When I awoke, I felt that someone was pouring cold water over me, but it was just the ocean waves that had rolled up the beach and splashed down on my bare legs. The waves were a little higher than when I first saw them, and the sun had moved across the sky into the afternoon.

I got to my feet slowly and stumbled a few steps up the beach and sat back down. The muscles in my legs were stiff and sore, and my skin was hot and itchy from a slight sunburn. I had lain in the open sunshine a little too long.

When I glanced at the blue domed craft, I saw that it was hovering a few feet above the beach, and the waves below the craft reached up to almost touch its flat bottom, then they splashed down on the red sand and the water flowed back down the beach into the ocean.

"What the hell is holding the thing up in the air?" I was beginning to think that I really was dreaming, "It must have a way of sensing when it should rise above something, or it has to be above something at all times."

I got up slowly and walked down the beach to where I could use the waves to wash the sand and red dust from my body, but I couldn't get the redness from the dust to wash off at all. The leaf skirt had shriveled up, and it was no longer of any use, so I took it off.

I went over to the opening into the craft to find a way that I could get back into it, and I found that I could get my arms over the bottom edge of the ramp, so I pulled myself up onto it, crawled to the top of the ramp, and sat down on the deck.

"Whatever the power is that's holding this craft above the beach must be very strong because the craft never tilted or moved while I was trying to get into it," I slipped my feet under me and stood up.

As I stood up, I noticed a small brown spot on the right side of the left rear seat just below the arm rest. The brown spot was only about the size of a dime, but it was the only blemish in the black covering of the seat.

I walked over to the seat and leaned down to wipe it off, but I found that the spot was actually a small dent in the covering. I put the tip of my finger over the brown spot and a part of the seat below the spot vanished. Now there was a cubicle in the side of the seat below the brown spot, and it was filled with small green, and gray, packets. Each of the packets had a small tube, about one inch long, sticking out from its top.

On examining the packets, I found that they were about the size of a pack of king size cigarettes, and they were soft and spongy. I also found that when they were squeezed, a clear water like liquid came out of the green ones, and a gray jelly like substance came from the gray ones. The liquid tasted like water, and the jelly tasted like jelly.

As I put the packets back in the cubicle, I thought, "They might contain food and water, but I don't want to try them yet," I checked the other seats, and they also had the brown spot and cubicle in the side of them, "I'll stick to the nut-meat for a while. I know that it's good!" I said.

Thinking about the sweet tasting nut-meat made my stomach growl, so I went over to where I had put the water shells and nuts in the right front seat. But they were not there.

"Now, where in the hell did they go to?" I said. I searched the whole deck, but they were not inside the craft anywhere. I walked around the outer edge of the oval deck and looked down at the high waves that now covered the beach where I had been earlier.

"This must be what the people who live near the ocean would call a high tide since there's no wind blowing hard enough to raise the waves this high. There's no tracks in the sand behind the craft, so there couldn't have been anyone else here to sneak in and get the nuts. It's a mystery to me where they could have gone!"

I went back to the left front seat, sat down, put the oval key, that was still laying on the console, in the depression, placed my hand on the white sphere, and rolled the sphere forward. The oval craft moved swiftly toward the south above the crashing waves on the beach. As I twisted the sphere to the right, the craft moved out over the ocean, toward the west, away from the beach

To think that I was actually flying this craft over the ocean, even though it was only a few inches above the waves, made my blood run warm with pleasure, and I thought, "I'm sure going to find out where this place is now."

I rolled the sphere forward, and the ocean moved passed the craft in a blur. When I thought I was out away from the shore far enough that no one could see the blue domed craft, I slowed the craft, then turned it to the left.

When I looked back toward the shore, I said, "Damn, I'm too far away to see anything but the black walls of that giant structure! I'll have to be closer than this to see anything on shore."

Twisting the sphere, I drove the craft back toward the beach; however, the closer I got to shore, the more I thought that the land could be an island. Therefore, I turned the craft to the right, keeping the shore in sight on my left, and drove it straight ahead. After a few minutes, I realized that I was turning the craft in a large circle, then I saw another blue domed black building, and, after a few more minutes, I saw another one. The round buildings were all setting on the top of grass covered hills, but they were not above a cove as the first one was. In a few more minutes, I was back to where I had started. This place was an island with no other islands in sight of it.

There had been no sign of civilization, other than the blue domed black buildings, anywhere on the island when I went around it. So I did not feel as good as I had when I thought I would find out where this place was. Nevertheless, I still never felt as worried as I should have been.

I brought the craft to a stop, and let it hover above the ocean while I got up to walk around the oval deck. With the dome being invisible from the inside, the oval deck looked more like a raft floating above the ocean than a fast moving machine with a blue dome over it.

About a mile to the south of the round black building, which set on the hill above the cove, I could see, what seemed to be, an opening between the high red bluffs where the ocean could flow through.

"Maybe there's something in there that will help me to decide what I'm going to do next," so I sat down and drove the craft toward the red bluffs.

