“This star produces no infrared light,” Haticat says, standing on the platform side of the bed where the engines are.

“That’s impossible,” Nathaniel says next to him.

“Check for yourself.” Haticat steps away from the spectrograph. Nathaniel and Haticat discover a region of space with strange properties. Near the perimeter, the stars produce no radio waves. Near the center, they produce neither radio nor infrared. Changing course to get a better look, it quickly becomes obvious that it is not the stars that are unusual, but something in front of them much closer to the ship. It superficially resembles a black hole a mere kilometer across, but light of different wavelengths behaves differently at its boundary. Long wavelength radiation such as radio bends around it most easily, becoming completely blocked at a radius of 756 meters. Short wavelength radiation such as x-rays bend with less of an angle, and become completely blocked only at a radius of 410 meters.

“This is artificial gravity,” Nathaniel says.

“I’ve never heard of artificial gravity strong enough to trap light,” Doctor Bill mentions.

“Neither have I, but there’s a first time for everything,” Nathaniel says.

“What’s making it?” Fred asks.

“Probably a space station someone wants to keep hidden, so let’s take a look,” Nathaniel says. They land bed side down on the surface of a large metal ball where a layer of air has been trapped by the gravity. The gravity on the space station is much less than that further out, trapping the light. They bounce along in one fourth Earth gravity, exploring the surface. There are many other ships here of many designs. The explorers walk until they stop under a ship shaped like an inverted letter U.

“Freeze!” yells someone behind them. In seconds, they are surrounded by five Humanoids in black uniforms. They are blue skinned with completely black eyes. Each wears a camera embedded in the middle of their large bellies and carries some sort of energy rifle. “Disarm them,” one says. Their laser pistols are quickly confiscated.

“What’s going on here?” Nathaniel demands.

“I’m Captain Quill of the starship Zoyyix. Who are you?”

“Captain Nathaniel of the…uh…my ship,” Captain Nathaniel says. “We’re explorers.”

“I’ve never heard of the Myship, interesting name. You landed immediately after us. Were you following us?” Quill asks.

“No, we never saw you,” Nathaniel answers.

“So your timing is a coincidence?” Captain Quill asks.

“I believe that the time dilation of the gravity barrier causes time to run slower here such that days or even weeks might have passed outside while you exited your craft. Then, when we finally arrived, it would have seemed that it was immediately after,” Nathaniel suggests.

Captain Quill says, “You’re probably telling the truth, but I can’t allow you to leave and spread word of our location, so you’ll be joining my crew temporally. We’re explorers too; that’s what the cameras are for.”

“So what do you know about this place?” Nathaniel asks.

“Very little. It’s coordinates were found in a computer once owned by a being who called himself The Genius,” Captain Quill says.

“Oh, I’ve heard of him,” Nathaniel says.

“We believe all his best inventions are stored here,” Captain Quill says.

“They’ll probably be impossible to figure out,” Nathaniel says.

“I doubt it. My crew is made up of the most intelligent and most educated citizens from my planet. If anyone can understand it, they can,” Captain Quill claims.

A sixth member of the crew approaches. “Did you finish downloading the video files from the previous team?” the captain asks him.

“They were totally scrambled,” he replies.

“So we don’t even know if they made it inside?” another comments.

“Well, we’ll figure it out,” Quill says.

The ten explorers walk around until they find a structure with nine doors in it, each with a puzzle lock. One of the blue aliens steps forward to solve. He shuffles the squares around until it forms the correct picture and opens the door. “Come on,” Captain Quill says, but once the first crew member is through, the door slides shut and the lock retracts into the machine. They try knocking and they try the radio, but they cannot make contact.

“Whatever this strange metal is, it is impervious to all scans,” Doctor Bill reports.

“Let’s see if it’s impervious to this!” Captain Quill fires his energy rifle at the door. It squeals and whistles and the energy is absorbed and channeled away without the tiniest bit of damage.

“I guess we need to solve the puzzles,” Nathaniel says.

They solve another puzzle lock but the door will not open with two people standing on the pad. Then the moment one steps off it opens. “I’ll hold it for you,” the front crewmember says but the door slides closed so fast it cuts off his hands.

“Each door only takes one person. There are seven doors left and eight of us left. This is a game – a contest to see who is smartest,” Nathaniel speaks in ominous tones.

Captain Quill turns to the crewmember on his right. “Go back and guard the ship. If we aren’t out in three days, return home and report to the president.”

Suddenly, there is a loud rushing noise. “What’s that?” Haticat asks. The air begins to move past them faster and faster. Huge flaps uncover grates in the surface of the space station.

“It’s removing the air!” Nathaniel yells.

“Okay, everyone back to the ship!” Captain Quill yells.

“It’s too far. We’ll never make it!” Captain Nathaniel yells, barely able to stand up against the wind at this point. The air is already getting thin. He rapidly solves one puzzle for Doctor Bill, one for Fred, one for Haticat, and finally one for himself before stumbling inside.

Nine of them sit in a small room with eight doors. One of the blue aliens sobs in the corner while his friend bandages the ends of his arms. In the middle of the room is a cube on a pedestal. A very flat dead alien lies next to it. “Where is Quinquay?” the captain asks.

One crewmember looks nervous. “Tripped. Wind blew him away.”

The captain turns around. “What kind of broccoli-stinking place is this?”

“The genius probably thought that one day he might be captured and brought here under guard so he designed the machine to only allow one individual all the way through to the end. Being a genius, he probably figured he could pit the others against each other and make sure he was that one individual. He might have even used this place as a way to rid himself of any captors,” Nathaniel muses.

One of the aliens looks over the cube. It is made of many smaller cubes designed to slide past each other. It is a larger, three-dimensional version of the slider puzzles. One has to build a three-dimensional picture that includes the interior blocks that can’t be seen, relying on memory alone. “Do you think this opens all the doors?”

The two captains step closer. “That looks like it would take a long time to solve,” Nathaniel comments. Ding! A clock on the wall starts to move.

“Broccoli!” Captain Quill curses.

“Yikes!” Haticat exclaims.

“Get by the doors,” Nathaniel whispers to Doctor Bill before joining the aliens frantically trying to solve the puzzle. They immediately start bickering and then shoving.

“One person at a time!” Captain Quill orders.

“Which should be me!” another says.

“I developed the field of transmath,” another says.

Unnoticed, Nathaniel moves blocks around using his super speed, but he is still too slow. The clock finishes one rotation. Ding! Then the ceiling starts to move downwards.

“Oh! Oh, no!” an alien shouts.

Working more franticly, Nathaniel accidentally knocks one of the blocks right out of the assembly. He runs and picks it up. “Wait a second.” Then he removes all the blocks and sorts them. Now he can build the required picture from the ground up, without actually having to solve the puzzle. It takes him 20 seconds. All the aliens run to the doors as they open, bent over because of the still-lowering ceiling. Nathaniel outruns all of them by using his super speed.

Eight of them step into a room with seven doors. There are multiple corpses here. “You shot Dequesh!” an alien shouts.

“So what? It was either us or him, and he didn’t have any hands; he would’ve slowed us down,” Captain Quill shouts back.

“And I suppose you’ll shoot the rest of us, too,” the crew member says.

“No, just him,” Captain Quill says, pointing his gun at Nathaniel‘s face.

“The puzzles will only get harder. Are you sure you can solve them without me?” Nathaniel asks.

Captain Quill hesitates for a moment. “Hey, we need him. Maybe I should shoot you,” says the other alien, reaching for his gun.

“What are you doing? I’m the captain of this mission,” Captain Quill says.

“Maybe, but I looked around and this isn’t your ship,” the other alien says.

Ssshhweeeeeeet! An energy beam bursts from the end of another crew member’s gun, killing the one challenging the captain. “Good shooting,” Captain Quill says. Then, turning to Nathaniel, he adds, “Very clever of you to pit us against each other while placing your own crew first. From now on, I decide who stays and who goes. Find a way for us all to get out, or I kill the little Stuffian next.”

Nathaniel looks around the room. At its center is a box on a pedestal with seven levers poking out of it. He pushes and pulls on them, causing the others to move in counterintuitive ways. Figuring out how it works seems impossible. “Doctor Bill, can you scan the inside of this box?”

“It seems to be as impervious as the walls,” Doctor Bill reports.

“Is it getting hotter in here?” Haticat asks.

“Yes,” Fred answers.

Nathaniel stares at the box for a long time as the room gets even hotter. Finally, he gets it. The box is unimportant. There are seven levers and seven doors. By each door is a small hole with cross-section the same as one of the levers. They are detachable. He needs a distraction. he calls Doctor Bill over.

After talking with Nathaniel, Doctor Bill scans the room. “Guys, there seems to be a weak area in this wall where scans penetrate into an adjacent room. I think several energy weapons focused in this spot just might burn through.”

“Really? It’s worth a try,” Captain Quill says. The three remaining aliens fire beams of energy into the wall. Nothing much seems to happen.

“Keep trying. The molecular Bonds are destabilizing,” Doctor Bill says.

Nathaniel removes all seven levers from the box. Then he hands one to Haticat, one to Fred, and one to Doctor Bill. Next, they run to the doors, unlock them, and escape.

Hearing the sound, Captain Quill turns around. “Hey!”

Nathaniel enters the next room safely. There are corpses here too. Suddenly the levers in his hand become scalding hot. He drops them on the floor with a clash and holds his hands together. “Aah.”

Then one of the other entry doors opens and all three aliens walk through. “What happened?” one asks. Captain Quill looks at the levers on the ground. “He cheated. That’s what happened.”

“Maybe, but now we know it’s possible to get everyone out. One of us just has to cheat again and the computer will have to let everyone else go too,” Nathaniel says.

Captain Quill grunts and then looks around. This room has six doors and a computer displaying four numbers on the screen: 1, 3, 111, and 214.

“What could that mean?” Haticat asks.

“Maybe we have to guess the next number in the sequence,” Nathaniel suggests.

The aliens crowd around. “Try 314,” one says.

Nathaniel types in 314 and hits enter. Bzzz! “We need to think about this,” Nathaniel says.

The alien mathematicians debate about all kinds of potential sequences and what the following number might be including some with seventy-six million digits. Nathaniel paces back-and-forth doing his own thinking. Twenty minutes later, he has an idea. Without waiting for permission, he types in 1141111. Ding! One of the doors opens. “So that’s the trick.”

“What’s the trick?” Captain Quill asks.

“Each digit tells us how many identical digits in a row there are in the next number in the sequence. It doesn’t even matter what they are. 1 tells us that there was one of something, in this case 3. 3 tells us there are three of something, in this case 1s. So, 1 gives us 3, 3 gives us 111, 111 gives us 214, and I chose ones and fours to make 1141111. The next number must have ten digits. What about 4211113462?” Nathaniel types it in and hits enter. Ding! Another door opens. “These numbers are going to get big quickly if I don’t use smaller digits. What about zeros?” He types in 1111002102111222200000011. Ding! Another door opens. “Now, if you cheat by taking the computer with you, the machine should let us all through like last time,” Nathaniel says.

“Oh no, you’re coming with us just in case it doesn’t work,” the captain orders.

Nathaniel types in 1010110110101100110010. A fourth door opens. He looks back at his crew as the aliens remove the computer from its pedestal. Haticat waves. Then the four of them exit. The computer instantly explodes, knocking the alien carrying it into the wall and snapping his neck. Captain Quill spins around and pokes Nathaniel‘s nose with his gun. “Did you know that was going to happen?”

“No,” Nathaniel answers.

The fifth door then opens, allowing Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill through. The remaining six explorers find themselves in a long hallway. They turn a few corners until the hall terminates in a large cubic room with a hole in the upper part of the opposite wall. In the middle of the floor is a short pedestal with a large red button on which there are two opposing arrows. “I suspect it reverses gravity,” Doctor Bill says.

Nathaniel looks up. “That’s a long way to fall.”

“It’s survivable,” Captain Quill says.

“Yes, but at what cost?” Nathaniel asks. Quill kicks the button with his foot and they are all in the air.

Thud. They hit the ceiling hard. Nathaniel sprains his wrist. Everyone else seems fine. The explorers follow another long hallway until they reach a single door flanked by a lever on each side. There are more corpses here than anywhere else. Captain Quill pulls on one lever and then on the other. Nothing happens.

Nathaniel looks around. “All these bodies have blast wounds. They didn’t die from dehydration. They killed each other because they couldn’t work together. Try pulling the levers at the same time.” He and the remaining alien crew member attempt it. It takes them four tries to synchronize properly. There is a loud click and the door rises. They all go through.

The explorers follow another long hallway until they enter a room with five doors and a blue ceiling. On the opposite wall are two large blue buttons and a small panel of nine lights, some lit and some not. There are no corpses here. Doctor Bill starts scanning while Nathaniel checks out the panel. He finally hits one of the buttons. A door opens and the arrangement of lights changes. He hits the other button and narrow poles suddenly rise half a meter from the floor and then stop. “Whoa!” the alien crew member says, caught by surprise when a pole erupts under his foot.

The others walk around the room. There are silver circles imbedded in the tiled floor that may be additional poles. “Captain, the ceiling is a thin layer of glass holding up liquid monoczene. That’s why it’s blue,” Doctor Bill reports.

“That’s deadly!” Fred comments.

“So, we’ve got to figure out which button opens the…opening things, and which button raises the…going up things,” Nathaniel says.

“The doors and the poles?” Haticat asks.

“Right,” Nathaniel says. The more he has to focus on material objects that could kill him, the less he can focus on the arbitrary semantic labels people attach to them. He studies the panel of lights, carefully comparing it to the previous configuration in his memory. He hits one button after the other pausing in between to think. Sometimes the poles rise. Sometimes another door opens. There seems to be no pattern.

“There are three doors open now. We should get ready to run through in case the monoczene escapes,” the alien crew member says.

“We can’t leave the Nino behind. He’s figured out every puzzle,” Captain Quill says.

“But he keeps prioritizing his crew over us and they haven’t contributed anything. Do you have any doubt that he’ll betray us all as soon as we find the technology vault?” the crew member says.

“We’ll deal with that when the time comes. Right now, he’s our only chance to get through the next puzzle,” Captain Quill says.

“Listen to me!” The first alien grabs his captain by the shirt.

“Hey!!” the Captain shouts, shoving the first alien against a pole and causing it to flex. “Would you rather be killed by me than him?”

Nathaniel, who has not been paying attention, hears the captain’s raised voice and turns just in time to see the pole snapped back into position. He turns back to look at the doors, then he looks behind him. Stepping away from the buttons, he pushes on another pole. It bends. “Captain, I have an idea.” Nathaniel explains that if the poles keep rising, and if no one uses the doors, soon at least one of the poles nearest the doors will be the right height to bend through the doorway. “Too short, and it won’t stay in position. Too tall, and we won’t be able to get it underneath. We’ll have to hold it in place until the poles extend again. Then the door won’t be able to close and we can all use the same door. Everybody lives.”

