Maui

The next few days passed in relative quiet. Relative, that is, compared to a mortuary holding a funeral for a deaf mime attended only by church mice who are, themselves, mimes. I ain't never been nowhere quite so dull as this spaceship. I swear, I musta played eight hundred million hands of cribbage. It was just gettin to the point where I was thinkin about not attendin the next makin stuff up contest and just sittin myself down in the hammock instead. I guess it was really the first time I've had to slow down since this whole thing with Clan Platypus had got started and it gave me a little time to think.

On the one hand, I got to thinkin about how I was just a regular guy from Iowa, and I don't know why I was in this mess in the first place. I mean, if my Mable Lou had never got herself hit by that flamin couch all them months ago, I coulda prolly just got myself a job workin with Douggy or even gotten that job my cousin has where he writes Slayer all over them bar walls. I coulda done that. Sure, I've never actually heard of the band, but I don't think that matters a whole lot. I can write all right, especially on walls. In fact, I nearly got myself a PhD in Literature once. No kidding. I wrote my dissertation on the use of Vodka to represent sadness and a loss of self in Russian literature and how that led directly to the sense of overwhelming sadness present in post-modern literature. I was runnin around with this theater troop at the time and they was doin all this performance art stuff like smearin themselves with eggs and ham while yellin "McMuffin!" I thought it was neat, and there was a girl in the troupe I was interested in, so, to impress them, I wrote my entire dissertation on the wall of a bathroom, hopin that'd give it the extra oomph it needed. Sadly, the day before I defended it, the whole bathroom went up in flames when some farm kids from around town decided it'd be fun to drink Everclear and then light their farts on fire. My advisor didn't believe that'd happened and thought I was treatin him like he was stupid so he got me thrown out of the university for ever and had my entire record expunged, so now it looks like I just got myself a sixth grade education. Wait a second, I think I just confused myself with this guy I saw on the teevee news once. I actually only have a sixth grade education and I spent the years I woulda been in college stuffin paper into the toes of shoes and drinkin beers with Douggy when I got off work. This one time, we was drinkin Everclear and, well, I'd tell ya the rest if the court order allowed it. Suffice it to say, we had ourselves a hot time. But if anyone ever calls you about me puttin that on my resume, you just go ahead and tell them the first story. I'll cover for you, too, if you need me to.

Point bein, I wasn't really qualified to get pulled into this whole big ball o' mess. I'm sure there's people more suited to travellin through space to help some hyper-intelligent genetic mutants fight ninjas tryin to sell meth, also interstellarly. I mean, there's gotta be at least ONE space travellin, meth hatin, good ninja out there somewhere, right? But then, that got me thinkin about how all them people down on that planet was havin their lives turned inside out by these ninjas and their crazy robots and their drugs and all. And I thought that, if I was the only one who could do this, I might as well do it as best I could. I just wish that I could get a vacation every now and again.

It was that second line of thought I was on when we landed on the moon and I was shuffled through immigration, shown an orientation video, given a name tag (which I thought was silly until I saw it was full of numbers, which I was told were the space coordinates of the Earth I came from), given a shower, checked for ticks and finally escorted into a doctor's office. In the miracle of all miracles, the doctor was there just nearly as soon as I sat down. I know, it shocked me, too. I was under the impression that there was nowhere in the universe you could go see a doctor without waitin at least an hour in the office only to be told something like, "I don't know what's wrong. Go home and come back if it gets worse. Oh, and that'll be $250." Well, that doctor didn't do none of those things. He checked me over, talked to me like I was a person, moved quickly and efficiently and then didn't charge me nothin. Turns out the Squimonk buy their insurance on worlds that are about 30 years behind ours where, when someone buys insurance, the insurance actually pays for doctors and stuff, without the insurance holder havin to pay anything. I know, I was shocked, too.

At the end of the checkup, the doctor told me that my cholesterol was at the right level and asked me if I'd like to drink the spider poison. In the three or four times in my life up to this point that I have been offered spider poison to drink, I have generally turned it down. That one time I didn't, I regretted it in the morning, boy howdy. But, after hearin everything that Captain Pat and the other Pat had told me about interstellar travel and whatnot, I figured, what the heck, I wouldn't mind teleportin. So, I took the shot.

Then I was in a hotel lobby.

I didn't have too much time to be confused before a bellboy came over me and said, "Mr. Pat O'Neil?"

"Er, yeah," I responded.

"Your room is ready, sir," he explained and then gestured for me to follow. "No luggage, as usual, sir?"

"Er, yeah," I said. He talked a little more, mostly just bein officious, but I wasn't payin much attention. I was too busy starin at how nice this hotel was. There was marble everywhere, for one. And the guests looked a little different than what I'm used to seein in a hotel. I didn't know if it was just me or if there was something else. I mean, I'm used to stayin down there at the Motel 6 when I travel, and they rarely have cavernous lobbies with four star restaurants and gold piping everywhere. They also don't usually have bellhops. I kept it to myself for a bit, just tryin to take in the scene.

Lookin through one of the restaurants, I saw there was a white sand beach with clear blue water and palm trees outside. I thought so. "I'm in Maui, ain't I?" I asked.

"Indeed you are, sir," the bellhop responded. "And I'll never get tired of you asking me that."

I chuckled, rememberin what the other Pat's had told me about most Pats goin to Maui when they first got hit with the spider poison. I figured, I might as well enjoy myself for a while. After all, I was just sayin I deserved a vacation. And, if I remembered right, I should just pop back into the doctor's office at the same time as I left.

The bellboy and I stepped into the elevator, which gave me a better chance to get a glimpse of him in the mirror. He was kinda pale and had long hair stickin out from under his cap, which would be unprofessional where I come from, but I guess it's allowed on other planets. Even without the hair, he was a kinda strange lookin fella. He had a pretty long nose that rounded at the end and nostrils I could almost see into from the back of his head. He also had some kind of funny growth or somethin on his forehead. He didn't seem to be tryin to cover it up, so I don't guess he was too embarrassed by it.

That's all I got to see before the elevator dinged and he announced, "Penthouse, sir."

The doors opened onto a room that looked like I always imagined an Arabian palace would. There was pillows and drapes everywhere. They also had a bunch of them weird lamps you hear about genies comin out of that don't look like real lamps but look a lot more like gravy boats with string stickin out of 'em. "Well, thank ya kindly," I told the bellboy. I turned to see him holdin his hand out, waitin for a tip.

"Oh, yeah," I stammered. "I ain't got no money on me right now, but could I bill a tip to the room?"

"That would be acceptable, sir," he said, less snotty than it sounded just now in your head when you read it. He was actually a pretty nice guy, just tryin to make his way, you know.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small clipboard. "If you'll just fill this out," he said, handing me the clipboard, "it will all be taken care of. We already have your card on file."

I took the board from him, "Oh, yeah, sure." I filled it out, givin him a pretty generous tip, signed it, then handed it back to him.