As I turned the craft into the narrow inlet, I saw that it led into a large bay with a huge black building setting on the north shore to my left. I drove the craft over to it, but I couldn't see any openings in the black walls. The building was about three hundred feet high, and the wall that set along the waters edge was about six hundred feet long. The other walls disappeared into the forest at the top of a grass covered shore.

"The wall at the end of the highway might be a part of this building," I turned the craft around and headed back through the inlet to the ocean, "I may as well go back to the giant structure to spend the night, and maybe I can find out something there."

The sun was still many hours above the horizon as I turned the craft into the cove and drove it over the waves that licked at the beach, then I drove up the slope to the black building on the hill. After driving around the building to make sure that I hadn't missed a brown depression, I headed down the wide grassy road toward the blue highway and the black wall at the end of it, which was probably the black building that set on the bay.

When I got to the highway, I turned to my left and rolled the white sphere forward. The craft went swiftly around the long curve, across the wide valley, up the long hill out of the valley, and along the glowing blue highway toward the mile high black walls of the huge structure.

Since I was still hungry, I slowed the craft when I reached the arch of the tunnel that went through the wall and turned the craft into the wide grassy area between the wall and the forest. Driving slowly along the edge of the forest, I saw where I had come out of it earlier and stopped the craft.

I could hear the sound of the water in the stream as it passed over the rocks, which were about twenty yards into the forest, so I spun the craft around, picked up the oval key, and went out of the craft into the forest.

After eating some of the nut-meat from two of the nuts, drinking some water from the stream, and doing my bodily constitutional behind a tree, I went back to the craft. I then drove it over the grass to the blue highway, through the wide arched tunnel, across the glowing blue enclosed plain, and under the glowing white ceiling to the brown depression in the black wall at the back of the giant structure.

Taking the oval key from the top of the console, I went out of the craft and over to the wall, placed the key in the depression, opened the large room, turned on the lights in the room, went back into the oval craft, drove it into the room, and then I spun the craft around so that I was facing out toward the red dust, which covered the floor of the structure on the outside of the large room, and the craft would be setting beside the other blue dome as it was before.

As I lay back in the soft seat, I thought of one way that I could leave this island and maybe get back to the United States by sometime tomorrow, "I know that this island must be somewhere in the Pacific ocean, so if I head this craft east, I should come to either North, or South America very soon. As fast as this craft is, it shouldn't take me but a few hours to reach there. But I'll wait until morning to leave so that I'll have the sun in the east to guide me.

"Now that I know what I'm going to do in the morning, I think I'll go explore that long hallway that runs north and south behind this room."

I picked up the oval key, got up out of the soft seat, walked over to the low ramp, went down and out of the craft, and over to the scooter I had left setting beside the cubicle in the wall. The cubicle still contained one black sphere and two oval keys. Stepping up onto the scooter, I laid my oval key on the console beside the blue sphere, sat down in the left seat, and placed my right hand on the blue sphere. The scooter moved forward, spun around, and went through the doorway in the wall. I drove it across the small room, past the other scooter, and out through the doorway into the wide hallway that went to the north and south for as far as I could see.

The black walls of the hallway were about fifty to sixty feet apart, and the glowing white ceiling was at least twenty-five to thirty feet above the glowing blue floor. It looked more like an underground highway tunnel than it did a hallway in a building. After I flipped a mental coin, I turned the craft to the right, and drove it toward the south over the smooth floor of the wide hallway.

I traveled along the hallway over a hundred yards before I saw an opening ahead on the left, but I still couldn't see the end of the hallway straight ahead. The opening turned out to be another hallway the same size as this one, and, even though it was a long way off, I could see the end of this hallway.

I turned the scooter east into this hallway. I didn't go very far before I saw doorways on both sides of it, and these doorways were the same size as the one that I had come through, with the scooter, from the large room where the oval domed crafts were setting.

I drove the scooter over to the first doorway on my right and looked through it into what looked like the living room of an apartment. There were sofa couches with low tables in front of them setting against the wall of an oval shaped room, and there was a foot high, ten feet long, oval shaped platform setting in the center of the brown carpeted floor. Across the room from me was another doorway that was a little smaller than the one I was looking through.

Remembering my nakedness, I thought, "There may be someone living in this apartment, and I sure don't want anyone seeing me looking like this," I stepped off the scooter and stood beside the seat, "However, as quiet as it is in this place, I should have heard them by now if there is anyone here," nevertheless, I called out, "Is anyone here?"

My voice sounded as if it was being absorb by the air around me. For such a large place, there should have been a little bit of an echo of my voice, "This place must have the best soundproofing in the world. I wouldn't be able to hear anyone unless they were looking right at me. I had better check out each of these apartments to see if there is anyone here before going into one of them."

Sitting back down in the scooter, I drove it across the wide hallway to another doorway and called out, but I never heard anything from inside this apartment either. Therefore, I drove the scooter along the hallway to the next doorway, that was about a hundred feet away, and called out again.

After driving the scooter back and forth across the hallway checking each of the sixteen apartments, I sat in the scooter at the end of the hallway where another hallway, a little smaller than this one, continued on east for a way then curved to the right. I was trying to decide whether to explore farther into this structure by taking this other hallway, or going into one of the apartments to see if I could find some clothes. I finely decided to go into one of the apartments.

