They didn't need weapons to wear down the male population:

"Attack of the Space Maidens"

by Connie Sellers

from

Spree

Vol. 1, No. 13, 1959

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     Luke Burbank had a bottomless billfold, an abiding yen for dolls, and a mighty thirst. So, it was strange to see Luke that afternoon in the Hungry I, with no more than a thimble of Scotch before him, and no expensively polished blonde on the next stool.
     He didn't look like the man who had just saved the world, either.
     "Sans babes, semi-sans booze," I said. "The cure must be a miserable thing."
     "I," he said, "am a contented man. I am saving myself."
     "You have been trapped at last," I said. "Around your eyes in the vague stunned look of a new husband. Did you leave your wife alone in that massive pile of architecture you call home--without a guide?"
     "No wife," Luke answered, "in the strict sense of the word. And I seldom go into the main house. Since I now possess the damnedest greenhouse in town, I bunk there--to be near my flowers."
     "Boats," I murmured, and signaled for another round. "Boats, babes, and/or bottles--these are hardy hobbies for virile men, but flowers?"
     'To each his own. And since it is almost time for me to depart, I will accept your drink. But I must warn you--your ribaldry is no tone to take with the savior of the world."
     "Make mine a double, Kerouac," I said to the barkeep, "and keep your bungstarter handy. I am sitting next to a squirrel."
     Squirrels are no novelty in the Hungry I, but they're generally the harmless kind--squiggly beards, beatnik guitars, Sloppy Joe evening gowns. But they don't go around saving the world; they can't even find it.
     "Squirrels are parasites," Luke stated.
     "Well, yes," I agreed. "some of them; but the kind with real bushy trails aren't."
     "Them, too--and birds, bees and humans. All parasites, my flowers said. Not moss, tho."
     "I will not ask you how come not moss," I said. "This chitchat has become too weird for me, and I will henceforth avoid drinking the brand of Scotch that has made it that way. I have yet to meet an oral orchid."
     "No Orchid," Luke said. "Just Rose, Daisy, Lily, Tulip, Peony and Orange Blossom."
     "Orange Blossom are not manly drinks," I said. "Too sweet."
     "This one isn't," Luke said. "She's kind of wild."
     "All right. Getting back to another idiotic statement, you saved the world with a wild orange blossom?"
     "Sort of. If they had landed somewhere else--gotten involved with some of those scientific old whishers--we wouldn't be here now, you and I--and Kerouac, the barkeep."
     "We probably shouldn't be, " I said. "But who are they?"
     "Rose, Daisy, Lily--"
     "So you saves the world from being overrun by rampant roses, nasty nasturtiums, or whatever. You'd best sublet that greenhouse, Luke."
     "A wisenik," Luke said. "Come along and I'll show you, wisenik."
     I'd known Luke Burbank even longer than his couch counselor, and just because he had no dolls with him, didn't mean there were none stashed at his rambling mansion. If said stashed dolls wanted to play nudies in a greenhouse, okay.
     He didn't say much on the way out, but when we wheeled through the gates of Burbank's Bawdy Acres, Luke brightened up. He drove past the three story shack and around to the greenhouse.
     There was a big, new lock on the door, and he fumbled with it while I patted my foot on the gravel. He flipped the lights, and I followed him inside for just three paces. I stopped, foot in mid-air.
     "There!" Luke said, triumphantly.
     "I'll be damned," I whispered.
     The nearest one had a thin golden chain around her wrist, its other end securely padlocked to a steel post. Her tiny feet were ankle-deep in a big flower pot. Five others were spaced behind her, al chained, all standing in pots.
      "You have flipped, ex-friend Luke. Kidnapping is a serious rap--and with children like these--"
      "That's what I thought at first," Luke said. "I figured they were maybe nine years old, but--just a minute--here, this one is Rose. Rosie, wake up."
      Deeply pink eyelids fluttered and she stretched. Something happened to the glittering clothing she wore, and it fell away. She wasn't nine years old by a damned sight!
     She was tiny, yes--but with everything as it should be, only in miniature--small, sturdy breasts, satiny tummy planing down to junior thighs and the perfect flare of receptive hips. If this was a kid, I wanted my short pants back.
      The others stretched and shed their clothing--pale, hip-twisting Daisy; golden, writhing Lily; darly exciting Tulip; nakedly glowing Peony, and Orange Blossom--coppery, bare, and breathing hard.
     Luke pulled me to the door, backed me away from the six lovely creature holding out their arms to me, and switched off the overhead light. I could have cheerfully killed him.
     "You need a drink," Luke said, and he wasn't lying.
     In the kitchen of the big house, he poured two stiff belts of nerve medicine, and after it took hold, I said, "Okay. Tell me the rest."
      They had arrived early one morning, he said. Not in a ship, but through some sort of flickering door of light. They had weapons. Weapons to stop anything--men, animals, machinery--even the clock on the wall.
     "They're from somewhere else?" I asked. "Another planet?"
     "Another galaxy," Luke said.
     "B-but--they're not aliens; not like in the movies. They're just like us--like our women. I mean, only smaller."
     "Prettier, too," Luke said, "but there's a basic difference. They're plants."
     "Plants?" I choked. "Like cabbages? Broccoli?"
     "More like Flowers. That's why I named them Rose, Daisy--"
     "I know," I said.
     "They said I was a parasite, that this old earth is crawling with parasites, all feeding on or from plant life."
     "Intelligent plants, looking down on everything else alive as parasites!"
     "Their combat patrol was supposed to take their hydratomic zip guns and delouse this old world--you and me included. Only I outsmarted them."
     "Oh, come now," I said, tilting the Scotch bottle. "Beings intelligent enough to cross space and invade the earth, and you outsmarted them?"
     "You're doubting me again," Luke said. "Open another jug and wait here."