Everyone agrees and Nathaniel hits another button. The poles extend. They pull one down. “Someone pull that one too. I don’t know which will extend farthest.” He looks up at the ceiling nervously. There are already two poles a mere meter from the glass. Nathaniel hits the same button. Another door opens. He hits the same button. Some of the other poles extend. He hits the same button. There was no point trying to figure out the panel of lights. He was sure now that they were random, just a trick to throw him off track. The final door opens. Taking a deep breath, he hits the button again and the first bent pole extends through the doorway. “Go!”

The two blue aliens, three Stuffians, and Nathaniel all run through the same door as it struggles to close. The pole is bent so far down that Nathaniel, being the last one through, has to crawl. “That was scary!” Fred says.

The explorers find themselves in another long hallway. It wraps around and back and forth. Then they pass an alcove with a large door of a different design. On each side are computer panels. “Impervious to scans, just like everything else,” Doctor Bill reports.

Captain Quill studies the panel carefully. “It has a firewall. Fortunately, I’m a trained computer hacker.” He types in some numbers and minutes later the door rises. Out falls a corpse that had been leaning against the inside of the door. The seven explorers look inside. The enormous room is packed with strange machinery and computers. There are cabinets full of potions. There are racks of guns. “All the knowledge of The Genius. Every invention. New ways of controlling energy. All the health, wealth, power, and pleasure anyone could want.”
Nathaniel extends a hand. “Wait.”

“What is it now?” Captain Quill asks.

“I don’t see another door in here,” Nathaniel says.

“So?” Captain Quill says.

“So, how do we get out again?” Nathaniel asks.

“We use this door, stupid,” Captain Quill says.

“Then why didn’t he?” Nathaniel points at the body next to their feet. He pulls out his own scanner and scans it. “He died of dehydration – slowly. All this technology available to someone clearly smart enough to have made it this far in the game and he couldn’t even find a way to open the door or make water in the time it took him to die.” He steps back and hits the button to close the door again.

“What are you doing?” Captain Quill asks.

“I know a trap when I see one, and this entire space station is a trap for smart people. The Genius would never have shared his technology with anyone as smart as him,” Nathaniel says.

“How do you know? He was trying to make everyone smarter for reasons incomprehensible to the rest of us,” Captain Quill says.

“I know that’s what he said. I don’t know that I believe it,” Nathaniel says.

“It doesn’t matter. There is no gain without risk.” Captain Quill hits a button on the second panel, opening the door.

“No.” Nathaniel uses the first panel to close the door again.

“Step aside.” The captain raises his gun. “If you follow orders, we’ll share. If not, we’ve already made it to the treasure so we don’t need you anymore.”

“Drop the weapon!” Fred shouts. He points a gun at Quill while Haticat and Doctor Bill cover the other alien. “We outnumber you now.”

“We disarmed you,” Captain Quill says in surprise.

“Yes, but you didn’t disarm the corpses,” Fred says.

“We helped ourselves,” Haticat says.

“Good work,” Nathaniel says.

Quill sets the gun down. “I’m not leaving without something.” He opens the door again. Then, he quickly constructs some programming with his other hand to send repeated “open” signals twice every second. Nathaniel keeps hitting “close,” but the door only jerks slightly. “Our predecessor on the floor was likely alone and had no one on the outside to open the door for him. Fortunately, I know how to keep a door open.”

“Do you?” Nathaniel‘s hand sweeps across the controls, writing code to send “close” signals ten times per second.

Quill responds by programming his panel to open the door 1000 times per second. Nathaniel creates an algorithm that inputs Quill’s number and adds one to it. Quill adds two to Nathaniel‘s new number. Nathaniel multiplies by two. Quill multiplies the number by itself. Nathaniel raises the number to a power of itself. Quill raises the number to itself raised to itself. Nathaniel raises the number to a stack of powers with as many members as the value of the number – a level four operation. Quill immediately modifies the number with an operation of a level equal to the input number. Nathaniel‘s mind spins into overdrive. He must create an algorithm that can beat iterated arithmetic and he must predict what Quill will do next. He defines a set of three sequences and then calculates the members of all three sequences whose places in the sequences are themselves members of all three sequences whose places are also members and so on, as many times as is the first member of the sequence higher than Quill’s last number. It takes him twenty-nine seconds, which gives Quill an idea. He defines the next number as the largest possible number to be described using the panels available to them in less than one minute’s time. Now he has reached the limits of the hardware. What can Nathaniel do? After thinking it over for several seconds, Nathaniel defines a number as the largest possible number that can be stored in all the memory of the entire space station with or without data compression. The moment he hits enter, the lights go out.

“What happened?” Quill asks. Gradually, the lights come on again. The panel screens are cleared.

Nathaniel tries logging in to the station systems. “I think the game is starting over. Another ship just landed.”

“What?” Quill tries to open the vault door, but it does not move.

“It won’t open unless you beat the game first,” Nathaniel says.

“We did beat the game,” Quill says.

“Not according to the station memory. The number I put in replaced everything and now the station is running it as if it were a program. It’s the same program that was running when we arrived and the time dilation allowed us in,” Nathaniel says. He looks up at the wall. “We weren’t the first to do this…”

“At least it’s not a total loss. We have our cameras so the next team will know how to beat the game,” Quill says.

“There are hundreds of rooms here, machinery to create and destroy rooms, and the most advanced software I’ve ever seen. I don’t think they will do any good,” Nathaniel says.

“Hey, my video is scrambled,” the remaining crew member says.

“If the big number overwrote the game, does that mean it overwrote all The Genius’s secrets?” Haticat asks.

“Probably,” Nathaniel says. “That’s why our predecessor couldn’t make use of any inventions.”

“Or the secrets could be hidden within that number,” Dr. Bill suggests.

“Maybe The Genius was right when he said no one could understand his motives,” Haticat says.

“Maybe,” Nathaniel says as he starts to walk down the hall.

“Where are you going?” Quill asks.

“The game has restarted. That means there’s air on the surface for a limited time. I have to get back to my ship,” Nathaniel says, starting to walk faster. The others follow him a short distance down the hall. A door suddenly shuts behind them unexpectedly.

There is no panel to open it. “No!” Quill yells.

“Come on,” Nathaniel says. They are all running now. There is one final door and then they are outside. The air is already being pumped inside. “Come on,” Nathaniel says again. There is no time for goodbyes. Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill barely make it back to their ship. They have no idea whether the blue aliens escape. Minutes later, they have left the space station and its artificial gravity field behind.

Exhausted, Nathaniel climbs down the side of the platform to the bedside underneath. Artificial gravity holds him there just as well as if he was on the surface of a planet. He takes off his shoes, props himself up on some pillows, and watches the stars speed past in between the orbiting defense pillows. His Stuffians join him. “I’m tired of puzzles,” Fred says.

“Well then next we’ll go to a planet with no puzzles,” Nathaniel says.

“That sounds good,” Fred answers.

“These are very interesting trees,” Haticat says, looking them up and down. They are smooth-skinned and broad-leaved, some blue with green spots and some green with blue spots. Others are brown with long, droopy leaves hanging from the top of an unbranched trunk.

Doctor Bill holds his scanner high. “These two kinds of trees have radically different tissue structures.”

Nathaniel runs his fingers through the moss covering the ground. It is soft and fluffy. “Let’s walk this way.”

Soon the four explorers see a short, red stump in the midst of several brown trees. There are four very large roots stretching away from it as far as they can see. “Strange,” Doctor Bill says. “This plant seems to have metal fragments imbedded in it.”

“That’s because it’s a communication station,” one of the brown trees says.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Nathaniel responds.

The three Stuffians turn to face the tree. Fred puts his hand on his gun. “Wh-what?”

“What are you doing on our planet?” another tree asks.

“Um…” Haticat looks back at Nathaniel, still examining the stump, then back towards the two nearest trees. “We’re exploring. We didn’t know anyone lived here.”

“Obviously we live here. We’re alive and we aren’t anywhere else,” a third tree grumbles.

“He’s got a point,” Nathaniel says, trying to pry the stump open with his fingers.

“Hey! Don’t touch that!” the first tree shouts. It begins to slowly glide closer to Nathaniel, reaching out its long brown leaves, which unfold slightly to reveal rows of suckers. For the first time, Haticat recognizes tiny eyes and beaks at the very top of the trunk. It is some sort of squid.

Nathaniel simply turns to the approaching Squid Tree and asks, “Did you know this was here?”

“Of course, we put them all over the planet. This is one of our colony worlds. We call it Lululululu. What are you doing here?” the first Squid Tree asks.

Nathaniel points to Haticat. “Like he said, we’re explorers.”

“Well, go explore someplace else!” the Squid Tree says.

“Okay, we’ll keep moving,” Nathaniel says, striding out of the grove while his crew follows him.

“Wait!” The stump roars to life. “Apprehend them for questioning!” One of the other trees fires a white ball that hits the ground in front of them and suddenly expands into a mountain of foam. They change direction only for several more to come at them from all directions, creating a wall of foam all around them. It expands quickly, soon pressing against them and holding them in place.

Eventually, the squid trees tear away at most of the foam, leaving just enough around Captain Nathaniel and crew to keep them quite immobile. They are questioned extensively. “And exactly how long have you been on the planet?” the stump roars.

“Well, that’s a good question. I’m not very good with time,” Nathaniel says. “Haticat, how long have we been on the planet…in this century?”

“Um, including the trip to five years from now?” Haticat asks.

“No, because we haven’t been on that trip yet; it’s in the future,” Nathaniel says with a warning look.

“Oh, then about three hours now,” Haticat says.

“I thought we first landed three weeks ago,” Fred mentions.

“No, our first landing was a millennium ago,” Haticat corrects him.

“No, our earliest landing was a millennium ago, but our first landing was three weeks ago,” Doctor Bill corrects him.

“Actually, it was supposed to be a millennium ago, but I was eating a maple syrup sandwich and the controls got sticky, so I’m not really sure when we are right now,” Nathaniel corrects him.

“Just answer the questions! Have you been spiking our soils with sulfur?” the voice in the stump asks.

“What? No,” Nathaniel answers.

“Where is your vehicle?” the stump asks.

“Listen, I’m awfully cramped in here. Could I have a normal interrogation chair?” Nathaniel asks.

“I’m the one who asks questions! You’re the one who answers them! Why are you interfering in our terraforming project?” the stump asks.

“I didn’t know I was,” Nathaniel says. “Wait, is someone interfering in your terraforming project? By spiking your soils with sulfur?”

“I’m the one who asks the questions!” the stump yells.

“We’re experienced detectives. We could find out who,” Nathaniel says.

Eventually, the explorers are released on the condition that they aid in the investigation. They are fitted with tracking devices and told to check in often at any red stump. They first return to their bed ship so they can travel quickly, scanning the ground for sulfur. “On the boundary of the low-sulfur area and high-sulfur area is where we will most likely find the culprits in action,” Nathaniel announces.

No equipment is visible from the air, so they eventually land and look around near one of the many crater lakes. There are the same blue-and-green trees as elsewhere. These are native to the planet. There is plentiful moss and a few other plants as well. In the distance is a Squid Tree grove, containing a red stump station and one of the artificial oxygenator trees the Squid Trees have been using to alter the atmosphere more to their liking.

They walk for a ways until Doctor Bill discovers a source of hydrogen. “These yellow mushrooms are releasing hydrogen into the atmosphere.”

“Hmm. The atmosphere contains traces of hydrogen sulfide. Perhaps the mushrooms take it in, split the molecule, store away the sulfur, and release the hydrogen,” Nathaniel suggests.

“The mushrooms contain higher-than-background levels of sulfur. I’ll use trichromal analysis to follow individual atoms,” Doctor Bill says.

“Good,” Nathaniel says.

“The Squid Trees thought enemy colonists must be spoiling the soil, but it might just be mushrooms,” Haticat comments.

“I don’t like mushrooms; they smell weird,” Fred says.

“Some of them taste good, though,” Nathaniel says.

“Did you figure out how to remove the tracking devices yet?” Haticat asks.

“Yes, but it’s not time,” Nathaniel says.

“Confirmed!” Doctor Bill yells. “The mushrooms are taking hydrogen sulfide from the air and pumping the elemental sulfur through an extensive network of hyphae underground.”

“Okay, let’s check in with Squid Tree Command.” Nathaniel tries to walk, but his foot is stuck in the mud. “Hey.” He jerks and jerks, but both feet are held fast. He starts to sink into the moss-covered ground.

“I can’t move!” Fred complains.

“Neither can I,” Doctor Bill says.

Haticat grabs his legs and pulls, but nothing happens. “Oh no!”

They sink up to their knees and stop. Then a yellow spike rises from the ground nearby. “Who are you and what are you doing on our planet, Kittledeediveytoo?” it says, vibrating.

“Your planet?” Nathaniel says.

“I thought this planet was named Lululululu,” Fred says.

“I did, too,” Nathaniel says.

“Cease talking to each other! We demand answers! Are you the ones boiling the lakes?” the spike asks.

“I hope not. I can’t even boil chicken properly,” Nathaniel says.

“You did make a mess last time,” Haticat agrees.

The interrogation continues for an hour. The explorers learn that this planet, whatever it is called, has been colonized by a race of Sulfur Amoebas, barely visible yellow blobs that live in the soil. They have been terraforming the planet to their liking, but then noticed gigantic mirrors in low orbit redirecting the sun into the meteoric crater lakes dotting the planet, driving the water cycle to deposit rain across the planet and washing away much of their needed sulfur.

“The people that did that are called Squid Trees. Let us go and we can stop them,” Nathaniel promises.

“No! We can’t trust you,” the Sulfur Amoeba ground spike says.

“That’s unfortunate.” Nathaniel aims his gun at his feet and fires a wide-beam heat ray. The mud softens and he forces his way out. Following his lead, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill do the same.

“Return at once! This is your final warning!” the spike says.

The explorers continue to walk away. Then they hear a loud humming. Then they see the disk. Then they run. Nathaniel and Haticat jump behind a tree as the meter-wide disk speeds past. “What is that?” Haticat asks.

“I think it’s a spaceship,” Nathaniel says.

Caught in the open, Fred and Doctor Bill exchange fire with the disk. They miss, and the disk blasts Fred’s gun from his hand, disintegrating it. Nathaniel, Haticat, and Doctor Bill then fire at the disk, hitting it in the middle. It wobbles a bit and then flies away. They run to the Squid Tree grove before it can recover.

Eventually, the whole story comes out. Both the Squid Trees and the Sulfur Amoebas landed on the planet at roughly the same time. Who landed first is unclear. The Amoeba ships and other structures, being so small, were easily missed. The vase-like ships of the Squid were quickly dismantled and converted into other structures, appearing biological in nature, meaning they were also easily missed.

There is a brief war before Nathaniel convinces both sides to negotiate. The talks are frustratingly confusing since they cannot agree on what to name the planet. Nathaniel and Haticat take turns hosting. They both find the process very taxing. Dividing up the parts of the planet as yet uncolonized is difficult enough, but dividing up lands where they already overlap at first seems impossible. The issue is also made more complicated by the water evaporated from the crater lakes sometimes falling as rain on the other side of the planet. The Squid Trees need moister soil while the Sulfur Amoebas need more stable soil.