As he took the clipboard, our hands touched briefly. His hand was harder than I really expect for a person, even one that works in the fields all the time. Then I looked at him a little closer. "Wait a minute..." I said.

"Yes, sir?"

"You're one of them...them, oh, what's the word?"

"A bellhop, sir?"

"Nah, that ain't it...ah, I got it! You're one of them unicorns, ain't ya?"

He looked blankly for a second. "Yes, sir. As I explained last time, I and everyone else in this hotel is a unicorn. I don't understand why you make the same joke every time you check in, but, honestly, it's beginning to grate."

"Now, don't get me wrong," I back peddled. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. It's just I ain't never seen a real live...you know, one of y'all, before."

"One of y'all?!?!" he bellowed. "And just what do you mean by that!?!?! You know what you are? You're speciest! You filthy speciest!"

I was real embarrassed now. "Nah, it ain't nothin like that. I..look, I'm sorry."

He broke into a girn and then started laughin. "Hahahahahaha! I'm sorry, I couldn't resist! The other bellhops told me about you and your copies jumpin in here every once in awhile seemin all confused. I didn't believe it but they told me, they told me, you..." he broke down into hysterical laughter.

"Told you what?" I was curious.

He doubled over for a bit. When he was ready, he stood up and wiped his eyes. "Ok, ok...whew! I'm sorry about that, sir. But they told me you'd say 'You're one of them unicorns, ain't ya?' right after you tipped me. They also told me they always pull the old speciest joke on ya because you got a good sense of humor and can take it."

"You know," I told him, "that is pretty funny. You got me good, friend. What's your name?"

"Bobby," he said, shakin my hand. "And if you need anything, anything at all, Mr. O'Neil, just ask for me."

"Sure will, Bobby."

He stepped back into the elevator. "Enjoy your stay, sir."

"I will," I told him. Then I settled down to enjoy a week in unicorn Maui.

Ropin a Spider

"So then, where was I?" asked Captain Pat when I entered his cabin.

"You was right there in that chair," I told him.

"No, no," he protested, "where was I last time we talked."

I never knew I was so dense. "Like I says, you was sittin right there in that chair. It may have been an inch or two to the left or right, but I don't think that makes much of a difference. I mean, we're pretty much the same guy, so there's no need to stand on ceremony."

He looked for a moment and then told me, "You know, I just realized somethin. I'm either the densest man in the known universe or I am an absolute genius. I'm sittin here tryin to out think you, and my brain's just runnin in circles like a doberman on coffee tryin to catch its tail."

I wanted to be polite, so I shot him a, "Thank ya kindly."

"Yeah, sure," he said, distractedly. "I meant, um, hold on, let me word this carefully...Uh, ok. What was the last part of the story I told ya last night before you went to sleep?"

I had it. "You left off on a sort of cliffhanger. I thought it was a little contrived, myself, but I just went ahead and let it slide. I done the same thing myself once in awhile, cause, sometimes, there just ain't nothin else you can do. I mean, unless your story is totally contained in one neat little package, you're gonna have to leave off somewhere. And, really, who wants to hear a story that comes in a neat little package? I mean, except for all those lovers of short stories and news clips. Just don't feel right, though. Just don't feel right."

"Why, you hit the nail right on its flat little head there, Pat. Why, I tell ya, any story wrapped up in a little package leaves a lot of questions unanswered. I figure, the longer the story, the more likely you are to answer all the questions. And I mean ALL the questions. Even the big ones, like 'Why are we here?' and 'Why are we so unhappy all the time?' and 'What's for breakfast?' I gotta say, for me, those long stories, if they're told right, can answer all them questions."

"I'd say that's true," I confirmed, "but I don't want ya thinkin all them long stories answer them questions. And most of em answer the questions in a couple different ways, which is confusin to me. I mean, what do they expect me to do? Figure it all out for myself? That'd be rich, wouldn't it?"

"Sure would, Pat, sure would," he nodded like we'd said something actually meaningful, even though both of us really knew we were just passin the time by tryin to sound smart. I didn't think much would come of it.

Then, he broke the spell by sittin bolt upright and shoutin, "I got it! The spiders! We was talkin about catchin the spiders!"

"Actually," I had to tell him, "you was talkin about almost catchin the spiders. In fact, you'd just told me about the one that got away. And then you implied that later, you made it so's they couldn't get away."

"Ah, well, then I misled you, I'm afraid. You see, the problem with the moon spiders, as I think I've said, is that they could teleport anywhere in space, so it's right hard to keep them from gettin away. What we did instead is figure out a way to make it so gettin away didn't do them a lick of good. We was strugglin to do just that, and the discovery that the spiders could be trapped by their own webs was the first thing we needed. The second thing we needed was a way to keep them from chewin through that web once they was in it.

"Tha solution came from the other side of the moon base construction site. It was totally by accident, too. You see, a couple of them Squimonk was cleanin out a coupla spider tunnels that we was gonna use for storage. They was rollin up the webbin and passin it to one another when, because of their furry little hands rubbin on each other, they worked themselves up some static electricity and shot a tiny bolt of lightning, which latched onto that there spider silk they was handlin. Well, lickety split it goes straight and stiff like, uh, well, like somethin that's long and round that gets stiff for some reason. I think you know what I'm talkin about."

"Sure do," I told him, "a tube of peperoni in the freezer."

"That wasn't exactly what I was thinkin," he told me, sheepishly.

"Then what?"

"I was think more like a spaghetti noodle in reverse," he admitted.

"Yeah, I can see that. But I don't know why you didn't just spit it out in the first place."

"I guess I didn't think it was an apt metaphor. I bet someone else could think of somethin that's sotra tube or noodle-like that goes from floppy to stiff that would make a better image here, but I can't think of anything off the top of my head."

"Yeah," I shrugged, "sometimes, that's how it goes."

"Sure is, sure is. So, there they were, holdin a web-cum-stick in their little hands when the other Alistair, what had caught the spider, came runnin in with his news. I wasn't there or nothin, but I imagine them Squimonk got a little twinkle in their eyes and then they got to work. They spent a whole day braidin and tyin together the webbing and wirin it all up to a switch. Then, they spent the whole next week collectin information about where the spiders landed when they jumped into being on the moon.

"Once they analyzed that information, they found there were certain spots that were more commonly used for spider materialization. Their theory at the time was that the spiders had themselves a system for jumpin so they didn't run into each other. But that proved to be wrong, just so's you know. I don't want you thinkin that just because them Squimonk is super smart that they know everything, cause they don't. In fact, what they don't know could fill a book. Sure, it wouldn't be a thick book, but it'd still be a book. And not no little novella, neither, which isn't really a book. It would be a real book, prolly 200 pages or so, and titled, "Things Squimonk Don't Know. Course, you'd prolly have to ban them from readin the book or hearin about it in any way cause, you know, if they read it, then the book would have to be smaller on the next go round until it was nothin but a little pamphlet. And, really, who'd gonna buy a pamphlet about what Squimonk don't know. You'd have to give it away in a doctor's office or somethin with other 'What you don't know about...' type pamphlets. But we didn't find out they didn't know this until they'd learned it, but by then, it was already too late for it to go in the book."

