“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.

“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.

“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?”

“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.

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.

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!”

“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.

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.