It has been nine months since the cease-fire was called. When planet Paffy exploded, faster-than-light radiation spread across the galaxy, making lab equipment go haywire. Most of it is still spreading across the galaxy and will for centuries to come. The boys now have a clear advantage in firepower, while the girls still have the advantage of numbers. Neither side dares to fire on the other or invade any new planets. By this time, the boys and girls on mixed planets have fully segregated themselves anyways. The question remains about what to do with uninhabited planets.

Some boys have recently discovered a Mars-sized planet, covered in trees bearing explosive fruit. They return in harvesting ships that can convert the fruit into cherry bombs, peach bombs, pear bombs, apple bombs, lemon bombs, lime bombs, and orange bombs. The boxed bombs are stacked on shelves in large warehouses. These warehouse ships are roughly rectangular boxes covered in hinged scales that are solar panels on one side. Long tethers tie the ships to the ground and are used to transport the goods to orbit. There exists evidence that long-dead beings once bioengineered these trees to grow bombs for them and it ended up destroying their civilization.

This is when the girls arrive, claiming to have returned to harvest the bombs they previously discovered. It is not clear who discovered the planet first or who fired the first shots, but in the skirmish a boy ship crashes onto the planet, igniting a chain-reaction that destroys the biosphere.

What follows is a series of tit-for-tat raids in the region that gradually start to become bigger, threatening to drag the galaxy back into war. Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill are sent to the area to observe and advise.

The moment they arrive, they find themselves in the middle of a full-blown space battle. The ship is damaged and leaking air, unable to engage its engines or return fire. Another ship arrives to teleport them out. Nathaniel feels the familiar brief loss of consciousness as the teleporter beam catches his substance.

Nathaniel blinks himself awake, still very groggy. He is lying on his back. He cannot remember who he is, where he is, or how he got here, but he knows he has been asleep a long time. As it gradually comes back to him, he realizes the pattern on the domed ceiling looks familiar. He is inside The Mama-And-Daddy!

They don’t even make it to the surface of the planet before being attacked. Dozens of girls in flying Tarrati dresses swarm the ship and attempt to blast their way inside. Nathaniel is standing by a window when a girl breaks through. All the boys around him open fire, which scatters harmlessly off her dress. She then begins to spin. Realizing what is about to happen, Nathaniel runs from the room just as every sequin lights up and emits beams of burning radiation that cut everything in the room to slices.

The planet Watertoo is completely covered by water. It has no true islands, but there are sometimes temporary “islands” of foam that persist for many days after a storm whips up the sea surface. Under one of these islands swims a Mermaid, her long seaweed hair trailing behind. Reaching the other side, she slips out from the shadow and slithers up onto the surface of the foam, joining a dozen of her comrades sunning themselves in the cold air. “Sally! I thought you were visiting your sister in the reefs,” she says, turning over and exposing her pale green body to the sky.

“I am, but she wanted to go sunning, and here she is,” Sally the Mermaid responds, placing her hand on the shoulder of another with especially bright green hair.

Sitting up, the first Mermaid says, “Oh, pleasant to meet you. Daphne, is it?”

“Yes,” Daphne responds, twisting the fine strands of her hair around her fingers.

“I’m Gloria, and I love your hair. How do you keep it growing so fine? Mine always fills up with floatation bladders if I don’t brush every day.”

“Well, have you ever heard of anemone extract?” Daphne says, but she is cut off by a loud booming noise from high in the sky. Every head turns upwards.

“What is that?” Sally asks.

A ship has appeared several miles above. The noise was the sound of it entering the lower atmosphere at high speed. Now missiles are headed straight for the foam island. Having barely enough time to understand this, every Mermaid drags herself toward the water. Only Gloria makes it. She dives as the island above her ignites, the explosion shining like the sun. The invasion has begun.

The game of Both has kept the peace between boys and girls for two years. Boys imbed girl play in boyish narratives and girls imbed boy play in girlish narratives. This allows everyone to live together in harmony without getting offended. Nowhere has this process reached higher complexity than on Ninosa. Girls love to sing in unison – uttering the same words at the same time. They like to sound pretty. Boys don’t care about that, but by managing singing contests, boys can determine winners and losers. Different states sponsor different teams and use the singing contests to settle disputes over territory, taxes, and senate seats. The girls tolerate this, but insist that the purpose of government is to make states as pretty as possible. The boys accept the idea so long as the most important part of prettiness is making scientific advancements. The girls insist that science should be used to cook and clean. The boys invent food bombs and soap guns, holding contests to see if the cooks can make messes faster than the maids can clean them up. In response to these antics, the girls treat the boys as if they are babies that need babysitting. Eventually, the play economy becomes too complex for anyone to make sense of it. Longing for simplicity, boys and girls return to playing separately, leading to competition over territory and time slots.

Then one day there is a riot. Angry that girls have taken all the flying cars at a time that boys wanted to use them, a group of boys trash the downtown shopping zone of the city, destroying many shoe stores. The girls are furious. The adult government puts the boys in jail, but the girls are not satisfied. A meeting is called and the girl leaders insist on ridding the planet of the boy pestilence for good.