3.

"Fifteen minutes."

"Yes Sir, and I do apologise Sir, but we need to leave now," said the man.

"Right now?"

"Yes Sir, I am afraid right now."

"What if I don't want to eat in fifteen minutes, and what if I prefer to eat here?"

Norman knew he was being difficult but he really didn't want to stay overnight.  He wanted to stay on the mainland, not on this manufactured rock.  He was planning to keep in touch with Samuel and the Museum, and was also hoping to keep his museum work moving.

"Sir," nudged the waiting man.

"Okay," sighed Norman, suspecting he was not free to refuse the invitation.

I must find out the man's name thought Norman as he raced after him.  He would never find his way back to the room, he had been working in. And why the rush?  Norman asked himself.  If he had been invited the host would wait, especially with an invite that seemed to be the meal start in fifteen be there or...what. Who issues invitations like that, a King with an axe that chops off heads if your late.

"Hurry Sir," the man said over his shoulder, not panting, Norman could noticed,  and disliked him for it, and the man's expectation of the speed Norman could sustain through unusual corridors, that deserved more than a glance, was cruel and unusual punishment.

Norman found himself jogging on a long runway of carpet, that would best be described as a corridor, a corridor that wasn't a corridor, because the carpet was a pathway between rooms.  He would have like to stand a study each room they passed through.  But when he did stop to take a look at a group of people who were sitting at a table with a white table cloth and plates of cakes and sandwiches, and women holding delicate cups, half way to their mouths.....

"Sir."

How could he know that I stopped, Norman asked himself, he must have eyes in the back of his head.  The pace lifted after that and the next rooms passed in a blur of brown, yellow, he was please of the pace through yellow, thirty seconds was enough to make him ill.  After that he noted, light green, purple, more green, he had to stop taking notes he was getting too far behind the man, and didn't want another 'Sir!'

Then the man took a sharp left turn and stopped three paces from the turn.  He should have ran into the man, Norman thought,  for stopping short around a bend.  The only thing that saved the man and accident,Norman  thought as he bent over panting, was his slowing to a sluggish need-to-stop jog.

Then, the man annoyed Norman even more, if that was possible, Norman was trying to regain his breath, and the man handed, no, shoved a garment at Norman, a garment that looked like something from his mother's wardrobe.  His mother wore her garment when she sang in a choir. Norman was never a fan of the clothing, but his mother had insisted that the audience wanted the choir to wear this sort of robe.  The ancients wore them when they sang their music.  Norman had said that one statue of a man holding something, the statue was damaged, and what looked like a music sheet was by no means confirmed.  His mother had said the audience thinks that is what it is, so that is what it is, and one statue is enough to confirm things for me.  That was the end of that discussion.  Norman hoped that he was not supposed to sing, he had no ear for reproducing melody.

He was going to have to have a talk to this 'Sir!' man, he did not like being dressed, and in a hurry, suited  Norman even less, there needed to be boundaries.  At the moment too many boundaries were being crossed.  Norman put his hands up, and shook his head, he did not want any more help, if some of the buttons on this robe were not done up, he didn't care.  The evening meal was, Norman suspected going to be a most of the night affair. And he was the last guest to arrive.