Reality

Chapter 3: Arrested

Douglas woke up. He was in his room. There was a noise. He grabbed his clothes and dressed. Then he was shaken. 'An earthqake!' he thought.

"Wake up!" an etti... whatever-it-was shook him. "The boss wants to talk to you. Come on." He was in a small room only equipped with a bed, a toilet and a sink. Walls and door were painted with lively colours but without a window, and this was an obviously very strong door, it could nevertheless easyly identified as a cell. Douglas' head ached and the voice of this _being_ made it even worse. There was a smell he recognized.

'Chloroform - that's what makes my head ache like this...' Hardly able to think a clear thought, Douglas did what he was told to. He followed his guard - at least he assumed it was a guard - through a short corridor and into a room reminding him of a lab. There were large tables placed against all of the walls, which were filled with machine parts, blueprints, tools and all this other stuff you'd expect in a lab. Standing in the middle was a bigger figure with even whiter hair than his guard. It stared in Douglas' eyes and started to speak.

"To not be impolite, I'll introduce myself first. My name's Erik and I'm the head of the Ettin service staff on the 'Albian Explorer'. And now let's come to the not so polite part. One of our people found you in a service tunnel leading to one of our computer nodes. To make things worse you are neither known to us nor your species is. You are therefore supposed to be a spy and a danger to the ship and everyone on it. You'll get a chance to defend yourself later. For now, you'll be brought back to your cell." Erik turned and left the room. His guard brought him back into the room and locked the door.

'Now I've got a real problem. And this headache is driving me crazy.' After about ten minutes his breath became deep and regular. Only a few people have the gift to sleep under those circumstances, and Douglas was such a happy one.

Chapter 4