Finally, Nathaniel figures out that each has tech that can help the other. He proposes that the Squid Trees lend the Sulfur Amoebas oxygenation trees to trap carbon dioxide and produce oxygen so that the Sulfur Amoebas can trap hydrogen sulfide, remove the sulfur for their own use, and combine the hydrogen with the oxygen to produce water-rich, sulfur-free grove zones every few hundred feet for the Squid Trees to live in. In exchange, the Squid Trees will dismantle their orbiting mirrors.

A tentative agreement is reached and Nathaniel starts to write up a treaty. “Wait, how do I title this? What is the name of the planet?”

“How can a planet have two names?” Fred asks.

“It must have somehow been left out of the base lexicon when Y created the universe,” Nathaniel says.

“That’s weird,” Fred says.

“Very weird,” Haticat says.

“The colonists are not going to sign a treaty with the wrong name,” Doctor Bill says.

Nathaniel thinks for five minutes. Finally, he corrugates the paper such that looking at it from one angle shows one treaty and looking at it from the other angle shows another. The two treaties are identical except for the name of the planet. “There. That will do it.”

In the end, the treaty is signed, the cooperation begins, Nathaniel finishes exploring the planet, and they climb back into their bed and fly away, falling asleep as the stars zip past them.

“What year is it right now?” Nathaniel asks.

“4445,” Haticat says.

“And the time?” Nathaniel asks.

“Eight AM,” Doctor Bill answers.

“I can’t seem to remember the time from one second to the next; it keeps changing,” Nathaniel complains. “It makes it difficult to plot a spacetime interval on the…uh…circle thingy.”

“The time machine?” Doctor Bill says.

“Yeah,” Nathaniel says.

Eventually, they make it safely to prehistoric planet Candy, but it is not what they expected. The Candy Wizards have always been a bit mysterious about how exactly they transformed their planet into one of mostly sugar, but it was generally assumed to have started as Earthlike, with forests and savannahs, not the wasteland the explorers see before them now.

Gas pours from giant cracks in the ground. Boulders fire sparks at their neighbors. Pools of bubbling chemicals lie here and there. A bubble pops, spraying globs of a thick, honey-like fluid onto the rocks around it. Doctor Bill looks up from his electromagnetic scanner. “The fluid is highly acidic. I recommend not tasting it.”

They walk for a long ways before encountering anything alive. It is a crusty, green blob inching over the ground. It stops moving the moment the four explorers step from behind a plume of gas. “Well, this creature is made of about seventy percent sugar,” Doctor Bill reports.

“What are you?” the blob asks.

“You’re a person!” Nathaniel exclaims. “We’re explorers from another planet. We’re looking for the Candy Wizards.”

“Well, I don’t know what a wizard is, or a candy, or a planet, but my name is Frank and I’m an explorer, too,” the blob says.

Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill learn from Frank that there are three groups of people on the planet – the Sugar Boogers (like him), the Chocolate Monsters (also blobs), and the Garden Blobs, who live in and keep gardens. There are no people here that walk on legs or have arms or faces. Nathaniel is a bit confused about this, but decides to keep exploring.

The Sugar Boogers lead simple lives without much technology. They bathe once a year in the extremely rare honey swamps and spend most nights near glowing lava, deriving energy from the light, allowing them to metabolize water and carbon dioxide they take in from the air to produce sugar. They are kind of stupid and very boring, having no interest in changing their environment.

The Garden Blobs on the other hand, have been experimenting with pickling. They pickle things such as melons, squashes, and corn. They grow a variety of plants in small patches, altering their environment by pruning, irrigation, and the building of stone huts.

The Chocolate Monsters live in boulder fields. They are also experimenting with food, but instead of growing plants, they are attempting to turn stones into fruit. So far, they have produced chocolate-covered rocks and rocks covered in melon rinds.

“How did you do that?” Nathaniel asks.

“Microteleportation,” the chocolate scientist says.

The chocolate turns out to be highly-compressed cocoa devoid of sugar. It is quite bitter. “Eww,” Nathaniel comments.

Eventually, the explorers visit another garden town. There are picklers here as well, but there is also one Garden Blob experimenting with sugar. He has already candied melons, squashes, corn, carrots, potatoes, figs, and apples.

“The apples are best. Keep doing those. You’re on the right track.” Nathaniel offers to be the blob’s assistant, but it takes several attempts to convince him to accept help. However, they eventually learn together how to perfect the candy process for oranges and vanilla. “You should put them together.”

“Mix different foods? Are you crazy?” the Garden Blob asks.

“I might be, but what does that have to do with it?” Nathaniel asks.

One day, the Garden Blob shows up in the kitchen walking on two legs, with a single arm dangling. “I like your style, so I thought I would try it.”

“Um, okay, but people might think we’re twins,” Nathaniel jokes.

“Huh? What’s twins?” the Garden Blob asks.

“Oh, never mind, those haven’t been invented yet,” Nathaniel mutters.

“You’re a strange creature, but your form is more efficient. I’m growing some more arms, too. They should be ready soon.” The Garden Blob walks away unsteadily and begins sorting ingredients on the shelf.

Haticat whispers, “Hey, Nathaniel, I think this is how the Candy Wizards start. They copied you.”

“Wait, are we…part of history?” Nathaniel asks. “Have we…always been part of history?”

“Interesting question,” Doctor Bill says.

“That’s awesome!” Fred exclaims.

Nathaniel continues to work with the Garden Blob, making further suggestions. He convinces him to invent mints, to train bacteria to speed up the candy process, and to start texturing his skin like moss (like true Candy Wizards do). Then, he discovers where his master has been getting the sugar. He has been harvesting Sugar Boogers. The explorers are horrified. This leads to an argument, but they cannot convince the blob to stop. Refusing to have anything to do with the process, they leave town.

They hike for a few days. Nathaniel starts to consider going back. “If we go back to help him, we’ll be helping to kill innocent people. We’ll be bad guys,” Haticat says.

“If we don’t help him become the first Candy Wizard, there might never be a race of Candy Wizards, and there might be no candy!” Doctor Bill says.

Finally, they arrive in the boulder piles where the Chocolate Monsters live. One scientist is using microteleportation to replace the cells in a stalk of celery with quartz crystals. Nathaniel suddenly gets an idea. “With nanoteleportation, you could remove the carbon from limestone and use it to make sugar.”

“Hmm, that makes sense, but how can we compress teleportation wavelengths to atomic sizes when the apparatus itself is made of atoms?” the chocolate scientist asks.

“Easy, just bend space with an antigravity focus,” Nathaniel answers. “I’ll show you.”

One year later, under Nathaniel’s guidance, Garden Blobs, Chocolate Monsters, and Sugar Boogers are working together. Trained bacteria ride teleportation waves in and out of stones, converting them into candy. All three races reform themselves into Humanoids, more and more resembling Candy Wizards and each other. Nathaniel’s work is done.

“So, we don’t know for sure whether we changed history or not,” Haticat says.

“Right. They might have eventually started working together on their own, or the Garden Blobs might have simply harvested to extinction the other two races on their way to becoming Candy Wizards. We don’t know. What’s important is we have candy.” Nathaniel chews on a chocolate mint of a variety not seen on modern planet Candy. He relishes its prehistoric simplicity.

“Yes,” Haticat agrees.

“A job well done,” Doctor Bill comments. “Where to next?”

“I don’t know. Let’s find out,” Nathaniel responds.

Captain Nathaniel walks to the window and looks out at the red nebula as the ship speeds past it. “I’ve been thinking. With my new face, no one will recognize me during the war times. I can finally right some wrongs and fix some mistakes.”

“What do you mean?” Haticat asks.

“There’s something that has bothered me for a very long time and I think it’s finally time to do something about it,” Nathaniel responds. “Power up the time machine. We’re going to Livilia-7.”

Many years ago, when Nathaniel was young, he was assigned to spy on the girls during the war. He found them negotiating an alliance with the psychosymbiotic Dolls of Livilia-7. He did not realize the significance of the empty cargo ships in orbit until it was too late. Losing patience with negotiation, the girls used their prettification nanobot contagion weapon to convert the Dolls and then teleported them onboard. They were then sent to Zek Omega to neutralize the psychosymbiotic cuddle blankets before the boys could solidify their support. Then they were sent to take planets Candy and Gruezhe, giving the girls a massive advantage early in the war, forcing the boys to rely on their barely finished secret weapon – the superbomb. Before long, both sides had bombs capable of destroying entire star systems. Eventually, enough of the bombs were used that they created a barrier of deadly radiation between the galactic center and the rest of the galaxy. This could all have been avoided if only the boys were tipped off about the girls’ plan to capture the Dolls.

Pop! Nathaniel and his crew appear in orbit around Livilia-7. They activate the hull camouflage and land their cross-shaped ship onto one of the much-larger cargo ships. They disable the teleporter beams and overlight engines. Then they move on to the next ship and the next. It takes hours.

There are no people on these ships, allowing Nathaniel and his crew to walk wherever they want. In some places, there are signs that the crew left in a hurry. On the way to one engine room, laundry is strewn up and down the hallway. A large pile of frilly laundry sits just outside the entrance. “These must be clothes for the Dolls to wear. Girls always did love clothing,” Nathaniel comments.

“But why are they so messy?” Fred exclaims.

“I don’t know,” Nathaniel answers.

It takes them only minutes to disable the power conduits in and out of the engine, and laser-fusing the regulator links so it will take some time to repair. Then they walk out, stepping around the pile of laundry blocking the doorway. Suddenly, Nathaniel whirls around with his gun out. “What is it?” Haticat asks.

“Someone moved the clothes. This pile was two meters that way.” Nathaniel points.

Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill pull out their guns and keep very quiet. “Where could they be? I don’t hear anything,” Haticat says.

Then the laundry pile changes texture. The pile smooths out, becoming a featureless, brown blob. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I was only curious what you were doing. We’re on the same side. Call me Blobert,” the blob says.

“What are you doing here?” Nathaniel asks.

“My agency merely wants to keep informed on gains made by the boys and whether they are distributed fairly among the races. My superiors are concerned that liquid life is being discriminated against by solid life. I’ve been watching the Dromaeosaur on the planet’s surface train the Dolls to fight,” Blobert says.

Nathaniel immediately remembers the alien wars that followed the war of the siblings, when Humanoids were attacked by the Anti-Primate League. “Understandable, but if you were here all along, why didn’t you report the girls’ plan to Girlbusters HQ?”

“What do you mean? The plan to teleport the Dolls onto the cargo ships? I just figured it out and was on my way to report it when you arrived,” Blobert says.

Something isn’t right. Nathaniel is from the future. He knows that no message ever arrived. “You’re either lying to me, or something ends up stopping you,” Nathaniel says.

“Huh? You four are the only other ones here. These ships are empty – except for all this loose clothing that I blended into when I heard you coming,” Blobert says.

“That this clothing is so messy is unusual. Girls are generally neater than this,” Doctor Bill comments.

“True,” Haticat adds.

Nathaniel picks up a pink shirt from the floor and looks closely at it. It seems like an ordinary shirt. Then the smell hits him – the smell of rapidly-decaying neurotransmitters that must be continually created to maintain such high levels. The shirt is alive. “All these years I wondered how the girls so easily ensured the Dolls’ support. It turns out they had help from their other allies – the endosymbiotes of Plaza De La Ropa!”

Suddenly, the pink shirt squirms wildly in Nathaniel’s clenched fist. The clothes on the floor begin crawling away as fast as they can. “Don’t move!” Fred yells, firing a warning shot into the wall.

“I had no idea,” Blobert utters, as his own gun bubbles up from inside his body. “They’ve been watching me the whole time. They’ve probably already tipped off the girls.”

“I’ve got to warn the Girlbusters,” Nathaniel says.

“There isn’t time,” Blobert says.

“It will only take a second,” Nathaniel says. Then he, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill run back to their ship.

Soon after launch, Nathaniel notices that the time crystals are getting worn and decides to stop on Delta Temporis to replenish his supply. He then spends a few days tinkering with the time machine only to notice how low his candy supply is getting, so next they stop on planet Candy to fill up. Finally, they arrive at Girlbuster headquarters on Ninosa at precisely the same minute that they first appeared in orbit around Livilia-7. The boys do not know who this strange Nino is, how he knows about the Dolls, or how he knows all their secret passwords, but when they see the squirming creature he is carrying, they agree to send a fleet to Livilia-7 right away. Finally, they head back for Blobert and the empty cargo ship. He times it to land just before he left, landing on the opposite side of the ship out of sight. He waits around the corner, holding a finger over his mouth to tell his companions to be quiet.

“I’ve got to warn the Girlbusters,” the earlier Nathaniel says.

“There isn’t time,” Blobert says.

“It will only take a second,” the earlier Nathaniel says. Then he, and the earlier Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill run back to their ship.

Five seconds later, Nathaniel and his companions approach from the opposite direction. “The boys are on their way,” he announces.

“That was fast!” Blobert exclaims. “How did you get over there?”

“Trade secret. I might show you someday,” Nathaniel says. “First, we need to neutralize the rest of these ships.”

“Well, expelling the air should make them unsuitable for Dolls or Ropa,” Blobert suggests.

“Good idea, but I’ll take it from here. You should go home,” Nathaniel says.

“You’ll need my help; there are a lot of ships and limited time,” Blobert states.

“I’m fast,” Nathaniel says cryptically.

“Okay, good luck,” Blobert says and oozes off to his ship.

Haticat and Fred kill the Ropa on the floor while Nathaniel and Doctor Bill set the computer to remove all the air. Then, they visit the next ship and the next one, traveling into the past each time so that multiple copies of him are attacking multiple ships simultaneously, not allowing any warnings to be issued until it is too late.

After emptying his fifteenth ship nine hours later, he takes a break. He is tired, bored, and hungry, so he travels to planet Lectipas ten years ago. After a good night’s sleep, waking to a beautiful sunrise and the sound of pterodactyls, he eats a bowl of cereal, bathes in the pristine river, and puts on a fresh set of clothing. He is putting the coordinates into the time crystal assembly when he notices a faint smell. He is not sure at first, but then recognizes the smell of Ropa. He reaches for his gun. With help from Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill, he tries to track down the source. “I smell it everywhere!”

Finally, they realize the strongest source is in Nathaniel’s clothing drawer. He points his gun and prepares to fire. Suddenly, his arm is bent away and pointed at Doctor Bill. “I’m not a Ropa!” he protests.

“I know! I can’t control my arm!” Nathaniel’s pants and shirt pull against his body, forcing him to walk, returning him to the time machine. The Ropa somehow snuck on board during one of the landings on a cargo ship and hid in his drawer. He had unwittingly put them on that morning after his river bath. Now they had control of his limbs. Fortunately, they had no control over his fingers and could not make him fire his gun, which he drops, but they could bash his hands clumsily into computer controls.

Pop! The ship appears on the surface of Plaza De La Ropa in the middle of an outdoor marketplace and Nathaniel is forced to walk to the door. “Let me go!” The Ropa continue to march him forward and use his arms to open the airlock. He zaps them with his electricity power, but this only causes them to lock up for several seconds, freezing him like a statue. He tries again, but soon he is outside and surrounded by girl police.