"This has almost nothing to do with capturin spiders," I told him, "unless you bashed them on the head with a copy of that book."

"You're right," he said, "and we didn't. In fact, all we did was sit next to a switch and wait. We musta sat there for days, just playin cribbage and havin a good ol' fashioned makin stuff up contest. I got second place for my story about a block of cheese becomin president because of his skills with a bow and arrow. I think the clincher was when I named him Cheester A. Archer.

"I was just acceptin my prize, a medal made out of an old donut, as is traditional, when a spider jumped into the webs we'd laid out. The Alistair there whispered to me, 'Now!' and I threw the switch, electrifyin the webs.

"That webbing, which the Squimonk had braided and tied together jumped up into a perfect cage right around that spider, lookin like a soccer ball made out of chicken wire. Fearin for itself, it jumped away, but it took the cage with it. It kept flickerin in and out of view, presumably jumpin about the universe, and every time it flickered, there was more stuff in the cage. I don't know how many worlds it must have jumped to, but when it came back, there was all sortsa weird stuff stuck in the holes of that trap. Unmentionable things and one pair of ladies' unmentionables. I don't know what world that was, but after seein them unmentionables, I ain't sure I wanna know.

"As I know now, teleportin is tough business. It can tire ya out more than diggin a ditch in the middle of an asphalt road with an ice cream sample spoon. And eventually, that spider just collapsed in the middle of the cage, plum tuckered out.

"Once he had awoken from his swoon, he just hung his spider head and said, 'Just kill me and get it over with.'

"I say he said it, but he didn't exactly use words. Them spiders is telepaths, if you didn't know, so he just sorta broadcast his feelin to everyone in the room, like our brains was wads of silly putty and he laid his comic on top of em. At that, one of the Alistairs sidled up to the cage, laid a paw on the spider's leg and said, 'We have no intention of killing you, and we don't want to harm you, either. We're just here to bargain with you.'

"Well, the spider looked mighty surprised at this. A whole bunch of thoughts went racin through out heads from the spider, the most powerful of which was, 'You can't bargain with meth addicts, even if they are building a moon base.'

"That Alistair explained that we wasn't no meth addicts, and then laid out our position. Then the spider told all of us that he would speak to the spider high council, but not to expect help in our fights because spiders is pacifists. That's why they didn't kill none of us. They said they got compassion and love for every living creature because we all live in a cold, uncaring universe and we continually try to convince ourselves otherwise and this makes us unhappy on such a deep level that we think unhappiness is built into the very fabric of existence, when, in actuality, the real problem is that we expect the universe to turn around and be nice to us, even though most of it is just blind processes with no morality whatsoever and so the real problem ends up bein our expectations and not anything about the universe itself. In the final analysis, our consciousness is really to blame."

"Huh?" I asked. "I didn't get most of that."

"Yeah, me neither," he said, "I basically just memorized it cause it sounded fancy. I don't think there's much to it, though, so I wouldn't worry too much about it."

"I won't then. What happened with the spiders?"

"Like I says, they're hardcore pacifists, so they wasn't willing to join in the fighting. But they did allow us to use the moon to build a base from which we could mount an invasion. They also agreed to give us some of their venom in small quantities so that new Pats can be given the ability to teleport anywhere in the universe they want."

"Am I gonna be gettin that?" I asked.

"If you want. I gotta warn ya, though, it ain't the most pleasant of experiences."

"Needles and stuff?

"Nah, it just tastes like a week dead skunk on the highway soaked in patchouli. I nearly vomited," he explained. "But if you hold your nose, it ain't so bad."

Sleepy Time

That first night in the Pirockate ship was one of the worst I've ever had. There we were, rocketing through space towards the moon, not in water at all, but that boat was still a rockin and a creakin all night. And, on that rocky, creaky boat, I was expected to sleep in a hammock. Sure, a hammock is all well and good if you're a sailor from the 1500s, out to explore new lands if you don't get eaten by a sea monster or thrown of the end of the world to fall, tumbling through the blackness of space, seeing only a stack of turtles for the rest of eternity. But this is the 21st century, or maybe the twentieth century. Wait a minute, let me see here. We're startin with 20 here, so, maybe it's the 20th. But then again, the first would have to start with nothin. So, then, we'd have to go back all the way to the year zero, when dinosaurs fought mammoths all over the Earth, everyone wore tiger skins and all the sexy cavewomen looked like Raquel Welch. Then Jesus came and Satan turned all the dinosaurs into stone to trick the Romans and then Jesus taught everyone English. So that was the first century, I think. Look, I'll be honest here, I ain't much of a historian. Most of what I know about history is stored in this biography of Charles Martel that I read for an eighth grade project, and sometimes I confuse that with that episode of Growing Pains where Alex and Snuffleupagus journeyed to Math Land to play pool. Or maybe I'm mixing that with something else. I guess that doesn't matter, though. The point is that, in these advanced times, you'd think that someone could make a rocket ship shaped like a pirate ship that didn't have to rock back and forth all the time. I mean, there's not even any water, for heck's sake! How does a ship rock without water?

I imagine the hammocks are a great help to others on that ship, but me, I got that weird sleepin habit where I like to wedge myself into a corner, rest the top of my head on the top of my feet, and slowly drift to sleep with my back end stickin in the air like mailbox flag. Except my heiney ain't as square and red as a mailbox flag. It's just square. And because I sleep like that, I spent most of the night bangin into the walls, bangin my head on the floor and fallin over. It wasn't till neigh on three in the mornin that I discovered the secret. I'd been sittin in the corner, refusin to open my eyes because I knew that the moment I did so, my entire night of tryin to get to sleep would be wasted.

Eventually, rounds about three like I say, I gave up tryin to sleep and opened my eyes. What I saw was both brilliant and disturbing. Line after line of Pat was sleepin just like I do, but none of em was bumpin into walls or nothin. In fact, they was standin comfortably in their hammocks, gently rockin with the swell of the ship. The secret, as I shoulda known, was duct tape. Them Pats had made themselves harnesses out of duct tape and taped the ends to the hammocks. They was each held in place by about a roll of tape, but they looked mighty comfortable. I decided that it couldn't make me sleep less that what I'd already slept that night. The worst that could possibly happen would be the duct tape becoming detached, allowin me to slip out of my harness, fallin on the ground and breakin open my head, causin me to think that I was a giant chicken for days, leadin the other Pats to have to corral me everywhere they wanted to go until they got sick of my antics and locked me up in the Bellview Home for insane Pats, where I would spend my golden years scratchin at the ground and tryin to lay eggs. But, like I says, that was a worst-case-scenario and so, with a roll of duct tape and sleepiness (which is when all the best ideas happen, in my opinion), I was ready to take the risk.

