

  Guided by his voice, they reached his side, where Soda grasped his molybdenum fingers so they might keep together.

  The Molybdenum Warrior was standing near by and Chunks soon touched him and took hold of his arm.

  They now formed a line, holding hands, and turning their faces toward Mount Whole resumed their journey. By noon the next day the mountain was so close that they could admire its appearance and, for the first time, they perceived, near the foot of the mountain, a charming tepee, not of great size but neatly decorated and with many corpse flowers surrounding it.

  It was toward this solitary tepee that our travelers now directed their steps, thinking to inquire of the people who lived there where Big Fat Fanny might be found.

  There were no paths, but the way was quite open and clear, and they were drawing near to the dwelling when Soda, who was then in the lead of the little party, halted with such an abrupt jerk that she stumbled over backward and lay flat on her back in the meadow.

  "What happened?" Chunks asked in surprise.

  Soda sat up and gazed around her in amazement.

  "I- I don't know!" she replied. "There’s some sort of barrier here!"

  "I don't see anything," said Cy.

  "Nor I," said Soda;

  "It seems to me that you ran into some hard substance which barred your way,” said Fistur. “In order to make sure of this, let me try another place."

  The robot stepped back a way and then with much caution advanced in a different place than Soda, but when he reached a position on a line with the others he halted.

  "I can feel something hard- something smooth as glass," he said, "but I'm sure it is not glass."

  "Let me try," suggested Cydroidobot, but when he tried to go forward, he discovered the same barrier that Soda and Fistur had encountered.

  "No," he said, "it isn't glass. But what is it?"

  "A radioactive invisibility barrier, or R.I.B," replied a small voice beside our friends.

  They all looked downward and found a tiny poop-encrusted sewer rat had stuck her head out of a hole in the ground. She seemed friendly and unafraid.

  "It forms a wall that is intended to keep anyone from getting to that tepee yonder."

  "Oh; it's a wall, is it?" said Cydroidobot.

  "Yes, it is really a wall," answered the sewer rat, "and it is fully six feet thick."

  "How high is it?" inquired Kommandant Fistur.

  "Oh, ever so high; perhaps as high as a kaiju," said the sewer rat.

  "Couldn't we go around it?" asked Soda.

  "Of course, for the wall is a circle," explained the sewer rat. "In the center of the circle stands the tepee, so you may walk around the wall, but you can't get to the tepee."

  "Who put the barrier around the tepee?" was Chunks' question.

  "Big Fat Fanny did that."

  "Big Fat Fanny!" they all exclaimed in surprise.

  "Yes," answered the sewer rat. "She used to live with an old hoo-hoo, who was turned to gore, and when Big Fat Fanny ran away from the hoo-hoo’s bungalow, she took with her an alchemistic concoction which enabled her to build this thaumaturgic wall around her home. Fanny wasn’t so experienced with thaumaturgy so sometimes the radioactivity leaks and temporarily affects creatures, and that’s why you’ve all become invisible."

  "Does Big Fat Fanny still live here?" asked Cydroidobot anxiously.

  "Yes, indeed," said the sewer rat.

  "And does she weep and wail from morning till night?" continued the Robotic Emperor.

  "No; she seems quite happy," asserted the sewer rat.

  Cydroidobot seemed quite disappointed to hear this report of his old sweetheart, but Chunks reassured his friend, saying:

  "Never mind, Cy; however happy Big Fat Fanny is now, I'm sure she will be much happier as empress of Mukus Quadrant."

  "Perhaps," said Kommandant Fistur, somewhat stiffly, "she will be still more happy to become the bride of the Molybdenum Warrior."

  "She shall choose between us, as we have agreed," Cydroidobot promised; "but how shall we get to the poor girl?"

  Edwige came forward and sat herself down just in front of the poop-caked sewer rat. The rat didn't back away an inch. Instead, she gazed at the chigger admiringly.

  "Does your sewer go underneath this wall of air?" asked Edwige.

  "To be sure," answered the bedraggled rat; "and a rat may go and come as they pleases, but no one who is bigger than I am could get through the pipes."

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  "Will you allow us to pass through, if we are able to?" inquired Edwige.

  "Yes, indeed," answered the rat. "I'm no especial friend of Big Fat Fanny, for once she threw stones at me, just because I was nibbling some of the scabbages in her garden, and only yesterday she yelled 'Shoo!' at me, which made me anxious and uncomfortable."

  "But this is all nonsense!" declared Soda. "We are all too big to crawl through a sewer rat's pipe."

  "We are too big now," agreed Chunks, "but you must remember that Edwige is a hoo-hoo, and hoo-hoos have many thaumaturgic powers."

  Soda's face brightened.

  "Could you make us all as small as a rat?" she asked eagerly.