“Leave him alone!” Haticat shouts. He, Fred, and Doctor Bill exchange laserfire with the police and are forced back inside. Nathaniel is taken into custody. He is driven to the station, locked in a cage, and left alone.

“Get off me now or you’ll regret it,” Nathaniel warns his clothing. When nothing happens, he pees his pants. Instantly, the pants fall off. He steps out and lets them crawl away. Then he lies on the floor to rub his shirt in the puddle. The shirt cannot get away fast enough. Now wearing only socks and sneakers, Nathaniel electrocutes the cage lock and escapes.

“Stop!” yells a girl, but Nathaniel slips into superspeed mode and runs out of the station faster than anyone can take aim. Soon, he is back at his ship, evades the police around it, and takes off.

Pop! The ship is back in orbit around Livilia-7 right in the midst of a battle. Boy ships and girl ships fire on each other. “Oh! I need to go back some!” Nathaniel says, struggling to remember the proper time and date. “Ugh! What year is it?”

Finally, he resets the time machine and appears at the same time as most of his previous selves. As he finally gets dressed in real clothes, he hears a bang. Someone is breaking through the wall of his ship. He joins his Stuffian companions and runs towards the source of the sound only to see four girls in Tarrati battle dresses stepping through a gaping hole. “They landed their capsule on the hull during the battle just as you activated the time machine. You pulled them back in time with us!” Haticat exclaims.

The front girl sees them and her dress starts to spin, the cutting lasers powering up. “Quick! To the…place with the…stuff in it!” Nathaniel yells.

“The armory?” Haticat says.

Nathaniel was forgetting times, dates, and words. This was the price of so much time travel and so much knowledge.

Tarrati battle dresses were impervious to nearly all weapons of the time. Fortunately, Nathaniel has something that hasn’t been invented yet – antigravity fissors, guns delivering a pulse of antigravity energy so strong that it tears even atomic nuclei apart. He grabs four and hands them out to his companions.

They wait around the corner as the girls approach. Lasers slice through the carpet. As Nathaniel watches the points of contact get closer, it becomes obvious that he will be sliced up before he can get a clear shot. He shoots through the wall instead.

BANG! The lasers stop. Nathaniel and his friends run around the corner and kill the three remaining girls, leaving gaping tunnels through both metal and flesh. Then he opens a panel on the nearest dress and inspects the power supply. “It’s going to blow! Get back!”

They close the door to that arm of the ship just before there is a loud bang and the entire ship shakes. Fire erupts through the hole Nathaniel shot earlier. Then air starts to rush out. “We need to plug the hole!” Doctor Bill yells.

“There’s too much damage! Help me reconnect the time crystal assembly rails!” Nathaniel says. They pull the rails out of the wall and attach them across the door. Then he runs to the ship controls and activates the time machine once again.

Pop! The cross-ship appears on future Ninosa with only three arms, not too many years after the time they bought the ship. They have left the damaged arm in the past with the girl invasion capsule. The rest of the day is spent shopping for a new spacecraft, finally finding one even more comfortable. Comfort tech has advanced considerably. This ship is little more than a king-sized bed with a force field to hold air. The soft force field allows one to walk in and out so long as one carries a key. Like the hull of their old ship, the force field can wrap light around it to appear invisible. Tiny holes in the invisibility field allow the occupant to look out, and any images can be automatically projected onto the inside of the field.

Several pillows orbit the bed inside the field and protect it with lasers. The pillowcase fabric is made of the same material as Ninosan laser socks. On the bed, one pillow holds the control panel to fly the ship. Another has a screen. An egg-shaped orbiting capsule contains the toilet and has its own artificial gravity orientation. Another contains a storage shed. The underside of the bed is a compact laboratory and bridge, complete with telescope and traditional piloting controls. Artificial gravity holds the occupants in place, upside down relative to the bed.

Nanobots continually clean the sheets and any occupants, meaning no need for a washing machine. Blanket temperature, texture, and weight (responsiveness to the artificial gravity) are all customizable. There are also controls for light and music.

“It lacks the firepower or storage capacity of the old ship, but it’ll do for now,” Doctor Bill says.

The four explorers install the time machine into their new ship and return to the past, continuing to empty the air from the cargo ships around Livilia-7. Finally, they are finished, and await the arrival of the boy fleet.

“I still miss my books that were lost in the explosion. I’m going to get them,” Nathaniel declares. He materializes the bed inside the cross-shaped ship one of the many times the earlier Nathaniel was out committing sabotage. He grabs his books and other wanted items from the past and then leaves. His past self never knew they were gone.

Returning to watch and wait, the sudden depressurization of every cargo ship (and the distress calls from dying Ropa) worries the girls. They decide it must have something to do with the Dromaeosaur on the surface and send a patrol vehicle to pick him up.

“They knew I was there all along? But never did anything about it?” Nathaniel mutters in surprise.

“We’ve got to save you!” Haticat says.

They fly the bed to intercept the younger Nathaniel, who will never make it to his ship in time. They land in front of him. “Get in!” Nathaniel yells.

“Who are you?” younger Nathaniel asks.

“I’m you from the future. I died and got a new body. Then I bought this spaceship. The girls are coming; get in!” Nathaniel answers.

“Hi me!” Haticat yells to his younger self. The younger Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill are shocked to see themselves already on the bed in front of them.

“It’s a twin!” the younger Haticat yells, pulling out his gun.

“We’re not twins! We’re from the future!” the older Haticat says.

“How can I trust you?” younger Haticat says.

The older Nathaniel thinks for a moment. “You don’t need to; you’re standing inside the range of influence.” He hits a lever and the time machine springs to life. Seconds later, they are on Zek Omega.

“How did I get here so fast?” younger Nathaniel says. He and his crew walk away, in awe at the landscape.

“Quantum frame rates,” older Nathaniel answers.

“Huh?” younger Nathaniel says. He has not yet drunk the smart juice.

“Never mind,” older Nathaniel says. He then disappears and returns to Livilia-7 without them.

Finally, the boy fleet arrives and the battle begins. Nathanel drinks a soda while he, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill watch the show. The boys win. The Ropa never control the Dolls. The Dolls never join the girls. The boys are well on their way to winning the war without resorting to superbombs.
Nathaniel travels to planet Paffy twenty years in the future. It is still there, but the girls are gone. It is a boy paradise. The bed-ship lands in a field where it is lightly raining. The force field blocks the rain in the middle and turns it to spray near its edge. Haticat complains about the humidity, so Nathaniel sets the controls to have the force field block it. When the rain stops, they walk into town. The bed behind them becomes almost invisible, nothing more than a slight distortion of light among the reeds.

Soon, the explorers find some boys to play tag with. They are later invited to a party and they stay up all night. Then they climb into bed, fly over to the night side of the planet, and fall asleep between the stars above and the glowing cities below. They all sleep very well.

Somewhere on the planet Diosis, Nathaniel the green Dromaeosaur strides up to a candy bar and orders a peppermint fudge cube. He is followed by his crew of furry Gruezhlings – Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill. All around them are traders, explorers, spies, mercenaries, smugglers, and pirates. This is the place to go when looking for a job or looking to hire someone for a job, whether legal, illegal, or anything in between.

“Hey,” says an approaching yellow Humanoid. “By any chance, do you need any problems solved? I solve problems.”

“What kind of problems?” Nathaniel asks.

“Mostly the people kind. If you have a problem person, I can solve them permanently. I’m good at it – and cheap,” he says.

“Oh, that type of work we always handle ourselves,” Nathaniel answers. He was not lying.

“Okay, no problem,” the yellow Humanoid promptly walks to another table, still hoping to land a job.

Nathaniel receives his fudge and takes his first bite. It is wonderful. He is so enthralled, he doesn’t notice the second creature approach him. “What are you looking for?”

“Hmm? I’m not looking for anything,” Nathaniel responds.

“We’re all looking for something,” the creature says. It wears a white robe and seems to have a head that is just one big compound eye. Nathaniel is not sure where its voice is coming from.

“I came looking for fudge, and I found it already,” Nathaniel says.

“What about immortality?” the creature asks. “What about escaping the constant worry of what will happen to your crew when you are gone?”

This was something Nathaniel had worried about for some time. His Gruezhlings (also called Stuffians) were kept alive by his play energy, only awake as long as he was. He looks at the robed creature intently. Finally, he asks, “Do you have the secret of immortality?”

“No meeting occurs by chance, for the future, past, and present are part of the same timestream. Everyone who is ready is invited into the order, and all who are invited into the order are ready. This key will get you inside the mountain temple.” The creature sets down a large key on the bar with clawed hand.

Nathaniel picks it up. It holds the image of a running Dinosaur dressed just like him. “Hold on, what order are you talking about?” he asks, but the creature is already slipping out the door.

Diosis is a snowy planet famous for its “blood” volcanoes. In several dozen places, the ground leaks a dark, red fluid. There are also many ranges of short, but steep and rocky mountains. Nathaniel and his crew walk to the nearby mountains just outside of town where a giant stone building sits. “Is this a temple?” Doctor Bill asks.

“We can test the key to find out,” Haticat suggests.

The key fits perfectly and soon they are inside. “Praise Y,” a robed creature mumbles as it walks by. Many creatures walk the halls. Nathaniel counts at least twelve different species. Ninos, Humans, and Extolons are among them. They all wear white robes. “Praise Y,” another says.

“This is nothing like any church I’ve been to,” Doctor Bill says.

“At last you have come,” says a robed Nino from behind them.

“Who are you?” Nathaniel asks.

“Your teacher and guide. We must begin your training right away,” the Nino says.

“Training for what?” Nathaniel asks.

“Immortality,” the teacher says.

“How do you know why I’m here?” Nathaniel asks.

“If you were not here for what I said, I wouldn’t have said it, for no meeting occurs by chance,” the teacher says.

“That’s what the other one said,” Nathaniel says.

“Of course. Now, I will find a storage place for your Gruezhlings. You won’t be able to see them until the training is over. Their psychosymbiosis is too much of a distraction,” the teacher responds.

Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill are placed into a small room onto what looks like a comfortable bed and told to wait. The door is closed, but not locked. “So, how long does immortality training take?” Nathaniel asks.

“It depends on the individual – and it depends on their level of patience,” the teacher answers.

“Oh, so how long then?” Nathaniel asks again.

“If you have to ask, you don’t yet have the patience to win,” the teacher says.

“Oh,” Nathaniel says. Six seconds later, he says, “What about now?”

“Patience comes with time,” the teacher says.

“How much?” Nathaniel asks.

Ignoring him, the Nino teacher says, “Identity is only maintained by retaining one’s self against the background mental energy of the universe. One must not let outside forces dictate who you are. The first part of your training involves meditating alone in an empty room so you will have no distractions but yourself.”

“What does any of this have to do with immortality?” Nathaniel asks.

“If your identity is strong enough, it will survive your biological death and enter another being upon its conception. It will stand uncorrupted against the cosmic mental background radiation. This was the great discovery of Diosan mentalicist Fartone,” the teacher explains.

“I’d like to learn more about that,” Nathaniel says.

“In time, you shall. Patience is a key that unlocks many doors,” the teacher says.

Nathaniel is left alone and attempts to meditate upon himself. Soon, he takes notice of his fingers and starts to play with them. He imagines each as a different character and gives them different voices. Then, something he says gives him an idea for a new airlock design. He starts to pace back and forth, lost in thought. The lock would be based on artificial gravity to keep environmental fluids separate and would need no doors. He considers different means of focusing the required negative energy to the correct levels of resolution. “So, how is your meditation going?” the teacher asks.

Suddenly, Nathaniel realizes he is no longer in the room and has wandered down the hall while lost in thought. “Oh, I…got distracted.”

“Good. Then you have passed the first test. You did not let me define you as something in that room. You focused on yourself and forgot about me. Yet, there is much more to learn. Follow me,” the teacher says.

From there, Nathaniel is trained to focus on the nature of things alone, divorced from the names that things are given. He actually begins to forget the names of things sometimes – including his own. The other beings in the temple do not refer to each other by name at all. After three months of this, he starts to get very bored.

“How much longer will this take?” Nathaniel asks.

“Days? Centuries? It will last as long as it must,” the teacher says.

“But I’m so…uh…the opposite of excited,” Nathaniel says.

“Bored? Good,” the teacher says.

“No, not good. That’s…um…the opposite of good,” Nathaniel says.

Nathaniel spends the next several months reading about mental science and meditating. He misses exploring planets. He misses his friends. One day, while eating a bowl of cereal resembling sequins in the campus cafeteria, his teacher enters and sits next to him. “Today, we enter phase two. Your key will open new parts of the library now.”

“You were keeping knowledge away from me? Why?” Nathaniel asks.

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” the teacher says cryptically.

“What does that mean?” Nathaniel asks.

“Have patience,” the teacher says.

Nathaniel spends the next year practicing shifting his focus without moving his eyes, thus further separating his consciousness from the trappings of his body. Meditation happens while sitting, lying down, standing in awkward positions for hours at a time, and while swordfighting or doing other tasks. He learns and gradually masters one hundred styles of fighting.

He then finds that he is better able to endure boredom than before, since boredom is a function of not having enough stimulus, and he is now able to choose his stimulus. He allows a single thought to capture his mind for hours at a time, then moves on to another. He has always been easily distracted, but with practice and proper coaching, he achieves ever-higher levels of focus. Then he reaches a plateau and starts to get worse.

“Keep trying,” the teacher encourages him.

“I am trying,” Nathaniel says.

“Try harder,” the teacher says.

“I’m so scatterbrained. Maybe I need to change my diet, or maybe I’m not…Hey, have you noticed that the corner of this room isn’t a perfect right angle? It’s more like eighty-seven degrees,” Nathaniel says.

“Focus!” the teacher shouts.

He keeps trying, but only succeeds in entering a paradoxical state wherein he is sometimes very easily distracted and sometimes very hard to get the attention of. This also means he is sometimes very easily startled and sometimes impossible to startle.

“Are you focusing on the spoon?” the teacher asks.

Nathaniel bolts upright and almost spills his cereal. “How long have you been there?”

“We’ve both been here for forty minutes. We’re in the middle of a training session,” the teacher says.

“Oh yeah, I remember now,” Nathaniel says, staring at the wall. Suddenly, an Extolon turns over a nearby table and it hits the floor with a bang. Nathaniel slowly turns around and asks calmly, “What happened?”

“Your test. You passed. Tomorrow we move on to phase three,” the teacher says.

“What? I’m still too easily distracted,” Nathaniel says.

“You are only distracted by things because the thing you are told to focus on does not distract you anymore,” the teacher explains.

Next, Nathaniel practices all the powers he wants to keep in his next incarnation. He rapidly heals from injuries. He electrocutes things. He tests his intelligence with puzzles. He moves his body as fast as he can. He identifies compounds by their smell. These were all powers he acquired long ago. Drinking the smart juice and the healing juice made him both very smart and allowed him to regenerate his tissues. Being out of phase with the rest of the universe allowed him to turn The Electrobot’s power against itself and give himself the ability to manipulate electrons by thought alone. Being exposed to time crystals under special conditions allowed him to slip into a faster timestream. Having his atoms altered in Atomica by the hypercomputers gave him the ability to smell nitrogen, carbon dioxide, alpha particles, and neutrinos, as well as deduce the statistical properties of any gas. He also continues to practice swordfighting. “The more you use these powers, the more likely you will be able to carry them with you into your next life,” the teacher explains.