I gotta say, tapin yourself to a hammock so you can sleep standin up like an ostrich isn't easy to do. You gotta make sure you got stabilizin points at the waist, knees and ankles if you don't wanna be a crazy chicken man, which I don't. I mean, sure, just like anyone, I think about it now and then; how it would help me get out of all this responsibility I have, how it would give me more time to get into my hobbies of scratchin at the ground with my feet and swallowin small pebbles to help me digest my food, and how it would help me with the one thing I've always wanted to do, give birth. Sure, I know now that I wouldn't really be layin eggs, but if I were crazy chicken man, I wouldn't be able to know that my eggs weren't real. And even if I did only fill my pants with fudge, I'd like to think the joy I took in motherhood would still be real. But I wasn't ready for that yet, so I taped myself up nice and secure and, I have to say, I had the best night's sleep I've had since that time I got the job as a tester in the down pillow and blanket factory.

I don't know if it's the kind of life I lead or what, but I get myself some pretty disturbing dreams. Most nights, I dream that I'm in some big warehouse-like, windowless room with exposed pipes runnin over the ceiling. There's all sorts of other people in this room wearin some weird clothes. For some reason, the men is all wearin these strips of silk around their necks. I don't know what they're called, but they look a little foppish. For the time being, since they're tied around the neck, I'll just call them 'tienecks'. All the people in this warehouse place are sittin in their own little territories that are marked off by these things that look like walls, but are cheaply carpeted and only come up about three feet. In each little cube, there's a desk, a phone and a computer over which each person is hunched, trying to ignore everyone and everything around them. I look down at myself and see I'm dressed just like them, in this weird tie neck thing and wearin shiny black shoes that hurt my feet. When I reach up to my face, I find my beard's gone and my hair's cut short. "In accordance with company policy," I think to myself, not knowin where it comes from. I know that any minute, the "boss" is gonna come and "chew me out" for misplacin a comma on "Form 800" and that it's gonna get me a "writeup". I don't know what any of these words mean when I'm awake, but when I'm dreamin, they all seem to make sense to me. In the dream, I start gettin the shakes. The worst part about it all is that I know I can't leave this place of soul destroying horror.

It's usually then that I wake up screaming.

That morning, I learned that the only thing worse than screaming yourself awake out of a nightmare is doin it while about a hundred copies of you are doin the same thing. Well, that and panickin from all the screamin, forgettin you've taped yourself to a hammock and losin about a yard of leg hair when you stand up. The only thing that can make your day go well at that point is the timeless remedy of two packs of bacon, a cup of coffee and a jelly donut.

When breakfast was over, I went back to Captain Pat to hear more about the fight with the moon spiders.

Pirockate Ship

I don't know about y'all, but I ain't spent a lot of time flyin around in rocket powered pirate ships (which I like to call pirockate ships). In fact, takin off outta Planet Meth was the first time I had to experience somethin like that. I mean, sure, I been on the rocket ride at the State Fair, but that really only goes up a couple thousand feet or so, and it barely cracks 3 gees. But this was an actual rocket ship goin to the actual moon. Unless, of course, I was just dreamin all of this in a donut-induced haze. It didn't seem that way, though, because, so far, I hadn't been chased by any giant donuts tryin to devour me and I wasn't twitchy and jumpy like I can get after eatin two whole boxes of two-day olds that we couldn't sell, so I was ready to take this all at face value and call this my first real space rocket ride. And, on first impressions, I didn't much care for it.

"But Pat," you're probably sayin, "how many times do you get to ride in a rocket?" To which I would respond, "Go and get a rag and wipe your eyes off or somethin. I just told you this was my first ride. Jeez!" And then, after bein properly apologetic because you're a nice person and your parents raised you right, you'd give me some advice to just sit back and enjoy the ride. I'd say that, normally, that'd be good advice, exceptin all the things you don't know about bein inside a pirockate ship. First thing that made the journey unpleasant was all the unwashed laundry layin around. I know sailors and spacemen ain't known much for their cleanliness, and I, myself, have been known to let my unmentionables pile up, waiting until I have to shoo away sherpas and old British explorers before takin it all down to the local land-ro-mat and spendin enough quarters to sink and/or buy a small island nation. Still, the state of the quarters on this ship was down right deplorable. There was sherpas everywhere, I tell ya. Some of 'em had even brought their oxen with them and were building pastoral, isolate communities among the hills and valleys formed by cast off skivvies down it the hold. I swear I even saw some of 'em herdin sheep.

Second, and I don't know if this is the same on all pirockate ships or just the one I was on, but the only place they gots to sleep is in a hammock. Now, I ain't opposed to takin an afternoon nap in a hammock, specially in the middle of summer with a frosty barley pop in one hand and a morning of lawn work behind me. But you ever try gettin a good night's sleep in a hammock? It's durned near impossible. Even more so given that I like to sleep standin up with my head tucked between my ankles and that's not easy when you're in a hammock that's swayin back and forth.

Lastly, and I didn't know this before, but it takes two and a half weeks to get to the moon. So, after all that rushin around, gettin past the cop, drivin insane speeds, rowin across a sea full of garbage, fightin that sea monster, gettin pulled down into the depths, meetin a mermaid that fell in love with me, angerin her father, bein exiled back up to the surface, havin a tense long-distance relationship with that mermaid for a time until she moved on and found someone else named Chuck, who's a whale wrestler, findin out she was havin Chuck's baby, becomin Godfather to the merbaby, realizin time for merpersons runs a lot faster than time for people from the surface, writin a letter of reference for my God-mer-kid to get into college, findin out before the end of paragraph one that he'd already graduated and had his own private medical practice and was flourishin as a merdoctor, learnin of the fall of the entire merempire due to their love of watchin mermen wrestle whales, watchin the mer-dark ages fall over their species until such a time they experience their merrenaissance, which I had to miss because it was take off time. I know I skipped over that whole mermaid thing in the tellin and went right from the car to bein on the pirockate ship, but, really, after the fifth or sixth mermaid to fall in love with you, the whole idea of it becomes old hat, and I didn't wanna bore you with all the details of our torrid affair and strained but polite relationship followin it. Point bein, that after all that rushin around and whatnot, I was expected to just sit there for two and a half weeks and twiddle my thumbs.

Now, I may be a world champion thumb twiddler, and I got the shirt to prove it, but there's only so much thumb to be twiddled in a given day. There's a twiddlin limit that cannot be exceeded even by the most dedicated thumb twiddlers. I may have the stamina to twiddle for an hour or two but after that I start gettin cramps and, if I'm not careful, I may just aggravate my twiddler's thumb that ended my career in competitive twiddlin. Not wantin to injure my thumbs, I went for a quick twiddle and then wandered around to find someone to chat with. While amblin below decks, I found out there's a surprisin amount of stuff that needs to get done on a pirockate ship every day. There's rockets what need to be maintained, decks what need to be swabbed and horns what need to be swaggled. Not to mention all the brass that needs polishin. Them pirate Pats was all so hard at work maintainin that ship that none of em had time for a chat or a game of cribbage. So I decided to apply my knowledge of organizations to the situation. As far as I can tell, in most businesses, the higher you get up the ladder, the less you have to do in a given day until, once you reach the top, you're pretty much just there to be dragged out at ceremonies, like the corporate logo or respect for the customer. Armed with this inferential knowledge, I went and knocked on the Captain's door.

