The Don Quixote headed for the binary star system called Cerberus, where Orfeo Four spun in an erratic dance with its double suns. “How we find ship?” Limpet asked.

  “Ah, that is the question.” Long John was glad that Limpet was thinking ahead. “So knowing that more than one enterprising group may be on the lookout for the treasure ship, they may send out a decoy. Or even several. Why they don’t just keep their treasure at home is beyond me.”

  “They not smart,” suggested Limpet.

  “Yeah, maybe they’re just dumb,” said Long John, squinting at his star maps.

  On the way to the Cerberus system, they stopped at Frilkin’s Bar & Grill, where Long John knew the barkeep kept a supply of weapons under the counter. He took Limpet with him, riding on his shoulder, and went into the bar.

  The atmosphere was shadowed and dingy, lit by widely spaced lamps that cast a sickly yellow glow. He leaned on the bar and said, “Gimme a beer.”

  The barkeep, a plump fellow with sparse black hair, didn’t look up. He pulled a can out of the cooler at his back and plumped it down before Long John.

  “I’m wondering if—” Long John began, when the man looked up. His eyes widened, he stumbled back, cried “Don’t move!” and pulled a shotgun from under the counter, aiming it at Limpet.

  “Whoa!” Long John threw up a hand. “Take it easy! This is my partner.”

  “Th—tha—that’s a spider!”

  “Yes, he is. But he’s my partner. Could you put that blunderbuss away?”

  The man stared for a moment, then muttered, “It’s your funeral,” and replaced his shotgun.

  “What I’m hoping you might have,” said Long John, “is a gun his size.”

  The barkeep snorted. “Really? I doubt they make anything that small.”

  “Well, think about it. I’m willing to pay. And I need a lot of them.”

  “Hang on.” He went into the back and rummaged around, then after a while came out with a box. “These are some kind of party favors. Seems weird to me.”

  He opened the lid and revealed several rows of tiny black handguns.

  Limpet uttered a series of sounds that translated as “Whoopee, just what we need!”

  “Those might work.” Long John pulled one out. “What do they shoot?”

  The barkeep shrugged. “I’ve got these things, kind of like birdshot.” He pulled out a bag that clinked.

  Long John loaded the gun and aimed it at a notice plastered on the wall. When he pulled the trigger, a puff of smoke and a projectile shot out, putting a hole in the paper. “Seems to work.”

  Limpet jumped up and down on his shoulder in excitement.

  “We’ll take ‘em all.”

  * * *

  Three days into the journey to Cerberus system, Long John realized he had forgotten something.

  Spiders spin webs.

  They spin lots of webs. At first they didn’t bother him, since he was not the neatest guy in the universe, and a few stray coffee cups or socks strewn here or there were not a big deal. But three days in, living in the Don Quixote was like being in a festival of Hanging Out Wash Day. He could not walk from one end of the ship to the other without getting webs tangled in his bandana or across his face.

  “It’s got to stop,” he said to Limpet. “Can you get your guys to stop spinning random webs all over?”

  “Easy,” said Limpet. He talked to the spiders, and the result was that they switched to spinning hammocks over and under the foldout bunks along the ship’s sides, so they were no longer in the way.

  During the rest of the journey to the Cerberus system, Long John taught several of the spiders to fly the ship and to use the guns. He was surprised at how quickly they caught on. Once in the system, in sight of planet Dorchester, where the museum housing the treasure lay, the Don Quixote halted and floated motionless in space, observing.

  “Where ship now?” Limpet asked in a low voice, as if afraid he might be overheard.

  “No way to tell,” said Long John. “But odds are they will send a decoy out first, maybe more than one. So keep your eyes peeled.”

  Limpet stared at him in horror. “Peel eyes?”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “Never mind. Just keep a sharp lookout.”

  A few hours later, a ship lifted off from Dorchester along with two escort fighters. “There, there!” said Limpet. All the spiders became excited, bobbing up and down.

  Long John squinted at it. “No, that’s gotta be a decoy. It’s too obvious.”

  “More ship,” pointed out Urkis, Limpet’s friend.

  It was true. On radar, Long John saw another ship at a great distance. Like the Don Quixote, it sat motionless in space, biding its time. Another pirate ship. He took it as another clue that the ship blasting off from Dorchester was a decoy.

  Shortly after, another ship took off, this one smaller and without an escort. Long John shook his head. He still wasn’t fooled.

  At sight of a third ship, an hour later, he tensed. “This is it. We’re moving in—but slowly.” He noticed that the other ship also began moving toward the possible treasure ship.

  “This is the Rolling Thunder,” came a deep gravelly voice on all channels. The larger ship had matched speed with the treasure ship. “You, treasure ship, you’re going to be boarded. If you resist in any way, you will all be spaced.”

  Moments passed, then an accented voice responded: “Sorry, no speak Terran. No unnerstan.”

  A chuckle. “Nice try. We’re coming over. The airlock better be open when we get there.”

  There was no answer, but Long John could hear the frustration boiling over the channel. He smiled. “That’s our cue. Get out your guns, fellas. Limpet, take us in, slow, underneath the Thunder.”