When Nathaniel graduates to phase four, he is told there is one new power that all members of the order are given – the ability to wait out times of cold, starvation, or dehydration by entering a self-induced coma. “This is a power all living beings can achieve with the proper direction,” the teacher says.

This is one ability that Nathaniel picks up quickly. However, since he is sometimes left in a coma for as long as three months at a time, it takes over two years to graduate to phase five. “You are almost ready now. There is one final lesson and it will not take long,” the teacher says.

“Thank you, teacher,” Nathaniel says.

“Be here tomorrow morning, and bring your sword,” the teacher says, walking away.

When Nathaniel arrives the next day, there are over sixty robed teachers waiting for him. He is invited to stand at the center of the room surrounded by the others. Then his teacher steps forward. “There is one final lesson.”

“Yes?” Nathaniel says.

“Never ever commit suicide. Never stop fighting for your life or you will lose it. It is only those who strive to live who will live on in another body when their body is destroyed. Do you understand?” his teacher asks him.

“Always strive to live. Reincarnation is a last resort. I understand,” Nathaniel says.

“Then you are ready,” his teacher says. One second later, the ground suddenly gives way and Nathaniel falls into a pit. Boulders crash around him. He stands up and spits out dirt.

“Hey! What’s going on?” Nathaniel asks. The teachers stand around the edge of the hole staring at him silently. “Is this a lesson? What am I supposed to do?” he yells. There is no response. He searches for his sword, finds it, and sees that there is a rough passageway to the side he can crawl through into a lit cavern. He climbs into the main cavern to see that there are high, smooth walls and lights on the ceiling. The teachers start to line up along the top, still watching him. He yells at them a couple more times and tries to scale the walls. Why didn’t he practice wall-climbing? While still attempting to find a foothold, he hears a sound. Something big is scraping itself along the floor. Then around the corner comes a dragon.

Seeing him, it arches back its neck and then thrusts it forward, opening its mouth to reveal large, blue teeth and releasing a stream of white-hot plasma. Nathaniel barely makes it around the corner, feeling the wave of heat behind him. No wonder the walls are so smooth! They get periodically melted!

He tries to escape by running up and down the walls, building up speed by coming down one side before running up the other. The problem is that even with his superspeed, it takes too long and the dragon is upon him before he can finish.

The cavern curves back on itself in a large circle and the dragon continues to follow him around. Repeated eruptions of dragonfire heat the rock so it glows red. There is no way he can climb it now. Even the floor heats up and Nathaniel is slowly cooked. He will not last long this way. Finally, he runs up the back of the dragon for a moment of relief. It is only a moment, since the dragon rolls over every time it is touched.

Nathaniel tries stabbing the dragon with his sword, but it has no effect. Its scales are like steel. The hours pass and he becomes weary. So do the teachers. He watches them come and go from their perch high above.

Finally, he gets in front of the dragon. It opens its mouth to blast him – and he throws his sword into its throat. It gags and coughs. The teachers look concerned. Nathaniel collapses from exhaustion, not caring about the scalding stone. He has won himself time to rest and plan.

Forty-five seconds later, the dragon spits out the sword. It resumes blowing fire, the teachers look relieved, and Nathaniel runs. He runs and runs and runs. Finally, thirty-six hours after he fell into the cavern, he is hit. The dragon burns him over and over and then stands on him. He looks up into its gigantic blue teeth one last time. Then he looks past it and sees a young Nino boy staring down at him. He can see his memories.

Five years ago, the Nino boy was handed a key with the image of a green Dinosaur and invited to the temple. He always felt a burning need to go and see it, but finding transport to such a distant location was difficult. On the way, he picked up hyperintelligence in a leaking psychospeeder accident, picked up the ability to control electricity after being teleported through a bad thunderstorm, and was then infected by nanobots that ultimately reached a stalemate with his immune system, giving him superspeed (at the cost of his stamina), the ability to detect any compound through his nose, and the ability to put himself into a coma. Later, he was hired to smuggle time crystals as the cost of transport, ended up swallowing them, and the nanobots pulled them apart and used them to rapidly heal wounds and slow his metabolism and extend his life. Only minutes ago, he entered the temple and was led to the observation platform – just in time to watch Nathaniel die. Suddenly, Nathaniel’s consciousness is inside him and their minds have fully merged. Two parallel life experiences now exist in the same Nino body. The Dinosaur is dead.

“I feel weird,” Nathaniel says, touching his smooth, white skin and black hair. It is strange not to have feathers.

“Your first reincarnation is now complete. You are a full member of the order. Your key will open all parts of the library,” a robed Meekon says.

“We were worried for a second that you had killed our dragon, for there is only one spacetime interface artifact like it, and it is only by being killed by a bluetooth dragon that one can enter second life,” another teacher says.

“You lasted far longer than any other, and this will give you many lives. Most only achieve eight or nine. Some might manage twelve or so. You are now living the second of thirty-five lives,” another teacher says.

The library is packed with information. Nathaniel learns that upon death, ripples are sent through time to places and times where he has previously been, sending him a body such that it arrives right on time. The ripples always travel at the speed of light both forward and backward so that the creation of the next body occurs precisely the same number of years ago (or hence) as it is light years away. The more points in spacetime he visits, the more points he can summon a body from and the better his future is assured.

Nathaniel has now lived on Diosis for nine years. He is forty-three years of age, not including his childhood on Ninosa before merging with the mind of the Dinosaur. It’s time to go exploring again. He wakes his Gruezhlings, still in the same bed where they were left. “Who are you?” Haticat asks.

“Nathaniel. This is my new body. I’m ambidextrous now, although my sight and hearing are slightly worse. I have thirty-four lives left,” he says. The four friends exchange old memories as Nathaniel verifies his identity. Then he takes his crew back to his spaceship and they leave Diosis. The adventure has only just begun.

“Today, we’re going further than ever before,” Captain Nathaniel announces.

“You finished the limiter?” Haticat asks excitedly.

“Yes,” Nathaniel replies.

For many years, scientists have wondered whether space continues forever or whether it curls back on itself such that travelling in a straight line will eventually bring one back to where they started. Unfortunately, no one dares leave the galaxy, since no one can see farther than about four thousand light years, since it has only been about four thousand years since Y created the universe and light only goes so fast. However, Nathaniel has been working on a plan. He has perfected a means of precision to ensure his ship travels in perfectly straight lines to one part in twenty septillion septillion septillion septillion. He hopes it is enough.

He has also acquired a tachyon beacon. Such technology is not new, but it has never been used the way he is planning. By beaming tachyons in all directions from one point, the beams should converge at the exact opposite point in space – assuming there is one. By using very low-energy tachyons – much lower than anyone has ever used before – they will travel very many times the speed of light and reach the convergence point quickly. Finding this focus is how the crew will know they have gone halfway and allow them to measure the universe’s circumference.

Most importantly, he has also been working for years on making the engines faster. No one wants to go looking for the other side of all reality if it is going to take an entire lifetime. He doubts that there has ever been such a fast ship before.

“All systems are operating normally. Capacitors are fully charged,” Haticat reports.

“Everything is clear on the scanner. The tachyons are streaming as planned,” Doctor Bill reports.

“No enemy ships detected,” Fred reports.

“Good. Point us in any direction, full speed. Go!” Nathaniel orders.

Zip! The cross-ship races away between the stars and out of the galaxy. The screen goes dark. For a long time, they see nothing. Then there is a dim flash of milky white. “What was that?” Nathaniel asks.

“I don’t know,” Haticat answers.

“Go backwards a bit and stop,” Nathaniel orders. In a few seconds, they find themselves surrounded by stars. “Did we miss the focus and return home?”

“Negative. None of these stars are in my records. Their attributes match nothing in the catalogue,” Doctor Bill reports.

“So there are stars beyond the galaxy – and they seem to be in clumps,” Nathaniel comments.

“Another galaxy. That’s what this is. It’s another galaxy,” Haticat says.

Nathaniel wants to explore, but he dares not leave the straight-line course he has set, so he settles for taking detailed readings of the surrounding stars. Then the explorers continue their journey, encountering several more galaxies on their way. One galaxy confuses Doctor Bill. “Strange, all the stars here seem to be binary pairs of equal partners – or close to it,” he says.

“That is strange,” Nathaniel says.

“I’m also not detecting any planets or nebulae. Space is cleaner here,” Doctor Bill reports.

“That’s very strange,” Nathaniel says, holding his chin.

They move on and eventually detect the tachyon beams merging up ahead. They stop inside another galaxy at the opposite end of the universe. They have travelled 1,201 billion light years. Their trip has taken just over an hour. However, Doctor Bill is confused again. “These readings make no sense.”

“Let me see,” Nathaniel says. The stars here are tiny. The planets are gigantic. Volume seems to be roughly proportional to the inverse of the mass. Physics is backwards here. They huddle over the computers, trying to figure it all out.

Furthermore, each planet seems to be both shrinking and spiraling into its star while the stars are moving closer together. “Is the galaxy shrinking?” Haticat asks.

“No, we’re getting bigger. Our tiny mass is causing us to spread out. We’re going to grow until we collide with those stars! Land on that planet while we still can!” Nathaniel orders.

The ship lands on an Earth-like planet with lush jungles and tall mountains. Once within the planet’s gravity, and therefore merely another part of the planet, the ship’s size stabilizes. The crew exits the ship to explore. The plants are weird and beautiful. Nathaniel runs ahead a bit. He feels unusually energetic, as if there is more oxygen in the air. He stops to look at some flowers and his crew catches up.

They scan the surrounding plants. What they thought were trees are actually moss. Covering the ground in a thick carpet are woody plants with vascular tissues. Scans reveal that nutrients diffuse quickly, but not evenly if near a surface and the interiors of small plants are always near a surface. “I predict that small animals here will have heart and lungs, but larger animals will not,” Nathaniel says.

They explore further and come across a pond. Tiny flecks swim back and forth. Upon closer examination, these prove to be sharks and whales. Walking around the pond, they see several seal-sized animals sunning themselves. They are rotifers. “So this end of the universe has the same kind of plants and animals as our side, but a different kind of physics,” Haticat comments.

They keep exploring. They cross a river. They find microscopic dinosaurs, bug-sized monkeys, mouse-sized ants, and scorpion-sized scorpions. “That seems to be the neutral size,” Nathaniel says. “Also, the range between biggest and smallest seems to be wider among the aquatic animals than the terrestrial. I suspect the water here is not as buoyant as at home, but might even drag us down. Don’t go swimming.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Haticat says.

“In fact, rocks probably float here, which probably means most of this world’s water is underground,” Nathaniel continues.

“This planet is weird,” Fred complains.

“It confuses me; I don’t like it,” Doctor Bill adds.

They are on their way back to the ship when the ground begins to rumble. They run, but the source of the sound gets closer and the ground shakes enough to make them unsteady. Moss trees start to topple. Finally, they reach the relatively clear area around the river and look up. Peeking over the treeline in the distance is a worm the size of a small mountain. It pulls itself along the ground with swiveling spines on its outer surface. Then it flips its mouth inside-out, revealing many rows of hook-like teeth with which it grabs a moss tree and pulls it in. “Phylum kinorhyncha. Mud dragons,” Nathaniel mutters.

They return to running, but the creature closes in on them faster than they can get back to the ship. Once they reach the end of the pond, they are trapped. “Push the boulder in! We can ride it across!” Nathaniel yells. Nathaniel, Haticat, and Fred push on a boulder and it promptly skips across the surface away from them. As it bounces, breaking the surface tension, large bubbles of air form where it touches, promptly sinking to the bottom. It is too late to run. They turn and fire lasers into the gaping maw.

The creature seems not to notice and drags itself closer. “Into the water! There’s air down there!” Nathaniel yells. The four of them run into the pond just as the creature extends its mouth again. Doctor Bill is snagged on one of the teeth, lifted up, and swallowed. The other three sink deep into the water. They sink deeper and deeper. Nathaniel fights to hold his breath as some surprisingly normal-sized daggertails swim past. The pond is much deeper than it should be. As the surface recedes, it gets very dark. Finally, just when he can’t stand it anymore, he falls into an air pocket.

The buoyant air holds him against the water’s surface as he breathes deeply. Digging in his pockets, he finds a flashlight and looks around. He is in a cavern full of air, and there appear to be side crevices. Haticat and Fred pop through the surface. “It got Doctor Bill!” Haticat says in a low voice, the moisture seeping into his fibers affecting his ability to talk.

“I know, but there’s no time to think about that. We have to find a way out before it eats our ship!” Nathaniel says.

“Why aren’t we falling?” Fred asks.

“The air is holding us up,” Nathaniel says.

“Then why didn’t the air up above hold us up?” Fred asks.

“I don’t know, maybe because there wasn’t that much of it under us. Maybe the pressure matters. I’m still figuring it out,” Nathaniel says.

They crawl through the side crevices into extensive caverns filled with hot, yellow-green crystals, and exotic aerial jellyfish. Eventually, they reach a narrow area and climb through it – until Nathaniel sees jellyfish coming the other way. “Go back.” Another school of jellyfish enters the other end of the passage, blocking their way. The two schools close in on them. “Yikes!”

They fire their lasers, which easily burst the gelatinous bells, but then the loose tentacles go flying. Nathaniel dodges with his superspeed, but Fred is less lucky. He is quickly enveloped by multiple strings of death. Nathaniel and Haticat try to free him as he screams, but only succeed in burning their hands. Their fingers go numb and cannot grip. Fred suddenly stops screaming and faints. Nathaniel fumbles with the scanner to check his life signs, but drops it and it breaks. His fingers are useless. They stay and watch as Fred is slowly dissolved and absorbed by the hot crystals. “Let’s get out of here,” Nathaniel finally says.

The two remaining explorers dodge jellyfish for a couple kilometers of winding passageways before finding another pond. The distance to the surface looks climbable. Nathaniel starts up, followed by Haticat. When they reenter the jungle, they realize they are on the other side of the ship – and closer. Their hands are also starting to feel normal.

Then they come across a clearing. The trees have been flattened. They are all lying in the same direction. “What is thi…” Nathaniel says before he is whisked off his feet by the wind. He grabs a moss tree before he is too high to grab anything. Keeping to the outside of the clearing, Haticat makes his way to Nathaniel, who struggles to reenter still air. “This must be the trail of the mud dragon. The air is following it at the same speed it moves.”

“Why doesn’t the wind mix with the surrounding air?” Haticat asks.

“Laminar flow creates a frictionless interface in some fluids. The air on this planet must act as one of these fluids at this scale,” Nathaniel says.

“Yeah, but why?” Haticat asks.

“I don’t know. Nothing here makes sense. I just want to go home,” Nathaniel grumbles.

Haticat looks across the enormous clearing where the wind still blows. “You’ll figure it out. You’re a genius. You always figure it out.”