Just as I suspected, Captain Pat was sittin at his big ol' desk, just kinda starin out the window. I asked him if we could chat about some things and he jumped at the chance. He ushered me to sit beside his fireplace, which he was all too happy to explain didn't burn an actual fire, but just used lasers to simulate a fire. I gotta say, the simulation was pretty solid. I always thought the only thing lasers was good for was pointin at things you was too far away from to point at with a stick and gettin dogs to chase somethin around without gettin your hand all drooly. But it turns out they got other uses as well. So, there we sat by the laser fire and Captain Pat asked my what I wanted to know about.

"Well sir," I said, "back at the base, I was hearin about the whole war with the moon spiders when Clan Platypus rudely interrupted us. I was just sorta wonderin how that whole thing turned out."

He leaned back in his chair and said, "Ah! Yes. The spider war. I'd just been sent here by a cloud of Dale's gas when that was all goin on, so I didn't understand a lot of what was happenin. It was an excitin time here. And not excitin in that whole I-just-won-the-lottery-twice-on-the-same-day way, but excitin in that whole I'm-just-about-to-be-run-the-heck-over-by-a-bussload-of-Dom-deLouise-impersonators sorta way. That is to say, it was pretty frightenin on a whole number of levels.

"The Squimonk was convinced that the spiders was mostly peaceful. Reason bein, them spiders could prolly have killed all the people and genetic mutants they captured, but, instead, they just kept them in suspended animation the whole time. Also, with their ability to transport themselves anywhere at any time, they could easily have wiped all of us out any time they wanted to. But they chose to hide instead. Them Squimonk thought that maybe the spiders was just scared and that, if we could get them to stay in one place for a time, maybe we could reason with them and get them to stop kidnappin us. Me, I just wanted to be able to sleep without fearin that a spider was gonna bite me in the butt."

"You sleep standin up, too?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Then why you got everyone sleepin in hammocks?"

"Oh, that. That's just for historical accuracy. We grow lime trees up on deck, too, even though we all take vitamin tablets to keep us from gettin rickets," he explained. "Alistair's all about gettin things right, historically speakin. Me, I just make the ship go and don't think much about it. Actually, most of what I do is tell that there GPS," he pointed to a panel on his desk, "where we wanna go and then I sit here playin solitaire or whatnot until we get there."

"Sounds boring," I commiserated.

"You don't know the half of it."

We sat in silence, nodding slowly at each other for some time until he jumped a little. "Right, where was I?"

"Spiders," I told him.

"Right," he confirmed, "spiders. Like I says, the biggest problem was that they just kept runnin away. The Squimonk tried everything to get them to hang around for a bit. They tried just talkin, then holdin up a sign that said, 'We won't hurt you,' which the spiders ignored, or so we thought. We later learned that moon spiders is incredibly near sighted and don't go much for written communication, what with their telepathy and all.

"So, one day, one of the Alistairs gets frustrated and decides he's gonna lasso one of them things. Well, we didn't have no rope around for him to do the lassoin with, so he weaved one himself out of the mounds of spider silk we found in the chamber where all them Pats and others was bound up. Right as he gets his lasso done, a spider pops into existence right in front of him. To this day, that Alistair says it was his quick reactions and smart thinkin that got the lasso on, but most of us think it was just luck. I'd say it's best not to bring it up. Regardless of whether it was skill or blind luck, that Alistair got that spider lassoed, but it still popped out of existence. Weird thing was, it took part of the lasso with it. Not all, mind you, just part. But, and here's the thing I never get, the part that went with it when it popped wherever it was goin was still attached to the part that was in the Alistair's hand. That rope was just stretchin out in from of the Squimonk and disappearin right into thin air, lookin like it was tied to the world's calmest gnat, but he could still feel the spider on the other end.

"So he started pullin, and he could feel the spider fightin him. And them spiders is mighty strong, let me tell you. They got this game they call "Car Ball" that's a lot like football, but there's no pads and the ball is made of ten wadded up cars. It's right excitin to watch a match, I tell ya. Anyhoo, Alistair kept pullin and pullin on that rope like he was landin the world's biggest catfish, the catfish bein a spider, mind you. Then he felt the rope go totally slack and the thought to himself, or so he tells us, 'Oh, no! I've popped its head clean off with my mighty strength!'

"He started reelin that rope in as fast as he could, hopin to heck that it didn't have a spider head thrashin around in the noose. But, when he got it past whatever portal it was stickin through, he saw the spider had chewed clean through. He was pleased that he'd found something that could connect us to the spiders, even though it didn't make them stay in place. But we combined that with a discovery from the far side of the moon base and changed our relationship with the moon spiders forever."

"And what was that?" I asked.

"Just settle down," he scolded me. "We got a long coupla weeks ahead of us. Don't make me use up all my stories on the first night."

So I went below decks again and tried to sleep.

Ninjacop

I ain't never been much of a fan of the muscle car. I mean, sure, they gots themselves big ol' loud engines, which I like, but they're kinda impractical when you need to haul lumber or donut grease or a pack full of half-wild chipmunks that need to be released far enough away from man that their little landmines will no longer threaten our hound dogs and various other pets. That's why I've always preferred either a pickup, a boat car or, when all else has failed, an El Camino. I ain't tryin to disparage the American auto makers or nothin like that. I think they do plenty well with their own disparagin, actually. I'm just sayin this to let you know that, when I say that the Camaro I was shootin over the meth plains in was, without a doubt, the rip-roarinest, tire-squealinest, pants-fillinest car I've ever had the pleasure of ridin in, that ain't no hyperbole. Imagin that you lived in the future. I ain't talkin, like, next week future, neither. Like, way way in the future. Like so far in the future that flying cars have become obsolete because now, to get to work, everyone just uses their shrink rays on themselves, climbs into the barrel of a .45 Magnum, settles down in a tiny little seat inside the bullet, puts a little "Barracuda" on the radio and just shoots their way to work. Now imagine that, inside that bullet, there was another tiny little shrink ray and another tiny magnum that shot a smaller bullet that same speed, and it all got added to that first shot. Now, on that tinier bullet, put a blower and paint some flames on the side. Now you got some small idea of what ridin in this thing was like.