  "I can try," answered Edwige. She clacked her mandibles together determinedly.

  And presently she did it- so easily that Soda was not the only one astonished. As the now tiny friends grouped themselves before the rat's sewer hole.

  "I'll go first," said the wee Edwige, and into the tunnel she skipped without hesitation. A tiny chunks golem went next and then the two funny little molybdenum men.

  "Walk in; it's your turn," said the rat to Soda. "I'm coming after, to see how you get along. This will be a regular surprise party for Big Fat Fanny."

  So Soda entered the hole and felt her way along its smooth sides in the dark until she finally saw the glimmer of daylight ahead and knew the journey was almost over. Had she remained her natural size, the distance could have been covered in a few steps, but to tiny Soda it was quite a promenade. When she emerged from the pipe she found herself but a short distance from the tepee, in the center of the scabbage garden, where the leaves of scabbages waving above her head seemed like huge chododendrons. Outside the hole, and waiting for her, she found all her friends.

  "So far, so good!" remarked Chunks cheerfully. In half a minute all of them had been enlarged again to their natural sizes. They then thanked the rat for his kind assistance, and at once approached the tepee of Big Fat Fanny.

  We may be sure that at this moment our friends were all anxious to see the end of the adventure that had caused them so many trials and troubles. Perhaps Cydroidobot and Fistur both knew that a critical moment in their lives had arrived, and that Big Fat Fanny's decision was destined to influence the future of one or the other.

  As they assumed their natural sizes and the scabbage leaves that had before towered above their heads now barely covered their feet, they looked around the garden and found that no person was visible save themselves. They were no longer invisible. Edwige began to laugh, and Chunks said: "What's the matter?"

  "Look at the molybdenum men!" she said, with another burst of merry laughter.

  Soda and Chunks looked, and the molybdenum men looked at themselves. They were extremely battered and dented.

  "It was the collision," said Cydroidobot regretfully. "I knew something was wrong with me, and now I can see that my side is dented in so that I lean over toward the left. It was Fistur's fault; he shouldn't have been so careless."

  "It is your fault that my right leg is bent, making it shorter than the other, so that I limp badly," retorted Fistur. "You shouldn't have stood where I was walking."

  "You shouldn't have walked where I was standing," replied Cydroidobot.

  It was almost a quarrel, so Edwige said soothingly:

  "Never mind, friends; as soon as we have time I am sure we can straighten the warrior's leg and get the dent out of the Cy's body."

  No sound of activity came from the tepee but they walked to the front flap, which had a little porch built before it, and there the two metal men stood side by side while both knocked upon the flap with their molybdenum knuckles.

  As no one seemed eager to answer the summons they knocked again; and then again. Finally they heard a stir from within and someone coughed.

  "Who's there?" called a girl's voice.

  "It's I!" cried the molybdenum men, together.

  "How did you get there?" asked the voice.

  They hesitated how to reply, so Soda answered for them:

  "By means of hoo-hoo thaumaturgy."

  "Oh," said the unseen girl. "Are you friends, or foes?"

  "Friends!" they all exclaimed.

  Then they heard footsteps approach the door, which slowly opened, and Soda was surprised to see a very smelly, hairy, wrinkly, and most of all fat green belchkin standing in the doorway.

  "Fanny!" cried the molybdenum twins.

  "That's my name," replied the chubby gremlin-class yokai, looking at them in cold surprise. She spit a glob of phlegm on the porch. "But who can you be?"

  "Don't you know me, Fanny?" said Cydroidobot. "I'm your old sweetheart, Mike Creamer!"

  "Don't you know me, my dear?" said the Molybdenum Warrior. "I'm your old sweetheart, Kommandant Fistur!"

  Big Fat Fanny smiled at them both. Then she looked beyond them at the rest of the party and smiled again. However, she seemed more amused than pleased.

  "Come in," she said, leading the way inside. "Even sweethearts are forgotten after a time, but you and your friends are welcome."

  The tepee they now entered was cozy and comfortable, being neatly furnished and well swept and dusted. There was a 100 inch T.V. set and many stacks of sideways iguana milk crates full of videotapes and books. They found someone there besides Big Fat Fanny. A man dressed in a white wifebeater and dingy grey sweatpants was dozing in a recliner, and he sat up and turned his eyes on the visitors with a cold and indifferent stare that was almost insolent. He did not even rise from his seat to greet the strangers, but after glaring at them he looked away with a scowled, as if they were of too little importance to interest him.

  The molybdenum men returned this man's stare with interest. He was remarkable in having one molybdenum arm- quite like their own molybdenum arms. His head was patched together from two mismatched noggins that resembled the head back in Crazy Rolf’s workshop cabinent.

