She awoke to find a strange looking yet eerily erotic gentleman crouched down over her with a dazzling yet mischevious smile. He held a curious handheld computer and was showing the green screen to her. It appeared he had been there for some time. A few minutes at least, waiting for her to wake up.

"Do you know the answer to this?" he wiggled the screen in front of her. She tried to focus on it, her blurry eyes adjusting to the light.

"Wh-where..?"

"Enough time for that later. Please Katherine, can you figure this out in your head?" He had a delicious foreign accent. She couldn't place from where, and his skin was.. well it was hard to tell what nationality he was from. He seemed to be somewhere between caucasian and African-American. Somewhere between oriental and indian. Her eyes weren't focusing. She blinked.

She tried to widen her eyes and noticed herself yawning. The green numbers floated there in the black space of the small monitor screen in his hands became clearer. She answered with the same enthusiasm she might hold for replacing the cap on a tube of toothpaste. "Forty-two," she said as the yawn expired.

"I knew it! Yes!" He reached his hand enthusiastically towards her as his legs went from a crouch to a lopsided kneeling position, "I'm Phenix Paggase. My friends just call me Nix."

"Paggase? What is that? French?"

His eyes sparkled at her, "Would you like it to be?"

She smiled, "I'm married." She lifted her left hand to show him the ring. Again, she thought to herself.

"I know," he smiled back.

She bit her lip in order not to say "again" out loud, and bit it again as her newfound friend's alarming response to this information caused him to inch a little closer and somehow give off an aura of potential infidelity that made her wish suddenly she hadn't pointed out the ring so she could hide it and run off with.. Oh but she knew she never did that sort of thing.

"There's always a time to start," she thought she heard him mumble.

"What?"

His smile never left his curiously entrancing face, "I am in envy of his heart," he said a bit louder. "The heart of your husband. He must be a wonderful man."

She smiled back and enjoyed his quiet, nonverbal, almost tangible auratic responses, "where am I? I mean where are we?"

"Well I wish I could say we're alone but just around that corner is a very large room with inordinately loud and obstinate hum- people." He picked up a towel from the ground and showed it to her as if it were important, "fortunately my towel has a sound dampening field of five meteres. It gives us a little privacy."

She tried to stand up but couldn't get her legs under the rest of her. Nix offered to help.

"Where is here?"

"I'm not sure if you're ready for that. See you were just teleported from Earth to here and it may take a bit to get your..."

"Sea legs?"

"Something like that," she wished he'd quit smiling and give her libido a rest. It was really quite alarming. Nice, but she noticed something in the back of her mind turn on a repeating loop tape reminding her she was married. Again.

"Let's recap," she inhaled, trying to take in her surroundings, "I'm no longer on Earth."

"Yes."

"And your name is Phenix Paggase."

"Nix. Yes, and you are the smartest human being I can find on this ship. Mind if I tag along with you?"

"What if you find someone smarter?"

"I'll ask them to wait their turn," he offered his hand to help her up. As they rose he graciously kept his distance with obvious politeness, and this almost left her disappointed.

He escorted her around the corner as he put away his ..towel was it? She thought she was dreaming and when she reached the cargo bay it confirmed it. Except for this charming gentleman holding her left hand, she had just stepped into a nightmare.

Easily five thousand fellow citizens of Earth were in her immediate vision, all of which were looking around, talking, some moving around, some standing still, some losing their previous meal. A plethora of emotions, none of which seemed particularly cheerful. Suddenly a very large person materialized about ten feet over a portion of the crowd, and just floated there. Several seconds later she saw another person materialize out of nowhere. This one was dressed in nothing but a pair of swimming trunks and a towel.

She looked back at Nix, who was looking at her. He gingerly brought his finger up to her chin and politely closed her mouth, which had fallen agape. Then he motioned for her to look back out.

"There really isn't a way for me to put this gently for you."

"Evicted. We've been evicted."

"You were watching the telee before you.." His voice trailed off, unable to find the words.

"No. Actually I was driving in my car."

"Ah, which would explain your momentum."

"My what?"

"Well when you arrived here your body flew across the room, disturbing an old lady who was floating upside down and some kids trying to play stickball. I was afraid you'd hit the wall rather painfully, but by the time you got over here your inertia slowed.. and as you can see the Goothsbanians have all the walls well padded-"

"Goothsbanians?"

"Yes. Your, or rather our new landlords. They own the planet Earth and they're kicking out everyone who hasn't paid."

"Paid what?"

"Rent."

Kate just stared at him, "surely you must be joking."

"No. I don't generally joke about things like that." They walked around the edge of the madness. Fortunately most of the human activity seemed to be in the center of the room. The cargo hold itself was so large it could accomodate all these people with room to spare, and as more people periodically materialized in seemingly random places in the distance, it looked as if they would need this much room, to accomodate them all.

"You're taking this rather well,"

"I was about to say the same thing about you Katherine."

"How do you know my name?"

"Oops! Let that slip, didn't I?"

"Yes."

"Would you believe I'm psychic?"

"No I would not."

"Alright. I'm from Sirius. We're telepathic. Still don't believe me?"

"I think I need to sit down," Kate said.