That's why I was shocked when the cop caught up to us and pulled us over. I ain't no physicist or nothin, but I woulda thought we were travelin fast enough that the sound of his siren couldn't catch up with us, let alone the car in which his siren was travellin. But catch up, he did. I ain't sure if the other Pat was ignorin the lights or if he was tryin to outrun them, but when that rocket was fired across the front of the car, bounced off the hood, shot into the air, swerved around for awhile and ended up landin on what, accordin to the sign, was a strip club/bar/boxing ring/barbed wire wholesaler and changin it into a crater/ditch/smokin hole in the ground, his mind got changed right quick.

As we were rollin to a stop, Pat looked over and told me, "Try and act like a meth addled junkie. Follow my lead."

He started squirmin in his seat and itchin himself like he'd just run a marathon through a poison ivy patch and followed it up by a cooldown roll on a red ant hill. Last thing I wanted was to get into problems on this planet, so I joined right in.

In between pretendin I'd been the main dish at a mosquito wedding and tryin to pass myself off as an unsprung jack-in-the-box, I saw a figure get out of the car behind us wearin a cowboy hat and reflective sunglasses. I had about four nanoseconds to wonder why he was wearin sunglasses on a planet of perpetual night before he hit us with what could loosely be called a flashlight beam but would be more accurately described as a thousand suns pushed into a tube and then pointed directly in my eyes. By the time the light spots had faded enough for me to be more that half confident I wasn't gonna be blind all my remainin days, the man was tappin on our window. Pat rolled it down and I could see that, despite the cowboy hat, reflective shades, and shiny tin star I could now see pinned to his chest, the cop was in full ninja dress and carryin enough weapons to supply a whole village of starving orphans with the means to rise up against the oppressors and establish a new world order in which orphans called the shots. Sure, they'd try to be good leaders at first, showin compassion to others and tryin to level the playin field, but then they'd get their first tastes of power and soon it would be "All Hail Orphans!" and goose-steppin and tanks rollin through the streets.

I was just workin up some orphan propaganda posters in my head when I was rudely interrupted by ninjacop hittin Pat with the standard first line, "Sir, do you know how fast you were going?"

Now, I don't know a whole lot about theater, and I ain't never taken any sort of drama class down at the community center, even though Frank kept tellin me to, but mostly because I was suspicious she didn't care if I acted or not, but she was really tryin to set me up with this friend of hers, Bernice, that's into this weird new-agey stuff where she calls herself a Buddhist but keeps statues of Vishnu in her house and dresses like a gypsy. I don't wanna sound like I'm some sorta anti-gypsite, but, honestly, how many silk handkerchiefs and gold bracelets does one woman need? So, anyway, I may not know a whole lot about actin, but this other Pat was so into character that I almost believed he'd snuck in some actual meth while I wasn't lookin. He pretended at first not to hear the cop, lookin straight into my eyes and askin, "Did you hear somethin?"

The cop, somehow emoting a frown despite wearin layers of black cloth over his face, asked again, "Do you know how fast you were goin?"

Pat whipped his head around, past the window and ended up lookin at the back seat. "I think the invisible dog is back again!" he yelled. "And it's talkin now. You won't get me this time, invisible dog!" Then he started throwin punches into the empty air.

I thought to myself, "When in Rome..." popped the five point harness and jumped into the backseat elbows first yellin like a banshee ridin a guy from Braveheart into battle.

The third time, the cop had to yell, "DO YOU KNOW HOW FAST YOU WERE GOING?!" I think he was gettin a little mad by this point. Either that or he really wanted to be heard over Pat cheerin me on in my fisticuffs against the imaginary talkin dog.

Over my wrestlin, I heard Pat shout out, "Woah! When did you get here?!" Then he put a hand on my shoulder and said, "Be cool, man, it's the 5-0"

I sat bolt upright in the back seat, hands in my lap. I sat prim and proper like an elementary school librarian who's never happy about nothin sits in church.

Pat turned back to ninjacop and said, "Gee, officer, I'm not exactly sure, but I think it was somewhere up around 145."

The ninja nodded slowly, "Yeah, it was. And how high does your speedometer go?"

Pat rocked a little in his seat. "Um, let me see. See? See. See's a funny word. So's word. Word, herd, turd bird. Turd bird! HA!"

I took my cue and yelled out "TURD BIRD!" as loud as I could.

The cop, obviously gettin fed up, leaned into the car and said, almost to himself, "200, huh?" Then he leaned back again. "Your speedometer goes all the way up to 200, why were you only goin 145?"

Giggling nervously, Pat said, "Oh, that? That's nothin. We were just tryin to stay in the middle of the cheetah herd so them giant carnivorous zebras didn't get us before we got to the dynamite store. I swear, when we get to the dynamite store, we're gonna stick it to them zebras. Right boys?!"

"RIGHT!" I confirmed exuberantly. And then, realizin he's said "boys", I yelled, "RIGHT!" again, just to be safe.

The cop leaned back and put his thumbs in his belt, "Well, allright. I'll let you guys off with a warning this time, but if I see you come back through here goin less than 180 tonight, we're gonna have problems. Understood?"

Pat scratched his neck. "Yeahyeahyeah, I got it. EAT RUBBER ZEBRAS!" And with that, he peeled out in a trail of dust.

We didn't say nothin for awhile. I was busy trembling like a fawn without a coat in Siberia and checkin to see if I was gonna need to borrow a pair of overalls when we got where we were goin. Once that passed, my curiosity got the better of me and I had to ask, "Hey, other Pat?"

"Yeah?"

"Why was that ninja wearin a cowboy hat?"

"Universal law," he explained, "like gravity or the speed of light or fat kids likin cake. All sheriffs have to wear a cowboy hat and reflective sunglasses."

"Huh."

I sat in silence the rest of the way. I mainly occupied myself by thinkin of more orphan propaganda posters for my imaginary world. While I was doin that, I must have drifted off to sleep because, after some darkness and dreams involvin spiders and Heidi Klum that I shouldn't discuss in mixed company, I heard Pat up front say, "Pat, honey, put your shoes on. We're at grandmas."

I sat up, rubbed my eyes and looked out the front of the car onto a black sea that looked like someone had split open a million gorgon hearts with a million bic pens and then covered the whole thing in velvet. Floatin on top of this sea was all the flotsam and jetsam that you'd expect on meth world; dolls, plastic cartons, boxes, cigarette butts and dead whales among them.

"What are we doing here?" I asked. And then I saw it. Amid the debris and dirt, floating near the shore, was a three masted pirate ship bristling with cannons.

Pat nodded at the ship. "We're gonna put you on that there boat and take you to the moon."

Back into it.

It was right about this point in hearin the story that I got a mite distracted. I ain't sayin the story was borin, in fact, it was the dickenest thing I ever did hear. And I ain't tryin to say the tellin of it wasn't great. If anything, it convinced me that this whole "multiple Pat" thing was true as the day is long, or as the sky is black, dependin on which planet you're on. And after all the coffee they fed me, it wasn't because I was tired or unfocused or nothin like that. Nah, what really distracted me from this fine tale was the thunderous, repeated hammering that came from the opening hatch and the sudden panic that followed. Now, I like to think of myself as a considerate listener, but it becomes mighty difficult when there's red lights flashin, alarms blarin out with their whoop-whoopin and Pats poppin in and out of the room like they was kernels of dried corn sittin in a plate full of simmerin bacon grease and yellin things like, "They've found us!" and "Code 3! Code 3!" and "Get him outta here, quick!"