     In a moment, he was back with a tiny, lusciously wriggling bit of femininity under each arm. He plopped them on their feet. "Wash up, girls."
     One of them was pink all over, the other, white marble. No, not marble--the soft white of a flower petal. They giggled and bounced over to the sink, their bare sterns jiggling."
     "Let me guess," I said. "Is the pink one Rose?"
     "What else?"
     "No chains."
     "Gets in the way, and they don't want to go anywhere as long as they're got company."
     "They're scrubbing their feet," I pointed out.
     "Of course. Stand around in pots all day. They feed that way. No roots, but they have funny pores in their feet."
     "Is there anything else radically different about them?"
     "Nothing important," Luke said, and I let out the breath I'd been holding.
     "That worried me, too, at first," Luke said. "Such lovely creatures, it'd be such a damned shame--"
     The pale one came over and crawled up onto my lap. She smelled like a flower, but that firmly rounded flesh burning across my thighs had nothing in common with posies.
     "I'm Daisy," she said. At least, I think she said it. Her mouth was open, anyway.
     I didn't know when Luke and Rose left the room. What does a guy do, when a perfectly formed woman is snuggled in his lap? Bare?
     I did it. Daisy might have been childlike, a percision-built woman in miniature, but she was queen-sized where passion was concerned. Her small arms locked me close, her tiny hips beat time in wild spasms, and her delicately modeled legs went mad--demanding, clasping, and strong, strong.
     Three was the sweet taste of tired flowers in my mouth as the world came back around me. The world, approaching noises from the next room, and part of my clothes.
     "Now you know why I didn't holler copper," Luke said, "or call for scientific old whiskers to study the girls."
     "I agree," I said weakly. "Let 'em find their own."
     Pearly-pink, Rose stood at Luke's elbow, purring up into his face as he poured himself a drink.
     "Okay," he said, "go ahead."
     She squeaked and dashed for a bag propped in the corner. Daisy unwrapped herself from me and skipped after her. 
     "Hey!" I said.
     "never mind," Luke said. "Let 'em have fun. There are four others waiting. Remember?"
     "Luke," I said, "those dolls were dangerous; they had weapons; they intended to delouse the world. How'd you stop it?"
     "Experience," Luke said. "Cops would have gotten nasty, and kicked off the fireworks. Scientists would have gotten their whiskers singed, because they don't have my experience."
     "Hold it," I said. "You have no experience whatsoever, outside of babes and booze."
     "Exactly, which is why I saved the world. Notice what the dolls are doing with that sack?"
     "They're getting their feet dirty again."
     "Watch."
     I watched as the girls swayed and giggled, and suddenly sat down on the floor and went to sleep.
     "Peat moss," Luke explained. "I figured if they were plants, that stuff would souse 'em like whiskey does us. They got loaded and dropped their guns. I threw the things in the sink, and the disposal chopped them up."
     "I'll be damned," I said.
     "You probably will," Luke agreed. "But right now let's have another snort, take these beauties back to sleep it off, and choose other companions. There are still Lily, Tulip, Peony and Orange Blossom. Do I presume, my friend, that you will pursue my hobby of flowers with me?"
     "Give me the keys to that greenhouse," I said, "and open up another sack of peat moss. To each his own, I always say."
 
 

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