Eventually, they fold over a giant moss leaf and use it for wind shelter. It takes all their strength to hold it up against the flow, but it works to deflect the wind around them, trapping a bubble of quiet air underneath. It takes twenty minutes to get most of the way across the worm’s path. Then Nathaniel trips. The leaf collapses and blows away. He grabs on to some rhizomes, but Haticat tumbles along the ground. “Ow! Oh! Aaaah!”

“Haticat!” Nathaniel yells.

Haticat continues to tumble along the ground, bouncing off rocks and moss rhizomes. For protection, he retracts into his soft shell and continues to bounce. Nathaniel wants to go after him, but dares not let go of the ground due to the risk of being carried up into the air. Without contact with the ground, he can’t even take advantage of his superspeed. He crawls the rest of the way across the path into the safety of the jungle and runs after him from there.

Several minutes later, he sees what look like tufts of Stuffian fibers stuck to a very rough-textured rock jutting from the ground. He keeps running and then sees some more. Further along the path, he finds the remains of Haticat’s torn shell, a tail, and a hand – all stuck to the rough rocks. He keeps running, but never finds anything more. The fibers have dispersed.

It is a long walk back to the ship. Nathaniel feels very tired. Not knowing what else to do, he pours a bowl of milk and cereal, but then barely touches it. His appetite disappears. Doctor Bill was gone. Fred was gone. Haticat was gone. The ship was too quiet. His home wasn’t a home without them. Without a crew, was he even a captain? He cries a little, takes a nap, and prepares to return to his home galaxy. Why? There was no reason to go back. He keeps losing people. Arko, Marv, and the other Fred had gone their separate ways. Mister Dinosaur had moved on. Jash, Jain, Darryl, and Mojo had died. Why couldn’t friends stay friends forever?

He walks the ship in a bit of a daze. He ends up in the laboratory where he keeps his soil samples. He looks over his shelves of books from the future, his potted plant collection, the parts of an extra scanner Doctor Bill had been augmenting, and the results of Fred’s most recent target practice. The lab was a beautiful mess.

Still hungry because he had not finished his cereal, Nathaniel opens the stasis box and takes out an unfinished hot chocolate from the other day. It is still hot. A few sips make him feel better, but he rapidly loses his appetite again. He sets the mug back inside next to the ice cream he was keeping cold and the time crystal that kept both nearly frozen in time. He stares at it, feeling stuck in time himself. “Time crystals,” he mutters.

Nathaniel suddenly gets up and strides to the control board of the wheels and rails that make up the time machine. “History can be changed.” He sets some coordinates. It was time for another trip.
Pop! The ship appears just a bit to the side of its original landing site many hours before. He has timed its materialization to coincide with the exact moment he and his crew left the ship earlier so they will not notice his arrival. He runs outside and hides among the moss trees. Soon enough, he sees his earlier self, running ahead, energized by the high diffusion rates of oxygen on the planet. Then he sees his crew lagging behind. “Hey!” They turn around and walk toward him. “Let’s go back to the ship.”

“Why?” Haticat asks.

“It’s dangerous here,” Nathaniel says.

“We’re not afraid of danger,” Fred says.

“I know. Let’s just go back in the ship,” Nathaniel says.

“We’re not giving up on this big of an adventure just because of a little danger. What is going on?” Haticat asks.

“Look, you all die several hours from now and I’m rescuing you from the future. I’ll tell you the whole story inside the ship,” Nathaniel says.

“We’re dead?” Haticat asks.

“You will be if you don’t leave now,” Nathaniel says.

Something in Nathaniel’s voice convinces them to follow him. They take off and fly back home while Nathaniel fills them in on what happened. “So, where to next?” Haticat asks.

“I don’t know. It will be hard to top a trip to the opposite end of the universe. Maybe we’ll visit a planet that can give us immortality. Then the adventures never have to end,” Nathaniel says.

“Yes, let’s do that. That sounds like something worth searching for. Let’s go,” Haticat says. The adventure has only just begun.

Nathaniel walks past the engine room as the cross-ship speeds through interstellar space. “What is that smell?” He tracks the source of the scent to the fuel decoherence chamber. It smells a bit like strawberries and ozone, but also like nothing he has ever smelled before. He switches on the ship’s internal scanners to see what’s going on.

The fuel is producing virtual pions at an alarming rate. Matter and antimatter are building up in the chamber instead of combining, creating a potentially explosive situation. “Yikes!” He quickly shuts the engine down and dumps the fuel.

He calls his crew to the bridge to discuss the issue. “So, apparently the power of Atomica gives me the ability to smell radiation. Unfortunately, we now only have as much fuel as was left in the primary and secondary injectors – enough to get no more than three light years.”

“We’ll need a terrestrial planet to make more fuel. What’s the nearest one called?” Haticat says.

Doctor Bill opens the catalogue app. “Iddhya. We are 2.2 light years from Iddhya.”

“Oh, so it happens today,” Nathaniel says, staring into space.

Iddhya is an Earth-sized planet largely covered by trees that greatly resembles giant broccoli. Smaller plants generally resemble cabbages, some with leaves resembling fries or potatoe chips. The air smells faintly of sulfur.

Antigravity fuel is created in part through a complex series of motions sequentially relative to both a gravitational field and a magnetic field. However, since it takes antigravity fuel to hold position relative to the force of gravity, the procedure is generally done while held up by a planetary surface. Despite having stronger gravity, suns and gas giants will not do. Fortunately, Iddhya has both gravity and magnetism of sufficient strength to operate the generator.

The explorers land and start the fuel production. Then they visit town, riding on their flying rods to buy food. The people here are Karathxa, who greatly resemble Humans except for their short height and completely black eyes. They eat only meat and drink only blood. Nathaniel buys raw daggertails, cat fillets, dog chunks, and a frozen bogbird, which is actually a distant relative of the Earth platypus. He has no interest in the variety of blood drinks and prefers water.

It is through discussion with the natives that he hears the news that the giant worms have recently landed on the planet. They are as long as seven school busses and eat trees. They are being held in a small area four thousand kilometers to the north where the military is swiftly eradicating them with special salt bullets. “That’s good,” Nathaniel comments. “Where can I get in contact with the military?”

“Why?” the Karathxa asks.

“I’ve seen these worms before and can offer advice,” Nathaniel says.

After filling his belly and stocking his ship, he stops by the local military office. The officer on duty takes some convincing that Nathaniel and his crew have anything of value to give them and speaks to his commander first. He is promptly ordered to send them north right away.

It is on the way to the infested zone that it becomes apparent that the news media lied. The worms are uncontained. They rocket from place to place. Their numbers are exploding. Treeless expanses of ash stretch past the horizon in all directions.

“We don’t have very many flying machines,” the general explains. “This means that when we start exterminating the worms in one place, the part of the herd farthest from us takes off and outmaneuvers us.”

“They must have some way of communicating,” Nathaniel comments.

“Hmm, you’re probably right,” the general says.

“Doctor Bill, monitor all emissions the worms put out when attacked. See if you can figure it out,” Nathaniel orders. “The rest of us will tour the area. Remember, stay away from the dead ones in case they explode.”

It is while out touring the surroundings that a large rainstorm starts. Without the trees to hold the soil, a river of mud and ash begins to form. It flows directly towards a town, splitting in two and surrounding it, trapping those inside. As the rain continues, the river gets wider and threatens to swallow the town. Houses around the edge begin to collapse. Nathaniel, Haticat, and Fred aid the rescue party. Unfortunately, one resident is too heavy to climb the ropes. There is a Tyrannosaur staying in town calling himself Mister Dinosaur.

The Karathxa want to leave him, but Nathaniel finds a board from one of the destroyed houses, uses it as a catapult to throw himself over the river, and helps Mister Dinosaur build a raft from ropes and house boards. They ride together down the river until reaching the opposite bank and being picked up by the army. “It’s good to meet you again,” Nathaniel says.

“Huh? Have we met before?” Mister Dinosaur asks.

“For you, no. For me, yes,” Nathaniel says.

“What? How does that make sense?” Mister Dinosaur says.

“Time travel,” Nathaniel answers. “I’ll explain later”

When they return to base, Doctor Bill has already solved the communication mystery. “The worms speak using infrasound created by gas bubbles moving through their guts. I’ve already identified the warning call that tells them to take off.”

“Good work,” Nathaniel says.

Soon, Doctor Bill is ready to replay the calls to scare the worms off. Coordinating with the army, infrasound speakers are posted all around the forest so that the worms have nowhere to land without being warned of danger. With only fifty percent of the trees eaten, the worms give up and leave Iddhya for good.

Nathaniel finally refuels his ship and offers Mister Dinosaur a ride. He tells him how to build a time machine, where to find time crystals, and gives him a mission. “One day, you will live in a village named Atomica. You will grow a tree from the back of your neck. The day we arrive is the day the ogre appears. Once you see us, you will have only minutes to do two things: Grant us the power of Atomica by breathing on us, and deliver this message: When it comes to the question of the tunnel, the second option is right. This is very important. Our lives will depend on it. If we die back then, we won’t have been here to rescue you from the flood.”

“That’s it?” Mister Dinosaur asks.

“That’s all we’ll need to know,” Nathaniel says.

“Where is Atomica?” Mister Dinosaur asks.

“That’s not important. You’ll get there,” Nathaniel says.

When the new friends finally part ways, Doctor Bill asks a question. “I’ve been confused by something for quite some time. How is it that in a galaxy of six hundred billion stars, we keep running into the giant worms so often, not to mention Mister Dinosaur, Allison, and Katie? That can’t be chance.”

“I’ve wondered the same thing, and I haven’t been able to prove it yet, but evidence is building for a theory of mine I developed ever since I first learned it was possible to change history and that there were time travelers other than us,” Nathaniel says.

“What’s that?” Doctor Bill asks.

“Every time we enter the timestream, our actions initiate chains of causality that interfere with our own past, and the pasts of other time travelers, who then interfere with our past in an infinite feedback loop, increasing the likelihood of us arriving in what you might call important times upon which many chains of causality depend. That makes us important. Since other time travelers are also important, important historical events necessarily includes meeting other time travelers. Those leaving from the same era will meet each other the most – at least until their personal timelines begin to disperse. Our importance will grow and grow the more we travel through time, and our lives will become increasingly exciting,” Nathaniel explains.

“Really?” Doctor Bill asks.

“I believe so. However, it might take years, decades, or even centuries to notice the difference. The really hard part is staying alive for long in the midst of all that excitement,” Nathaniel continues.

“Yes, that will be hard,” Doctor Bill says, scratching an ear.

“Anyways, until then, let’s see all we can,” Nathaniel says. The adventure has just begun.

Captain Nathaniel’s cross-ship speeds away from the uninhabited planet he just finished exploring. Haticat and Fred drive while he and Doctor Bill measure and label the wrinkled, silvery animals they collected from the limestone caves near the shore. Some resemble koalas. Others resemble starfish. Many resemble salamanders. “Captain, another ship is approaching us,” Fred announces. Nathaniel rushes to the bridge.

The other ship sends a message. “Bang, bang, bang, we got you.”

“What game is this?” Nathaniel replies.

“We’re The Bad Guys. We’re space pirates.”

“Okay,” Nathaniel says. “You broke my engines, but I’m shooting back. Pew, pew, pew, pew.”

“We have plasma-cooled shielding; you didn’t hurt us at all.”

“Well, then I made an ultrastrong magnetic field to halt your plasma flow and shot you again,” Nathaniel says.

“But you took too long and we’re already on board.”

“You can’t be that fast,” Nathaniel says. Just then, there is a knock at the door. Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill walk to the airlock and open the door. In walks a robot, in slithers a snake, and in oozes a blob. They each carry a balloon sword. The robot has large eyes and multiple jointed arms in multiple sockets. The gigantic snake has a short horn on its snout curving up and a long horn on each side of its head curving down. It carries its sword in its tail. The blob vaguely resembles a black garbage bag with a balloon sword imbedded in it.

“We’re The Bad Guys. Give us all your money,” the robot says.

“We don’t have any money,” Nathaniel says.

“Oh, well we’ll just take some of your stuff then,” the robot says, holding the explorers against the wall with his balloon sword while the snake and blob move along. Nathaniel simply ducks under the sword and follows after them. “Hey, not so fast; I’m supposed to capture you,” the robot says.

The entire group of players walk around the ship. The “pirates” take some clothes, food, and lab equipment. The robot picks up one of the silver animals. “This looks valuable.”

“My name is Fred. What’s yours,” the snake asks.

“Hey! My name is Fred!” Fred says.

“Well, there are only so many possible names. We were bound to run out eventually,” Nathaniel says.

“My name is Arko,” the robot declares.

“My name is Marv,” the blob adds in a gurgling voice.

“I’m Nathaniel, and this is Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill,” Nathaniel says.

“Hey, I met another Bill once, but he wasn’t a doctor,” Arko comments.

They all continue to play together until snake Fred sees the time machine and tries to take out a time crystal. “No, don’t touch that!” Nathaniel yells. The snake plucks out a crystal with his mouth, upsetting the delicate balance of time flow and causing time to run faster in his head than his heart can keep up with. He faints. Nathaniel runs over and replaces the crystal. “This is a very dangerous and complicated machine.”

“Wow, how did you move that fast?” Arko asks.

“I have many powers,” Nathaniel says. “Don’t touch these.”

“Okay,” Arko agrees.

The “pirates” ignore all machinery from then on and return to their ship. Haticat asks them if they ever go exploring in natural areas. “No, we’ve never gone exploring before. We usually just play pirates or cops and robbers,” Arko answers.

“You can come with us and we’ll show you how to use that lab equipment and where to find those animals,” Haticat says.

“Maybe after lunch,” Arko says. “I need a recharge.”

“Okay,” Haticat says.

“Good idea. I’ll eat lunch, too. Then you can follow us in your ship,” Nathaniel says.

The visitors close the airlock door and detach their ship from Nathaniel’s. Nathaniel grabs two candy bars, a carton of milk, and a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and eats them on the bridge. He sees the other ship on his viewscreen begin to move away faster and faster and faster. “Where are they going?” The other ship is soon speeding away faster than light. “Hey! They took my stuff!”

The cross-ship pursues while Nathaniel calls them again and again. Then the pirate ship fires real lasers, this time disabling his engines for real. They fly away at top speed.

It takes weeks of detective work to deduce their probable market habits, but eventually the explorers figure out that they make periodic visits to Nilea market on Pendar to sell their stolen goods. One day, they see them. “Where’s my stuff?” Nathaniel demands, emerging from the crowd.
Arko jumps backwards. “How did you find us?”

“I told you I have many powers,” Nathaniel states.

Snake Fred speaks loudly so the crowd will hear. “We don’t know you or what you want.”

“Then why did Arko ask how I found him?” Nathaniel loudly asks. He grabs Arko by the metal breastplate. “Give me my stuff back!” Haticat, Fred, Doctor Bill, snake Fred, and Marv eye each other warily.

“We already sold it,” Arko says.

“Then you’re going to buy me some new stuff,” Nathaniel says.

“Stop that! There’s no fighting in the market!” a bystander shouts.

“This robot stole from me,” Nathaniel says.

