Bright stars sit scattered across empty space. Nothing happens here and there is nothing here for it to happen to. Then, there is a distortion of light. The background stars seem to shift. It’s a wormhole and something is coming through. Suddenly, hundreds of straight, segmented rockets burst into the emptiness. Each is fifteen school busses long. For a time, they fly in all directions. Then, they regroup and point themselves in the direction of a bluish white star. This is the sun of the planet Xirl, a jungle world valued by many. In two days, it will be visited by the giant worms that eat trees.

After exploring several planets, Nathaniel parks his ship in the middle of a dust cloud where he can perform necessary repairs away from prying eyes that might attempt to take advantage of a stalled craft. Although the dust is thinly spread, the size of the cloud completely blocks view of the stars. He and his crew would be in absolute darkness if not for the ship’s lights.

“Um, you, the round one,” Nathaniel says.

“I’m Fred,” Fred says.

“Right, shut down the engine and pump out the fuel collector so you can remove the regulator and give it to the, uh, yellow one,” Nathaniel says.

Doctor Bill takes the regulator, plugs it into the diagnostic terminal station, and reboots it. In the meantime, Nathaniel and Haticat put on spacesuits and go outside to test and straighten the ion accelerator guns. The outside of the ship has many handles to hold and each space suit comes with a single cable ending in a clip. They detach and reattach their clips as they move. The first three of six guns are tested and adjusted as necessary and they slowly make their way over to the fourth. “Hey, what’s that?” Haticat asks.

“I don’t see anything,” Nathaniel says.

Haticat pulls down his magnification visor and Nathaniel follows suit. There is a tiny pink speck in the distance and it seems to be wobbling. “I still can’t tell what it is.”

“Go back in the ship. We’ll put the ship scanners on it,” Nathaniel says.

Once inside, they study it intensely. “It’s some sort of giant polychaete and it’s coming this way,” Haticat says.

“It travels by means of a gravitational dipole, but I don’t understand how it generates it,” Nathaniel says.

“Look at the way it dances. It’s writhing all over the place,” Haticat says.

“Let’s put up the force field just in case,” Nathaniel says. “Doctor Bill, how long until we have engines again?”

“Without cutting corners on repairs, two hours. If I put everything back right away without repairs, thirty minutes,” Doctor Bill says.

“We might not have thirty minutes. Hurry,” Nathaniel says. Doctor Bill and Fred scramble to insert every part back into place while Nathaniel watches the monitor closely. The movement of the creature’s parapods is mesmerizing, but something about it makes him feel uneasy. “There is definitely something weird about that dipole.”

“I’m reading paraentropic action; it’s some sort of psychotrophic organism,” Haticat reports. “I’m also reading supersymmetric particles, mostly photino radiation.”

Fifteen minutes later, the creature collides with the force field. It scrapes its parapods over its surface. Power levels fluctuate across the ship, but the force field holds. Nathaniel is surprised to find himself gasping. He feels so strange. “You feel that too?” Haticat asks.

Nathaniel struggles for words. “It’s like…It’s like…”

“It’s like being tickled without being touched,” Haticat says.

The planet Axhashtkat gleams like a jewel in the blackness of space. In the cold, shallow waters, nine-legged crab stars stand in the sand, absorbing food through their feet by osmosis. On the plains, radio-dish-head Ceratopids roam, pinging each other at long distances. The forests are nice, with broad, yellow leaves providing much shade. In scattered villages throughout the forest are blobby beings resembling fried eggs. Having great respect for their environment, they put all their roads underground, so that the forests will not be subdivided. According to their code of ethics, Hashites, as the egg-blobs are called, only eat creatures that themselves eat other creatures, not innocent herbivores. The forests of Axhashtkat are sought out by nature lovers from around the galaxy and across history.

One day, there is a meteor shower. Several meteorites make it to the ground. One meteorite cracks open, revealing a stack of papery films. The top one peels off in the light breeze and lands a meter away. Its outline resembles an ant the size of a rat. As the next film and the next one peel off, the first gradually puffs up with air. Soon, there are hundreds of ants. One of them manages to start a fire with its mouthparts somehow. With its mouthparts aflame, it proceeds to light the rear ends of the other ants. The other ants pass the fire around, back to front and front to back, until every ant carries a flame on each end. Then they start to light the forest on fire.

“Look at that forest fire; it’s huge,” Haticat says as the ship flies by, looking up at the projection on the domed ceiling.

“Wow,” Captain Nathaniel says. “Let’s see if we can help.”

“I think I’m going to start a rock collection,” Nathaniel says.

“Like agates and obsidian?” Haticat says.

“No, just one stone from each planet to remember it by,” Nathaniel explains. “You know, the girls on Ninosa believed that stones held luck. Some combinations were good; others were bad.”

“That’s stupid,” Fred says.

“I know, right?” Nathaniel says.

Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill explore the forest of Lastiana. There are trees evergreen and deciduous. Boulders and lichens are abundant. They walk through the woods for a long time, examining every tree. Nathaniel loves the forest. It is artistically exciting, yet calming. Sunshine is annoying, but shade is relaxing. “Where are we going next?” Haticat asks.

“I don’t know, maybe Molkonia, to see the great yogurt river,” Nathaniel suggests, placing his left hand on a nearby trunk. Planet Molkonia is another Earth-like planet. Just one of its major rivers is made of white, bacteria-rich sludge. It is a bit of a tourist attraction. People bathe in it.

“Well, I don’t want to leave Lastiana just yet, even if nothing exciting has happened,” Doctor Bill says.

“Yeah, me neither,” Nathaniel says, shifting his weight onto the tree he is touching. It suddenly moves – and then flies away rapidly through the trees. Instantly, all four explorers have their guns out and aimed at it. It appears as a simple, straight trunk tapered at both ends with no roots or branches, remaining perfectly vertical as it slips through the forest. A bulge near its middle fires green beams in their direction, burning whatever it touches.

“What was that?” Haticat asks.

“Not a tree,” Nathaniel says.

“Whatever it is, it doesn’t show up on scans,” Doctor Bill says. “The energy weapon seems to cause some sort of ionic damage.”

“Well, now something exciting has happened,” Fred says.

Nathaniel steps around the purple ferns sticking out of the black volcanic soil. He has lived on this planet for several years now, mining uranium. The original miners had reached the limits of their technology and left the planet a century earlier. Nathaniel now took their place with some tech bought from the future. With the treasure he was digging up, he could power his ship and finance his travels for millennia. “I love the smell of neutrons in the morning.”

He then walks around one of the uranium piles left on the surface. His healing power makes him immune to the radiation’s long-term effects. As long as he doesn’t touch it, he’s fine. His plan was to prepare uranium in concise piles for easy pick up later. Although they tended to heat up and deteriorate lumped together in such large amounts, his future self could always pick them up yesterday before they had gone too far. This planet was to be his secret stash to be harvested as long as he wants.

He steps over some scat. There were animals here that excreted Prince Rupert drops of glass. One bad step and they would explode. He sees the animals among the ferns foraging for their nuts. They could be predatory at times, but their coal-like, infrared eyes could not see anything as small and cold as Nathaniel. Finally, he gets to one of the main entrances and climbs down the ladder. He meets up with Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill underground. “This vein is almost depleted,” Doctor Bill reports.

“Good. Just two more months of this and we are back in the exploring business,” Nathaniel says.

“What’s happening?” Nathaniel shouts over the deafening sound.

“There’s a rupture in the antigravity pump,” Doctor Bill yells. The fluid level surrounding the gazebos drops visibly. One spot near the wall churns violently.

“We are re-entering the time stream!” Haticat yells. Pop! The ship appears in empty space and immediately begins to dump fuel. Still reacting, the fuel expands space around it. The ship is jerked this way and that and finally thrown back towards the center of the explosion by different bubbles of expanding space. The explorers slide across the floor and struggle back to their stations.

“Why aren’t the inertial dividers operating?” Nathaniel says. Some of them are. The water does not slosh, yet the spacemass tech that divides the physics on the bridge from the physics of the outside universe has failed.

“I got it,” Haticat says, flipping a blue switch on the edge of the control station. “The electrical surge from the pump malfunction flipped the polarity of the bridge and bedroom divider.” Nathaniel looks across the way to his bedroom gazebo and sees his bed leaning up against the railing.

“The automatic patching mechanisms have kicked in,” Doctor Bill says. The noise and shaking start to subside as the fuel dissipates and quits reacting.

“Captain, we’re very close to a planet,” Fred says. “And on a collision course! There isn’t time to divert.”

“Can we land safely and take off again?” Nathaniel asks.

“Yes,” Fred says. “The damage is small.”

“The planet is a terrestrial silicate planet of moderate gravity and breathable air,” Haticat reports.

“Okay, slow us down. We will worry about repairs after we land,” Nathaniel orders. The ship sets down in a forest of gigantic trees. They have smooth, brown bark and red leaves resembling wigs or clumps of hair. “Okay, now can someone tell me where and when we are?”

Doctor Bill struggles with the navigation computer for a moment. “It looks like we’re on the planet Demanda sometime during the boy-girl war. There may be girls around.”

“Oh no,” Nathaniel says, scratching his head. “All right, let’s do repairs as fast as possible and hope we weren’t noticed. No time to explore.”

The Toumline system is a special place. It sports five gas giant planets – one hot, one cold, a pair of twin zebra-striped planets orbiting each other closely, and “the peppermint planet,” a Jupiter-sized ball of red and white stripes. Circling the peppermint planet is the moon Toumline, the only world in the system with life. It also has a Nino colony. Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill step out of their new ship and explore the blurry jungle. The trees are chaotically-shaped and transparent. Everywhere are soft patches of blue, brown, green, and white. “Look,” says Haticat. A bird jumps from one tree to another.

