Even with umpteen amounts of entertainment traveling in the Food Critic through the universe was boring. When not training or learning we spent a lot of time playing video games or watching TV or checking on Professor Theopolis reports of the goings-on at the Skalorr System. Computer Green was generating an impressive number of upgrades for our sci-fi technologies. Together the Color Computers were working out well under its guidance.

About the only thing we did that was close to sexual was this thing I did two months ago where I removed Nicolle's ovaries. The originals went into stasis. In their place were artificial ones that provided all of the benefits and none of the negatives. No blood, mood swings, or "times of the month." All that was regulated. The originals were then placed in a safe in her room.

I'd broached the concept of becoming fuck buddies a few more times. But Nicolle turned me down flat, using psychology of all reasons!

There were a lot of arguments that occurred between us but most of our problems boiled down to the fact that without the Xeno-Commander or my Worm Shard she would be dead. Nicolle was completely dependent upon me. I was strong, good looking, unfathomably rich by the standards of earth and had more power than any human being she'd ever known. I was a nice guy. There should have been no problems having oceans of women at my feet. But Nicolle detested all concepts of a "kept" or "trophy wife" which registered on supreme disgust.

I could tell she was fighting the urge as much as I didn't want to and I was willing to bet our new starship that the one responsible for us being here was wondering what the hold-up was. It's not like she could get pregnant if she didn't want too. So with nothing better to do we ended up training, being a little neurotic, beating the crap out of each other to work out our frustrations, a lot, followed by several days where we couldn't stand to be in each other's company because our feelings were hurt that the other beat us black and blue.

So we were bored, there was too much intimacy, Nicolle was dependent on me, and we were unable to sever the relationship.

Discontented we were.

I have a Xeno-Commander with umpteen levels of computer power and was a shining example of the benefits of a Transhumanist. I still didn't get women.

Well, I did, sometimes, let me tell you those pheromones are pretty potent to a male's psyche.

We made for the nearest main-sequence G or K type stars hoping to get lucky. From time to time we found something interesting to look at. Nothing that the Progenitors hadn't seen before whilst traveling the stars but it helped us nail down this universe's physics. The first yellow-orange sun proved without habitable planets. So did the eighth and the ninth. A region thin with life.

The view of the outside universe was always different. Nicolle never found anything familiar. We needed new star charts.

Hell, I'd take on a pirate right about now.

Almost as if summoned by my very thoughts we found a thing in space.

Bluestone was so named because it was a supergiant star that was blue. There were two gas giants, a dozen planets, 57 assorted moons and an asteroid belt made from a planet that broke apart for some reason and lots of debris.

But what was interesting was that this thing appeared almost as soon as we got done mapping the place. I ordered the ship closer to take a look. And by closer I mean being about 249 million miles away from the thing where the speed of light takes about five minutes to get to us and not so close that we could play bumper cars with the thing.

A few Spaceball Scout were sent to investigate.

"It looks like some weird space mirror," Nicolle commented. "Oh look! A spaceship!"

Yeah. A spaceship. Whoop dee fucking doo…

"It's the Proteus," I grumpily declared, bringing up the necessary information in another ten foot hologram next to the ones we were using to observe events.

You know how in the movies and anime they have this big palaces and ships with interiors so big you could walk a mecha through them without a problem? We were in the living room of such a place.

"So, we're going to go over there, right?" Nicolle asked quickly and with bright-eyed enthusiasm.

"No."

"What? But . . . ? Food!"

"Nope."

She jumps up and flames her green hands on. "FOOD!"

Not impressed. I pointed to the screen. "ROB."

She pauses in mid stalk and the flames go out. "Oh, right." She looks suitably sheepish.

"Besides we've got probes for this sort of thing."

Taking a more active role we each take control of one of the Scouts and send it forwards through the big hole in space. Two more Spaceball Scouts set up a thick communications cable between them with one going over to act as a relay through the time bubble thing.

The two probes approach the ship and it's just like in the movies. Our sensors are going crazy as more bubbles through time show up and fade away.

"Let's make this quick. We don't know how long ROB is going to give us." I sent my probe hurling towards an airlock. After a quick scan it uses its Smoots Drive to jump inside where it falls to the ground. "Gravity's present."

The Spaceball releases some nanomachines to assemble four legs with wheels and a pair of long arms. Nicolle's Scout follows soon after but adapts her gravity devices to maintain flight while assembling two miniature Gatling guns.

Strolling through the place brought back all kinds of fond memories of going to the movies with my parents.

"Computer console," Nicolle announced, pointing it out on her targeting screen.

"I see it," I said as I rolled my machine up to it.