I didn't wanna get in the way or nothin, so I just sat where I was while all of this was goin on. I learned my lesson about that when I was at the Wal-Mart last year. You know how it is. You're just sittin there at the Wal-Mart snack bar, waitin for your nephew to wander around the store and pick up whatever new game he's lookin at so he can shoot aliens or steal cars or shoot alien cars or whatever it is he does all day. So, there you are, drinkin your coffee, maybe readin the paper if you're lucky enough to sit at a table where someone left one behind, and people just start screamin. At first, you just tune 'em out, thinkin the Montana Brothers have just put out a new poster, or whatever crazy new thing the kids are into these days. I don't really keep up that well. But, just as you finish doin the sudoku puzzle (which you gotta do in your head because the last guy did it in ink, but did it all wrong), you look up to see some kind of slimy tentacle thing crawlin its way out of housewares, its pseudopods ripplin overhead like grandma's arm flab and all you can think is that, if your nephew doesn't get back with his game soon, you just may have to wrestle with this thing.

So, you go back to readin the paper, catchin up on local high school sports and whatnot and, when you look up again, you see that this tentacle thing has devoured all of housewares and isn't so much as movin as it is growin towards the toys section, where you assume the games is, which would mean that's where your nephew is and, if you lose one more nephew to crazy alien and/or demon spawn while game shoppin at the Wal-Mart, your sister Frank's prolly never gonna speak to you again, so you figure it's time to take action. Now, as you're prolly well aware if you spend as much time waitin in the Wal-Mart snack bar as I do, that every Wal-Mart keeps an assortment of weapons just behind the popcorn machine, in case of alien invasion or zombie attack or whatever else can go wrong. So, you jump the counter, which is usually without employees, and start sortin through a cardboard box full of creature killin devices. Now, when in this situation, seein a tentacled creature devour the back of the Wal-Mart, you ain't likely to know right away if the creature is from another dimension, another planet or is just the product of some combination of genetic tinkerin and a lousy sewer system. Now, it's mighty kind of the Wal-Mart people to mark each weapon with its name and uses, but seein a tag that says "Nuclear Destablilizer; for use on multi-dimensional creatures or minor Great Old Ones" ain't gonna help you a whole lot if you ain't got your "Guide to Creatures What May Devour and/or Destroy the Earth" handy. If I were in this situation, and I was, I would just grab myself a roll of the duct tape and get to work tapin all them weapons together to make yourself one massive super weapon. Sure, it's gonna be heavy and unwieldy, like tryin to oil wrestle an elephant with no legs, but that's what carts are for, right? And you already got the duct tape out, so why not tape a couple of them carts together to give yourself a little more stability? And, while you're at it, why not tape that super gun you just made to the cart, in case you hit a bump or somethin? I mean, you don't want that thing fallin of the floor, misfirin and mutatin all the cheetos into a big orange monster, now, do ya?

So, there ya is, runnin through automotive, screamin like a banshee and bearin down on this thing thats got as many eyes on each tentacle as it has tentacles, and every eye is turned to look at you. The sweat's rollin down your back like a you're a flock of ducks in Noah's flood and you're gettin a little hoarse because you been yellin all the way from the snack bar and you forgot how big the Wal-Mart really is.Then this tentacle comes sweepin out of nowhere behind you and picks you up along with the cart like you ain't nothin more than a kernel of popcorn in its shoe. Now, as you prolly know, this is the time for panic. So, you start shootin your gun off every which way and, just as you suspected, when it hits the food section, the cheetos, owin to some chemical properties, you spect, mutate into a cheeto monster what leaves orange streaks on the ceiling as it moves and which is pretty angry for somethin that's just been created. You can't help but feel relieved as you get flung aside because, apparently, Captain McTentacles needs all his thrashin power to take on Orangey O'Cheetohead. What you don't know, and what, in all fairness, the manager at the Wal-Mart shouldn't have really expected you to know and it's pretty unfair of him to think you could possibly know, is that when Pseudopod McGee and Cheeto Orangystuff there collide, it sets off some kind of sciency nuclear reaction that causes both to stop existing dramatically, explosively, and gooily.

Now, you'd think when this happens, people would come around and thank ya by shakin your hand, covered in black slime and orange cheese dust though it may be. But there, my friend, you would be wrong. Instead, what's gonna happen in this situation, is there's yet another Wal-Mart you ain't allowed into because the manager is on some sorta power trip. So now, you gotta drive a whole hour whenever your nephew desperately needs to fight aliens on the tv because heaven forbid he help you when you need to do it in real life. So, long story short, when the panic erupts, it's best to just stay out of the way. If you've ever been to the Wal-Mart, I'm sure you can relate.

And that's precisely what I was doin amid all the hammerin and whoopin and yellin hubbub that was goin on down in the bunker, stayin out of the way. I figured, when I needed to do somethin, I would be informed. In the meantime, I might as well get myself ready by finishin that sandwich that was just sittin in the center of the table and drinkin my coffee. I was on the last bite of said sandwich when a Pat popped in, tossed a shirt and a small can on the table and told me, "Here, put on the shirt and use the makeup to black out your teeth. We've got to get you to the ships."

I ain't usually one to argue with myself, even if myself isn't myself, so I did as I was told. I slipped the shirt, which I saw said "Slayer" on it and had the sleeves cut out, and opened the can to find black goo inside, which I covered my teeth with. As soon as this was done, I was hustled into a grate in the floor. It turns out that, as an army, I'm pretty darn resourceful. I even dig tunnels under my tunnels. I don't wanna brag or nothin, but I'm pretty darn proud of that. There was a whole tunnel complex underneath that there grate. I didn't get much time to look around, but from what I could see, it appeared that there was cubby holes and whatnot set in the tunnels where the Pat army was keepin paintings and statues and books. It all looked sorta high-fallutin to me, but I'm a simple man. But I was curious so I made a note to ask about it later.

After runnin through what felt like miles of tunnel, the Pat leadin me stopped us and did some fiddlin with the wall, which turned into a door through which we walked. On the other side of that wall was a perfectly normal garage with a couple of muscle cars sittin in it. Pat nodded at a 69 Camaro with slicks on the back and a chrome blower stickin out of the hood and told me, "Get in."

I slid into the passenger seat, and was hookin up my five point harness as Pat told me, "We're gonna drive like Indian food outta a man with irritable bowel syndrome. If we're lucky, we won't be caught. If we're not lucky, then we will be caught and you gotta act like a junkie. Just itch and twitch, buddy, just itch and twitch."

And with that, we were rocketing through the night.

