I woke to find a dozen thin faces peering down at me.

“Are you alright, sleepyhead?” He said with exagerated slowness. Several others tittered in laughter.

“Sure, I’m fine.” I snapped, and got to my feet to tower over them by a couple feet. My stuff was pressed into my hand so rapidly that ip dropped several pieces. They were returned to me, and I did not hear them hit the ground.

I payed attention. Dear Reader, if you are lost in time and space as I am; learn to pay attention to the small things. That is what trips you up, ninety out of a hundred times. Everybody knows what to do when they see a rampaging T-Rex(break out the gatling auto-laser, or if you lack one of Smith and Wesson’s fine lasers, then run, run fast.)

I dropped another item(oopsie, aren’t I clumsy), a small one, and saw three people’s hands flicker out, and a bit of a scuffle as they all tried to catch it. Their hands are definitely quicker than my eye. I had to sort out what I saw after the fact.

A small delegation of four led me off, and soon left me behind. Their feet touched the ground seven times for everyonce of mine. It was my fault in a way. I can really burn shoe leather, zero to five miles per hour in nothing flat.

“Finally…fast…sleepyhead.” They said which was only the part of their buzzing conversation I caught before they resumed normal pace for them, and left me behind.

They led me to the Embassy of the Federatione Humanitas. I was welcomed with open arms. The staff of four was bored to tears. There was no threat, and little work because the locals tried to be nice to the Sleepyheads in the Fast Starships People which was their name for Humanity. Out of a good-hearted condescension they restrained from starting interstellar war they regularly informed the Ambassador. He smiled and gritted his teeth. He was a good fellow, except he cheated at cards. I think such is almost a requirement for an ambasador in his governemnt.

They told me about the locals. The People Who Were Happy never slept, sprint speed for a human was loafing to them, they hated loafing, their children got kicked out of the house at five years of age, and they ate their body weight in food every day.

Because they never slept they were rigid in a deep way. They could flex on unimportant day-to-day issues, but they rarely changed their basic life patterns. Doing so was not a mid-life crisis; it was considered probable evidence of insanity.

Their nerves fired quicker. They had multiple nodes scattered through their bodies that served as secondary brains, and allowed faster processing time for physical tasks.

Many decisions are simplified by far more powerful instincts than lived in Humanity. These same instincts and a few other modifications made it safe and sane to release six-year-olds from parental custody.

Walking down a street was hazardous. We looked like them, but in a crowd, they forgot about treating us like slowpokes, and just ran me over. And before I got up, the crowd parted, and a three-wheel motored vehicle ran me over. The last words I heard before versing on too another world were.

“He had plenty of time to get out of the way.”



Tadeusz