They all walk around for a few hours until stopped by wildlife management. “What are you doing out here?”

“Exploring,” Nathaniel says.

“Why?” the adult Nino officer asks.

“We’re studying the wildlife,” Haticat answers.

“That’s suspicious,” the officer states.

“How?” Nathaniel asks.

The explorers are escorted out of the jungle and into town to take part in more socially-accepted activities, such as attending the carnival. They watch the shows and play the games. Nathaniel eats rattlesnake stew and drinks jalapeno-pumpkin kefir. Then he sees what looks like an oak tree bobbing and swaying above the crowd. It is imbedded in the neck of a Tyrannosaur. He runs toward it. “Mister Dinosaur!” Nathaniel yells.

Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill explore an airless, cave-riddled planet. Pockets of oxygen and magnesium gas sometimes combine underground, causing large explosions. “Why did you pick such a dangerous planet to park on while we repair the ship?” Haticat asks.

“So I know we won’t be disturbed. No one else would be stupid enough to come here,” Nathaniel answers.

“I don’t know about that. There are lots of stupid people in the galaxy,” Haticat comments.

“Oh, right, but those people are too stupid to be a threat. They won’t have Doctor Bill scanning the ground for brewing explosions,” Nathaniel counters.

Fred throws down a wrench. He has been working on the engines. “These bolts are driving me mad!”

“Take a break. I want to explore a bit anyways,” Nathaniel says.

The four explorers walk up and down over the cracked boulders for over a kilometer. There isn’t much to see. The hot, yellow dwarf star beats down on them, taxing their suits’ cooling capabilities. Suddenly, four other suited figures leap out from behind porous boulders, surrounding them. They carry heavy guns with quadruple barrels. One touches a button on his helmet to switch frequencies. “Come with us.”

Pop! Nathaniel’s bed-ship materializes several hundred years in the future. It is a time of decay and societal collapse. New societies based on scavenging arise and compete with each other. This is the era in which the Marthon first appear, though they are far from dominant yet.

The ship lands on a space station with a gaping hole in the side. “It still has air in the reserve tanks; we can restore the environment by plugging the hole with our force field,” Nathaniel says.

“Sure,” Haticat replies.

Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill climb out from under their comfy covers and walk around the futuristic space station. There are many kinds of equipment they have never seen before. They are playing around with the central computer when a tall, horse-headed alien appears. It seems to be a patchwork of parts from different species with different colors of skin and fur. It wears a gold vest that it reaches into with one hand and retrieves an ultrathin tablet. “One liver and one thyroid: two things I can cross off my scavenger hunt list,” it says in a squeaky voice.

“How did you get in here?” Nathaniel asks.

“Teleportation.” The alien puts away its list and pulls out a knife from a different vest pocket. It steps closer.

“I hope you weren’t thinking of taking my organs. I need those,” Nathaniel says, stepping backwards.

“It’s cold,” Haticat says.

“Yes, it is,” Nathaniel responds, scanning the dumpsite. “Still no gasket normalizers.”

“I found a tri-electric girdle, but we need to modify it to fit our ship,” Doctor Bill says.

“Why do people dump their trash here in the woods?” Fred asks.

“I think they’re just too lazy to drive all the way to the dump,” Nathaniel says. The explorers were on planet Gamma-G5, just outside the human colony of Knottingville. It was early spring, but not all the snow had melted yet. A car drives by, bouncing over the frost heaves.

“This junk is mostly furniture, not ship parts. Why don’t we just make our own gasket normalizer?” Haticat asks.

“We are also exploring. You can learn a lot about people by the stuff they throw away,” Nathaniel says.

Another car drives by but then stops. “Is this more trash?” Fred asks.

It is a police car driven by an adult. “Hey, you four! Stop right there!”

Trying to remember how manners work, Nathaniel finally says, “Hello, how are you this morning?”

“Are you dumping trash?” the cop asks.

“Oh no, we’re picking it up,” Nathaniel answers.

“Trashpicking is illegal,” the cop says.

“But we’re cleaning up litter,” Nathaniel objects.

“That’s stealing,” the cop says.

“But they gave it away. How can it be stealing?” Nathaniel asks.

“In this society we leave things where people wanted them put,” the cop elaborates.

“Really?” Nathaniel comments. “We’re not part of your society.”

“You’re on our planet,” the cop says.

“But we’re in the woods. We are wild animals,” Nathaniel explains.

“All life on Gamma-G5 has been fully domesticated,” the cop says.

“Wow, that’s harder than terraforming! How long did that take?” Doctor Bill asks.

“About two hundred years,” the cop answers. “I need to take all of you in.”

“But…But…” Nathaniel protests.