It took but a moment to assemble and distribute the nanites into the high-tech wonder using the Smoots Drive. Didn't matter that parts of the computer were trashed. Pour in enough nanites and they can reconstruct anything. In moments we had computer access and was downloading lots and lots of lovely data.

"The crew were killed about five years ago," I told her after a moment's investigation. "The alien spiders are onboard, I've also got some medical data on them. We're going to want samples."

"Yes, samples, good. But what about the food?" Nicolle asked again.

"There's a hothouse onboard. But I doubt that the food stores survived all this time."

Actually the food stores survived fine all right. In a few minutes we had a nice production line going with the Scouts using their Smoots Drive to jump past the prowling spiders and into the kitchens and locked refrigerators, teleporting the morsels out. Where another group of Scouts would physically herd the cargo through the space bubble, to where another group of Scouts would teleport them onboard. Also every plant in the botanical gardens had had its fruit picked and seeds harvested. The spiders had eaten most of the animals except for the insects.

I was eating PEACHES!

There was actually an impressive number of robots onboard. The ones with the weapons had been taken apart and not a few of the others had been turned to scrap metal. We got our hands on a Rambler-Crane Series 14 Robot. Plus two gardeners that could be fixed and taken with the rest of the loot. They looked like spiders. Huge spiders, with round bodies almost perfectly smooth and eight long legs, tentacles really.

"What about earth?"

That was one of the first thing's I'd first checked. "The star charts match the ones Ranger Mira Nova memorized from the Buzz Lightyear universe. They match that universe," I pointed at the screen with the image of the time bubble and the ship on the other side. "But not this one."

There was also the fact that I was pretty sure that Nicolle and I were in the wrong part of the universe to use them.

Nicolle practically collapse into herself. She falls down onto the couch and hugs herself. "Damn."

A few more time bubbles appeared and disappeared while we worked. I lost a dozen Scouts exploring the things and the stuff on the other side. Including one version of this solar system where the planet that had been broken up in this timeline is intact. The space spiders were getting more creative attacking my machines. There was no sign of the alien ship.

Proteus.

The Lost In Space universe.

It felt like I was trying to snatch the cheese from out of a bear trap.

I didn't know if this was the same ship the Robinson Family will find in the future history, but I decided to play it safe. The intact computer would help them and not just the navigation data. There was a more updated version of their hyperdrive for me to play around with, along with a hyperdrive tracker, plus lots more information and designs on the entire ship and all its technological goodies. I left a pile of radioactive cores for them to find in a crate near the entryway, removed the robot remote control device from the remaining machine but left the robot at the entryway like the butler waiting to welcome the master home, plus disabled the self-destruct and did some ship maintenance.

I felt totally justified a few minutes later when, my Scouts returning from the other side with a few hundred Space Spiders in energy cages, the time bubble disappeared with a puff of paradox.

"Well, that's that." I muttered. I closed the window.

Mmm hum," Nicole murmured as she chomped down on a stalk of celery.

The next few hours were a literal gastronomical delight as we ate human foods that we'd thought we'd never eat again.

-000-

You wouldn't believe the amount of tension that can unravel over a bowl of ice cream.

-000-

Six days later and two more solar systems behind us I was looking at the Space Spiders while they looked at me.

After they got over their "WERAWERRR!" they calmed down quite a bit. Especially after I started feeding them regularly.

The terrarium consisted mostly of a the same ceramic-armored compound used as reentry armor in the Diamond Leviathan with four walls and a ceiling made up of pure energy. There was a long hollow log facsimile, a number of arranged rocks on a gravel floor, chains and toys hanging from the ceiling, a jungle gym. Should the energy walls fail the lack of power would immediately cause real walls to fall into place in a microsecond. It kind of felt like I was reproducing the Aliens Resurrection movie where the military was breeding the monsters.

I wasn't all that concerned. They were smart, but so are lots of animals. It was kind of like keeping piranha in an aquarium at home.

You can get over a lot of your old inclinations about food when you've been eating weird tasting crap for eighty days. Nicolle was eating an onion, raw.

"What are you going to do with them?" she asked as she takes another bite.

"Don't know. Feed them people I don't like probably." I shrug.

She stops eating. "You know, somehow that doesn't bother me."

"Odd, isn't it?"

She shrugs. "It's a savage universe."

"Yup." I nod.

A collection of mice cloned from some remains collected from the Proteus appears within the energy cell. They scream. The Space Spiders pounce and eat them all in a few seconds before crawling back into the piles of rock arrayed about the terrarium.

"Wanna come back to my place?"

"Yes."