500 v. 0.7

The instructor looked to where Derek was supposed to be found. Instead, he saw nothing there. The spheres were gone. Derek was nowhere to be seen. And there was another bird missing.

The instructor sighed. "I don't think that his father is going to take this very well," he said to the empty room.

************

Derek's brain started taking stock of his situation. He felt very odd, although he knew that, for some reason, he ought to be feeling very dead. It then occurred to him that perhaps feeling dead meant that you felt very odd. He would have to test that hypothesis some day. If he wasn't already dead, of course. Otherwise, the point was moot. It was then that he realized that his eyes were still closed. He inverted that situation. The first thing that he saw was a yellow ball over his head. Hmm. A main-sequence, medium-sized star. How utterly boring.

His mind tried to piece together some form of what had happened. He was following his instructor's orders, just like always. He was about to attach the connector to siphon off the Resheph. Since it had been a double conversion, that amount of energy would have powered everything for at least a year. The bird got loose. He had reached for the bird. Now he was here, under some very warm--but quite boring--yellow star. But that star was suddenly blocked by a shadow.

"You OK?" a small voice was asking him.

"Of course I'm fine." Another oddity: His voice sounded different. Maybe it was some backlash from the bird hitting the energy.

"You don't look fine," the voice continued. "Otherwise, why would you by lying down on the ground?"

The ground. That explains why he was staring up at the yellow ball. "I wanted to take a nap."

"Mama says that if you want to take a nap, you should go to your own room."

"I'll keep that in mind next time."

The voice giggled and the blockage of the star was gone. Finally, some peace to think.

He had been reaching for the bird. There shouldn't have been much danger from the Resheph, just a slight shock. After all, the Neshef had been completely condensed out of the sphere, hadn't it? What if it had not?

"You all right there, buddy?" A new blockage of the star. This time, larger and with a deeper voice.

"Why do people keep asking me that? I'm fine. Go away."

"'Fraid I can't do that. You're blocking the sidewalk. You need to move somewhere else."

Derek was getting annoyed. "I am perfectly comfortable right where I am. You shall now leave."

"Seriously, you need to move. We can't have you laying there. You're a hazard to others. Now let's move it along. Right now."

"Don't you know who I am?" Derek screamed.

"Of course I do, Frank."

End of introduction.