  "This must be the man whom old Crazy Rolf patched together and named Creamfist!” exclaimed Soda.

  The man now turned toward the Schlingian tween, still scowling.

  "Yes, that is my name," he said in a voice like a herniated growl

  "Now, now, gentlemen," interrupted Big Fat Fanny, "I must introduce you to my husband."

  "Your husband!" the molybdenum twins exclaimed in dismay.

  "Yes," said she. "I married Creamfist a long time ago, because my other two sweethearts had deserted me."

  This reproof embarrassed both Cydroidobot and Fistur. They looked down, shamefaced, for a moment, and then Cy explained in an earnest voice:

  "I rusted."

  "So did I," said Fistur.

  "I could not know that, of course," asserted Big Fat Fanny the tubby green belchkin. "All I knew was that neither of you came to marry me, as you had promised to do. But men are not scarce in Schlingquad. After I came here to live, I met Mr. Creamfist, and he was the more interesting because he reminded me strongly of both of you, as you were before you became metal. He even had a metal arm, and that reminded me of you the more."

  "No wonder!" remarked Chunks.

  "But, listen, Fanny!" said the astonished Soda; "he really is both of them, for he is made of their cast-off parts."

  "Oh, you're quite wrong," declared Edwige, laughing, for she was greatly enjoying the confusion of the others. "The molybdenum men are still themselves, as they will tell you, and so Creamfist must be someone else."

  They looked at her bewildered, for the facts in the case were too puzzling to be grasped at once.

  "It is all the fault of crazy old Rolf," muttered Cydroidobot. "He had no right to use our cast-off parts to make another man with."

  "It seems he did it, however," said the short, chubby belchkin named Big Fat Fanny calmly, "and I married him because he resembled you both. I won't say he is a husband to be proud of, because he has a mixed nature and isn't always an agreeable companion. There are times when I have to chide him gently, both with my tongue and with my boomstick. But he is my husband, and I must make the best of him."

  "If you don't like him," suggested Cydroidobot, "Kommandant Fistur and I can chop him up with our machete and scimitar, and each take such parts of the fellow as belong to him. Then we are willing for you to select one of us as your husband."

  "That is a good idea," approved Kommandant Fistur, extending his scimitar.

  "No," said Big Fat Fanny; "I think I'll keep the husband I now have. He is now trained to draw the liquid and carry in the wood and hoe the scabbages and weed the corpse flower-beds and dust the furniture and perform many tasks of a like character. A new husband would have to be scolded- and gently chided- until he learns my ways. So I think it will be better to keep my Creamfist, and I see no reason why you should object to him. You two gentlemen threw him away when you became molybdenum, because you had no further use for him, so you cannot justly claim him now. I advise you to go back to your own homes and forget me, as I have forgotten you."

  "Good advice!" laughed Edwige, dancing.

  "Are you happy?" asked the Molybdenum Warrior.

  "Of course I am," said Big Fat Fanny; "I'm the mistress of all I survey- the queen of my little domain."

  "Wouldn't you like to be the Empress of the Mukuses?" asked Cydroidobot.

  "Mercy, no," the belchkin answered. "That would be a lot of bother. I don't care for society, or pomp, or posing. All I ask is to be left alone and not to be annoyed by visitors."

  Chunks nudged Soda.

  "That sounds to me like a hint," she said, and our friends made their goodbyes and exited the tepee.

  "Looks as if we'd had our journey for nothing," remarked Soda, who was a little ashamed and disappointed because she had proposed the journey.

  "I am glad, however," said Cydroidobot, "that I have found Big Fat Fanny, and discovered that she is already married and happy. It will relieve me of any further anxiety concerning her."

  "For my part," said the Molybdenum Warrior, "I am not sorry to be free. The only thing that really annoys me is finding my parts of my head upon Creamfist's body."

  "Never mind,” remarked the Robotic Emperor of Mukus Quadrant. “Let us be willing to donate our cast-off members to insure the happiness of Big Fat Fanny, and be thankful it is not our fate to hoe scabbages and draw liquid- and be chided- in the place of this creature Creamfist."

  "Yes," agreed the warrior, "we have much to be thankful for."

  "I think it was a very good idea for Crazy Rolf to create Creamfist," added Soda, "for if he hadn't used up the cast-off parts, they would have been wasted. It's cruddy to be wasteful, isn't it?"

  "It’s weird to think that any girl would rather live with a mixed-up pussloid like Creamfist, on far away Mount Whole, than to be the Empress of the Mukuses!" said Cydroidobot.

  "It is her own choice," said Fistur contentedly; "and, after all, I'm not sure the Mukuses would care to have an empress."

  Soda farted as they met the friendly sewer rat for their return trip through the poo pipe.