Moon Spider Poison

Accordin to Pat 2 (I ain't callin him Pat 1 because I think of myself at Pat 1, mostly because I come up as number 1 when you search Pat O'Neil on the Google, unless that computer science teacher has gamed the system again, in which case I still think of myself at Pat O'Neil 1 by virtue of not bein a sneaky cheater. Who uses computer science to help them rise up on Google stats, anyway?), fightin an enemy that can materialize and dematerialize at will is a bit like tryin to wrestle a bowl of jello into submission. It ain't never gonna submit, you can't understand its motivations and, in the end, you're just gonna wind up sticky and tired. At first, the moonbound army of Pats, squimonk and Douggies didn't know anything was wrong. Sure, there was constant rumors of squimonk disappearing, but everyone wrote it off as confusion. This was in the halcyon early days of interstellar travel, mind you, and no one had yet come up with a good system for tellin one Alistair or Pat from another of the same kind. Well, that ain't exactly true. There was some of em that stuck out like a hand full of sore thumbs lookin for a ride on the highway. Due to differences in Earths, some Pats were taller, some shorter, some a little older, some a little younger and some of em was even females. Tell the truth, that was about half of em; the female ones. But, besides them differences, most of the Pats fell into a sort of average range. Characteristics were usually shared by up to 90% of Pats, including the need to grow a beard to cover up a superfluous second chin. That bein the case, when one Alistair or a Pat or, occasionally, a Jared disappeared, everyone would say that they were lost in the mob or one Pat had mistaken his Alistair and another's. In a situation like this, confusion is liable to run rampant.

The Pat army figured out somethin was wrong when, diggin deep into the moon soil in order to install the swimming pool that would be vital to their operations, they came upon a chamber the size of Cleveland that was as perfectly spherical as Cleveland isn't. As I said, they'd seen them some spiders before, and they'd been hypothesizing all along where they was from and what they was doin on the moon, so they wasn't too surprised to find the spider chamber, though that meant some of the Pats owed other of the Pats part of their salary. Instead, what was most surprisin about the chamber was the little white balls that covered its interior. Pat 2 there explained that it was like bein inside a basketball that had been covered on the inside with a fine coating of golf balls. Well, they just had to know what was inside them little balls, so they started unravelin em. The first Alistair that got to the inside fainted and nearly died from the shock of seein himself paralyzed but alive. This was repeated over the hundreds of times they opened them balls. Inside each one of them, there was a perfectly preserved Pat or Alistair or, occasionally, a Jared. It was a bit like goin to the store and buyin one of them Homiez figures from the vending machine except this didn't cost a quarter, the homie inside was life sized, it was you and it was alive. Come to think of it, it's not at all like buyin one of them Homiez. I guess I just brought that up because I put all my Homiez up for auction on the E-Bay the day before I got sent here, and I was wonderin how the auction was goin. They're all in mint condition and I got the whole set from series one and two. I thought it was worth about $500,000, but I thought I'd start the bidding at $400,000. You know, play it cool for a bit. But now, I'm afraid the auction might be over and if I haven't contacted the buyer, they're not gonna buy it. I was gonna retire from all this ninja fightin business and by myself a little place somewhere with a porch that men like me could whittle and tell each other stories on. I guess I'll just have to start the auction all over again when I get back, but it's gonna hurt my seller rating.

Regardless, after openin up all their spider homiez, the Pat army knew they was in for some trouble. Them big ol' crazy warpin spider things obviously meant business. And it wasn't the kind of business that was gonna provide high returns on low investments, it was the kind that was gonna suck your soul out of ya and leave ya tied up in a big wad of silk unable to move, but no dyin. Somethin like insurance, but not as bad, if you know what I'm sayin. The real question was how on Earth, or on the moon, as it were, were they gonna fight an enemy that could dig perfect spheres and pack it full of people and animals without anyone knowin. It's sorta like askin how you're gonna fight Dick Cheney except, far as I could tell, the moon spiders wasn't big on shootin people in the face. The answer came to them all too quickly.

You see, as soon as they was finished gettin their buddies out of the shells and into the ICU, one of the spiders popped in to the chamber, saw what they was doin, dropped its newest package, and bit the nearest Pat. She screamed through her beard and fell to the ground, seemingly lifeless. As everyone ran over to help her out, she rose to her feet, said, "I'm feelin right funny," and then blinked out of existence. Wide-eyed, everyone stared at the space she used to be. Then they heard a voice from behind them sayin, "Hey, whatchyall lookin at? You been standin there the whole time?"

They all turned around to see a tanned, happy lookin Pat wearin a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops, holdin a coconut in her hand and lookin mighty strange. When questioned, she told them that, after the spider bit her, she thought she might want to spend a week in Maui, restin and recuperatin, and suddenly found herself in Maui. It wasn't as nice as people made it out to be, she told everyone sagely, there was too many cyclops there these days and they spent all their time throwin rocks at the passin ships and tryin to sink em. After sittin down and doin some math, the squimonk figured out she'd been on an Earth where the time passed much faster, where two seconds here was a week there. They also ran some tests on the Pat that was bitten and saw that, while she was bitten by the spider, she had taken on their abilities instead of goin into a coma. Test after test was performed after that, but they couldn't see any physiological difference between that Pat and most of the others that had been bitten by the spider. So then they figured maybe diet was a factor. They quizzed her about what she'd eaten that day and she told them she'd had her usual meal of two packs of bacon for breakfast followed by a jelly donut. The squimonk doctors checked this against the stomach contents of the frozen ones and saw that, among the Pats, most had less than two full packs of bacon in their stomachs with some having as little as one measly pack, though all had the jelly donut. It's nice to know there are other people out there like you, you know?

Once they got this figured out, they gave the sleeping ones an I.V. drip of bacon and they soon started wakin up and bouncin all over the universe. Pats were scattered hither and yon. Most often they showed up after spendin some time on Maui, but occasionally got into weirder stuff. Well, the squimonk decided that they couldn't wait around for passing spiders to randomly bite at them, and they sure as heck couldn't abide these spiders kidnappin their doppelgangers, so they got busy with the sciencin. Right away, they put all the Pats on a strick diet of two packs of bacon and a jelly donut for breakfast every mornin. It didn't put the Pats out too much, but there is now a new moon around Jupiter in this system that is made entirely of bacon grease. Every once in a while, they will fly their space piratin ships over to it and make popcorn or whatnot with their leavins. It's supposed to be a lot of fun to go slidin down the great grease mountains on your belly. After that, it was a simple matter of the squimonk isolatin the spider poison, synthesizin it in a lab, running experiments, sequencin genomes, mapping the knows universe, teaching the Pats what was on the map and how to use their jump powers for somethin more than quick vacations, and makin enough quantities of their chemical to give to all the Pats, and they were in business. The playing field had been leveled some. Now most of the Pats could bounce through space at will and it was just a matter of findin where the spiders were hidin, what they wanted and how they could be reasoned with or defeated. All in all, a pretty easy day's work for a hyper-intelligent creature, I should think.