“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.

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.”

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?”