"If someone catches me in there, I will at least find out some of the answers to the many questions I have to ask."

Driving the scooter over to the last doorway on the south side of the the hallway that I had called into, I got off the scooter and stepped into the oval room onto the soft carpet, which was a light green and brown in color. There were no signs that anyone lived there. The place was as clean as if it had never been lived in: No books or magazines laying on the low tables, no scuff marks on the carpet, and no dust anywhere. The oval room was about twenty-five feet across and forty feet long, with a glowing white ceiling about ten feet above the floor.

Stepping across the soft carpet and around the oval platform, I went over to the other doorway, and I saw that it led into a narrow hallway, which curved to my right. I called out, "Hello, is anyone here?" but got no answer, so I walked slowly around the curved hallway into another oval room. This room was about the same size as the room I had just came from. There were two low platforms in it, one on each side of the room, that looked like king size beds, and beside each bed, there was a black sofa chair facing a clear glass shelf which protruded from the black wall.

I went over and put my hand on one of the low platforms. It was soft but firm, and I thought it would probably be very comfortable to sleep on.

On the wall between the bed and the glass shelf was a white oval plate, about six inches long, that had a brown spot in the center of it. I reached over and touched the brown spot, and a shimmering blue column, or pillar, about six feet in diameter, which reached from the carpeted floor to the white glowing ceiling, appeared beside the bed and behind the sofa chair. I stepped over to it and started to place my hand on its shimmering surface, but my hand and arm went through it up to my elbow.

I jerked my arm out of the column, and I saw that my arm and hand had been cleaned of all the red dye from the dust. When my hand and arm went into the shimmering blue column, I didn't feel a thing; therefore, I put my other hand into it, and that hand came out clean also.

"There must be some kind of cleaning action in this thing. I wonder what will happen if I step into it?"

I put my foot and leg into the shimmering column and then pulled my leg out clean. Since I still wasn't hurt by the cleaning effect, I stepped into the column and was surprised to find that it was hollow. Setting on the blue floor, in the center of the small circular room, was a round stool with a pink top. I bent over to touch the top of it, but my fingers went through the pink top, and my hand stopped against the round edge of the black stool. As I stood up, I thought, "I think this is a toilet stool, and this shimmering blue column is a bathroom. I know I feel as if I had just taken a bath." When I stepped out of the shimmering blue column, I sat down on the bed, reached over to touch the brown spot, and saw that something was hanging on the wall on the other side of the glass shelf from me, and it looked like white topped coveralls with blue bottoms. A black hood was attached to the white top and black gloves were attached to the white sleeves, and a pair of calf-high white boots were attached to pant legs of the blue bottoms. "The coveralls must have appeared at the same time as the blue column did because they weren't there before."

I touched the brown spot on the wall, and the coveralls vanished along with the shimmering blue column. But, when I touched the brown spot again, they both reappeared instantly. I didn't see any opening in the wall where the coveralls could have come from. They were just there as if by magic. Standing up, I went around the back of the black sofa chair, between it and the blue column, over to the coveralls. As I reached out and touched them, the coveralls fell from the wall into my hands, and they were as light as a feather.

When I held them up in front of me to see if they would fit, I saw that they were split open from the toes of the white boots to the neck line of the white tops. The tops were split open, also, from the neck line down both sleeves to the attached gloves. I couldn't see any zipper or any other way to hold them together. I was, however, going to put them on anyway and hold them together as best I could.

I slipped my bare feet into the white boots and my hands into the black gloves, and then I pulled the rest of the coveralls around my body. When the split material came together, it stayed that way. Then, as if it had a mind of its own, all the split material closed together without showing any seams, and I was completely covered in a skin tight suit that I couldn't even feel against my skin.

When I pulled at the material, where the splits had been, it came apart easily, so I wasn't trapped in the suit as I thought I may have been. Then I reached behind my neck to feel of the hood, but the hood was already over my head.

"How about that? This suit looks skin tight, but I can't even feel it against my skin, nor can I feel the boots on my feet, the gloves on my hands, or the hood covering my head, but I feel as though I'm dressed in something anyway. However, if someone catches me in this apartment, I may be in for some trouble. I had better get out of here."

I went over to the white oval panel and touched the brown spot, and the shimmering blue column vanished. I then went across the room, through the short hallway, across the front room, and out through the doorway to the scooter setting in the wide hallway.

As I stepped up on the scooter's deck, I could feel something at my waist, and it turned out to be four small ovals, which were half the size of the oval key, inside of four pockets at my waist line. I took one of them out, and it fit perfectly into the palm of my hand.

"I wonder what these are for," I examined the other three ovals. One of them had a strap attached to it, which made it look like a necklace, and the other two were the same size as the first one; however, each one of them were of a different color: Red, brown, blue, and the one that looked like a necklace was black.

I put the small ovals back in the pockets at my waist along with my oval key and sat down in the left front seat of the scooter. I drove the scooter to the center of the hallway and toward the west. I wanted to get back to the domed craft before anyone found me here.