He keyed open her door and bent down low, his palms on the ship’s decking. Slowly, he peeked around the corner of the doorway, keeping his head in a spot people rarely looked. Molly’s elbow was still visible sticking out over the controls. Walter pushed up from the deck and darted across the hall, back to his own room. As he ran, he clutched his new favorite thing to his chest, eager to get alone with it.

He left the lights out in his room and went straight to the bed, jumping under the covers. Feeling with his fingers, he found the seam in the piece of cloth and made sure it was in the back. With a shiver of anticipation, he lowered the red band down over his forehead.

“Hello?” he thought.

Silence. He waited, growing impatient. Several minutes seemed to go by, but it could’ve been a fraction of that—

“Ah! Walter, it’ss been a while.”

“Yeah,” he thought, “I haven’t had the time. Been bussy.” It was a lie. Truth was, Molly hadn’t been off the ship long enough to do any proper snooping in almost three days.

“Well, I can’t wait to hear about what you’ve been up to.”

“Ssure, but not now. I, uh, can’t talk long thiss time.”

“I undersstand. Hey, I meant to assk you about ssomething lasst time, but you had to run before I could bring it up. You know thosse two armss you have? The oness in the bottom of the tool chesst?”

Walter cringed at the incessant hissing from the stranger’s choice of words, the red band relaying everything in his own voice.

“Arms?” he thought aloud. “I—how did you know about thosse?”

“You were thinking about them the firsst time we sspoke. Don’t you remember? I heard it quite clearly.”

“Oh.” Walter forgot it worked that way. But why would he have been thinking about those stupid things?

“Ssurely you know the armss I’m talking about. Unlesss you jusst have armss sstrewn all over the sship—”

“What? No. No. They’re the only oness. But I wanted to talk about—”

“Right, right. The gold. Well here’ss the deal, Walter, I really would love to help you claim it, but firsst I’m going to need a favor from you.”

“Okay, but it better not get me in trouble.”

“Of coursse, of coursse. All I need you to do iss get me thosse armss. Do you think you could do that?”

“What? Why?”

“Doess it matter? I could jusst asss eassily assk you what you want with thoussandss of barrelss of gold.”

“I don’t know.” Walter rubbed his head, thinking. His coppery hair felt soft under his hand; it was getting too long and needed another pass with the shaver. He tried to picture himself with it grown out and what Molly would think about it. “How do I get them to you?” he asked. “Where are you?”

“I’m on my way to a little planet called Lok. Do you know it?”