  When they were in place, he gave them instructions and handed out thrusters to use in space. They all nodded, sharp teeth gleaming. When the transporter from the Thunder drew near the treasure ship’s airlock, it began to cycle open.

  “Right,” Long John whispered. “We’re storming the airlock. I’m going first.” He pulled down his helmet.

  The airlock opened. Long John flicked on his thruster, shot across space, and charged in, followed by his spiders. The crew stumbled back in shock as they barged in, the spiders waving knives and miniature guns, shouting war cries.

  He hit the airlock close button, pulled up his helmet and pointed his pistol at the stocky, sandy-haired captain in uniform. “Where’s your treasure!”

  The captain stuttered, “We don’t have any.”

  “Sure you don’t.” Long John jerked his head, and Limpet jumped onto the captain, ran up his shirt front and glared into his eyes. Eyeball to eyeball with a maniacal spider waving weapons, the captain stumbled back in terror.

  “Treasure?” Limpet hissed.

  “This way,” the captain stuttered.

  Down the hallway, the captain opened a door and stood back. Long John glanced inside and his mouth fell open. “They weren’t kidding! Where’d all this come from?”

  The room was chock full of treasure, huge idols of gold, helmets, swords, chalices, chests. He strode to the nearest chest and opened the lid; the glare blinded him momentarily. It was packed with gold pieces, cups, crowns, armrings, necklaces, bracelets. It looked like a Viking hoard.

  The captain shrugged. “Various planets.”

  “Huh. You’re worse robbers than us.” Long John slammed the lid down and lifted the handle on one end. “Spiders! Get the other side.”

  Dutifully, five or six spiders ran to the other side and hoisted their end. “Let’s go,” he grunted, and straining, hauled the chest out into the hall.

  Before he could go farther, a heavy stamping came from the airlock. It burst open and several huge rocky creatures entered the hallway. The first one’s eyes fell on the treasure chest.

  “Put that back,” he rumbled.

  “There’s plenty for all,” said Long John.

  The monster moved toward him, his feet making dents in the floor. “Put it back.” He looked as if he had been constructed by a pile driver using discarded chunks of cinder block, but there was no mistaking the savage gleam in his eyes.

  Long John backed. Behind him, his spiders were making distressed squeaking sounds. The captain of the treasure ship groaned. “Stone pirates.”

  Long John had never met them, but he had heard of stone pirates. At first he had thought they were a myth; later he had learned that they would gut a ship and leave it floating, its crew spaced and everything it contained destroyed.

  The lead stone pirate met his eyes with a gaze dark as obsidian. “You put back!” he rumbled.

  “Well, it’s more than we need, actually.” Long John backed a few more steps and set the chest down. The stone pirate pushed past him and entered the treasure room. He grunted in approval.

  “Haul it out,” he said to his crew. “Space the crew, and that joker too.” He jerked his head at Long John.

  “Right, boss.” The other pirates crowded in and began loading up sacks with the treasure.

  Long John gestured at his spiders to clear out of the room. But one of them, Quilp, sat clutching an arm ring nearly as big as himself. When a stone pirate grabbed it, Quilp hung on doggedly. The pirate shook him off and lifted a fist to squash him.

  Long John launched himself across the room and shoved the pirate. “Don’t touch my spiders!” He felt as if he had shoved a monolith; the stone pirate barely moved an inch.

  “Bah!” The stone pirate backhanded him into the wall.

  Dazed, he watched as Limpet dove into the fray. He swarmed up a golden statue and swiveled to aim a web at the stone pirate’s face. In an instant the pirate’s eyes were covered with a thick patch of spiderweb.

  The other spiders got the idea and began spraying their webs at the rest of the pirates. In seconds, all five of them began stumbling around, blind, tearing at the webs. But they were extremely sticky and wouldn’t come off.

  Long John danced in the doorway, yelling, “Come on, this way!”

  The pirates groped after him, enraged. Their long arms swung, reaching for him, but he kept just out of their reach.

  He led them down the hallway to the airlock and whistled, taunting them. They blundered inside, trying to get the webbing off their faces and catch him at the same time. Once they were all inside, he hit the emergency button to slam the door, and pushed “Eject.”

  The stone pirates all blew into space, spinning and rolling.

  Long John ran back to the treasure room, picked up his end of the chest, and said, “Grab the other end. Let’s go.”

  He opened the airlock. He paused to say to the captain of the treasure ship, “Vacuum won’t have much effect on stone pirates. They’ll be back on their ship shortly, no worse for wear. If I were you, I’d haul out of here as fast as you can.”

  “Th—thanks,” said the captain. “I guess.”

  Long John and his spiders piled into the airlock and cycled it open. Hauling the treasure chest, he steered back to the Don Quixote with the thruster and climbed aboard.

  “Take off!” he gasped to Urkis, the pilot. “We’re outta here.”

  With a lurch, the Don Quixote pulled around and took off into folded space. In seconds they were beyond anyone’s reach.

  On the other side of the spacefold, Long John set the controls to autopilot and turned to survey his ship. Festooned with webs, full of spiders with their knees sticking above their heads as they sat in groups playing cards, quaffing beer, and staring out of the viewscreens, it was a chaotic sight. He shook his head. At least he couldn’t complain of loneliness any more.

  Next stop, the market planet.