“You can settle your differences on planet Fight,” the bystander responds.

Set up by the diplomacy directive one thousand years after Nathaniel’s creation, the planet Fight is where people go to express their anger at each other. It is what replaces the criminal and civil courts over much of the galaxy when they become corrupt. In the end, they are not given a choice. The authorities take them all to the planet and drop them in two separate capsules. The surface is sand, glass, and scorched rock, forming a mottled tan, white, and orange vista. Spacecraft battles and aircraft battles surround the capsules as they fall. Some visitors to the planet never reach the ground.

The first capsule lands. Out steps Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill. Aircraft in the distance drop bombs on a caravan of tanks. “Where are they?” Nathaniel asks.

“Look!” Haticat points at the second capsule falling on the other side of a row of rocky hills. The explorers run to meet it. By the time it enters their view, the enemy has already emerged.

The rules are simple. Whoever can reach one of the twelve space elevators can leave the planet. Outside the fences surrounding these elevators is anarchy. The idea of planet Fight is to end one’s troubles on the planet so they are not taken back into society.

The two groups shoot at each other, but they are too fast and too well-armored to be hurt. Nathaniel quickly closes the distance and pulls out his vibrating sword, slicing into Marv, but Marv oozes back together and flips a switch on his balloon sword. It glows brightly and then erupts into flames. The two take defensive stances. Haticat approaches Arko, but Arko starts pulling his own arms out of their sockets with his other arms, stringing them together into one long arm to extend his reach. He also has a fiery balloon sword. Fred and Doctor Bill outmaneuver and disarm snake Fred, but he still has his horns to stab with.

Arko chases Haticat between two large boulders. His fiery sword glances off the stone, splashing tiny drops of lava. Haticat starts to climb up the sides of the boulders, out of range of the swinging sword. “We used to be friends; what happened?”

“We were play-friends,” Arko says.

“But we had real fun,” Haticat says.

“Yes…” Arko responds.

“Then why are we fighting?” Haticat asks, angrily slicing a chunk of stone off and letting it tumble downward.

Meanwhile, Nathaniel snatches Marv’s sword away and bites him. Marv twists around and bites Nathaniel in the back. They wrestle and tumble down a hill into a pile of stones. Snake Fred stabs Fred with one horn, tossing him away, and then hits Doctor Bill with his tail.

“We could play-fight instead,” Arko says.

“Yeah, we could do that,” Haticat says.

Snake Fred rescues Marv by grabbing Nathaniel in his mouth and throwing him against a boulder. Then he is tackled from behind by Fred, who grabs his horns and pulls on them. Nathaniel grabs Marv’s fire sword and runs toward the distracted snake, but is tackled by Marv, who pins him to the ground. Doctor Bill runs over and picks up the sword, but stops when he hears laughing.

Everybody stops fighting to look toward Arko, giving Haticat a ride. The two of them laugh. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to destroy him,” Nathaniel says.

“I destroy my enemy when I make him my friend,” Haticat states.

Over the next several minutes, the two groups talk things out. They eventually leave the planet together and stay friends for the next three years, visiting many planets and collecting specimens and playing games.

“And there it is! The biggest restaurant in the galaxy!” Nathaniel announces. On the viewscreen is a glowing arc. This is the luminescent ring of Ranor, partially obscured by the dark planet. As they get closer, city lights become visible.

Ranor is a rogue planet. It orbits no star and sits in the cold of interstellar space. It is the largest colony of the Vlymons, humanoid creatures with swirls of white, black, blue, and red-orange on their skin. They each have one red eye and one black eye. Ranor is ruled by an individual known only as “The Chef,” a culinary and business genius who has converted the entire colony into a restaurant.

The ship lands and Nathaniel is shown to a table by the Vlymon waitstaff. They wear box-shaped hats. He is accompanied by Haticat, Fred, Doctor Bill, and Blacky, his pet flying ray. “What would you like today?” the Vlymon asks.

“I don’t know. There are too many choices,” Nathaniel says, struggling to skim through the digital menu of millions of dishes.

“Then might I suggest The Chef’s ladder? A series of small plates chosen by The Chef himself based on your biosensory profile?” The waiter poses.

“Okay,” Nathaniel says.

“Perfect. I shall return with your first plate,” the waiter says.

While Nathaniel waits, a four-meter Sauropod at the next table catches his gaze. “Hi, thar. Get’n The Chef’s laytor?”

Nathaniel blinks. “What? Did you say something?”

“Shore. I akscha if yer wer get’n The Chef’s laytor,” the Sauropod says.

Nathaniel looks at Haticat and then back at the long-neck Dinosaur. “My ears must be malfunctioning. Did you ask if I was getting The Chef’s ladder?”

“Shore did,” the Sauropod says.

“The shore asked? Is there an ocean near here? Does it talk?” Nathaniel asks, more confused than ever.

“Naw. Shore. Shore. As in certeen,” the Sauropod says.

“Certain?” Nathaniel queries.

“Shore,” the Saurpod says.

Nathaniel looks at Haticat again. Haticat speaks. “Why are you talking like that? Is it the way your species mouths work?”

“Naw. It’s an akshint,” the Sauropod says.

“A what?” Nathaniel exclaims.

“An akshint. It’s a stole uff tak’n. It’s a furm uff art. All the people on planeet Barksheed tak this woy,” the Sauropod explains.

“Well they should stop,” Nathaniel says.

“How do you know what he’s saying?” Fred asks.

“Naw, we lake it,” the Sauropod says.

“It’s an insult to language itself,” Nathaniel says.

“Yer nod toe bee mer talleereent uff otter cultures. Don’t bee narraw minnedeed. Yer gotta travel mer,” the Sauropod says.

Nathaniel now turns his head fully toward the sauropod. “I’ve been to hundreds of planets. I’ve seen right and wrong. You’re talking wrong.”

“My brain hurts!” Fred complains

“We don’t have centralized brains,” Doctor Bill corrects him.

“Then I guess it’s my whole body that hurts,” Fred says.

“On Barksheed, yer bee tak’n wrang,” the Sauropod says.

“Stop talking,” Nathaniel commands.

“Yer a root Dinosewer,” the Sauropod declares.

“Shut up,” Nathaniel says firmly.

Their food arrives. Nathaniel receives a sizzling hot plate of laser-fried daggertails. The Sauropod is given eggs, maple candy-coated bacon, and mustard cupcakes. “I’m glad I didn’t get that. How did The Chef know what I would like and dislike?”

“The Chef is brilliant. Sensors in the waiting area measure the relative velocity of your taste reception. The reason people like different combinations is because the quantum wave functions of different kinds of foods interfere constructively or destructively depending on their frame of reference. This is the general theory of like-relativity that The Chef published,” the waiter explains.

“Oh? I’d like to read that,” Nathaniel says.

“There’s a link on the website,” the waiter says.

“I’ll check that out,” Nathaniel says. He returns to his meal of daggertail.

Then the Sauropod starts talking again. “How is the doogertell?”

“Shut up!” Nathaniel yells.

“Dar bee sutton wrang wid yer aft yer can’t stent an akshint,” the Sauropod says.

Nathaniel jumps from one table to the other, pointing a knife at the other Dinosaur. “Either talk right or don’t talk at all. Drop the akshint or I’ll remove your larynx!”

“Yer a root Dinosewer,” the Sauropod says.

Nathaniel holds the knife closer. “A what?”

“You’re a rude Dinosaur,” the Sauropod says.

“That’s better,” Nathaniel says, returning to his table.

Eventually, the daggertail plate is taken away and a plate of Szechuan microraptor is served. Microraptors are non-sentient Dinosaurs of the family dromaeosauridae. It resembles a tiny version of Nathaniel. The smell is intoxicating. The Sauropod is served a fruit salad containing peach, strawberry, banana, and tomatoe. Once again, Nathaniel is glad he does not have to eat it.

“Is it passabeel to get anotter tooble? This har Dinosewer is trabble,” the Sauropod complains.

Nathaniel slaps his claw onto the table. “I told you to stop talking like that!”

“Hmm. I’ll see what I can do,” the waiter says and steps away.

“Doctor Bill, remind me to wipe out all life on Barksheed next time we fly past it,” Nathaniel says.

“Definitely,” Doctor Bill agrees.

Soon, the Sauropod is guided away to another room. A second waiter approaches Nathaniel. “How is everything today?”

“Excellent. That was the best microraptor I’ve ever had. The only problem was that Sauropod. Some people have no respect for those in earshot,” Nathaniel says.

“He made my ears almost bleed,” Fred declares.

“We don’t have any blood,” Doctor Bill reminds him.

“I said almost,” Fred says.

“Well, we hope you enjoy the next dish prepared. It will be here soon,” the waiter says.

A few moments later, a plate arrives with a single burger. It sits on a bun topped with lettuce and tomatoes. “This is so good. What animal is this made from?” Nathaniel asks.

“That is one of our Human meat burgers,” the waiter says.

“Oh,” Nathaniel says, still chewing. “I’ve never hunted Humans before. Usually, I see them in Human societies where hunting them is illegal.”

“On Ranor, the only law is The Chef’s recipe book,” the waiter explains.

“Hmm. Delicious,” Nathaniel says.

The waiter leaves and Nathaniel finishes his burger. “Can we still be good guys if we kill people, so long as we eat them after?” Fred asks.

“Every species eats others, so as long as we aren’t eating our own species, I guess that’s okay,” Doctor Bill says.

“That makes sense. I just hope no Humans find out I sometimes eat them, because that will make it harder to be friends with them,” Nathaniel says.

“They should be fine with it if they know you never kill them yourself and only eat them on Ranor after the Vlymons have killed them, and we can help them fight the Vlymons if they want,” Haticat says.

“Yeah,” Nathaniel mutters, “I wonder what Vlymons taste like.”

“Are you enjoying your burger?” the waiter asks from behind them, causing Nathaniel to jump a little bit.

“Oh, I’m finished. What’s next?” Nathaniel asks.

“Sauropod steak,” the Vlymon says while a second waiter arrives with a plate covered in a gigantic steak.

“Wow! That looks amazing!” Nathaniel remarks. It was the juiciest, fattiest steak he had ever seen.

“This steak is fresh from our latest catch. It came in just ten minutes ago,” the waiter says.

“Great! Do you have farms or game preserves on Ranor?” Nathaniel asks.

“There is no need. New food comes to us every day. This sauropod flew in from Barksheed,” the waiter explains.

“Oh, interesting,” Nathaniel comments.

“I hope you like it,” the waiter says as he leaves. Nathaniel slices a big chunk and tastes it. It is the best steak ever.

“I think that steak might be from the Sauropod with the akshint,” Haticat says.

“Oh, I know,” Nathaniel says.

“You might be on the menu next,” Haticat says.

“Probably. That’s why we’re going to sneak out,” Nathaniel says, stuffing another chunk in his mouth. It is so good.

Haticat looks around. “When?”

Nathaniel looks around too. “Now.”

They make it as far as the third entertaining room when they are stopped. “Were you leaving already? We wouldn’t want you to forget to pay,” the waiter says.

“Oh, no, I was just looking for a restroom,” Nathaniel states confidently.

“Of course, right this way,” the Vlymon says, grabbing Nate’s arm. Others grab Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill. Blacky follows. He is directed through the kitchen doors and brought to a small room with a table.

“That’s not a toilet,” Nathaniel remarks.

Two big Vlymons enter the room. “Your active saliva glands will make an excellent addition to The Chef’s next dish,” one says. “Prepare him for surgery.”

Nathaniel wrenches away from the waiter’s grip, ducks, and runs under the table. The two big Vlymons reach for him, bumping heads and knocking off their square hats. He grabs a nearby knife and stabs one of them. There is a quick fight and Nathaniel escapes, followed by his crew. Dozens of Vlymons give chase, but Blacky gains them a headstart by flying into the face of the lead Vlymon. “Ahh! Ahh! Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!” he yells, finally grabbing the flying ray and stuffing it into a pot.

They run and run, but every exit is cut off. They shoot lasers and the cooks throw knives. Then the kitchen staff find and make use of a flavor ray. After being narrowly missed by a beam of curry and a beam of garlic, they are all hit with a beam of horseradish. Seven meters in every direction smells strongly of horseradish. The Stuffians are knocked out. Nathaniel’s snout drips and he feels like he is about to die. He can’t breathe. They are quickly surrounded and captured.

A large Vlymon wearing an extra-large hat steps up. “Thank you for running away like I planned. We already have an order for active Dromaeosaur adrenal glands.” Still stunned by the horseradish, Nathaniel is tied to a table and stripped. “I am The Chef. Everything that happens on this planet is according to my recipe. Once I have enough customers to supply me with meat, I can create the tastiest meals ever made or thought of. I will master the corners of flavor! Everyone will want to eat here. I will put even the Candy Wizards out of business. Once I control the food supply in this arm of the galaxy, acting as middleman between predator and prey, I will then be able to take control of all ecosystems!”

“You’re evil!” Haticat yells, struggling against his captors.

“Put the Gruezhlings in the freezer; they’ll be tomorrow’s soup-of-the-day,” The Chef says. The staff carry them away, leaving The Chef alone with Nathaniel.

“The Tyrannosaur wanted these as fresh as possible, so there’s no time for anesthesia.” The Chef leans over Nathaniel’s abdomen and carefully pierces the skin with his scalpel. ZAP! A current of electricity flows from Nathaniel’s body into his, knocking him unconscious onto the floor.

It takes only a minute for Nathaniel to wriggle out of his restraints and get dressed. Then he zaps The Chef as hard as he can until his skin burns, reasoning that with him dead, the galaxy is safer. He leaves to look for his crew, but just before he steps out the door, he returns to The Chef’s body on the floor and nibbles on his cheek. “Hmm. Not bad,” he mutters. “Needs soy sauce, though.”

Nathaniel goes looking for his crew. However, the freezer is heavily guarded. Vlymons are everywhere, cooking, coating, chopping, carrying, cleaning, calibrating, and calculating. He sees Blacky pulled from boiling water and flopped on a plate. It is sprinkled with pink mountain salt before being carried out the server doors. He needs a distraction. He finds his way to the intercom system. “Attention all customers! As of just now, we have a new special on hunt-them-yourself Vlymons. That’s right, any Vlymons on Ranor are legal catch for the next twenty-four hours. Simply bring your kill to the kitchen to receive our signature spices and observe our patent-pending lightning-fried cooking method. Also, as a special thanks to you, the first one hundred Vlymon orders will be absolutely free!”

Finally, Nathaniel has the chaos he needs. Staff and predatory customers are running everywhere. He runs to the freezer and pulls out his crew. They are stiff and stuck together, so he carries them all the way back to his ship, where they thaw out as good as new.

Six Stuffians run through the hallways of an empty building. They carry large bags of unassigned money. Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill are right behind them. Pew! Pew! The blue one near the rear turns to fire at Nathaniel and misses. Nathaniel ducks behind a wall, returns fire and also misses. This gains some distance for the other fleeing Stuffians, but Nathaniel is fast. “I can’t lose him!” the blue one screams into his communicator.

