"A creation?" I asked. "What do you mean Kiah?"

"Bobby, it's really hard to explain. In fact, all of this Traveler and Halla stuff is hard to explain! But now is not the time for explanations. I have told you enough for today."

Kiah stood up and beckoned me to follow her. She led me to this shiny, silver door in the corner. She pushed a button on the side and the door slid in to the wall. "You can stay in this room Bobby. I think we will both need a good night's sleep.

I yawned. I was feeling pretty tired. Another interesting thought came to mind. In space, how would people know when it is night or day? Boy, it sure made me wish I had my old watch with me.

I stepped into the dimly lit room and the door slid shut behind me. All that was in this room was a single bed and a window, in which I could look out at the shattered planet of Aploshion. I guess it had never occurred to me that the different territories weren't just the planets, they also included the space around them. So I guess that makes each territory more like a whole separate dimension. But I couldn't think anymore. I lay down on the bad and conked out in seconds.

Next morning, I had an odd wake-up call. Actually, I wouldn't call it odd. More like annoying. I was having an awesome dream about riding skimmers with Spader and Press. Then all the sudden my skimmer started shaking! I woke up. I realized it wasn't just in my dreams. My whole bed was shaking like crazy. I leaped onto the floor. I watched it a few seconds and after a few more seconds of vibrating like mad it died down.

I then heard a knock on the door. "Well, how did you like your wake-up call?"

It was Kiah. I could hear her laughing on the other side! "Is this how all you people wake up!" I exclaimed.

"Pretty much. Trust me, after a while you get used to it. It's better than those primitive chirping squares that I hear you use on Second Earth!"

She had a point. But it would definitely take some getting used to before I would appreciate it! A little slot opened at the bottom of the door and Kiah slipped in a shiny pair of grayish clothes.

"Well Bobby, even if we can't get your skin color right, at least you will be able to blend in more with these clothes." Kiah said.

I put them on and I noticed that button on the shoulder part again. I pushed it. All of a sudden the clothes started to squeeze tightly around me! Then a few moments later they released a little and I realized they had molded themselves to fit me perfectly. I had to admit out of all the futuristic territories I had been to, the technology here was tops, if not a little weird.

I pushed the button and the door opened. I walked out into the main room. Kiah was there and she was sitting in one of the silver chairs, looking at another odd Aploshion trinket. I walked over to her and couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was like a bluish transparent piece of paper and words were written on it. But there was a little scrollbar on the side and every time Kiah pushed the down arrow it would scroll down and more words would appear. It was like a super-thin computer!

Kiah noticed me watching in awe and said "This is a techsheet. You don't have these on Second Earth do you?"

Kiah then pushed a little X in the left-hand corner of the page and the techsheet went blank. She then put in a shiny black briefcase and said "I have a job as an assistant scientist to a man named Dr. Shewin. These are just some documents he gave me to read."

She closed the briefcase and said "I will introduce you to him today. But for now, we should eat the first meal."

Kiah motioned me to follow her into another part of the room where there were some cabinet doors that automatically opened to show boxes of bizarre-looking food. Kiah pulled out a green box and a red box. She said "I think this will be a good meal for you to start with. These foods are similar to Second Earth foods.

We sat at a silver table and she opened the boxes. In the green box there were little brownish circles that reminded me of peanuts. In the red box there were some orange rectangles. They both looked totally weird to me. Kiah loaded to plates with some and gave one to me. She then sat down across from me and pointed to the brown circles "Those are darenties," she said. She pointed to the green rectangles "And those are yooghs."

First I tried some darenties. They actually did kind of taste like peanuts from Second Earth except not as crunchy. Feeling confident, I picked up one of the yooghs and bit into it. It was awesome! It tasted like an apple from Second Earth only a little sweeter. It was then when I realized how hungry I really was and finished my plate well before Kiah finished hers.

"Is there a sink or something were I should put my plate?" I asked.

"Don't worry about it. The cleaning robots will take care of it."

Wow, everyone here had cleaning robot service too? That was awesome.

When Kiah finished she stood up and got her briefcase. "Well Bobby, I have to go help Dr. Shewin in his laboratory. You can come with me or stay here all day. What do you wish to do?"

Being cooped up here all day with the attacking beds and crazy cleaning droids didn't sound like much fun so I said "Are you kidding? Of course I'll go with you."

Kiah smiled and said "I think you will like Dr. Shewin." I then followed her out of her apartment and into the halls of the space station.

I still couldn't get over a lot of the new things I had learned yesterday. A whole planet exploding, giant space stations, Saint Dane a creation? It was just hard to grasp all this information at once.

We continued our silent walk to the science section of the station. The walls were now a metallic blue and I could hear minor explosions through some of the doors we walked past.

"This is the Agricultural Chemistry Department," Kiah explained. "The scientists here help to genetically enlarge vegetables and fruits so there are enough for everybody. I mean, without a planet food is hard to come by. Some farmers still live on the surface the Aploshion remains, growing food."

We turned a corner and walked down a new path. I read the overhead sign. It said FUEL CONSTRUCTING DEPARTMENT.