“We’ll use the roof!” the peach-colored one calls back. “Lure him to the ground.” The blue Stuffian finds some stairs and jumps down them six at a time. Nathaniel is right behind him. The only reason Nathaniel doesn’t overtake him is the sporadic laserfire he throws backwards in Nathaniel’s direction. Pew! Pew!

Nathaniel squeezes behind a railing as the blue one stops to take better aim at him. He peeks out only to be shot at again. Pew! Pew! When he peeks out again, the blue one is gone, having gained a few more seconds of running.

Finally, the blue one stops at the end of the final stretch of stairs with his hand on the metal railing. He takes aim as Nathaniel stops at the top. This time, Nathaniel reaches for the railing and zaps it with his electricity power, sending the Gruezhling reeling. He drops his gun and falls to the floor, unconscious.

In the meantime, the other five have reached the roof. They each extend the antigravity batons they carry and prepare to ride them like broomsticks. Zzrrt! Haticat’s laser burns a tiny hole in one of the money bags. He storms onto the roof followed by Fred and Doctor Bill.

The other Stuffians flee, dropping the burned bag and riding their batons into the sky, as the two groups continue to exchange laserfire.

“They got away!” Haticat yells into his radio.

“I got one of them,” Nathaniel says.

“What do we do now?” Haticat asks.

“Meet me downstairs and we’ll find an apartment,” Nathaniel says. The explorers were on planet Bingo, a Human colony under construction. In expectation of new arrivals, the Humans had built one thousand homes for every person currently living on the planet. These homes were unlocked and ready for use.

Bingo was awash with money. To prevent theft, bills were “locked” with the identification of the owner and could only be transferred with the owner’s permission by recording the identification of the recipient. However, the big banks often held large amounts of unassigned money ready to be loaned out. This practice had encouraged a new strain of bank robbers and Nathaniel had offered his help to catch them.

In an apartment, the Stuffian named Blue Bear is tied to a chair. The money bag next to him squirms. “What is that?” Nathaniel asks.

“Just our pet Blacky. We like having it around,” Blue Bear says.

Nathaniel tentatively opens the sack and a black, ray-like creature flies across the room and attaches to the wall. Fred watches it intensely with one hand on his holstered weapon.

“Who do you work for?” Haticat asks.

“Ha! I’m not going to tell you that,” Blue Bear says.

Haticat unfolds a knife in front of him. “We’ve been offered an incredible sum of reward money to put an end to the theft. If you help us, we can share some with you. Your identity will be secret, and you’ll be able to leave the planet and retire in peace.”

Blue Bear looks indecisive for a moment. “Uh, how much are we talking about?”

“Lots. One million for your cooperation today and another million when our mission is complete,” Haticat says.

Blue Bear furrows his brow. “Twenty million.”

Fred promptly grabs Blue Bear’s head and holds it steady while Haticat grabs his ear and holds the knife against it. “Two million is a good offer. Even better, if you tell us who and where your boss is, we’ll let you keep your ears.”

Blue Bear relaxes a bit and says, “Okay, I…” Suddenly, he looks quite perplexed.

“Okay, what?” Haticat asks.

“I…don’t remember,” Blue Bear says.

“You don’t remember who you work for?” Haticat says.

“I…I want to tell you, but…I can’t remember!” Blue Bear says.

“Try to remember harder,” Fred says.

“I’m trying. I…must have forgotten,” Blue Bear says.

Nathaniel later phones in a report to the Bingo bank manager. “We captured one of the robbers, but he claims he can’t remember anything important,” Nathaniel says.

“Oh, that makes sense. There was a pathogen discovered on the planet that erases memories. That’s why we first started to assign money by individual identity, in case we all forgot who owned what,” the manager says.

“What? Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Nathaniel asks.

“When? Have we talked before?” the manager asks.

Nathaniel’s mouth drops open. Then he closes it again. “You hired us to catch the bank robbers.”

“Oh, I must have forgot,” the manager says.

“Do you remember how much you agreed we would get paid?” Nathaniel asks.

“Um, yes, I remember talking about that. It was one hundred million for the capture or killing of all robbers,” the manager answers.

“Right,” Nathaniel agrees. “Don’t forget that.”

Nathaniel hangs up and looks out the window. “Yikes, it’s really raining, thundering, and lightninging out there. Haticat better hurry back from the flying baton store.”

Minutes later, the phone rings. “Hello?”

“We have your friend. Bring us Blue Bear and the money if you want him back,” Peach Koala says.

Nathaniel pauses. “Where to?” he finally says.

“The end of the street in ten minutes,” Peach Koala answers.

“I want to talk to your boss,” Nathaniel says.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you,” Peach Koala says.

She? Girls were supposed to be extinct at this time. “Either I meet your boss there in person or the deal is off,” Nathaniel says.

There is some whispering on the other end of the line. “Okay, she’ll be there. Make sure you bring the money,” Peach Koala responds.

“Deal.” Nathaniel hangs up the phone.

The robbers stand around looking at each other. “Why did you agree to call her in? It might be a trap,” Fluffy Bear comments.

“Of course it’s a trap, but we will win; we outnumber them,” Peach Koala responds.

“And we still have our flying batons and they don’t,” Black Gorilla adds.

“I just hope they don’t hurt Blue Bear,” Little Blue Koala says.

“If they do, we’ll hurt the cat,” Tiger Stripes says.

“You don’t want to do that,” Haticat says, sitting in the corner with his hands tied.

“No we don’t, but we want money so much more,” Peach Koala says. “Let’s go.”

The entire gang walks out into the hallway, bringing Haticat with them. When they are halfway to the stairwell, a section of floor suddenly gives way, sending Tiger Stripes and Haticat tumbling into the darkness. Nathaniel steps out in front of the group and Doctor Bill in the back. “Freeze!” Doctor Bill yells.

“I decided I wanted to meet here instead,” Nathaniel says. The sounds of struggle can be heard through the hole in the floor.

“How did you find us?” Fluffy Bear asks.

“I gave Haticat a transmitter, expecting you might capture him,” Nathaniel says.

“Smart,” Peach Koala says.

“I try to be. Where is your boss?” Nathaniel asks.

“On her way,” Peach Koala says.

“Captain, the enemy has been subdued,” Fred shouts from below.

“Okay, bring him up here,” Nathaniel orders.

Eventually, Fluffy Bear, Black Gorilla, Peach Koala, Little Blue Koala, and Tiger Stripes are disarmed and lined up against the wall while Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill hold them at gunpoint. “Where are you keeping the money?” Nathaniel asks.

“We give it to the boss. She hides it,” Peach Koala says.

“Where do you meet the boss?” Nathaniel asks.

“She finds us – and she’ll find you, too,” Peach Koala says.

“I hope so,” Nathaniel replies.

“You shouldn’t,” Peach Koala says.

A little bit later, Nathaniel hears a faint scratching noise and turns his head. Something rushes past him at superspeed and knocks him against the wall. He raises his gun, but it is gone. His entire hand is gone! The end of his wrist is shredded and bloody. Then the pain signal reaches his brain.

Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill shoot at the blur, but it is too fast to hit and the gang of robbers use the moment of distraction to rush them and take their guns. Then Blue Bear comes running around the corner with the other two bags of money and helps them guard Nathaniel’s crew. Blacky the ray flies past and attaches to the wall.

Nathaniel’s eyes well up, but he quickly overcomes his shock. In front of him stands a thin creature with big, dripping teeth and giant claws. It has extremely snarled hair, no shoes, and ragged clothes that barely cover its body. Bits of food appear to be stuck in its hair and around its mouth. It is Katie. “Nathaniel! I haven’t seen you for forty years!”

Forty? Nathaniel was in his mid-twenties now. His younger sister was older than he was. Time travel is weird. “You survived the war.”

“Yes, that was a wild time. Since the war ended, I’ve been exploring the galaxy and having fun,” Katie says.

“By robbing banks?” Nathaniel says, tightly holding his bloody stump.

“Fun is expensive!” Katie exclaims.

“How did you escape the Mama-And-Daddy?” Nathaniel asks.

“Easy! All I did was…um…something,” Katie says.

“What?” Nathaniel asks.

“I don’t remember right now,” Katie says. “Hey! You can help me rob banks! We can have fun together!”

“No, I’m a good guy,” Nathaniel says.

“Oh, I was a good guy once. I was protecting a city from a…something. It was fun,” Katie says.

“It was from nomadic arsonist gangs,” Peach Koala says.

“Oh, I remember telling you that. We planned together how to fight them. Did we ever fight them?” Katie asks.

“Yes,” Peach Koala answers.

“I’ve been forgetting things lately,” Katie explains.

“I was told there is a pathogen on the planet that affects memory,” Nathaniel says.

“That must be it,” Katie says. Eventually, she gives up on convincing Nathaniel to join her, gathers the money bags, walks down the hall, and descends the stairs, followed one at a time by her crew.

“Hey, don’t forget your pet,” Haticat calls.

“That’s not ours,” Peach Koala says.

“I thought it was yours; it was in your apartment,” Blue Bear says.

“They must have forgotten,” Fred comments.

“It looks like we have a new pet now,” Haticat declares.

Nathaniel holds his arm and grits his teeth. “We need to get off this planet before we start forgetting things too. The pathogen is a much bigger problem than the bank robbers.” He gets up and starts walking down the hall. His crew follows him. Then he slows and finally stops. “Does anybody remember where we parked the ship?”

Haticat scratches his head. “I don’t remember.”

“I don’t remember, either,” Doctor Bill says.

Fred holds his head in his arms. “Oh no!”

The four explorers devote the rest of their time to finding a cure for the memory-loss pathogen, but keep forgetting what they have learned about it. They eventually figure out that they need not remember facts directly if they can remember remembering them or remember remembering remembering them. Nathaniel spends a lot of time thinking about what he knows, so even if he no longer remembers where he first learned information, he still knows it. So as not to forget past adventures, he and his crew tell each other stories every day. His entire reality becomes a perilously balanced house of cards. His past life starts to feel like a television show he read the reviews of, rather than something he lived through. Eventually, they discover that another scientist might have already found the cure, but forgotten where it was hidden. “Why would you hide it?”

“I don’t know,” the scientist says. “I must have had a good reason at the time.”

Because of the healing juice he once drank long ago, Nathaniel’s hand starts to grow back. It is half restored by the time they locate the vault the scientist most likely hid the cure in. Unfortunately, they need supplies and are out of money. No bank remembers hiring them. No bank remembers having a theft problem big enough to require hiring them. After briefly considering becoming bank robbers themselves, they decide instead to steal from bank robbers. They catch and beat up a gang of four humans who forget the way to their hideout after forgetting where they parked the getaway car. Blacky helps by flying into and covering the face of the leader so that Fred can disarm him. Blacky follows them everywhere.

Finally, Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill arrive at the bank with the cure. “It’s in a safety deposit box, number 256,” Nathaniel says.

“Where is everybody?” Haticat asks. There are no tellers. There are no customers.

“Maybe they forgot they had to work today,” Nathaniel quips, just as he rounds a corner and almost trips over a mutilated corpse.

“Yikes! What kind of animal did that?” Haticat shouts. Fred looks around warily, fingering his gun.

“Someone else is already here. They must be looking for the same thing,” Nathaniel says.

Already deep in the vault, Black Gorilla deactivates the explosive theft deterrence on the final door. Fluffy Bear and Little Blue Koala stand guard. “That’s it. The lines are dead.”

“Good,” Katie says. She steps forward, extends one bladed index finger, and proceeds to cut through the thick steel wall of the vault as if it were made of wet tissue paper. Soon, they are inside and looking for box 256.

“Found it,” Blue Bear announces.

Katie slides it open and retrieves a tube of red paste. “How does it work? Do you eat it?” Tiger Stripes asks.

“Just as importantly, how do we destroy it so that no one remembers our crimes?” Peach Koala asks.

“We’ll ask that scientist who hid it from us. He’ll tell us unless he wants me to eat his feet,” Katie says.

“But you already ate his feet,” Peach Koala reminds her.

“I did? I don’t remember that. Were they good?” Katie responds.

“I don’t know; you didn’t tell me,” Peach Koala answers.

“Well, let’s go,” Katie says. The entire gang turns to leave and finds Nathaniel and his crew blocking their path with guns already pointing.

“Drop the tube and slide it to me,” Nathaniel orders.

“This one?” Katie holds up the tube and points at it with her other hand.

“Yes,” Nathaniel says.

Katie frowns. “I don’t want to.”

“I won’t ask again,” Nathaniel says.

“Oh, good. That’s a relief. Your voice can be a little annoying someti…” Katie says before she is cut off by a laser shot to the chest that knocks her backwards and leaves a smoldering hole.

She stumbles for a second and hisses. Before Nathaniel can shoot again, she has covered the four meters between them and knocked the gun from his hand. She repeatedly slices the air with her claws, but Nathaniel dodges with his superspeed. He bounces off the walls, ceiling, and floor, flipping and contorting his body in ways he didn’t know he could. Nathaniel has time crystal induced speed power and yet Katie is as fast as he is. They stop in the far corner of the room, breathing heavily. The entire fight has lasted four seconds. Katie bares her teeth and drools. “My tube!”

“No!” Nathaniel says. The siblings again launch themselves into the air as the Gruezhlings shoot at each other on the other side of the room.

Nathaniel struggles to keep away from her claws before leaping over her and pushing her from behind. She falls to the floor and the tube falls from her pocket. Nathaniel bends to pick it up, but Katie turns over and whips around to grab it, forcing Nathaniel to leap backwards. She pockets the tube and jumps towards him again.

This time, she chases Nathaniel into a corner. He fakes left before bouncing off the right wall and ending up behind her again. She reaches her right claw behind her and Nathaniel slaps a cuff on it. The unbound side of the cuff spins around her wrist as she twists to face him. He spins completely around and uses his other arm to guide her second claw into the cuff, snapping it shut. Katie screams and continues to chase Nathaniel around the room.

Meanwhile, Blue Bear is shot by Fred and rolls on the floor in pain. Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill then dive behind a row of deposit boxes, completely covered by laserfire. Fluffy Bear inches along the wall, hoping to get an angle he can shoot from.

Nathaniel reaches into his coat pocket for his remote control and activates the handcuff magnets. Katie is whisked off her feet as the cuffs attach themselves to the ceiling. He pulls the tube out of her pocket and is kicked in the face, causing an instant nosebleed. Holding his nose in one hand and the tube in the other, he runs from the room. Katie screams.

The distraction allows Haticat to stand up and return fire, covering their escape. Fluffy Bear is shot and the other bank robbers cower behind obstacles.

Nathaniel dissolves the contents of the tube into the drinking water of the hundred cities. It is a mutant form of the pathogen, also contagious, that kills the first. The cure prevents memory loss in the future, but does not restore lost memories. Nathaniel no longer directly remembers anything before he landed on the planet, relying purely on repeated tellings of tellings of tellings of his past life. He looks for Katie, but cannot find her. However, he does eventually find his spaceship. “It was behind the hill this whole time!” he exclaims.

“Good! Let’s get off this planet,” Haticat says.

“Time to explore and make new memories,” Fred says.

“Agreed,” Nathaniel says, and they all climb in and fly away.