"This is where I work. The Fuel Constructing Department. You see although Aploshion lost all its valuable Rephite mines when it blew up people still needed fuel. We need it not only for the robots but for the spaceships and to support the space stations themselves. Dr. Shewin is a true genius. He discovered the quickest way to actually construct an excellent fuel compound without having to use a small sample of Rephite. He calls his new fuel compound Shewiphite. Ha, I admit he does have a bit of an ego. But I truly feel it is an honor to be his assistant."

We came to a door at the end of the hallway. Kiah pushed the button to side of the door and I heard a voice on the other end say "Oh, hello Kiah. Come on in."

The door slid into the wall and we walked in. I could tell at once that Dr. Shewin was a very serious scientist. Tons of test tubes and vials were on tables scattered all over the lab so it looked like Shewin liked to do chemistry experiments. They all had different colored liquids inside. One whole wall of the lab was a giant shelf containing thin, black boxes. I had no clue what was inside.

I also looked up at the ceiling. A thick mist was swirling around. I figured it had formed from all these different chemicals that Shewin had. It struck me then how dry and humid this room actually felt. Not unbearable, but it would take some time getting used to.

Then I saw at the opposite end of the lab was a giant window that looked out into space. It was an awesome view. I then followed Kiah to where a man was standing, pouring some blue liquid into a vial of green liquid. The man was like all the other people on Aploshion with pale skin and gray hair. He also had glasses which just added to his scientist look. I assumed this must have been Dr. Shewin.

"Ah, Kiah who is this you have with you?" Shewin asked.

"This is Bobby Pendragon. He is a friend of mine and he comes from Henethet."

Henethet? What did that mean? Well, Kiah was making up the story so I decided to just go with it. I could definitely tell that Shewin gave me a second glance. Probably because of my "weird" hair and skin color.

"Pleased to meet you Bobby" Shewin said. "If you are going to be my new assistant let me give you the tour of my lab."

Shewin led us through his maze of chemistry tubes and explained "Well, I trust Kiah has already explained a little to you. But Bobby, what we do here is construct fuel using different elements and compounds. However with the increasing population, people need more fuel. So I am currently trying to find a faster way to construct my Shewiphite. Believe me, it is a lot trickier than it sounds. Bobby, you can work with my other assistant Birt on research."

At this point a shorter man came through the mess of Shewin's laboratory. He wore a silver suit like everyone else except his was much dirtier. He had dirty gray hair, and I would guess to be in his early thirties.

He spoke in a sort of raspy voice that would seem to come from an old man "Hey Shewin. You finally came though with a new research assistant for me!" He seemed overjoyed at the thought of an assistant and I got to say, it was a lot better than the awkward stares of Dr. Shewin. At this point Shewin and Kiah walked back over to where a bunch of different liquids were stored into containers. As for me, I followed Birt to the other side of the room where the shelf containing the mysterious black boxes was.

Birt picked a small black box and set it down on a table. On the side of the box I read "Compounds of Meteorites from the Nejitian Sector". Birt explained "Okay Bobby, now to help Dr. Shewin we need to research through some of these techbooks to perhaps come up with a solution that will increase Shewiphite production."

Birt pushed a button and the thin, black box opened up. I saw that it had a techsheet in it. Birt pushed another button to turn it on. The title and a table of contents appeared on the screen.

He then gave me a single techsheet and said "Here, this is a formula. If any of the compounds equal double or more than any Metrosphynic elements then you need to find at least twice as many of the compound's opposite, including the Umnious version. And remember that if it is Metallic-Nejitian you need twice as many as the third Umnious version in the series. Got it? Good luck."

Wow. If any of that made sense to me right there I was ready to go back to First Earth and become Einstein's assistant instead! Even though I knew little chemistry I could tell that some of the terms Birt used were from Aploshion Science. So either way it was meaningless for me to understand Advanced Aploshion Chemistry. It also occurred to me that the people of Aploshion were probably more intelligent than Earthlings like me. Hey don't laugh guys, I got an A- in Algebra!

Anyways I pretty much just spent the whole day pretending to know what I was supposed to be looking for in these techbooks. We had a small "second meal" break in which Birt supplied me with some yooghs. I'm telling you it was like waiting for a long boring class to get over. There was a square that had digital numbers in it. I assume this was an Aploshion clock although unlucky for me they didn't use Earth time either. When I checked the clock it read 1.2, 7.8.

Eventually when I was starting to doze off Kiah came over and said "Bobby, ready to go?" I never had felt so relieved (well, maybe that's an exaggeration). I left with Kiah while Birt was explaining something he had found to Shewin.

Once we were out in the halls Kiah asked "How did your first day of work go?"

"Brutal," was all I could mutter. "Totally brutal."

Kiah gave a little giggle and said "I thought so. I'm sorry Bobby, just pretend like you know what you are doing and everything will go fine."

Gee. That was some great advice right there. Tired and weary we entered Kiah's apartment. She made to go get us some dinner. But I wasn't letting her off the hook that easy.

"Kiah, tell me the truth about Saint Dane." I said. I was almost getting mad now. I really wanted some answers.

Kiah sighed. "I'll tell you over third meal Bobby. Over third meal…"